Chapter 173: Mental Anguish (II)

One might argue that a cultivator isn't born with the knowledge of how to cultivate Qi, he learns it as he grows older and for about ten years, he doesn't cultivate because of his very young age and weak meridians.

But this fact doesn't mean there's no Qi in his body, in fact, the body of a cultivator is naturally sensitive towards Qi and automatically absorbs it even though it doesn't make him cultivate or increase his cultivation. 

There's always a little flow of Qi even through the body of a toddler. Ye Tian Yun blew out air from his mouth as the pain slowly subsided.

But he knew it wasn't gone for good, but rather it was only stopped because the needle was not moving. As soon as he touched his acupuncture needle again, the pain would start once again, and as he got closer to the meridian, it would only increase more in terms of intensity.

Ye Tian Yun scrunched his eyebrows and ignoring this mental anguish, he pushed his morale up and moved his hands towards the needle.

As his hands came close to the needle, his whole life flashed in front of him, 'Damn it, getting beheaded didn't hurt as much as this acupuncture. If only I had paid attention to the teachings, I could have done all this without feeling a tinge of pain.'

And as expected, as soon as his hands touched the needle, the pain came back.

The one thing interesting about all the pain that Ye Tian Yun was going through was that it also gave him a weird feeling that he was just imagining all the pain.

It was as if he was hallucinating all this pain and this only made things harder for him.

All this pain that he was feeling was due to two reasons:

The blocked Qi flow creating pressure on his meridians.

And his body not being used to the sudden absence of Qi.

A cultivator's body could never exist without Qi, and thus it's hard for him to live like a mortal. And this was one of the reasons why if someone was crippled, he became weaker than even regular mortals, even if his physical body was in top condition.

And this flow is what determines one's talent. The faster one's body can prepare itself to get used to the Qi flow, the earlier he can start cultivating.

Usually, it takes about ten years for an average cultivator, while geniuses like Ye Tian Yun can get their body in top shape to start cultivation by the age of six.

Even then, the cultivation remains slow and it takes time for exponential growth in cultivation speed.

But the Qi flow is the main difference that makes someone a mortal or a cultivator.

And right now, as Ye Tian Yun pushed the needle close to the meridian, it showed how painful it was for someone who gets crippled.

One knee was enough to make someone like Ye Tian Yun wince in pain, the intensity of pain when someone gets crippled and loose Qi flow from all the meridians at once is something that's hard to imagine.

However, the human body somehow also has an emergency plan for such a scenario. And Ye Tian Yun was currently waiting for it to start.

What the body does is that it forces itself to go through an adrenaline rush which then diminishes the intensity of pain the cultivator is about to go through due to the crippling of his Qi flow.

Ye Tian Yun was currently waiting for his body to react on its own by sensing the blocked Qi flow. Once the body feels that if the Qi flow is not lost, it would put the body in the adrenaline rush.

This adrenaline rush is important for Ye Tian Yun because he will get some relief from the mental anguish. This can relieve him from the hallucination of the pain and it will also save a lot of time because acupuncture is a long process due to the pain and physical changes, like the bulging of the meridians due to the blocked Qi flow.

Ye Tian Yun let out a deep breath as the needle was finally put in place and the Qi flow below his knees was not effectively blocked.

He couldn't help but sigh in relief as the pain slowly began to subside. Suddenly, he couldn't help but smile as he saw the position of his legs.

He had one needle between the thumb and index toe on both of his feet. Then there were also two more needles on his achilles' tendons, the muscles behind his foot, and in the end, he had one needle behind his knee while the other was through the gap through his knee cap.

With these needles in awkward places, Ye Tian Yun also had to keep them from moving, thus he couldn't let them touch the ground. This made him put his legs in an awkward position.

But Ye Tian Yun didn't mind this, it wasn't as if all this came as a surprise. Except for the intensity of the pain, he had already expected everything else, even the resulting awkward pose of his legs.

Letting out a sigh, Ye Tian Yun then took another needle and continued on the remaining parts of his body.

The next place he needed to put the needles was at the edges of his pelvis bone. This would then block the Qi flow in the lower half of his body. And if things go right, his body should react to it.

And just as he had expected, as soon as he put two needles on both sides of his pelvis bone, his body suddenly reacted.

It froze all of a sudden and in the next instant, it felt as if he was about to explode!

Ye Tian Yun didn't need to use his brain cells to understand that he was currently going through an adrenaline rush!

...

A/n: There have been few complains regarding too much fillers in this arc. About this, I want to assure you that I have no other choice but to point things out beforehand to make future plot easier to happen. These chapters are to remove possible huge plot holes for the future.