I and Ehterna were placed in our cradle. It was close to midnight, long past our bedtime. Serfar rested herself on the frame of the cradle, looking at us as she struggled to stay awake.
See? This is another damn issue. While Etherna could meditate in secret ways, I couldn't, and I had to wait till this woman went away for me to attempt to meditate. I needed to make my life force as strong as possible and as soon as possible. I also needed to practice the different techniques to prepare in advance.
The way they were speaking about the black dots has made me worried about the future. Serfar sighed, exhaustion finally winning over. Then instead of going to sleep, she chose to pick me up and cradled me in her arms.
"Resian… I hope you don't grow to hate me in the future. I am such a foolish person who made such a dumb decision, which will impact my life and yours and your sister's lives a lot."
She wore a pained smile. "A dumb decision… I wish I could go back in time to change things, but I think to myself, if I did that, you wouldn't exist, there would be another person. But… no matter what, as long as I live, I will protect you…" Tears flowed down her eyes as she shut down close. "Because… I love you."
Maybe this woman wouldn't be evil. I felt sorry for her. She thought she had a normal baby she could raise however she liked; however, unfortunately for her, I was an old soul that had stolen her child's body.
***
The next, the light hit me across my face, awakening me. I was extremely tired but sat up. I had many things to do. After yawning, I crawled to the frame of the cradle and rested against it. Time to meditate.
You know, for someone like me who has life force mastery, I would expect that I would be able to meditate without such trivial things, but I guess it's different since I am meditating to make my life force stronger and not gain better control over it.
Ki and Qi, both wonderful, but a pain for normal cultivators to master. Haha… In my second life, I was confused about the differences since, from the books I read, they were the same.
In this world, Ki and Qi are life force, but in a different way. Life force is called Ki when it is able to be manipulated by the person, and Ki is called Qi when the person can transform Ki into matter. So basically, Ki becomes Qi on the third level of cultivation; core formation. Qi is then used to form armorite(the metal)… which is the only thing it could really be turned into. There is a lot to it; I simply scratched the surface of it.
I moved my eyes to Etherna, who was snoring. I
wondered, up to what level was she? It surely couldn't be more than me because of the nature of this body and how weak the life force was.
I had to wait till I was around the age of 20(when the life force is at its peak) to achieve all the levels. Oh well. Time to make this life force stronger.
I calmed myself and closed my eyes, imagining my life force bending and shaping into my will. I imagined it as fire. It was a small flame that desperately needed protection from the cold winds to regain its strength.
So I did that. I crawled over it, protecting it from the outside world.
My warmth added to the flames, making it grow stronger even if only by a small amount.
"Brother!"
What? My concentration was broken as Etherna shouted at me. What did she want?
I stared at her and asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing. Hah." She chuckled.
"… You are incredibly annoying. And don't call me your brother!"
It brought up bad memories, and no, they weren't those belonging to Braxen. I didn't want to dwell on those things and dismissed it.
I would wish to ignore her and go back to what I was doing, but there were a lot of questions I wanted to ask her.
I cut to the chase and asked, "Are you a past cultivator? Be truthful."
She slanted her head. "Eh…?"
She must have misinterpreted my question, so I clarified. "I am just like you, according to you; however, I am wondering if this isn't your first time doing this."
Her eyes widened a bit. "Oh! That's what you mean! Then, to answer that question, it isn't my first time, nor is it my second time or my fifth time."
What the hell…? She has been doing this for how many centuries?
She noticed my surprise and shrugged. "Not by my own choice, of course. Anyway, just like you, I desire to cultivate right now."
She fell backward and laid her hand on her stomach, one over the other.
Not by her choice…? "Hey, what do you mean by that?"
She ignored me, focused on her meditation. Ah damn. I positioned myself and went back to meditating.
After an hour had passed, my brain couldn't really focus anymore. I stood up; I wanted to try some techniques, Ki ones. I clenched my fist, and felt strength boiling up greatly. Body enchantment was a common skill used by all cultivators. Then there were the advanced techniques taught by certain sects.
Unfortunately for me, I was only really good at body enchantment since all you need for that is a lot of ki and to focus ki into a certain part of your body. When it came to the heavenly and inhuman techniques, I had to actually train and practice to learn them—which, of course, was annoying.
It was far more annoying that she could use inhuman techniques; techniques that revolve around the body performing functions or actions that aren't humane.
When she vomited over the armorites to make them softer, she used Ki to enhance the gastric acids in her stomach. She must have also used Ki to make her stomach, throat, and mouth much tougher so that she wouldn't be burned by it.
I wanted that kind of power, but since I had no talent for it, I didn't bother actually going through the training to use them effectively. And unfortunately for me, Braxen memories of inhuman techniques were him quitting on the first day of attempting them. So I couldn't rely on it either.
I channeled my Ki back into my legs, and with a huge bound, I jumped high and grabbed the edges of the frame.
Okay… now let's see… is this maid still here?
Her voice was pretty damn nice, so of course, I wanted to see her again. I pulled myself up and stood on the very thin frame. My balance was absolutely perfect! I folded my arms, very satisfied with what I achieved— Then there was a shake, ARGH!
I lost my balance and fell to the ground with a light thud.
My face! Someone shook it! I knew it was Etherna. There was no doubt about it.
"Hah…" I heard a laugh from inside the cradle.
That damn…
"Resian!" With pure panic in a voice, someone came rushing to me.
Turning to face the voice, I recognized it. It was the maid. I should really learn her name; my future wife. Yes, I think that fits right.
I was about to stand up to look cool, but I remembered I was way too young to do that. I think I was also supposed to be crying. I was in a lot of pain from my nose, but I refused to cry.
She rushed as she picked me up, very concerned. "Your nose! It's bleeding! How did you get off it and even fall?"
Wha… my nose was bleeding too? Damn… her. DAMN HER!
I was going to hurt her back for this.
Using a handkerchief, my future wife wiped the blood that was dripping from my nose. This was embarrassing…
"Does it hurt a lot?" It would stop hurting if you applied kisses, you know. She bit her teeth as she muttered. "Damn… The miss will be very upset to see I was so negligent to allow you to be harmed."
Ah… I didn't think of that. I couldn't allow that woman to fire my future wife!
Utilizing Ki, I focused it on my head, causing my nose blood vessels to accelerate in healing. Due to my low count of Ki, it would probably take a day or less. It would recover enough where it shouldn't show on the surface.
I also noticed she liked to bite her nails. Yet her nails were hardly ugly. I wonder how often she attends to them since she seems to bite them so often.
She then walked with me to the kitchen, opened the tap and wet the cloth then tried to clean off any blood on my face, digging it up my nose too.
I didn't like that, but she was cute, so she got a pass. A minute later, Serfar inside, dressed formally. She appeared tired, but when she saw me, her tiredness disappeared.