Chapter 14: Nine Sky-Devouring Dragon.
The next day, Arah sat cross-legged in the backyard, bare-chested, and sweat rolling down his skin. His breath was slow, deep, and controlled. With every inhale, soul energy flowed through his body, circulating throughout, but he was not absorbing it; he was using just enough to widen and prepare his meridians.
He hadn’t stored any of the energy yet. Not truly... He was waiting until his meridians could expand to their limit, and honestly, he was impressed. He had widened them by a large margin already, almost to the same size he had when he first started cultivating back in the day, and he still felt he hadn’t reached the limit yet. Only then would he begin true absorption.
But there was something else he’d discovered. Something important.
’Muscle refinement...’
On the second day of his training, Arah had realized he could reinforce his physical structure using traces of soul energy. Strengthening his muscles without alerting anyone. Kren had later confirmed his theory, saying that the body needed to adapt to soul energy in order to fully utilize it.
So he was basically refining his body and would soon start absorbing soul discs to improve his soul energy. That way, he could cut the time it would take to reach full Rank 1 in half. But that didn’t mean it was easy. He didn’t have much soul energy to control, and stimulating it through muscle was much harder than moving it through his meridians.
He also had to be careful, just in case Kren noticed something was off or anyone else, really.
He couldn’t risk doing anything that might draw attention from people with sharper senses. So he had to do just enough to strengthen himself, but not so much that it drew notice.
Today was no different.
After several more cycles of breath and circulation, Arah finally stood. It hadn’t even been a full month since he’d taken this body, but already its muscle structure had begun to take form. His efforts were starting to show.
He sighed.