Chapter 48: Cultivating The Third Stage

Chapter 48: Cultivating The Third Stage

I sat in the force chamber. I could almost taste the energy in the air as it pressed down on me. I had just woken up after a nap, from cultivating my ninth channel and meridian pair. I had the process down for the most part.

It had been slow and frustrating the first time, but the next eight times had given me enough confidence and experience to go quickly and efficiently. The trick was to not hesitate while carving out my channels. If you went too slow then then ones astral soul hardened too quickly.

Before I started on the next pair, I took the time to eat, drink, and relieve myself. The waste bucket was about halfway full, and it was almost time to empty it into the waste barrel, which used to be a food barrel. But the real cost to this kind of chamber was entering and exiting, allowing the energy to dissipate. That was why I had taken the absolute maximum number of resources when I entered and planned to stay in here until they were all out.

Thankfully, I could get away with eating and drinking less, and carefully paced myself. I really didnt want to use the waste bucket, but there was no choice. I carefully removed the lid and a horrible smell assaulted me. I quickly did my business and closed it back up. I was more than happy to pay the costs of having the waste bucket and barrels sealed with arrays. Sure they cost a single rank 1 spirit stone, but it was worth it in my mind.

With how bad the smell could get, there was no way I would be able to cultivate for years on end in this tiny chamber with such a horrible smell. Speed was absolutely key in terms of completing my third stage of cultivation in any reasonable time.

I had been stuck in this horrible chamber for almost a year. For any other cultivator this speed would have been insane. Completing one or two channels per year was considered the standard. I would be completing ten per year. It was mind boggling, but the Displacement Channel Carver, had been worth it by a large margin.

It was a huge investment and worth every single bit of effort I had taken to get it. After doing my business, I quickly sealed up the bucket and took the time to stretch. Only the soft blue glow of the arrays and formations lit up the tiny chamber. It was about the size of a studio apartment in a major city, so a shoebox in my mind.

Thankfully I wasnt claustrophobic, otherwise there was no way I would have been able to last. There was nothing to do but cultivate and rest down here. With the amount of force energy, the barrels were made out of spirit wood and metal in order to withstand the crushing force inside the chamber.

The sect and the Sect Leader had clearly gone all out in terms of quality and investing in me. I did bring back a lot of wealth and the chamber could be reused after I was done. Still, it was nice to see that all the contributions I had made to the sect giving tangible benefits back in return.

I finished my stretching and had a short meal of salted beast meat and a couple cups of water. Once I started carving out my channel, I needed to go as long as possible until the moment I couldnt continue. Then I would pass out and wake up as quickly as possible after that. Repeating that process until the channel was carved out.

The only way I was able to keep track of the time, was how long the spirit stones lasted on the barrels in order to seal them. Otherwise I would have no idea how long things had taken. Even then it wasnt precise, since there were gaps in spirit stone being used up and a new one being applied. Once every 100 days.

I laid out small spirit wood sticks for each spirit stone that had been consumed by the waste bucket. There were three sticks laid out, and based on how long it took to carve a channel, I had probably been in here around 320 to 340 days.Follow current novels at novelhall.com)

This test of being stuck in a chamber, cultivating was probably the hardest thing I had to do so far. It was mentally exhausting. I had never considered this issue before, since the previous stages had been rushed through once, I had the needed supplies and I cultivated while traveling. For the third stage, I needed to stay inside this chamber to attune my meridians to force energy. It was a massive luxury other cultivators would have killed for.

While I wasnt one to needlessly charge out and risk my life, being stuck in a tiny chamber for almost a year was mentally taxing. Cultivation might strengthen my body and soul, but my mental state was a reflection of myself. It was something I would have to ask about once I left this chamber for the first time.

There was no more putting off carving my next channel once I finished my meal. I lay down on the angled stone table in the center of the tiny chamber. I had used my martial robes as a pillow to rest my head and the sleeves to go over my eyes to block out what little light there was from distracting me. While I could kind of look at my body, it was distracting and not very helpful.

I picked the next channel I was carving out. There was an order to these things. Rotate around the body to reduce the stress placed on ones soul. Longer and more complex channels first, since they would impact more of the body. As one progressed through the third stage it would become slightly harder. It was a minor amount, but where every advantage was grasped, it was highly recommended to do the longer and more complex channels first.

Personally, I hadnt noticed a huge difference in terms of difficulty between the first and the ninth channel, but I wasnt going to reject millennia of wisdom. This time, I was doing a channel that started below my left eye. This was going to hurt.

The first step was to carve out my meridian, this was the most painful part. I pulled out a jade needle. The one I had was top quality, and they werent that expensive. One couldnt get a fancier needle or a better one. It was a staple of the third stage, and while people had looked there was no better material than jade, which was quite common. Even the Imperial Sect used jade needles on the third stage.

I slowly pushed the needle into my skin. At the same time it also pushed into my soul, breaking through the outer part. I adjusted my arms to rest on my chest while doing this, being comfortable in a single position for a long period of time was important. The jade needle was in place, time for step two.

With my right hand I brought up the end of the displacement channel carver to where the needle was stuck into my face. I personally liked to think of it like treating a tooth. The jade needle was the scraper, and the Displacement Channel Carver was the suction device.

Once everything was in place, I twisted the jade needle a full rotation. Energy from the surrounding began to be pulled in one end and blasted out the other into my soul. I had control of this energy. I focused on shaping the energy into a circular drill. The debris that were very tiny bits of my soul, were quickly sucked up allowing me to quickly make progress.

A regular cultivator would have to focus on expelling these tiny soul bits. Sure, it was easy at the start, but the longer and further the channel, it became much more difficult. Like trying to drill sand, the sand would just mostly settle back down.

That was why the process took so incredibly long. But with the Displacement Channel Carver, the end would be as nearly easy as the start. I just needed to focus as I drilled down. Thankfully the walls of my meridian and channels acted as a guide.

Like having clay inside a steel barrier. I might scrape along the edges occasionally, but as long as I wasnt digging into them that was fine. It hurt quite a lot at first, but then the pain mostly became a numb feeling.

The wave cone meridian design didnt take long, as I quickly drilled down. One aspect of the third stage of cultivation was gaining a much more in depth feeling of ones body. If the first stage was moving motes around and the second stage was to make the scaffolding, the third stage would fill in all the floors and completing the interior work.

Once I hit the bottom of the wave cone meridian, I spent a moment clearing and touching up a few places I had missed. This involved just blasting the minor spots with force energy the needle was pulling in.

It was important to do the minor touchups now and per each section in my channel. Once that was complete, I mentally focused on the triangular drilling method I had come up with years ago. A method to make triangular channels. Spinning a pointed oval around, and then spinning the entire pointed oval around in an almost circular pattern.

Pulling the force energy down to the tiny energy construct I had made. I began to drill out my channel. It took a moment at the start, due to me taking time to clean up and the edge hardening, but after that it went smoothly just like how I felt during the previous nine times.

This did make it harder to carve portions out of the core later on, but it was the only option. The weird part about carving out portions of ones soul was that if they were not dislodged, they would remain in place to the rest of the body. So, it didnt make a huge difference to carve out around the edges of my core first.

The main thing was to try and not let any areas I dug into with a channel connect to other channels across the core until the very end. Otherwise, the small bits of my soul could settle in places I would have to dislodge and remove. It also might cause my core to start drawing in energy too soon, which would complicate things, pushing me into the fourth stage before I was ready.

I cleared out the portion of my core, that I had set aside for this channel. I would leave a super thin barrier, as I carved out the other channels, keeping things separate in my core for as long as possible. Some channels converged before reaching my cores, but they would just connect, no further portions would be connected to my core.

Once I finished my tenth channel, I first twisted the jade needle and carefully removed it. I felt pain on my face and across the entire length of the channel until it reached my core. After that I immediately went to sleep. I always pushed myself a bit more than I should at the very end.

This was my life day in and day out. I was trying to go as fast as possible, but I couldnt afford to miss any soul bits that remained behind. I couldnt dig any faster, since it was a limit of the amount of energy I could bring to bear inside each channel.

The energy limit was something that wasnt easily overcome. It was another thing I had asked about, but there wasnt anything anyone could do without risking ones cultivation. Using a larger jade needle was about the most one could do, and I was already using the largest size.

While it was a decent amount of draw at the middle, it was painful at the start, and almost not enough at the very end. Anything larger and I would have serious problems near my meridian. Changing out jade needles wasnt an option in my mind, since it could compromise my meridian.

There had been work with one jade needle surrounding another and pushing more down, but that was only slightly better than just switching out a jade needle. That thin barrier that formed after a soul was dug out was incredibly important on ones meridian. Damage to that would only risk future problems.

After having discussed things over and reviewing my options, I elected to go the more traditional route than trying anything creative. With the Displacement Channel Carver, these small boosts werent needed, with the negatives they brought along.

Now I had just 1,294 more channels to carve out. Unless something changed in a major way, which was unlikely to happen, that meant about 130 more years of cultivation, which would put me around 180 years old when I entered the fourth stage.

There was no known way to speed this up. Even after paying the information brokers in Imperial City, the best item was the Displacement Channel Carver. Anything else was just a lesser version or had to do with the attunement one got from the energy sources they used while carving out their channels.

Experience would help a bit, but after 10 channels, I was already as efficient as I would get in digging them out. It was a daunting thing to think about how much further I had to go, and how mind numbing this all was.

When I woke up, I had thoughts about quitting or just giving up. And it wasnt the first time either. It was something that wasnt often discussed, but there were cultivators who just gave up. They were viewed as quitters and wastes of resources. The level of shame for a quitter was immense.

It was one thing to be stuck at the bottleneck and working to get past it, but it was another thing to completely give up. If someone gave up when starting, why even start in the first place? Why waste resources?

After five decades, I had finally stumbled on the answer on why all the cultivators were basically aesthetic monks. Even the more martial cultivators were subdued. This kind of long stretch of time where a person couldnt do anything else would wear on ones psyche. If I didnt need perfect attunement for my meridians and channels, then it would have been possible to take breaks outside this chamber to cultivate, between each channel.

It was also a waste of energy and resources to do anything else, but sleep, cultivate, and attend to some bodily functions. I couldnt bring anything else in the force chamber. The place was already quite cramped with supplies.

Once I woke up, I relieved myself, and then began to eat and drink. I looked at my remaining supplies. I had another nine years and change in this chamber. Another risk of starting and stopping, was that part of the design sealed me off from the outside world.

If the formations lost power, I would have to stop my cultivation fairly quickly, with the hope that I was at the end of a channel. I would probably reach 100 channels over the course of a decade, maybe 1 or 2 more. While addition was fine, the brutality of multiplication that was my cultivation was biting me on the rear.

Starting and stopping was just too expensive as well and would make my heart bleed if I did anything less than the maximum I could per session. I was definitely taking three to six months off once I was out of this chamber, that was for sure. Remind myself what the sun and people were like.

I chewed on my salted meat and then drank some water. It was time to start my eleventh channel and repeat the entire process all over again. This time I was going from my left hand. I lay down on my stone table after making sure everything was set up. I wouldnt be getting up for a bit over a month.

All of this made me wonder how people came up with cultivation, but I figured over 200,000 years just for the third age, that there were bound to be developments. That was around 40 generations for rank 8 cultivators, which was about 800 years back on Earth.

It wasnt impossibly long when people had long lifespans. But sitting in this chamber day after day, it was easy to see why cultivators believed themselves above mortals. To push themselves to such an extent, in the path of immortality and power required a very strong belief in oneself.

Lifting up the jade needle in my right hand I hesitated for around five minutes. I then let out a long sigh. There was no quitting. I had risked death to get this far. I couldnt just give up on the incredibly boring, tedious, and mentally draining part after completing all the near impossible parts. It really would be such a waste, that even I would cough out blood.

Even with all that, it felt agonizing to slowly put the jade needle into my left hand. And it was more than just pain from the needle itself puncturing my soul. It was pushing through the mental block I was developing around cultivation. Even my long carriage ride after entering the astral plane, was more interesting than being stuck in a tiny chamber.

I felt like I was doing something, returning to the sect, even while cultivating. Even if I had something to read, I couldnt afford the distraction. My speed was dependent on my focus. The more I was distracted the slower I would go which would lead to a self-destructive spiral.

This was why cultivators looked down on other cultivators who were pill pushers to get through the first stage. If one lacked the mental strength to spend time gathering motes they would never have time for the third stage and possibly later stages.

I twisted the needle, and quickly picked up the Displacement Channel Carver immediately after with my right hand. Some channels would be a much bigger pain than others, but I would manage. As long as I had at least one hand to work with, I would be able to manage. The tricky part was to find a position that I would move as little as possible at the start. Risking the needle moving and damaging my tiny meridian in any way was unacceptable.

If I was going to suffer, then I wasnt going to self-sabotage myself. I started digging out my next meridian and channel pair.