V3C51: Training

They returned to Chao Ru’s home, where both of them made sure to confirm with one another that they weren’t going to just end up in the bedroom within ten minutes, although neither were opposed to doing so after everything else was complete. Since the one that tended to take up the more dominant and active position also happened to have far more strength and stamina, it would work out even if the latter was effectively dead by the time they got to the bed.

Of course, they’d both prefer not to end up in such a situation, as that would significantly limit the enjoyment that both of them would get out of this, but it would still be acceptable.

However, since they didn’t want the last time they attempted this to repeat, Chao Ru in particular had to remove these thoughts from her mind as she lacked the same self-control that the other had, instead focusing on the matter of training.

They began with a simple warmup exercise. Chao Ru attempted to follow along with Wei Yi, but they both quickly saw that if they were to truly attempt to follow a similar routine to one another, either one of them would get absolutely nothing from it, or the other would get so tired that they would have to end this attempt right there and then.

“Your strength seems to have increased even more… Am I ever going to be able to catch up to you?”

The answer was blatantly obvious, given the existing gap between them and Wei Yi’s ability to develop far more quickly just by burning herself with some failed talismans, but she didn’t want to discourage the young woman before her too much. Instead, she said, “You don’t really need to. So long as you’re able to improve at a consistent pace, you can still get much stronger than everyone in the same realm, while I go way too far.”

“I suppose… Fine, I’ll tone things down for myself… Come on, let’s get back to it! I want to sweat enough to thoroughly soak my robes!”

‘Great enthusiasm, but after today… actually, no. After the unfortunate time spent with corruption, changing the association of that feeling to a more recent and pleasant experience would be fantastic,’ Wei Yi thought, nodding as she looked for the heaviest set of weights and most challenging training environment in the house.

Even with her absolutely immense physical might, her body was still able to sweat from the same level of effort as anyone else, which was how she managed to make her strength seem slightly less immense than it truly was in front of anyone that watched her, like when Luo Lia Kun had arrived on the night of the first day of the duels and witnessed them in bed. Typically, she would prevent this from happening whenever it would be inconvenient, such as during battle or at times when she could freely display her full ability, but she decided to not do so this time as she offered a few suggestions on how to best train their bodies to Chao Ru, basing them slightly on experience but mostly on scanning her body with spiritual perception.

As for why this occurred, she couldn’t be entirely sure, and previous encounters with physique or body cultivators didn’t shed much light on this either. Some would require far more exertion to sweat as much, while others would not, but as it hadn’t bothered her before she never looked too far into it.

Despite her body being so powerful, she had actually done far less typical exercise than one might assume, as her primary source of progress after being thrown into the prison realm changed from raising the pressure of the training set during battle to plunging herself in a pool of blood, and so her experience with training her body regularly ended near the power of the second realm, whereas Chao Ru was already at that point and needed more particular training to truly make use of all of the muscles in her body and allow them to bring her to new heights.

Thus, a new training regimen specifically tailored to her had to be made on a very limited timeframe, or in more specific terms, a few seconds.

Unlike her own body, Chao Ru had trained from beginning to end without the usage of any abnormal methods or physiques, so while she never had any moments where she needed to re-familiarize herself with how her body functioned or exactly how strong she was, she did lack a degree of uniformity with her physical development. Before further progress could be made, if she wanted it to be as pain-free and efficient as possible, the rest of the muscles that would typically be overlooked would need to be brought up to the same level.

It might come as a surprise for some to learn that there were far more muscles within the body than those that would typically be trained by such things as sprinting, lifting weights or swimming, although that last method was one of the better ways to train as much as possible at once.

However, the Luo District lacked access to large oceans in which one could swim freely, and it was still not the absolute best approach due to the existence of techniques that could influence the body in similar ways by allowing a great degree of control over the many internal muscles, allowing them to be stimulated with relatively little movement from the cultivator.

Strictly speaking, Wei Yi had never learned a technique for that specific purpose, but she was able to convert her ability to freely control every part of herself into a technique that she swiftly taught.

“I-I really appreciate this, but isn’t this incredibly complicated? Also, it uses all of the meridians, so-”

“You don’t need to cultivate something to use it. Right now, you don’t need the technique to have strength, but to function at a decent level, so all you need to do is understand how to drive your planar energy through your meridians, which shouldn’t be too tough. Let me assist you with that, and then you will be able to perform the technique yourself. Even if it’s a little slow at first, it will also help you to practise your control over planar energy,” Wei Yi explained, approaching her from behind and resting her hands on the sides of her torso.

“Is this the sort of thing that you’ve done?”

“I have a physique, so I trained that. For you, it’s slightly different, but this should work just as well. Be prepared for any discomfort – I’ve not had much of a chance to test this.”

Once she nodded, Wei Yi shut her eyes to focus and brought two clumps of planar energy to her hands, weakening it until it was at the level that one might expect from someone in her realm and stage, at which point she changed it into a calm, golden flame and carefully poured it into her body.

She couldn’t perform the technique for her, but she could assist her in pointing out exactly where to direct her energy at any one time, and with enough time and effort, Chao Ru would need less and less assistance with this technique until she could effectively use it instinctively, allowing her to activate it whenever she wanted especially during other forms of strenuous exercise to boost the development of her muscles at all times.

“Now, begin to circulate your energy. I will point out where it needs to be focused.”

Chao Ru followed her instructions, initiating her planar energy circulation and focusing all of her attention on it and any traces of another’s energy within her body.

Her planar energy senses were far weaker than that of most, so she had to strain significantly more in order to be able to detect subtle movements of energy, especially if they’re similar to the energy around them and have no obvious factors that would allow them to stand out to their perception. In a way, it was a similar effect to partial blindness and colour blindness combined into one.

Since Wei Yi appeared to be a fellow physical cultivator, with her primary strength being her own body, she expected her to have a similar prowess in planar energy to her, thinking that the display in the arena had been the effect of some particular technique that managed to resonate with her physique and allowed the flames to be amplified. This would mean that her actual planar energy would be fainter and weaker, and Chao Ru would need to focus all of her attention to detect it, especially after this energy was controlled to not negatively impact her body.

The outcome was not one that she expected, however, as the energy that surged within her body was absolutely immense.

It flared like the sun, instantly drawing her attention without giving her a single chance to miss that burst of energy, making her mind and body instantly act in accordance with it before she even had the time to understand exactly where the wisp of planar energy was.

Another and another spark of golden flame lit up within her body, and she followed them as well, quickly feeling her own planar energy acting upon the many muscles in those areas and forcing them to contract and expand and strain while balancing each other out, resulting in her almost sitting still despite feeling her energy pour away like water in a waterfall, although her sweat did certainly do exactly that.

It took her quite some time to finally understand a semblance of what was occurring to her, and how to replicate this herself. Eventually, she was able to predict or otherwise follow Wei Yi’s directions, performing the technique being bestowed upon her with far less guidance than before.

That didn’t mean that Wei Yi stopped supporting her, however. Instead, she changed the points that she lit up with her own planar energy, instead using them to correct some of Chao Ru’s mistakes and slowly develop her usage of the technique, improving efficiency and implementing any changes that she came up with since they begun to train. For a technique made in literal seconds, it was filled with an impressively few number of errors and holes, but that hardly meant that there was no room for improvement. In fact, with every moments that were spent assisting Chao Ru, she found more and more issues that she hadn’t anticipated whatsoever, making her glad that she didn’t just let her get on with this the moment that she seemed to be getting the hang of this.

‘This sort of thing is bound to be great practise, since even far more complex techniques can fall apart due to a few simple mistakes. So long as I avoid these in the future, I will not need to rely on otherworldly gifts as much, which will not only boost the speed at which I can create and improve techniques, but will also minimize the chances of them affecting my mind.’

In fact, the recent unfortunate encounter with what appeared to be an avatar of Primordial Corruption had made her ponder once more whether or not she was already under the effects of some mental influence, and how much it might be affecting her. She had, after all, spent a lot of time with the otherworldly gift of the Master of Yi City, and her current plans were rather similar to his, down to the major flaw within them, but so far as she was able to understand, this was mostly due to the current state of the world, and the people within it.

If someone like her was to step in, all of a sudden, and attempt to set up something new and unprecedented, she would face far more resistance than if she proposed the reformation of Yi City, as many people are very keen to see such a thing occur for various reasons.

At that point, it would be much easier to do things according to her own ideas under the guise of strengthening or expanding Yi City in some way, and if she was able to repeat some of Kong Shi Meng’s feats or find some artefacts that he may have left behind, it wouldn’t be difficult at all to persuade everyone that her plans were in line with his.

Her distrust of the Yi family, which partly mirrored Kong Shi Meng’s distrust of the Kong family, was also not unprovoked, given how little they tried to do against the Great Family members that attacked her, and how little they cared for a potential talent that was brought along to an expedition mostly to handle dull matters that the lower and middle members of the family did not wish to participate in, so she didn’t really consider this to be unusual, besides the series of thoughts being prompted by the memories of the Truth of the Universe.

Wei Yi did not know enough about Kong Shi Meng’s views of the heavens, as that was something that he likely wouldn’t share with his mother if it was significantly different from the usual stance, but from what little she knew about the otherworldly cultures, it was highly likely that he had some doubts about their trustworthiness and nature, but her own views on the matter were clearly provoked by hearing the words of the Greats being spoken back to her, after the point that she had established a firm mental stronghold in the form of the Augur’s Library, so it seemed unlikely for anything of an otherworldly nature to have caused this.

‘Then again, I say this now, but I may realise at any point that I’m just overlooking something obvious… I truly hope that this is not the case, but I cannot remove any of these things from my body or the prison realm at the moment, even if I wanted or could allow myself to do so,’ she thought, ‘Nevertheless, so long as I remain cautious and attentive, I should remain myself.’

She brought her attention back to reality, where she confirmed that her improvements were working, at which point she quickly found some more changes to implement, while Chao Ru struggled to keep up.

“This is… impressive… you say that… you’ve never used this?” the woman could only produce enough energy for coherent speech by taking deep breaths every other word, “With how… strong you are… and how bright… your planar energy is… I was just wondering…. whether you’re some… kind of… genius… heavens… so tired…”

“Only a minute left. Remain on your feet for now, or I’ll start groping your breasts,” Wei Yi said, glancing jokingly at the woman’s impressive chest, “Also, no, I don’t think that I am. Some are much stronger than I am, some are much smarter – probably – and quite a few have access to better opportunities than I. Personally, I think that I have just made the most of what I had, and learned as much as I could about all of it. This sort of thing is included.”

“Hah… right…” she managed to say but was unable to make any more legible sounds afterwards.

Still, she managed to remain standing just for long enough to give Wei Yi the opportunity to complete her study of the technique and do the most with the technique that she could do far. There was always more work to be done, but she now had a basic technique that could be taught to others in order to allow them to quickly train their strength. If she was to stand around them and supply them with lifeforce through the Energy Pylon physique ability, an army could potentially stand around for an hour and reach the second realm in terms of physical strength regardless of where they were when they began.

If she made everyone in the prison realm train this technique every single day – she could call it something like the Rapid Muscle Exertion, or something of the sort – then by the time that they emerged into the Planar Continents, they would be able to handle cultivators in the third realm simply by using their bodies, which could then be amplified through physique or planar energy to bring them to the fourth or fifth realm in terms of power even if they were nowhere near those two realms.

Some more adjustment would be needed, of course, especially when it came to men or those with unusual bodies and physiques, but once it was complete, a powerful army would be within reach.

‘Incorporating something to prevent the unnecessary swell of muscle, much like I had done all the way back when I had first trained my body, would also ensure that all the pretty women- I mean, everyone in the prison realm doesn’t turn into walking slabs of muscle, which, while it would be intimidating in a way, wouldn’t be very convenient.’

Since she was already holding onto Chao Ru, she didn’t let her fall to the ground, needing to use only a little more force to keep her in place, then brought her over to a nearby seat and placed her onto it delicately.

“Are you still awake?” Wei Yi asked after a short while, seeing that the only movement in her body was caused by her breath.

“…” the woman’s half-lidded eyes shifted slightly, her mouth twitching a little before she was able to produce even a single word from it, “… Yes…”

“Good, just wanted to be sure. Would you like some water?”

When she provided a semblance of a nod, Wei Yi headed over to the her kitchen and took out an empty cup that she filled by condensing some water into it through the use of planar energy, resulting in a cool and clean clear fluid, although she naturally made sure not to create pure water as to not poison her.

She returned to Chao Ru and held the cup up to her lips, waiting for her to part them sufficiently for her to be able to begin pouring water into her mouth at a slow pace, giving her enough time to swallow it fully before giving her any more.

While this was happening, she also silently funnelled a little bit of her excess accumulated lifeforce towards her, not providing her with enough to cause any major changes to her body but just enough to allow her to recover more quickly, to soothe those many aching muscles and to grant them sufficient power to be put to use within a short period of time, as Chao Ru would otherwise be incapacitated for the rest of the day, which was not desirable for either one of them.

When the cup became empty, Wei Yi refilled it, but used a fire technique to do so.

There wasn’t anything that said that a fire cultivator couldn’t make use of water techniques, including condensing water or water-like planar energy, but it was always far more likely that someone would figure out how to improvise the effects of another form of energy via their own rather than use a notably weaker technique just out of stubbornness, so it was safer to use the former kind of technique.

As for her actions in the kitchen area, she wasn’t concerned that she would be seen by Chao Ru or anyone else, with the former being too tired to possibly use her spiritual perception without the kind of experience and training that most of those within the north of the prison realm possessed due to spiritual will being their only tool and weapon within the hostile environment of that formerly silver realm, while everyone else that thought to spy upon this residence would only be able to sense the fire-type planar energy that she kept around her every usage of external energy. Her internal energy was far more difficult to detect at any one time due to her powerful physique, cultivation and killing will blocking the prying gazes of those that she did not permit to look into herself.

Someone in the sixth or seventh realm could likely look into her and see a number of unusual things, but from her own experience she knew that most wouldn’t be able to see anything but her dense planar energy and unusual body no matter how hard they looked, since the other three sets of meridians and forms of energy seemed to be obscured from the gaze of all until they learned about their existence, much like she didn’t know about her spiritual will until coming across the man from the north of the prison realm.

After a while, she decided that feeding the woman any more water would not be advisable, especially while she struggled to move, so she put the cup back and sat beside her, waiting for a little while.

“So tired… this is insane…”

“Not really. I was doing it alongside you to confirm that I wasn’t trying to make you do anything unreasonable, and, as it turns out, I was not. I mean, it’s obviously not the same since I am significantly stronger and more used to this kind of activity, but the next time, I could raise things to my level for myself to make it a little more fair,” Wei Yi suggested, putting a sudden look of horror onto Chao Ru’s face.

“You were doing what? How do you… fuck, I shouldn’t have done that…” the woman leant back in her seat, realising that her mouth and tongue were not prepared for that outburst, “How were you… able to stand so calmly?”

“Technically, the muscles in your body don’t actually move much while the technique is active, so I’m not surprised you didn’t notice it when I was also able to resist the force without much effort.”

“What… You know what… never mind… I don’t want to be… thinking about this now… Could a… massage of some sort… help?” Chao Ru wondered, “Would you know… something about those… as well… or am I just making too many… assumptions about you? You can’t know everything… can you… Wei Yi?”

“No, not everything. I do know a little about this, however. Want me to try?”

“You know… sure…”