He closed his eyes and rested on his bed. He preferred to cultivate lying down, the idea of sitting in a lotus position was something beginners did.

For once, his past experience was useful. Cultivation did not depend on the position, and it is entirely possible to cultivate however you sat, walked, slept or stood. What mattered, was the meridians and the flow of Qi. The positions may help the control of the meridians, but again, it is something beginners did, since somehow sitting down gets them into the right mood and mindset.

He rested, and he concentrated on his 5 core meridians, and opened them one by one. Some of them were already half open, and some totally closed. It wasn’t difficult, but it is painful to open meridians that were previously closed.

Still, what is pain?

Well, the child part of Mingwei wanted to scream, but the past memories held him back. Their wealth of experience told him it’s going to be fine.

Specks of Qi entered through all of his open meridians, and soon, he was gathering 10 specks of Qi a day. Still, the goal is a 1,000 qi-specks in order to form a core. He had to increase it, and well, there are many, many ways to do that. The greenduck liver was one such item that helped to increase the body’s ‘attractiveness’ to Qi, such that they naturally increase the Qi entering.

But it was a balancing game. A cultivator could gather more Qi, but he had to quickly shape the gathered Qi specks into something of a shape, either a pyramid or a strand, before it would then escape. One of the merits of the ring-core was that the spinning ring helped ‘store’ the Qi specks. Essentially, one’s Qi gathering is also limited by the body’s ability to store the gathered Qi, and the soul’s ability to shape the Qi into something more stable.

“What should I do?” He wondered, and went through his past memories. He reckoned at his current pace he could shape up to 50 or 60 specks of Qi per day, but if he’s gathering only 10 specks, he’s essentially throttled by that quantum.

Memories. All sorts of cultivation methods. No. He shouldn’t use cultivation methods from his old world, maybe the Devourer Dragon’s agents could detect his Qi aura. So that left with methods to improve Qi gathering without changing cultivation methods. Perhaps... a Qi bracelets and equipment?

Next day, in the market street, Mingwei walked and surveyed the shops, and looked for something that resembled a Qi-gathering bead, or could be made into a Qi-gathering bead, and strangely, he found it from a regular shop that sold wooden furniture.

“Oh, interesting toy, right?” The salesman said. He quickly took the small round wooden balls and let him look at it. It was cheap. 5 silver each, so he bought 5. Then, he found another shop which sold ink and some writing utensils.

“Oh, young master Mingwei, you can write? Your father didn’t tell me you knew how to do calligraphy already.” Mingwei didn’t realise how many people his father knew. But then again, his father was a merchant, and merchants have a lot of informal gatherings and groups.

“Ah... I’m just uh.. Uhm... starting my lessons.”

“Oh okay. But these are low tier Qi-sensitive ink. Are you sure you want them? They are normally used by cultivators.”

“I’m also planning to cultivate.”

“Ah.” The old shopkeeper smiled.

Lastly, he went to a small tools store, and bought some carving materials. Again, the shopkeeper seemed rather curious. “Young master, did your father send you?”

“Ah... no. I just happen to be working on a small.. Uh.. trinket.”

“I see, I see.”

Mingwei was exhausted by the time he got home. He really didn’t know how the merchants all knew him. It’s not as if he walked in market street all that often. Though he inherited the memories and will of all those people that died, the child in him still remained, and right now, the child part of him was really tired. At times, he felt like he’s more of two different persons, rather than just one.

“Maybe... maybe tomorrow.” He slept, and left his things on his desk.

The next day, he arranged the items he acquired, and got to work. His hands worked nimbly and carved a symbol into the 5 wooden balls. They were rather small, about the size of a tennis ball, and on each of them was a different symbol, one for each of the 5 core elements. But only carving didn’t mean anything, he needed the Qi-sensitive ink to activate it, and gently, he used a small calligraphic brush and painted the 5 symbols with ink.

Then, just a little shake, and he could sense the faint glow of the symbol. It activated. Lastly, with the Qi-ink brush, he wrote something smaller on each of them, a ‘binding’ symbol that connected everything together. A simple Qi-gathering formation. This entire process took him the entire day and it was exhausting, so he went to sleep.

The next day was his first proper day of gathering Qi again, this time with the formation. The Qi formation increased the daily Qi gathering by 40! So, at 50 Qi per day, he would need just 20 days to hit 1,000.