It took a few hours until Master returned, and I was still failing at creating any of the mounds I wanted to, while moving. I managed to create them, if I allowed myself to stop and think about it, but as soon as I began moving, did they lose their structural integrity, and I never managed to erect them in time. I was covered in sand, as I stood up and greeted Master and the elder who followed her.

  It had been one of the elders at the introduction, but I could not remember the name of the man. He was a giant man, making Master seem small next to his frame. His clothes were a mix between a dark green and brown. I realized that I looked extremely dirty, so I made all the dirt on me move outwards. This worked relatively well, though I could feel some of it fall back down on the top of my head. The elder looked around the training field and said in a booming voice, “So, you need a teacher to help you create a technique? Why should I help you? You rejected me before after all.”

  I glanced at Master to see if she expected something like this. She just slightly nodded and I turned my attention back to the elder, “I assumed my Master covered the cost for your help. In this case, what would you require of me to cover for the disrespect?” I knew that I could have packaged the question in more layers of flattery and pleasantries, as is normal between humans. But I wanted to waste as little time as possible, also being direct seemed more fitting, considering what I had said during the test.

  The elder flashed me a grin and said, “I want you to go to the entrance, kneel down and apologize to me in public.” I didn’t even think about it and began moving towards the exit. The only reason why I didn’t run towards the entrance, was to allow the elder to have some more satisfaction. It was his goal to publicly humiliate me, and I planned to keep my side of the deal in letter as well as in spirit. I noticed that I still had no idea who that elder is, so I asked while walking, “Could you tell me your name? It would be rather hard to direct an apology to you, if I don’t know your name.”

  I had almost passed the elder when he stopped me by placing one of his hands on my shoulder, “Elder Uim. You can address me as elder Uim or teacher while I help you. So, tell me what you had in mind and how far you have come.” I turned around surprised and he said, “It would hurt my reputation a lot if I actually forced the direct disciple of another elder to kneel before me. Also, I am not this petty.”

  I nodded and was relieved, since even though I was willing to do it, it would still be humiliating. I began to explain my idea to the elder and where my current problem was. He listened and asked me if I had the same problem with speed with my other techniques. I nodded and he said, “Well, then let’s start there. To train this use some earth Qi to sculpt something you see and try to be as fast as possible, while still making it recognizable. Just do that, until you…” He looked around the training ground and pointed at one of the bricks in the wall, “can copy a brick with all of its flaws in two seconds.”

  I nodded and sat down. It would be easier to judge how good my creations were if I could see them up close. I looked around the yard and decided to not stand up again to copy something. Instead, did I focus on my right hand and began to create a copy of it. It was easy to create the overall shape, but I could just not get the details right. The elder interrupted me at some point after I continued to fail to recreate my hand properly.

  He said, “When was the last time you slept? I think you need some rest for now. You body cultivators always tend to forget to take breaks when you start, just because your body feels fine.” I considered formulating a reply but stopped. I knew that I had been exhausted mentally, especially since I had avoided thinking about the death of Lius and the other guards. It had been the first time I had seen the deaths of people I had actually spent time with.

  In conceded to his point and made my way into the house to go to bed after I excused myself. I prepared a candle next to me, before I went to sleep and fell asleep after a few minutes in the dark. I felt worse when I woke up. Apparently, my mind finally had time to catch up with what had happened. At least I had not dreamt, though I could not remember the last time I did either way. I got dressed with some difficulty and then went outside again.

  The elder was still there, speaking with Master. He asked me as I went outside, “How do you feel?” I just replied, “I feel worse, but I am probably doing better than yesterday. Should I start?”. I was ready to sit down again and try to start training again, when Master interrupted me.

  “I will train your body today. Your mind needs time to work through this at least somewhat.” She motioned me to follow her, and we left the elder behind heading to the compound where Ivia’s master resided. Master was silent for most of the walk, only briefly explaining, “Elder Lecil is better at training the body of other body cultivators than me, so I will leave you in his care until you get complete control over your body. You can do the training from elder Uim on your missions or something like that. On that note, would you like to have a solo mission, or do you want to work in a team again?”

  I was a bit surprised by her proposition until I realized that the other direct disciples I knew would not want to join me so soon for another mission. In addition to that, I was also curious how it would feel to fight completely alone. So, I quickly settled on doing the solo mission.

  We arrived in the compound, offering the same view as last time. A bunch of people training or sparring with each other. Master Lecil noticed us and waved us to the side. “What can I do for you, Garlou?” He seemed pretty hostile, but Master didn’t seem to care. Instead, did she point in my direction, “Train her body until she has perfect control.”

  Master just turned around and left after saying her piece and left me with elder Luciel. He just sighed and said, “Come follow me to the training room. I want to see your muscles, and I want to know how long we will have to train the muscles.” He led me into one of the buildings.

  It was almost completely empty with the exceptions of a few handles mounted to the floor. He motioned towards the handles and said, “Try lifting the closest one and work your way further into the hall.” I did as he asked of me and the handles began to weigh more and more as I went along. I told him how long I would roughly need until would have perfect control. I barely managed to lift the seventh handle and was completely stopped at the eighth. I wondered how useful this could actually be, since this only targeted a few muscle groups.

  He began to walk away, as he explained, “I have already heard from Ivia that you have a lot of stamina, so we won’t work on that and since you will soon undergo the purification step, do we not really need to worry about the fat on your body. You will do training routines for flexibility and explosive strength. One question though, how is your pain resistance?”

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  I thought about his question, while he led me to another room and grabbed black robes which he promptly handed to me. He then led me to a changing room. I finally decided on an answer to his question, “I think, I have pretty good pain tolerance, but I have nothing really to compare myself against. The most pain I ever endured while still somewhat functional, was being boiled by hot air.”

  He looked a bit confused, but I didn’t notice since I entered the dressing room and quickly changed my robes. The robes were surprisingly easy to put on and felt light. I walked out of the changing room, when I finished changing and found that a girl was waiting in front of the door with the elder nowhere in sight. The girl handed me a small bag and said, “Master instructed me on what we will work on.”

  I looked into the bag and found a few more Qi pills, or at least they looked like they were. I asked the girl, “What are they used for? I don’t want to delay when I reach perfect control, if I can avoid it.” The disciple looked annoyed and replied, “To heal your body. You can take more of whatever medicine you are taking, if you don’t want to delay it.” She led me through a house into one of the rooms.

  I grew worried over having overestimated my pain tolerance. The entire room looked like a torture chamber, with various tools lying around and blood colouring the walls and floor. The girl said, “Please undress and then lie down.” As I went to lie down with apprehension, did she ask, “Do you know how muscles grow?”

  She began to bind my hands and feet to the table, “They need to get damaged and the body then repairs them to compensate for this.” She put finished binding my limbs to the table and then worked on securing my torso, “Now, since you are a body cultivator, you can easily heal more than just a bit of simple damage to the muscles, making the whole process a lot faster, if you can endure it.” She finished tying me down and went to get something as she continued, “Now, here is a choice for you. Do you want to take some medication to numb the pain? I would recommend against it, if you are confident in staying focused through the pain.”

  She walked over to my head and prepared to tie it down as well. I asked, “Why would you recommend against it?” I could practically hear her grin as she said, “Two reasons. You get used to perfect control faster if you are forced to perceive your body, which is hard to do, if you feel nothing. And the other reason is that you can build up a pain resistance. So, what will you pick?”

  I didn’t even think about the choice, “I will go without pain medication. Could you please just remember to feed me my medicine for feeling my body on time? The pills are in a box in my bag.” She got the box and put it to the side. Then she placed a piece of leather into my mouth before locking down my jaw as well.

  She said one more thing, “If possible, try to use your Qi to heal the wounds in your muscles. You body will do the adaption part on its own.” She then finished tying me down and went to my right arm. I felt the edge of a blade being pressed against my skin. I felt as it slowly entered through my skin, how the blood began to flow out of the wound. Then the pain set in. I felt my skin being pulled apart and then secured open.

  I wanted to focus on anything but the exposed muscles but my attention was forced back every time. The feeling of the air on my bare muscles felt too strange and unique. The screams couldn’t escape my mouth, since I was tied down completely. I heard the girl say something, but my mind couldn’t focus enough to understand what she was saying.

  Then I felt her hands touch the muscles. She began to pull them apart. I felt the muscle strings rip apart. It felt purposeful as she left some of them alone. I completely forgot what the purpose was, as she continued her work. She stopped after a while, saying something again. But I could not understand her again. Everything was just filled with the searing pain in my upper arm.

  The pain occupied almost every inch of my mind. The ends of the separated muscle fibers were being poked by something, forcing to become wider in the process. I felt like I was losing my mind during the entire process, until finally new pain stopped coming in. The girl stopped working and only the pain of my beyond damaged muscles remained. I felt each single string, I knew how wrong they were.

  The fascination with the damaged muscles was the only thing distracting me from the pain. Until it was interrupted by the disciple practically yelling an order into my ear. “Heal your arm.”

  My mind tried to work out what she meant, until I realized that she wanted me to manipulate Qi. My mind wandered back to the muscle fibres which were already touching, though they were still separated. Almost with out noticing, did Qi begin to fill them. They began to fully connect and fill the empty space with the proper muscle structure. Although they slightly compressed in the process, I could also feel my skin slowly being reconnected to the flesh below. The girl must have put it back on at some point.

  The process of connecting every single muscle fibre took a long time. When I was done, did the girl go to the next part of my arm and began cutting it open, without giving me a proper break. And I was thrown back into the pain. The only respite I got was when my mind got completely absorbed by the feeling of my muscles. After an eternity passed, did she finish again and I began the healing again. My fascination with the healing process never stopped and I just felt the individual fibres reconnecting. I felt the growth of my muscles.

  She continued her work on my other arm, until I ran out of Qi when I was repairing the damage done to my left forearm. The feeling of having no Qi left, was strange. It was a strange feeling of exhaustion. It almost felt like being mentally tired, but it was not quite the same. It was just a new experience. She then briefly removed the gag I had and forced a pill into my mouth. It almost immediately dissolved and I felt Qi spread through my body. I used most of it to continue the healing process.

  She then started working on my torso, cutting open small sections each time. It took another two Qi pills until we finished the torso, and she also fed me one of the poisoned pills while she was working on the abs. It turned out to be the easiest muscle group so far, since I finally learned how to force my mind to block out the pain and only obsess with what she was doing. After the torso was done, did she work on my leg muscles.

  She finally began to remove everything that was holding me down. She handed me the black robes, which I grabbed with shaking hands. She said, “There would still be two things left which we would need to do. The muscles I could not reach while you were lying on your back and the tendons. After that you would be done with the operations, and you would need to get used to the changes.”

  I looked at the robes in my hand, and I realized that I was being offered a choice. I could take a break. Everything in me screamed at my body, as I pushed the robes back and my voice pressed out, “Can we continue then?”

  The girl stared and began to grin like a maniac. She said in an excited voice, “Yes, we can continue immediately.” I went to lie down with my face down, with my face facing straight down through a hole in the head piece in the chair. I then felt her binding me in place again, and panic spread through my body. It was the wrong decision, by any logical standard. I had just experienced torture and was now willing to lie down on the same table again. And all of this for what? A bit more time.

  A bit more time, which my opponent might not have taken. A bit more time, which might separate me from losing and dying pointlessly to victory. Every second counted, even if I was not yet able to capitalize on every one of them.

  Then the knife returned opening my skin, interrupting my thoughts. I felt my muscles being parted again, I felt the individual fibres widening again and I felt myself healing them. The pain almost felt natural to my mind, as every last bit of my attention focused on the muscles. This time, she also worked on the tendons as she went. The new sensation helped my mind stay focused on them. Her work also extended to my hands this time around, though she did turn my hands to reach the tendons better.

  She continued like last time, to the other arm and then to my back. The back took enough time for her to feed me an additional poison pill. She then went onto my legs, though my mind started to drift at that point. I could feel my heart beat a slow and steady rhythm, which was not what I had expected from the situation. I felt it slow down slightly the more time passed. At some point, did I notice that she began working on the muscles in my neck. The healing had become entirely automatic as I felt my heart.

  Then a thought crossed my mind. What would happen if it stopped?

  The moment the question appeared in my brain, did the heart stop beating. The blood rapidly began to slow down, and my entire body began to shut down. I felt panic spread through my mind, but my mind just could not focus on it. My attention was still on the heart in my chest. I began to replicate what I had felt. A single beat.

  Then another, another, another and another. I slowly picked up the pace as I got used to how it should feel like. And the blood began flowing through my body again. Still my brain was still in a panic. I then remembered, I needed to breath as well. I expanded and collapsed my lungs in a slow and steady rhythm after I figured out how it was supposed to move.

  I was just feeling my heart beat and my lungs expanding or collapsing. I lost count of the heartbeats at some point. The task began to feel secondary the longer I did it, and my attention ever so slightly left my heart. I felt soft fabric surrounding me. It seems like I was no longer on the table. I then opened my eyes and saw a wooden ceiling illuminated by candlelight. Masters voice then entered my ear, “You were faster than expected. I guess the training stimulated your mind. When you are ready to move, will I bring you to Evael to get the poisons out of your body.”