Chapter 5: Cultivation Routine
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[ Age: 1 year, 254 days. ]
I woke from my slumber and extended my spiritual senses to gain awareness of my surroundings.
This was now part of my routine and I had become so accustomed to it that it felt mostly automatic.
First, as I woke up, I would extend my senses to their limit. Though I had a passive perception radius, I could only gain detailed information on things within or just slightly beyond my radius if I directed my sentience to it. This, and moreso with distance, was very exhausting. I became aware that this effort and my capacity to exert it was limited. This fatigue would affect the speed at which I could cultivate Qi.
[ Cultivation Speed: 4 Qi/day. Efficiency: 3% ]
This was not very fast, even now as I was fully rested. Back then, the support module informed me that my cultivation target was at a whopping 3000 Qi. And that was only to reach the Mid Qi Refining realm.
That would take over two years.
I knew intrinsically that, even though I could spend that much time to cultivate my spirit to the Mid Qi Refining realm, the next stage would take even longer. Because the basic breathing method I used to cultivate Qi even though I do not actually breathe did not have a bottleneck at the Late Qi Refining period, the next stage would be the Peak Qi Refining realm, and then I could form a foundation.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.
Even if I had to guess conservatively, I think it would take me longer than fifty years to build my foundation and extend my lifespan.
I would only die of old age six times over before I built my foundation. No big deal.
Lastly, and most uselessly, a way to increase my cultivation speed considerably was to directly burn my lifespan in order to achieve it. This was out of the question.
My lifespan was a precious resource that I could not just waste on an inefficient cultivation method.
I had made other advances in this time, which I consider far more important. The reason why my routine was to extend my senses to their limit, despite this affecting the speed at which I could cultivate, was because I could train them by doing so.
[ Soul Perception ] - Grade D - Rank 89
When my rank and Grade improved from E to D it nearly doubled my perception radius. The last improvement was at Rank 50, so I am hopeful that I would gain another improvement at Rank 100. The more I could see the better.
With my current meager perception radius of around 25 meters, I was as good as blind, even though I could see everything in that radius in all directions which was useful.
So this had been the first step of my routine and the one I had put most of my effort in within the last seventy days or so.
The next step was to absorb the Insights which I had gained, but I had unfortunately completely exhausted this resource in my last awakening cycle. I considered obtaining more manuals suitable for my cultivation level, but decided against it. I knew that I could obtain Insights through the practical approach as well, and at the moment, I was not so interested in Alchemy or Refining.
Finally, with my diminishing consciousness I would actively cultivate my body, compressing my vitality down and absorbing the surrounding Qi in order to progress my cultivation.
[ Early Vessel Refining progress: 98.1% ]
One more feeding cycle and I would break through to the Vessel Hardening stage. For the first time in my existence, as far as I could remember, I felt excitement.