The closer Kyril was to home, that faster he walked. He already could not contain his excitement to properly start his Martial Life.

“Hmm… I should start with training the mind first. The body can be strengthened as one grows older, but the mind is not so simple. If a man does not use his mind, no matter how old he is, it would only be a place for dust to collect.”

At the back of his shack, Kyril reversed the metal pail in his hand onto the ground and sat down.

“But what does it mean for the mind to be broad and open?” Kyril voiced out his thoughts as he contemplated the meaning behind the words he read from the books.

“Should it not be possible to train the mind like the body?”

But upon further thinking, Kyril dispelled this thought. How could the mind be compared to the body? The mind is incredibly complex and enigmatic. It cannot be so simply trained!

The mind does not need all arms or legs to exist, but if the body has a partial mind, then the body would be useless. The mind can exist without part of the body, while the body, without a complete mind, is just a piece of useless meat!

Leaning his back onto the wooden boards of his shack, Kyril began contemplating the words he read in search for a deeper meaning. His eyes rested far into the distance and on nature’s most remarkable work of art.

Everything he saw - sky, birds, clouds, and the swaying trees and leaves - calmed his mind, lulling him into a serene state. Only several words floated in the empty space of his mind.

These words gradually started stretching and contracting, later forming into a ball of light mist. And from it, a series of ghostly images appeared within his mind. But Kyril did not think anything of it and simply observed everything.

The images displayed a shadowy figure that had wisps of light coiling around its body. Every time the light entered the figure’s body, a sweet and comforting sensation emanated from the same spot on Kyril’s body. It was as if Kyril was connected to the shadowy figure by a mysterious force. Everything the figure had in its mind appeared in Kyril’s.

Kyril’s breathing turned soft and long with both his eyelids having kissed long ago.

Slowly, Kyril transitioned into a state of mindfulness.

“So it was like this…”

Kyril reached a sudden realisation. With his mind accepting all the thoughts of the shadowy figure, the deeper meaning behind the books he read began to reveal itself.

“The mind is not honed by trying to hone it, nor can it be trained like the body. The mind can only be honed by letting it free and away from any restriction. Trying to forcibly hone the mind would just place limitations on it. Only by allowing it to be free will the mind be strengthened…”

Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes into hours… and when two hours had passed did Kyril showed signs of sobering up from his previous state. His eyes opened and a wave of profoundness flowed out.

“To hone the mind I must become aware. Aware of everything around me and aware of everything within me…” Kyril lightly said.

This was the deeper meaning of cultivating the mind. It is the complete awareness of everything.

Taking in a deep breath, Kyril stretched his fingers and let out a bright smile. “Although it took me a while to find the deeper meaning of those books, I’ve finally firmly set my foot on the path cultivation and become a step closer to my goal!”

But if anyone heard Kyril at this moment, they would have already dropped to the ground in shock. Nevermind what his goal was or that in his twelve years he only started cultivating now, but to say that two hours was long would just cause others to bang their heads in shame!

One should know that most people could not even comprehend the deeper meaning! And those who did took days, even weeks to gain just a bit of understanding! Perhaps it was due to Kyril’s experience of two lives, but such a comprehension speed was truly abnormal!

But Kyril was totally oblivious to this as he had no one to compare himself to.

Right now Kyril was calming his excited mind. The smile on his face was replaced with an expression that showed neither happiness or sadness.

When his breathing steadied, Kyril suddenly felt a faint gathering of energy around him. And as Kyril focused his attention on this energy he discovered that this energy was actually made up of two distinctly different energies.

“This must be the two different Qi’s, Cosmic Qi and World Qi. One feels like it’s burning and freezing at the same time, while the other one feels almost nonexistent, yet there seems to be more of it around me…” Kyril probed the two energies with his senses. “The Primal Attributes doesn’t have any heat or ice related attributes so it must be the near nonexistent energy which is the Cosmic Qi.”

Kyril had little information to confidently make his judgement, but he had to do so eventually. Otherwise he would be wasting time and not make any progress.

Kyril controlled what seemed to be the Cosmic Qi with his mind and willed for it to come closer, making it form a thin layer of it around his body.

This occurrence lasted for not even the blink of an eye and soon the Cosmic Qi was suddenly absorbed into his body. Kyril’s pores were wide open and sucked the layer of Cosmic Qi into his body like a wild whirlpool.

At this point Kyril could feel different existences in his meridians. There was an existence that was violent and uncontained, one that was calm, but radiated a terrifying might, and another that was unmoving and seemingly unshakable. But from these existences Kyril did not feel any familiarity.

Yet Kyril observed patiently. And after sometime, Kyril found the presence of another existence that was too calm. Only minor distortions occurred in the area around it. But apart from that, it was simply… there.

“This must be the Space Primal Attribute…”

Kyril instinctively knew what this existence was. From it, there was the sort of feeling that one got when they found the thing they spent countless years searching for. An indescribable feeling of yearning and intimacy.

Following the teachings of the book, Kyril felt the Martial Essence in his body and started circulating it throughout his meridians, organs, and bones. Doing this, Kyril focused his mind and made sure to force anything other than the Space Primal Attribute out of his body, ensuring absolute purity.

This was a slow and extremely boring process that only allowed droplet sized Martial Essence to be cultivated, but Kyril persevered. He understood that cultivation would not be an easy path to tread on. Only those with an iron heart could succeed!

grumble...

Many more hours passed and Kyril’s stomach started protesting at its owner’s lack of food consumption.

Feeling the slight discomfort in from his lower abdomen, Kyril reluctantly awakened from his cultivation state and stood up while rubbing his stomach. If not for his stomach, Kyril might have even cultivated all day!

“It looks like on an empty stomach, even cultivation cannot be done,” Kyril said and picked up the metal pail from the ground. “But even if I want to eat, those yellow grasses and earth nuts would probably do more harm to my body than good. Even bark from trees would be more nutritious than that!”

Kyril frowned as he thought of eating something that was no better than swallowing mud.

“Luckily I now have five hundred coppers. With that I should be able to buy a decent meal,” Kyril said and replaced the thought of eating mud with the thought of a steaming meal going down his throat.

Kyril raised his head towards the sky.

The sun no longer hung in the sky. During Kyril’s period of cultivation, the sun had started to lower and when Kyril stopped, the sun was replaced by a moon and innumerable stars that lit up the night sky.

“Hmm… After looking for food, I should go and test the improvement of my body in the Grassy Mountains. Although it’s dark, It shouldn’t be too dangerous if I just stay in the outskirts.”

Of course, there would always be danger lurking around, especially in the night. But danger was essential to a Practitioner’s growth. Without facing any perilous situations, how can one expect to gain experience and improve?

Stretching his stiff back and legs, a resplendent smile spread across Kyril’s face and he proceeded to the entrance of his shack. He was looking forward to the rewards of his first step to greatness.

“Well, let’s go.”

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