Chapter 13 13 – Freedom Of Information

That day, Ken only stopped cultivating twice; once for lunch, and once to wash his sweat before his parents arrived.

This process went on for a week. He slowly enlarged his dantian painfully and then soothed it pleasantly. A week later, he got to the maximum size and couldn't make it grow anymore.

'Now it's time for the second phase of the dantian awakening process.'

Instead of pushing the dantian's boundaries, the energy entered the boundaries and strengthened them directly.

The dantian's maximum Qi capacity was limited by two things – its size and its firmness. The larger it was the more Qi could enter, and the firmer it was, the more this Qi could be compressed into a smaller ball of energy which exuded more pressure.

If someone tried to absorb more Qi into his dantian after it was filled, he'd have to compress the Qi to make more room. If he compressed the Qi to the point his dantian couldn't stand the pressure anymore, his dantian would burst and that person will most likely die or be crippled.

So this whole week Sol would sit next to him and they cultivated together every day, all day. Sol was now working again on her dantian in order to push it to the limits with the new technique. She refused to cultivate in a different room; she wanted to be by Ken's side in case something went wrong with his cultivation.

Since she was cultivating quietly, Ken just let her be. Another week started, and Ken was enlarging his dantian again; with the new firmness, he could stretch it again.

'My dantian is far larger than Sol's from before giving her the manual I created. Although her current one is the same size as mine, my dantian's firmness is much higher. More importantly, my dantian became now a part of my constitution and will grow with me in the future as part of my natural growth.'

Awakening his dantian took him 3 months, and he trained almost 10 hours daily. While it might sound like a long time, it was the same amount of time that Sol needed the first time she went through the process, and that's only because he switched his techniques each time he exhausted the effects of the former technique.

"Sol, don't train your meridians with the former manual I gave you. I've learned a lot in those days, so I'll write a better one for you. Just wait a few days."

The former manual he wrote for her meridians' awakening couldn't represent the manual he had planned to use for himself, so he couldn't use its effects for reference anymore.

"Thank you, Young Master, you're the best!"

She hugged him, catching him unprepared.

"Uhm, sorry, I overstepped my place."

She apologized and lowered her head when she realized he didn't hug her back. Ken didn't mind it, he understood she was just expressing her gratitude.

"It's ok, I'm just not the hugging type."

"Pfft!"

She couldn't hold her laughter for a moment but soon restrained herself by biting her lower lip forcefully.

"Why are you laughing?"

He squinted his eyes in anger. He didn't like being laughed at, it reminded him of his former life when he was considered a failure. A cold aura exuded from his body.

Now that his dantian was formed and slowly absorbed Qi inside, he could manifest the Qi in some ways, and aura was one of them. He didn't mean to do it, it just happened naturally in his anger.

"I'm sorry, Young Master! I just had a stupid thought that you are only two years old and already know what you like!"

Ken calmed when he heard her explanation. He didn't think about her perspective; it must have sounded weird to hear a baby calling himself a person. He understood he had been too sensitive; Sol wasn't in a position to mean any harm to him.

"Forget it."

"Young Master, the librarian started asking me why I'm swapping books daily. What should I tell him?"

"Just stop borrowing new books. Return the last batch in 4 weeks from now, I've learned enough. I already read everything you gave me in another book or understood on my own by reading the former books. They have no further value to me."

It was the truth. Although he diligently read all the books she had brought, they didn't add any new knowledge. He felt he already understood all there was to understand about the Meridian Awakening Stage.

He spent the next day writing the manual for Sol and gave it to her. This time it was based more on the manual his father gave to him rather than on the one she used.

"This is only the manual for the major and minor meridians. As for the collateral ones, I'll write the manual for them later."

During those three months he was working on his dantian, Sol already finished boosting hers in a month since she already went through some of the processes and her manual was shorter than Ken's. She used the other two months to open her seventh meridian.

"Thank you."

She thanked him and sat down to read the manual. She already understood that her young master liked it when she worked hard and showed him the results of his work as soon as possible. If she spent the day playing around or being lazy, he'd frown and turn grumpy until she did what he wanted her to do.

Ken found a problem with his test subject. The best her body could achieve with his techniques was awakening the major and minor meridians. Because of her poor foundation from the former stage, she wouldn't be able to test his manual for the collateral meridians in the future.

'It's not too late to boost her body foundation because the second stage doesn't affect the body, it's just opening the meridians and the dantian. I need to make plans to improve it for her and I will probably be able to improve mine as well since I didn't have enough data when I created the manual for myself, although I've maximized the gains with what I had.'

It was better to lose a month or two and maximize the gains of each step than to regret having lower strength and a limited future later. He decided to finish the farce of having his father teach him how to read that night.

"My son is a genius! You can read before you turned 3, that must be a record in the sect!"

Later that night when his father showed him the letters, he displayed enough reading skills to graduate from his father's reading school, making his father excited instantly.

"Daddy, now I can read the book you gifted me! I placed it in my drawer, let me go get it and we can read some of it together."

Haoran started sweating bullets. He didn't want to see his son's downcast face when he realizes the book was gone. He already stole it two weeks ago, which was also why Ken felt he could proceed with his plan.

He wanted enough time to pass so it won't seem suspicious that he brought the book up, and now was a perfect time.

"Wuuuu! I can't find my book, Daddy! Help me find it!"

He started crying loudly, screaming his soul out as if he was subjected to horrendous child abuse.

"Little Ken, don't cry, don't cry! It's just a book, I will get you another one!"

"I want the same one!"

"Um, it will take a few years for me to get another copy of this book, Ken. Can't you wait?"

Haoran didn't want his son to cultivate his dantian yet, so despite Ken's heart-breaking wails, he wouldn't budge on this matter.

"No!"

"What if I give you other books?"

"They will be gone too!"

He refused outright. It was time to put an end to these limits on information; he was from the internet era where freedom of information was a thing.

"I want access to the library. I want Sol to take me there every day!"

Ken watched his father hesitate before he decided to scream again.

"What happened? Why is he crying? Ken, are you ok?"

His mother stormed into the room this time. She didn't enter before because she knew her husband was with him, but after hearing him crying twice she got worried, especially because Ken rarely cried.

"He's fine, dear, nothing happened."

"My book is gone from my drawer! Someone took it from me!"

Mei was obviously aware of what really happened to the book. She glared at her husband; she was against giving him the book just to steal it after.

"He wants access to the library now."

His father said with a helpless tone. Although they could arrange that with their identity, it was still an awkward request to make to the sect. Besides, Sol wasn't supposed to be part of the privileged.

"It's okay sweetheart, I can give you access to the library in my alchemy division. You love alchemy, right?"

"No, the missing book was a gift from Dad, I want access to the library in the guarding division!"