Haiyang woke up the next morning refreshed and ready. He mulled over his understandings and some theories of the tide flow seals. Thinking about it once or twice helped him get a deeper understanding of what he knew.

After a minute of thinking, Haiyang stood up and strolled out to the courtyard. With soft rays of sunlight and soft breeze, he basked in the morning sun. He stood there enjoying the moment for a minute or so.

Haiyang took a deep breath and got serious again. He slightly jogged around the courtyard. Soon the jog became a run and a run became a sprint. He sprinted and sprinted slowly growing accustomed to his new speed.

Minutes passed before he stopped. Haiyang turned to the tree and lightly went over to it. Without qi, he gave it some full power slaps. He slaps caused a light “boom” and a creaking sound to echo out from the tree. With each slap pieces of bark went flying.

He stopped after 10 or so slaps and started to jump. He jumped and jumped analyzing how high each jump got him. This continued for a few minutes before he stopped.

Recalling what his pre-seal strength was and comparing it to his strength and speed now Haiyang felt like he had a good understanding.

Before the seal, his strength was 100%. At 100% he could slap a tree the size of a man’s waist in half, easily run faster and for longer, and could easily jump to the top of the tree like it was nothing.

Before his seclusion, his strength was about 40% of his new strength. WIth his seals, in place, his strength came to only around the 60% range.

His short term goal was to get used to his 60% strength. Haiyang wanted this to happen within the week. So he scheduled out part of his morning to be used for daily exercise sessions. He hoped that by the end of the month he’ll be around 100% strength. His eyes shined with determination at this point.

Now he moved on to the real problem. Haiyang sat down and “looked” through the contents of the final layer of the refinement art, the Taiji layer. This layer had quite a few differences than the previous two layers.

One of the differences was that it didn’t have a set element. The art even listed out three choices. Those would be wood, rock, and metal. These three elements were described as restrictive, stable, and strong. The layer’s requirements were something restrictive, stable, and strong. These were all needed to complete what the layer entailed.

The second difference is that this element didn’t get made into an imprint. Haiyang had to use this element to combine his sun and moon imprints into the Taiji symbol (yin and yang symbol). He had to combine them but also keep them separated thus the need for a restrictive element.

Haiyang had to think about his choice. He needed the strongest and also the fastest to train in. Each element had its own pros and cons, but ultimately he decided on one.

His choice was the wood element. He had plenty of reasons too. The best one was that he could feel the wood qi. It radiated off of his cultivation tree. He spent most of his time there so he thought it was the best choice for speed.

Haiyang ran up to the crown of the tree and started to meditate. Sensing the wood qi in and around the tree studying it. He let it flow over him and around him just studying it. Tens of minutes passed before he started to absorb the wood qi.

At first, he started with a small bit and kept it in his dantian. Slowly and gradually he absorbed more and more at a faster rate. Very soon his small dantian was filled to the brim with gaseous green qi.

He focused on his front arm muscles and let the green qi flow towards them. The green qi wrapped around the two imprints and slowly brought them closer together. The almost black moon imprint turned into a crescent with one end bigger than the other. The almost white sun imprint did the same.

They came closer and closer together. The crescent’s big ends met the small ends forming a circle. Green wood qi made a small line in between the black and white and wrapped around both of the combined imprints.

On his arm muscles, there was the taiji symbol. To make two of the taiji symbols he used his full reserve of wood qi. He felt his mind strain as he went through the process of combing them.

He ignored the pain and absorbed more wood qi. Absorbing more and more he filled his dantian to almost halfway. When it reached that point Haiyang discovered that there was no more qi! He searched the whole tree for more wood qi.

He could only find wood qi inside the tree. This trace was very faint. This was a problem and it was a big one at that. This meant he couldn’t cultivate endlessly like he could with the first two layers.

He needed more wood qi. He needed more trees! He needed more so much more. He needed to cultivate faster.

It was only slightly past noon so there was still time. He knew of some trees, some good ones at that. He walked out of the courtyard and headed towards the nearest trees. The Copper Crowned and Silver Crowned trees were his destination.

He walked quickly towards the training field. He ignored everyone and everything. He was a fox on a mission and he wanted to get this layer done.

He got to the training field and ignored all of the guards and disciples. He walked under the Copper Crowned trees and started to meditate.

He started to absorb the wood qi that was released. He analyzed the qi and discovered that it was better in both quality and quantity! He took all the qi he could and filled his dantian once again.

He repeated the action of combining the two imprints into a taiji symbol. He was able to make two symbols before he didn’t have enough qi.

The qi from the Copper Crowned trees took less to combine the moon and sun imprints. He only needed slightly more qi. With that bit more he could empty out the last of his qi. The strain on his mind got heavier and heavier.

Haiyang rotated his yin qi toward his head. As the yin qi passed through the strain started to slowly subside. After taking a few minutes to relax his mental strain subsided. He started to absorb the wood qi once again.

He carried on this pattern of absorbing and combing for almost two hours before the wood qi was no more. Almost all of his muscles on his legs and arms turned into low-level taiji symbols.

Haiyang opened his eyes when the wood qi ran out. His eyes were slightly bloodshot and his ears stood straight up. The more mental strain he went through the less his yin qi started to help. He couldn’t stop. He wanted to get stronger.

His gaze shot toward the Silver Crowned trees a little ways away. He practically sprinted toward the trees and sat under them to meditate.

He absorbed the wood qi and notice that the quality was of even higher quality than the Copper Crowned trees. A full dantian of this wood qi could complete three taiji symbols and almost a fourth.

He continued absorbing and combing symbols until it grew dark. When the sun did set the wood qi was almost gone. The effects of this training were great though. ALmost every muscle had a low-level taiji symbol on it. He felt stronger, faster, and tougher.

He wanted to explore this more but when he stood up his mental strain was too much and he almost fell. His head was in pain and his eyes were the color of blood. His fur stood straight up and all his muscles felt tight. The pain was just too much for Haiyang.

He started to slowly rotate his yin qi and slowly hobbled his way back to the courtyard.

When he got back the moon already hung high in the sky. Some of his pain had subsided but it was still a throbbing headache.

He walked to his bed and when his head hit the soft bedding he fell asleep without a thought.