“Breathing?”

Aina asked while tilting her head.

She was sitting cross-legged in front of her Master next to a small lake in a forest while eating roasted pork. A couple of meters away, her mother was cooking more. Navin had made a lot of cooking utensils appear out of thin air and he even hunted a wild boar and cooked it for them to eat. He had also given them a lot of spices that were an expensive commodity as if they were cheap and taught them a few dishes.

Maria was having fun cooking new dishes with new ingredients, she was a very passionate cook, her dream had been to have her own restaurant and be a famous chef, but living in a small village it had been something impossible.

Navin had mentioned something about Immortal Chefs, and that had made Maria’s eyes sparkle and her heart beat wildly, it was an existence out of her wildest dreams.

“Yes, breathing. That’s the basis of all practice and the main method of absorbing energy from the world around us. No matter if that energy is Mana, Chi, Élan, Aura, Spirit Particles, Ether or anything else, the most direct and basic method to gather and absorb it is by breathing. So it is the first thing to learn if you want to cultivate energy.”

Navin explained, he was in his human form sitting cross-legged, there was a whiteboard floating in the air next to him, words and drawings of multiple colors and shapes appeared and disappeared on the board as he spoke, it was in the language of Likia Kingdom, a writing composed on logograms, characters that represent a word or a phrase.

Maria and Aina didn’t have a high level of education, but they knew how to read and write, basic arithmetic, as well as basic skills for daily life and knowledge such as the history of their country, animals and plants found in the region, and the laws and customs of some cities.

For complicated words that they didn’t know, Navin used drawings on the board, sometimes even making the drawings move, such a scene fascinated both mother and daughter.

“Every living organism breathes and takes energy to sustain itself in other forms. Different lifeforms do things differently: plants take nutrients from the ground and water, and they can absorb sunlight, some animals eat plants and there are also animals that hunt other animals for food. Even among the same species, they will do it in many ways, some methods are more efficient than others, and some are specialized for a specific function or purpose.”

The drawings in the board showed plants growing from the ground, a deer feeding from its leaves and then a wolf eating the deer, the food chain was a principle of life known by everyone, even if they didn’t know the full implications and all factors involved in the cycle.

“Humans naturally know how to breathe, nobody taught you how to do it, a baby does it instinctively. However, I am going to teach you how to breathe in a special way, to take in more than just air, to gather it in a different place than your lungs, to transform it and to channel it through your body, both for storage and for usage.”

In the moving drawings, a person took in light blue lines representing air and exhaled dark blue lines. Navin knew that people transformed oxygen and other gases from air into carbon dioxide, but he wasn’t going to explain chemistry to them, at least not now.

It was enough for them to know that the air taken in was different from the air taken out, and that a transformation occurred to that air inside the body.

“What I want you to do, is this.”

Navin said as the images changed again, this time the person was breathing lines of many different colors, inside the body the lines gathered, mixed and changed, then the combined lines circled across the body, and dark lines started to be emitted from points in many places from the figure, not just mouth and nose.

“When you inhale, take in the elements and energies around you, not just the air for your lungs, take in the heat, the particles of light, the spirits of the world, the Mana points, the fluid Ether and the Qi of the world. Imagine yourself devouring all around you, breathe in the world and make it yours. That’s the picture I want you to have when breathing. Feel the energies that enter your body, gather them inside you and make them circle around your body, then let them out of you while exhaling. The first thing is being able to feel the different energies around. Come on, give it a try.”

Navin continued with his explanation and asked Maria and Aina to begin practicing, breathing while holding the image of devouring the world in their minds.

Maria had finished cooking already, but she had been carefully listening to Navin’s lecture, he had told her it was fine to listen while she was doing something else, and that he would give lectures every day to both of them, Aina was his Disciple, but Maria will become an assistant to work for him, so they both needed to learn cultivation.

At least on the basic levels, he would teach the same to both, once they had advanced a little, he would give them separate lessons.

While only Aina would inherit his Legacy, that is to say, his core arts, secret methods and special techniques as a direct disciple; Maria would also learn cultivation methods from him, but not the same level of secret arts a Legacy Disciple would. He had made that distinction clear for both of them and explained honestly, they had agreed without any complaint.

Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t teach honestly and properly to Maria, there were plenty of things he could teach to her, and he knew many cultivation methods besides his own secret arts.

He would also assist Maria in creating her own style of cultivation, something all true powerhouses must do to reach a high stage of power, but he hadn’t told her that yet, it was something for the future.

“it’s a bit hard to do it, being so conscious about it”

Maria told him as she opened her eyes, there was a moment she thought she was going to cough but she managed to hold it. She didn’t want to do something embarrassing in front of Navin.

“Yes, it is harder to do, and a bit painful when I take a deep breath and my lungs are full. I get the feeling I want to take more, but can’t. Master, I felt there were some points that moved towards me as I was breathing, what are they?”

Aina also opened her eyes after listening to her mother and confirmed it was harder to breathe when she was purposely doing it, and asked Navin about the small points she ‘saw’ when she had her eyes closed and imagined herself eating everything around her with a huge mouth.

“You have already awakened your special physique, so you are more sensitive to the energies around you, especially those with lightning attribute, it’s probably that when you call for the energies of the world, lightning will always be the first to respond, because such is your nature.”

“Ooohhh…”

Navin explained with a smile, he was glad Aina was making fast progress and already starting to feel the Qi in the world around her.

"Don't be impatient trying to do it at once, it will come naturally to you. Remember to do this breathing exercises every day, whenever you have free time or when you are resting, it must become a habit to breathe this way."

“Yes, Master.”

“Yes, Lord Navin.”

They finished eating and then continued the practice for an hour, Maria had yet to feel the Qi in the air, but Aina was already gathering it, she made it circle her body following the route Navin showed her during her awakening in the village, the Qi that entered was constantly filtered, until there was only a little amount of it, but this Qi was many times purer than the Qi in the air around her, she kept making it move across her body, feeling a pleasant sensation, her mind felt calm and her body felt more alive than she had ever been.

“Okay, let’s stop the lesson for now since it’s getting late, let’s drink some tea to refresh ourselves, we are going to continue traveling in the morning.”

Once they had finished drinking the tea Navin made for them, Navin stood up, raised one hand and moved it in a small circle, a two-story house appeared out of thin air, it was made of wood and stone, it had a brown wooden door and glass windows, reddish walls and a yellow roof. Inside there was a kitchen, 2 bathrooms with shower and bathtub, 5 rooms with beds and furniture on the living room.

It was a magical object called Traveler’s Cabin, very convenient for magicians who traveled from one place to another and had to camp in the open, although only a powerful magician or a group could use it because it consumed a lot of Mana, for Navin it wasn’t an issue.

Navin didn’t mind staying in the open, he didn’t even need to sleep anymore, when he rested he meditated, keeping an active mind and never letting his guard down, but Aina and Maria needed to rest, and a comfortable rest was the best.

Mother and daughter let out voices of surprise when they saw the big house appear before them.

“Sleep here, you don’t need to worry about anything, I already set up a barrier so no one will find this place, you can explore and use everything inside this house at will, just relax and take a good night rest.”

They entered the house and Navin taught them the basic information about the artifact, showed them the bathrooms, gave them towels and new sets of clothes, then he started walking outside.

“What about you, Lord Navin?”

Maria asked when she saw Navin leaving the house

“Oh, I’m just going to explore this area, Madame. I wonder if I’ll find any interesting things, I’ll also bring food if I find anything good.”

Navin replied with a smile.

“Have a nice trip.”

“I won’t take long.”

Maria bowed to Navin and he nodded, he closed the door behind him and disappeared.

A few kilometers south of the lake where Maria and Aina where resting, 4 people were standing watching a huge crater that used to be a village.

“The disturbance was so great it was felt in the capital, to think such an event would happen in a faraway village without any importance.”

One of them, a middle-aged man with brown beard said with a surprised expression. He was wearing steel armor and had a wide black cloak covering him.

“This was obviously caused by a lightning-based attack; you can practically taste it in the air.”

A red-haired woman spoke while looking around, she seemed to be 30 years old and wore a long blue robe and a long purple skirt, she carried a long wooden staff with a crystal sphere in the end and had 3 rings on her hand she was constantly caressing.

The other 2 men said nothing as they scrutinized the area, one of them packed samples of the soil into ceramic pots, while the other man stored them into a shining box that seemed to be wider on the inside than it was outside.

“What do you think, Larn? A fight among mages or an experiment that went wrong?”

The bearded man asked the youngest of their team, the one with the shining box.

“I don’t know, Cleth. This seems like one huge explosion, not a series of attack, it was definitely lightning-based like Zita said, but I can’t tell what caused it nor the motives behind the attack.”

Larn answered with a serious face, whether it was a group or an individual who did this, they were strong. Many possible explanations for this event crossed his mind: troops from other countries, a monster from the forest, a fight between two strong warriors, an artifact found in ancient ruins. They were all discarded as they didn’t add up to this situation, a backwater village like this wouldn’t have anything of worth, and a fight between warriors would not have caused a natural phenomenon felt all the way to the capital.

At that moment, the last member of their team, Wequim, spoke while taking a handful of soil into his hand.

“The ones most likely to have an explanation for this, are those of the Lei Clan.”

He let the dust scatter into the wind as he finished his words.

“Lei Clan? Do you think they caused this? But why would they destroy a poor village in a corner of the country?”

Cleth turned towards Wequim and asked while scratching his beard.

“Maybe they were testing a weapon or a new array formation that could manipulate weather to gather lightning and attack?”

Zita offered a hypothesis. Lei Clan was certainly the greatest gathering of experts in Lightning-type arts. Whether it was artifacts, weapons, scriptures, arrays or medicinal plants, everything that had a relationship with the Lightning Element was studied by them, they had a fascination with it. And they were a warrior clan, they definitely had a huge arsenal of Lightning-related weapons and arrays, they were infamous for going to huge lengths in the pursuit of their arts, but they weren’t the type to go around attacking innocent villagers to test it.

“No, I didn’t mean that they caused this, but they are definitely more informed on such matters than us. That strange phenomenon is the key to what happened here, I’m sure they have some records or information about similar events, they might give us new insight to unveil this mystery.”

Wequim shook his head and explained, he proposed to ask an expert of Lei Clan to help with the investigation.

Their team had been sent from the capital right after the disturbance was felt, but they had enough authority to draw in an external consultant, and Lei Clan was an ally of the Kingdom, they were based on the mountains in the Northeast of the territory, and had acted as Wardens to protect the Kingdom from invasions from the neighboring country Oeria for generations.

“Alright, let’s go then.”

Cleth consented and took out a card from his pocket, it was a magic artifact for transportation, Cleth threw it to the ground and it grew until it was wide enough for the four of them to ride.

The card started flying once they were all sitting on it and they left towards the Northeast, in the direction of the Lei Clan.

A couple of minutes later, a wave of magic power occurred in the clouds above the village, three people floated in the air, each was standing in a magic artifact, Lei Clan had sent stronger experts than the Kingdom, it wasn’t that the Kingdom was weaker or didn’t have the personnel to send here, it was simply that they didn’t attach the same level of importance as Lei Clan did to this event.

Likia Kingdom viewed the strange phenomenon and disturbance felt as “a supernatural phenomenon to be investigated” but they didn’t see it as a threat or an overly important matter. They were curious, but as they didn’t really know its nature, the King hadn’t sent an expeditionary force beyond an investigative team.

However, the people of Lei Clan knew better.

They had felt the disturbance and the storm gathering, such a strong natural manifestation of Lightning Elemental Force was something they hadn’t seen before, but they had records about it in their clan, teachings passed down from their ancestors.

This event had been a Lightning Tribulation, something that occurred when a person manifested a power that perturbed the world, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was simply that the energies of the world reacted and were gathered due to a cultivator’s advancement to a higher stage of power or when a powerful artifact was created.

It wasn’t seen as the world trying to destroy the person or artifact undergoing the tribulation, but rather as a beneficial matter, the lightning would help to further perfect the artifacts and purify the body, it was a stabilizing element.

But right now what they saw wasn’t the consequence of an expert gaining greater power, or an artifact creation, it was an awakening of a special body type, one that was attuned with the world’s lightning.

They knew it, and they wanted it.

The Elders and the Head of the Clan had seen the signs in the heavens and used Divination Arts to find out, although they didn’t know the appearance or gender of the person who awakened here, they knew it was somebody young and that person was alive.

If they could get that person to join into their clan, they would get a very valuable asset, such body constitution would make a genius in lightning arts which were the specialty of Lei Clan.

Whether it was a boy or a girl, their bloodline would have a glorious future and make them rise to prominence, such a possibility was enough for all the Elders to move, but they needed to be careful about it, no mistake would be tolerated.

They had to find that person and take them to their clan, no matter the cost. And they would not let this child escape their grasp, even if they had to fight with the Kingdom, the Clan Head had already authorized any method to secure their success.

So a team of elites had been dispatched immediately, they had even arrived before the Kingdom’s investigators, Lei Clan team had better equipment and higher level members, they had cast a barrier to make themselves invisible when they noticed the Kingdom team’s arrival.

Moreover, they had a true powerhouse among them.

The 3 Lei Clan members flying in the sky turned towards the center of the crater. There stood a man that seemed to be 50 years old, he had a stern face, long blonde hair that reached his shoulders and a neatly cut beard, he wore blue and white robes with golden embroidery and a purple cape, he emitted an aura of power, his eyes seemed to contain electric sparks.

This man was a Magus of Lightning, a true master of mystic arts specialized in wielding the force of the storms.

The head of the Council of Elders of the Lei Clan, and one of their top 3 cultivators, Artorius Lei, an old monster who had lived for hundreds of years.

Lei Clan had taken this matter seriously and Artorius had personally volunteered for this task, it was something that could be said to be beneath his station, and he had to temporarily leave his responsibilities in the Clan to come here, but it didn’t matter to him.

To him, such a precious opportunity for the future of his family outweighed everything else. By the time other influences noticed he had moved, he would be returning to the clan with the child of the special physique.

However, he was too late, there was no trace of the child in a 30 kilometers radius, he knew it was impossible for a normal person to cover that distance in such short time, even more so for a child.

Someone had arrived first and taken the child.

“Expand the search area, check the mountains and then we’ll move to the cities, someone took the child but we will find them soon. It would be easy to recognize a special physique that has awakened recently, and for us who are sensitive to lightning, this child will be obvious even in a crowd. Let’s go, now!”

Artorius thundered to his followers and turned into an arc of lightning, flying fast into the distance

“Yes, sir!!”

The 3 other members of the team dispersed in different directions to continue searching.

Likia Kingdom’s team hadn’t noticed the presence of Lei Clan’s team, but neither of them had noticed they were being observed.

In the distance, Navin chuckled. They had no chance of hiding or noticing his Divine Sense.

“So there are some people with decent knowledge and decisiveness. But you arrived too late, Lei Clan. She is already my precious 3rd Disciple, you can’t take her away.”

Navin stopped watching the Lei Clan people and focused on the thing in front of him.

He was inside an ancient temple ruin on a mountain range North from the lake where he left the Traveler’s Cabin.

This was place was occupied by monsters. Usually, it would be noisy inside, due to all the monsters roaming around and fighting each other.

Now it was silent, and there was no longer any monster inside.

At the end of the ruins that extended deep into the mountain, in a big room with a shining orb floating atop a pillar with many inscriptions; only a 2 meters tall, 6 meters long white tiger could be found, Navin sat there in his tiger form eating a giant 20 meters long Salamander.

With every bite, a huge chunk of it would disappear inside the belly of the tiger despite the difference in size, until it was completely devoured.

Navin moved to the center of the room, grabbed the shining orb with one claw, then opened his jaws and swallowed it whole.

“To think there are so many Vestiges of the gods in this world, Cores of Dungeons and rite places created by Deities hold great energy, this will help me to recover faster. This old temple was about to overflow with monsters, I guess eating them all also prevented a catastrophe for the people of this land.”

Navin sighed, thinking of all the things he had to do.

This world had many places with high energy readings, many vestiges from the Gods and strong creatures living in it, it was an interesting world for Navin, and he could also make use of these resources to speed up the recovery of his True Body.

The Nirmitas he sent to different worlds were Thought-constructs made by his Second Body, they held a fraction of his power and shared a connection to his True Body, he could use them to store energy, fight, explore, and even take things like artifacts, plants and Monster Cores for him.

2 of those Nirmitas were teaching new disciples; another was hunting monsters in a Dark Plane, eating them to recover energy; the last one was currently traveling towards Navin’s Eldest Disciple.

Thanks to his True Body keeping the cosmic forces under control, the Cataclysm was kept at bay and full destruction was averted, however, there were many worlds that suffered damage, there were too many things to be done.

The place where Navin was right now, was actually a tomb of an ancient cultivator, a fallen deity to be exact, a female by the name of Fanniah, she had built this place and left her Divine Spark here in order to recover from damage, but the place had been destroyed some time later and monsters had been feeding on her Divine Spark to grow stronger.

If Navin hadn’t arrived, the monsters would have consumed the spark completely and then overrun the land outside. There was little hope left for Fanniah’s resurrection.

Now that Navin had devoured the shining orb that contained her Divine Spark, there was none.

“Okay, crisis for this land averted, resurrection of low class fallen deity stopped, and monsters buffet dinner finished. Time to go back to Aina and Maria.”

Navin stretched his tiger limbs and then teleported back to the lake. He turned back into human form and sat cross-legged in front of the house.

He closed his eyes and started to meditate as he waited for the morning to come.