With the rest of his class heading straight for their beds, Allen slipped into the training room. He could feel each of his dantians pulsing out, wanting to ascend, and given the time that would take, pulling an all nighter was inevitable. After stashing his new outfit in storage, he pulled on a pair of sweats that he wouldn’t mind destroying. Rolling his neck, Allen found his centre, and begun. Mana poured out of his lower dantian, thicker than he had ever processed before. Extending his right arm out, he directed the mana to follow his movements, carefully cycling it through the meridian before steering it back long his arm. His palm stung as the meridian was burned away and then healed over and over again, the high concentration of mana tempering it up to a new level. Biting his lips to get through the pain, he pulled his arm up and round in an arch, directing the mana back through his channels until it reached waist, then he stepped forward, bending his knee into a lunge as the mana went down his right leg. Again the pain was enough to make a normal person pass out, but when he returned to standing the meridian was stronger and more capable than ever before. Slowly he worked through the various stances, tempering all seven meridians before returning the mana to his body dantian where it cycled over and over, pushing out the previous limits. Steeling his nerves, Allen started again, this time pushing the mana out of its natural channels and into his blood stream. The burning was intense and immediate, offering no reprieve like when he worked on the meridians. Veins and arteries were burned to ash before being immediately reformed, and it took intense will power to stay focussed. Again he worked through his entire body, burning away all of his organs as well as the blood, veins and arteries before finally returning the mana to his dantian. Allen wanted to collapse, his body breathing as heavily as if he had just run a marathon, but at no point did he let the mana stop moving.

“Two. two more levels” he gasped out in between heavy breath, thick layers of sweat coating his body.

Once more starting the movements, he began stretching, this time tensing his arm to keep it up as his bones were targeted. Most cultivators would never go to this level, instead stopping at the meridian stage. That was not their fault, as they didn’t know better, but it was one of the reasons Allen would always be stronger than the average cultivator at the same realm. Where a normal cultivator could heal rapidly from a bullet wound, Allen would instead just see the round bounce off his skin. It would take a cultivator at the apprentice realm to even cut his skin after his current round of tempering, and even then they would likely dull a normal blade trying. Finally, after hours of intense pain and effort, the mana returned to dantian after the fourth cycle. Allen collapsed down onto one knee. His entire body was covered in a watery gel, red from his own blood. Looking into his dantian he could see that it was now only a quarter full, and at least a third bigger than it had been at the start of the night. Sitting in silence for a few minutes, letting his adrenaline calm, he basked in his success before he was finally ready to move on.

“This stuff really is disgusting” Allen complained under his breath, flicking his hand so he had some exposed skin to wipe his eyes with.

“Well I hope you can clean it off the floor.” Came a familiar voice from the somewhere in front of him.

Opening his eyes, Allen saw Priya watching him with hard eyes. “Congratulations on reaching level one.” She said, stepping further into the room “I’m going to guess your parents taught you the technique, but why wait until now to use it?” She asked

Buying a second to think by wiping more goo off his face Allen eventually replied “Deal with my parents, I wouldn’t progress until the academy. I’m at the academy so.” He waved a hand, gesturing to his body.

“Huh. Well okay. He a soldier?” She asked, her voice still flat. Her long black hair was clearly wet, glistening in what little light there was in the room at this hour.

“God no.” Allen replied “Dad isn’t really the military discipline type. He’s independent.”

She nodded “Strong then. I won’t rat you out for using the room, but make sure you clean it.” She walked back out, heading towards the dorms without another word.

Allen thought for a minute, unsure why she would rat him out in the first place. He had been told the training rooms were free to use. Shaking his head, he dismissed it. Priya seemed to be in a bad mood almost constantly, so her comment was probably due to that. For someone who was clearly working hard at the academy, she seemed to be hating every second of it. Standing up, he went into the bathroom and grabbed a load of paper towels, quickly wiping himself down and then the floor where he had left a pretty big mess. A quick, and extremely cold shower later, Allen returned to the training room for the next stage. His body and lower dantian were now at mid tier initiate, but that wasn’t enough. He still had two dantians, spirit and mind to ascend before he could say he was a mid initiate. That would hours, which meant there was no time to rest. Dropping down to the lotus position, Allen emptied his mind and began the next stage. Spiritual cultivation was the area he struggled most, as it was difficult to visualise. As he began cycling his mana through the middle dantian, he let his spiritual aura out. Anyone who was close to him would feel his level of cultivation, but he was confident of not causing an issue with most people being asleep this late at night. As the mana cycled, he pushed out with his spirit, trying to extend its range. After nearly an hour, he started to get faint resonance from the other yellow students who were maybe thirty or forty meters away from where he sat. None of them were cultivators yet, which was a little surprising, but he could still feel the faintest echo, an absence of mana just as visible as a cultivator would be. While there was no physical effort involved, by the time he brought the cycling to a end Allen’s entire body was coated in sweat. The focus alone enough to raise his heart rate. But it worked, even without pushing he could sense the sleeping class. That was close enough that nobody would be able to sneak attack him, unless they were an apprentice or higher at least. And really if an apprentice tier wanted to hurt him, advanced warning wouldn’t exactly do anything to help anyway. With two of his three dantians ascended, Jacob did briefly consider calling it a night. Mind cultivation was best done while actually working his brain, testing the synapses as they were infused with mana. In the past he had played chess, completed puzzles or just recited times tables. Anything that taxed his brain would work, and the harder he had to work the better. The problem was he didn’t really have anything prepared except for his phone. Pulling it out, he saw the battery was at a little under half full. Biting the bullet, he downloaded a word game and got comfortable. The game started off easy, but by level twenty he was starting to struggle. Level thirty and he was cursing at it as he realised it used the American dictionary, which is why he hadn’t made any progress in a while. Three hours after he started he could hear movement coming from the other side of the building and began to return the mana to his dantian. Rising to his feet, Allen was more than a little thrilled with his progress. All his dantians were at least a third bigger than when he started, meaning he had a much greater mana capacity now. In addition his body, mind and spirit had all been tempered, leaving him in the ideal position for his eventual ascension to the apprentice realm and beyond. Heading for the showers once again, Allen found himself excited for the day ahead, hoping for a chance to show off his new strength.