Chapter 13 - Staying

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  As Gu Xuan walked slowly within the forest while rubbing his empty stomach, he started analyzing in his mind.

  ‘A session of push ups took me 1 hour to finish. Squats, Sit ups, and running through the forest all took the same amount of time. Meanwhile in between those basic training, I also took more or less an hour to speed up my body’s recovery through inner qi circulation. A full session took me 8 hours? I did 2 full sessions twice so it’s 16 hours?’

  After he finished calculating the time from when he climbed the mountain, he gazed at the tall mountain quite a distance away from his current place and also the only mountain in the Crescent Island.

  ‘Is the Mess Hall even open at midnight?’

  Gu Xuan never expected that he was going to be training so much after all. Originally, he was just gonna test his full strength, but upon finding out that his body was too weak to withstand his full power continuously, he decided to make up for his weakness.

  But for now, he had to eat, so he decided to hunt for food instead of going up the mountain. The Central District was too far away, it’ll take him at least an hour to travel even at full speed at his current distance.

  He had gone too far in his training. Although the Crescent Island was just a small island, it was still big enough to host at least a thousand disciples in one district alone in the Lower District.

  Jumping up a tree branch in a slightly proficient manner, he started traveling into the depths of the forest.

  His goal was to find a river. From his experience, wild game isn’t good in the forest because there’s no seasoning and he’s not a professional in terms of handling meat, he usually sends it to the butcher to be properly cut up and dissected.

  In the forest, it’s better to eat fruits and fish.

  As he traveled from one tree to another, he would occasionally grab an apple and eat as he scanned for a river.

  Within a few minutes, he had eaten a couple of apples that he snatched from the trees along the way, but since he finally found a river, he made the last apple he grabbed as the last fruit that quenched his hunger slightly.

  When his feet touched the ground, he ate an apple with his right hand whilst he looked for dry twigs to start a fire.

  After he had gathered enough, he started a campfire on the side of the river.

  He pulled out the two books he took from the Martial Arts Library from his sash and put them aside.

  He jumped into the river fully clothed, and swam like a fish. He caught several fishes, and as he rose from the river, he threw them all into the ground.

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  The fishes struggled on the ground but since there was no water, it was all in vain. It was cruel but that’s just how life is. The strong prey on the weak. If the fish was a strong spiritual beast that was far stronger than Gu Xuan, the roles would be reversed.

  Since he had already caught the food that he was going to eat, he took off all his clothes and washed them in the river. When he was done, he sat on the side of the river, half submerged whilst thinking.

  ‘It’s a bit weird to take a bath without soap but maybe I’ll have the chance to find some in the mortal world, I’ll go out after my body is strong enough to handle my full strength. Not only that, I should also work on my qi control first, and then learn the “Silent Step Footwork”.’

  Gu Xuan couldn’t help but chuckle as he looked at the dark sky in the night filled with shining stars and a blooming full moon.

  When he was first reincarnated, he had an embarrassing past of yelling words such as “System”, “Status”, and etc.. He had reincarnated after all, why couldn’t he have a system? After finding out that he really did not have any, he decided not to embarrass himself further. But since he had no system interface to refer to, as one could notice, he chose to gamify his life.

  That’s why he likes to use precise measurements like hours, and even takes note of how much time it would take him to cultivate from point a to point b.

  For example, if he did 2 full sessions of 720 repetitions per basic workout like push ups, in 1 year, wouldn’t that amount to over five hundred thousand repetitions?

  1440 repetitions for each basic workout per day. The amount isn’t too much for someone of his cultivation but when calculated in a year that has 365 days, isn’t the number scary?

  Just by the fact that one has done five hundred thousand repetitions, even if one doesn’t see progress in the short term, wouldn’t they still want to try and see what would happen to them or see the result after all that work?

  Watching the full moon blooming in the sky while bathing in the river, he smiled in nostalgia, enjoying his bath in the river.

  After a couple of minutes of bathing, he finally walked out of the river, his pants were still wet, but since he had no other choice, he chose to wear it and let his robes dry near the fire first.

  With his current realm’s constitution, he could still handle the cold quite well, if not, why would he be bathing in the river in the middle of the night?

  He put the fishes he caught in wooden sticks and put them in a row beside the campfire to cook.

  Since he had no cellphone to play with in the cultivation world, he decided not to waste time and sat in a cross-legged position to try and recover his inner qi.

  The inner qi in the dantian doesn’t recover on their own, one can only absorb spiritual qi from the outside world.

  It’s only difficult to absorb spiritual qi when one is increasing one’s total capacity as if some strange invisible restriction but if one is simply recovering used inner qi, it is quite fast.

  After 30 minutes of absorbing spiritual qi from outside, Gu Xuan’s inner qi had been refilled by at least 1/8th of what he had lost.

  In other words, he would be able to recover half of his total inner qi or the inner qi he had consumed due to enhancing his recovery speed within 4 hours of continuous absorption but he opened his eyes soon, after all, the fishes he cooked over the fire were already cooked, if he let it cook more, he’d be eating charcoal.

  As he ate the fish on the sticks, he nodded to himself, ‘Looks like I don’t need to go up anyway, I can just stay in the forest to train. Although I’ll sacrifice seasoned food for a while, I’d rather my skills improve first. Furthermore, Elder Yan said I could return the books I took next year instead of next month so there’s no need to rush.’

  After he had finished eating all the fish he had cooked, he was full.

  He adjusted his breathing for a moment before he sat once again in a cross-legged position and started recovering the inner qi he had used awhile ago.

  After he had completely recovered, he opened his eyes and a sharp glint flashed before he once again resumed his training.

  Under the full moon, a young man was diligently training in the dark where no one was watching.

  In the blink of an eye, a year passed.

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