Over the course of the next year and a half, Yin Lian spent her days doing nothing but cultivating, opening each and every one of her Meridians inside of the inheritance grounds.
She didn't actually spend every single day just cultivating, she did also occasionally wander around the Inheritance itself, browsing through all of the treasures that it contained.
When she wanted to know what any of it was, the Will happily explained in detail what they were. From a small mountain of low-tier spirit stones, which contained spirit Qi that she would use to cultivate later, to the small assortment of weapons that she could choose to wield.
There were many weapons, from swords and daggers to spears and even some slightly more unusual weapons like halberds, flails and even a horsetail whisk.
The Will advised her to only choose one weapon though, so as to learn it to mastery rather than half bake her combat skills with multiple weapons.
She would choose her weapon later though, as now wasn't the time for that.
Among the things that were here, were robes of varying cultivation levels. Although, they were all too big for Yin Lian right now, even after this past year and a half.
And during that year and a half, the Will made sure to feed her properly and make her follow a proper cycle and routine, which she easily fell into for the most part. Not including the excursions to explore the inheritance out of boredom.
In that time, she had managed to open every single one of her Meridians, except for two, which she would be opening today.
With each Meridian she opened, she would gain more strength, making her unmatched against any mortal child twice her age.
She had the strength of someone who had been working out ever since they were born up until they turned eighteen. That was the level of strength she had achieved just by opening her Meridians.
And now, she was going to be opening the last two. She was doing it today because the Will stopped her from doing so, suggesting she get some rest or else she wouldn't be able to properly finish opening her Meridians right according to the manual.
Taking a deep breath, and also finishing off a glass of water that the Will had prepared for her, which was infused with the Dao of the Asura, similar to the glass of water she had that was infused with the Dao of Yin way back when she began.
She memorised the final steps of opening her Meridians according to the cultivation Manual and closed her eyes as she began concentrating.
The first step was about opening the last of the one hundred and eight Meridians in the body, which was easy enough to do and was done withing a few minutes.
But what she had to do next was the hard part, as she had to create an extra Meridian around her Sternum which would represent the Asura Meridian.
And unlike the rest of the Meridians, this one couldn't be made with just some simple chipping or energy.
No, this one had to be created with the remaining energy from that last clot of energy and her pure, unbridled hatred and desire for revenge, and it had to be created near her Sternum, near her heart, and where her middle Dantian would be also.
Drawing upon her memories of that night, which had plagued her throughout her the entire time, sometimes forcing her awake from nightmares, she focused these emotions and the energy into the allocated space.
"PPKKKAAA!" She threw up a mouthful of blood and nearly lost concentration for a second there and let the energy slip out of her ethereal grasp, but she held on to it through sheer willpower, which had also increased slightly over time.
The pain was immeasurable for an eight-year-old to be going through right now, but Yin Lian persisted through it regardless, and continued creating this artificial Meridian of sorts.
She threw up two more mouthfuls of blood in the process, and her chest felt like it was going to explode by the end of it, but she did it, she created the Asura Meridian.
This Meridian was specifically called, "The Crimson Heart of Vengeance" Meridian, as it represented the rage within one's heart and desire to get revenge.
It was by no means a fake Meridian at all though. Each cultivator had the ability to create an extra Meridian, not tied to any physiques they had, that was special in its own right, but special because it represented the path that they would be taking for the rest of their journey in the cultivation world.
The moment the Meridian formed though, it instantly created pathways to all the necessary connecting Meridians to create the proper flow to cultivate down the Asura's path.
And the moment she finished, Yin Lian smiled, her bloodied lips curling up in joy at her success, though her eye lids hung low, as doing that had exhausted her of all of her mental fortitude.
It was honestly a bit of a miracle that she hadn't passed out yet. But that wouldn't last for long as she fell over sideways just a few seconds after.
"Hahh… Why did I even create this path?" The Will mused to itself as it took care of the bloodstains that were on the not quite as little girl's clothes and the floor.
As it cleaned up, it also healed some injuries within Yin Lian's body, that might have become a problem if not treated. She wasn't able to recover naturally on her own yet after all.
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Around a day later, Yin Lian woke up rather peacefully, feeling calm and refreshed. Which was rather unsettling seeing as she had woken up in either fear or rage this past year and a half.
Fortunately, the Will was willing to explain when she asked.
"Simple, you channelled all of those emotions within that Asura Meridian, meaning it will only activate that hatred when focusing on it. That's not to say you don't still have these emotions and that they've been stripped away from you, just that they've been mostly contained there. If you focus a bit, you'll be able to pull them back out, though I'd advise against that for now."
"What? Why?" Yin Lian asked in frustration.
Over the years she had grown tired of doing nothing but cultivating endlessly. The Will did teach her how to read more as she sometimes struggled to understand what was asked of her by the cultivation manual, educating her in the ways of language.
That combined with her occasional escapades searching the Inheritance had staved off the boredom, but she still felt unsatisfied.
She wanted to do something else, something more than just sit here and wallow as those bastards were left to roam free, not paying for their actions in killing her. She wanted revenge, even now, after her hatred was contained and concentrated within her Asura Meridian.
That hatred however would never be fully contained within, and would slowly permeate through her body as she cultivated, which is why the Will was training her like this, so that she could resist giving in to the anger and the desire to just kill everything and everyone.
"Yin Lian, I understand your desire for revenge, and you will get it, but you MUST be patient, or else you will just lead yourself to an early death."
The threat of death was one of the few things that would always calm Yin Lian down, as she feared dying after her last experience with it.
It was cold and dark. She remembered hearing the screams of souls filled with hatred just the same as her.
Normally her soul would have been sent into the reincarnation cycle, but it was instead sealed within her body. And being carried by those two heinous cultivators made the scream of others they had wronged cry out, even in death, as Karma forced their hatred to linger.
The living were oblivious to this unbridled hatred, but the dead would always linger. Always casting a shadowy Karmic veil over them that would one day impede them.
But in her deathly state, she heard them, the voices. They wanted justice for the wrongs committed against them, they wanted revenge.
And becoming just another voice was what Yin Lian was afraid of, she didn't want to just be another voice in the crowd.
Death was something that the Will could use to keep her in line, but it wouldn't work forever, as she would have to face her fear of death one day if she were to truly become a Cultivator.
But for her to become the best she possibly could, she would need a solid and stable foundation, which is what the Will was aiming for this whole time.
The reason it took a year and a half to open all of her meridians was so that she would have a proper foundation for her future cultivation, because if she didn't, then one day it would fail her.