Looking at the phone Herman saw the time. It was already five minutes past noon.

“With that, day 0 is gone and I have already gained a small advantage over the rest. Rather… I doubt that it’s that small given all the achievements I’ve been gathering.”

Strange enough, during the six months of trial and from that day on further, each day at 12 PM EST it’s considered one cycle by the system. People on Earth agreed about how the ‘Minute Collapse Nirvana’ became the Big-Bang of our new world-order and therefore the system considers it the start point. With such a major event occurring at noon, it was no wonder that each cycle in the system’s consideration would begin at the same point.

While letting the water wash over him in the shower, slight changes in his skin’s complexion were already noticeable. There wasn’t a breakthrough with his muscle mass just yet, but it should become obvious with another week or so of continuous training.

“More important, now that the cycle has started the first day, I can actively absorb Spiritual Qi while in meditation. What was the formula for how long I can absorb Qi again? Was it the Absorption points multiplied by 1.2, in minutes? I think that was it... Anyway, I have 37 points at the moment, so that multiplied by 1.2 is… Uhm…”

Ending the shower, he took out his phone and calculated it. It was a total of 44 minutes and something. That should be barely enough for the first day.

“Not to mention that the active absorption is ten times the normal one or better put, one can absorb ten hours worth of Qi, if he can reach one hour of continuous absorption. Let’s eat first and we'll figure out the rest after...”

While food had impurities, it was impossible at Herman's current level to gain sustenance from Qi, given that Earth hasn’t even formed Primordial Qi yet and my Lung and Stomach meridian pathways have yet to be connected. Therefore, it was time for some master-chef action! Or rather, immortal chef action...

Not even 15 minutes later, he gave up the idea of cooking dishes and injecting Spiritual Qi in them, after realizing that the ingredients weren’t susceptible to receiving it. He ended up cooking steam rice with braised pork and a couple of side dishes and only after gorging himself until his belly felt like it would explode did he stop.

He didn't even dare to inhale air further on, in fear of exploding, and went out on the balcony with heavy steps.

“This place should be slightly better to absorb Qi when compared to my room. *Sigh* I need to find myself some locations near nature where I can draw more Qi at once soon…”

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the balcony, he closed his eyes and entered a state of meditation. Once inside the spiritual world, he couldn’t help but grin.

“Good! At least half of the impurities gathered after the acupuncture session have been spewed out during the Qi Resonance. It’s not much, but their being in my space slows down the passive absorption slightly. Let’s see how the Qi Door looks like after the expulsion.”

Opening up the visual help brought by the ‘tutorial’ purchased, he saw two things that made his smile get even bigger. First of all, the injured acupoint channels because of the needles that punctured through them a couple of hours back, was already healed. That should be due to the Qi influx and reflux, as well as that fogey's Clear Lake immortal edict speeding up recovery.

Not only that, but the Qi Door was also down to only 56% left out of the initial blockage. This meant that he would soon be one step closer to his goals.

“During the active absorption, I should dislodge at least another 2-3% maybe. With the first experience out of the way, I will be able to stay continuously inside my spiritual world for close to two to three hours. After that, I need a break of at least 10-12 hours before attempting any movement again.”

Of course, this wasn’t something he decided on doing himself after experiencing his past life’s Spiritual Roots casting. Rather, it was another ‘tutorial’ of sorts left behind in a forum, after many ‘experts’ gave their opinion. The conclusion was that, during the beginning of the daily cycle, one should use the active absorption effective immediately. After that happened and you gained about 10 hours worth of your passive Spiritual Qi intake, immediately use all of it in Qi Resonance. Since even the strongest willed people would have to take at least a 10 hours pause before being able to take action again for long periods of time in their spiritual world, after 10-12 hours, you can again enter to ‘mine’ in your spirit world using about 25-50% of the passively gained Qi. The remaining should be saved until the next active absorption, to increase the amount you can use for the resonance the following day.

The concept of ‘mining’, referred to probing the blockages with Qi from within the spirit world. Obviously, Qi will be expended in doing so. Nevertheless, it would bring one even closer to opening more acupoints.

“In my case, there should be a 13 hours break needed before I can mine. The good news is that I already have pathways to mine, thanks to the acupuncture session. Before I start, I guess should call back all these people, otherwise, I might have some of them knocking on my door soon.”

Exiting meditation, he took about half an hour to call back and message people, letting them know that he was alive and kicking. Funny enough, one of the texts was from an anonymous number, asking for the information mentioned yesterday. That should have been Chase.

“There’s no need to hurry. I can complete that tonight and send it over to him in the morning.”

Making the plans for the rest of the day, the splitting up of it was as follows: two hours of meditation where he will actively absorb Spiritual Qi in the first one and then use resonance in the second. A nap of about 2-3 hours to charge up will follow after, going out and hit the gym for another hour after waking up, cooking and eating, after which another nap to make up for the remaining hours until he could mine in the spiritual world, wake up, meditate and start mining, then sleep to recover until morning.

“Sounds like one couldn’t wish for anything better than this in his life…”

With sarcastic words thrown to nobody in particular, he re-entered meditation and focused on the almost zero Qi in his reserves. With the visual help, he spent about three hours putting markers on each acupoint and with the system’s help, designated the resonance force to be split equally to each marker from then onwards.

Even with tens of thousands of Spiritual Qi though, it would be hard to decrease the blockage by more than 1% per each acupoint. However, it would be for the best to do that since he planned to open all of them at once.

“It looks like I will need to carve in the blockage by mining and creating a route for the resonance force to follow. Otherwise, the force would just push outside and some acupoints might be opened earlier than I want…”

The plan was to proceed with mining first and create a path for Qi to take, in the form of a hook. That way, when the force of the Qi Resonance hits, it would follow that path and dislodge the respective carved portion, bringing it back inside the spiritual world. That way, he could carefully walk one step at a time and finish it at the end with one big blast.

Without much time left, he focused his consciousness solely on the Qi Door and forced the small amount of Spiritual Qi he had left to rotate counter-clockwise, all in order to create a pulling effect. After about another three hours spent stirring the Qi, the results started trickling in. From this point onward the actual absorption begins.

“I have only one hour left, so let’s make it count! Huuup!”

With a sharp grunt, Herman focused entirely on the speed of the Qi vortex. The initially trickling Spiritual Qi brought in passively, suddenly began to flow unimpeded at faster and faster rates.

The process continued for half an hour until the headaches started to make themselves be felt. He was getting closer to his limits and knew that he had to push against those limits each time, otherwise, the whales will leave him in the dust.

Even if he reluctantly agreed to re-do the whole life from the start, it didn’t mean that he wanted to be slapped into inexistence once more by an asshole that misunderstood something. There were no thoughts of revenge, however, there were no thoughts of submission to fate either.

With the mentality of someone that fought fate for more than a couple of thousand years, he would take advantage of his knowledge and push onwards with greater strength, achieving what he wants with less effort this time around.

“Thanks to the Jing fogey and the undying fart Clear Lake's edict, for the following six days I can push my body and mind to the brink of destruction, with no fear of actually dying as result. Moreover, with the regeneration of any type of injury being hastened, I will make sure that during this first week I create a gap between myself and these so-called ‘geniuses’ so big, that they would call it a f*cking abyss!”

....................................................................................................

Time passed and finally, after much hard work, Herman exited meditation. His body was covered in sweat and his face was pale. The active absorption was partially successful, yet he only managed to use about 80% of the suction force his body was capable of, given that it was his first time. Still, that brought him a net gain of 296 Spiritual Qi / each minute spent absorbing. With over 13.000 Qi points at his disposal, he slammed all of it into each of the markers placed, decreasing the blockage on small acupoints by 1% directly, while the medium and big ones, were less affected.

“At least my Qi Door was brought to 42% left, so I will take that win. With the amount left and the mining, I will do tonight, I should be able to properly clear it to about 25%. Shower first… these black substance smells like death…”

After another quick shower and a quick bite, he fell asleep after setting his alarm clock for three hours later. At 5:30 PM, he woke up and went straight to the gym. Forcing his body to its limits for about one entire hour and a half, by the time he got home, he was barely in the mood for food, but forced himself to eat anyways.

While cultivation went against the way of heavens, human bodies still required energy if he wanted to continuously forge his muscles. With the alarm set for 3:30 AM, he slept the sleep of the dead.

Eight hours later, he woke up energized.

“Those old fogies did everyone a solid with the rapid regeneration. With another session of workout tomorrow, I should increase my attributes again. Before meditation, I should do some light exercises first.”

Half an hour after he woke up, he was back on top of the bed, entering meditation once more. He had almost gathered 5000 Spiritual Qi points, amount barely sufficient for his carving plans tonight.

With two hours of meditation in the real world being 12 in his spiritual world, he began smashing Qi at each acupoint, starting with the Qi Door which had only 42% blockage left.

The process of carving was arduous and harsh on the mind, even more so than math. Since it was his first time, the amount of Qi he used to tunnel through each acupoint was about 20% more than it was needed.

“No use getting hung up on details though. I will make do with what I have available.”

The largest portion of Qi was used to mine the big acupoints, followed by the medium ones. With the abysmal amount of Spiritual Qi he had, he didn’t even bother touching the small ones. With the way he was going at it and some more workout, in two months he should be able to open all the small acupoints easily, without having to carve them.

When the last wisp of Qi was used up a grimace could be seen on Herman’s face. He was not pleased with the results, but he was most likely already leaps and bounds ahead of anyone else. Not to mention that his Qi Door had been completely unblocked, which will most likely give him some extra Absorption points. From what he remembered, a small acupoint that was fully open would grant 2 points, a medium one 3 and a large one 5. It might seem like a lot when compared to the big number of existing acupoints, but once the Spiritual Roots would be cast, the amount of Qi needed would be incomprehensible to a newbie.

“Haaaah!”

Exhaling a mouth of turbid air, he opened the notification on the interface and saw that he was indeed awarded 5 points for fully opening the Qi Door. With a passive intake of 42 Qi points / each five minutes, he should have sufficient to write up a Spirit Contract and complete his own 'tutorial' for newbies.

After another shower, he went straight to sleep until 9 AM, woke up, drank one of his concoctions of fruits and vegetable juice, ran, properly ate a full meal, hit the gym, and returned home around 11:30 AM.

“I should have sufficient Qi to draw the spiritual contract. System, bring up the interface.”

Opening up the interface, the accumulated Spiritual Qi was around 4.000 points and he nodded his head in satisfaction. In order not to get scammed, there was an easy way of writing a Spiritual Contract using Qi, through which the parties are obligated to agree to the terms you are imposing. It’s not possible to use this contract to make them your slaves or to extort them of more money, as the terms of it are made clear to the one wanting to buy your product.

Staying in front of the computer, he drew up two documents. The first was three pages long, representing the simplified version of the ‘tutorial’, while the second one was five pages long and included more stuff.

Grabbing the keys, he went up two floors above where his office was before quitting his job and took advantage of the printer there. Once the pages were in his hands, with a slight infusion of Spiritual Qi while stating the clauses, would suffice.

-First, only one person can see the document, being the person that pays for it.

-Second, the user of the document cannot teach another person the information in it.

-Third and final, the user must pay the amount of $50 for the simplified version and $100 for the complex version.

Nothing too complex and there wasn’t a need to include any type of punishment if the rules would be broken. Why not? Because there was no way to break them, or even try to find a loophole under the system's eyes. Once agreeable to the terms of the contract, the system would prevent one from doing so, while issuing a warning. If the warning is issued three times, the person dies.

“Three terms, therefore 3000 Qi points required. With that done, I only need to scan and send the tutorials to Chase. Once he sees them, he will be notified by the system about the contract and make his choice. He’s a smart person, so he should understand the potential of this business. Oh, right! I should ask him to hide my tracks and help me create an untraceable bank account. I really want to stay out of the radar for now…”

Looking at the clock, it was already past 12 PM. The second day was over and the cycle was restarted. Time to grind some more…