Chapter 7: Pressure Points and Safety Protocols (Refurbished)
Elias sat motionless, he didn’t have much time, he felt bloated . He wasn’t meditating in the slow, sleepy way the sect taught, where disciples just breathed deeply and hoped for the best. No, Elias was doing something far more intense: he was actively managing and monitoring a 37.2-trillion-node spiritual network—his own body—for any signs of self-detonation. It was like being the sole engineer of a massive, super-sensitive power grid, constantly checking for blown fuses.
A tiny flicker behind his ribs—cluster 2A03-Q (as he mentally labeled it) had a momentary wobble in its energy flow. He gently nudged the internal rotation angle of the Qi within that cell cluster by five degrees. Fixed. Another little energy node in the sole of his right foot was vibrating slightly out of sync with the rest of his leg’s energy channels. He ran a quick three-second recalibration cycle. Smoothed.
"Can’t believe the manuals call this ’just sitting still’, my buttocks hurt." he muttered, a dry chuckle escaping his lips. He was working harder sitting still than most cultivators did during a full sparring match.
His skin felt tight. And he didn’t mean it in a dramatic, "I’m so stressed" way. It was literally stretched from the inside, his skin under immense pressure. Qi energy was packed so densely within his billions of cells that the internal pressure could probably vaporize a small frog if he concentrated it enough. It was like wearing a suit that was slowly expanding, but the suit was his own body.
There was no guide for this. No ancient scroll in the outer, inner, or even the super-secret core library said anything about what to do when your entire circulatory system felt like it was whistling like a leaky teapot.
He shifted slightly on his meditation mat, and the stone floor beneath him gave a low, protesting creak. He felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple, not from heat, but from the sheer concentration.
"I’ve become a pressure cooker," he mumbled. A very dangerous, very concentrated pressure cooker.
Elias wasn’t worried about failing in his cultivation. He was worried about leakage. With that much Qi packed into his system, even a slight slip-up, a tiny misalignment of energy flow, could be catastrophic. It could rupture a meridian (like a burst pipe in his internal energy system). Or, worse, ignite spontaneous cellular combustion—meaning, a part of him could just burst into flames-or more like blood splatter.
"If one of my eyelashes gets itchy, I might vaporize the roof of this cave. Or worse, my entire arm." The thought was both terrifying and, to his strange scientific mind, morbidly fascinating. The potential energy release was enormous.
So, naturally, he created backup systems. Lots of them.
He began with his nervous system—using his precise divine sense power to map and encode conditional escape valves. He saw his nerves not just as signal carriers, but as potential emergency bypass routes. Each major nerve cluster became a controlled bleed-off node, programmed to activate if internal Qi pressure in that area exceeded a preset, dangerous threshold. It was like installing tiny pressure release valves all over his body.
He mentally carved the first node at the base of his spine, layering in mind-scan runes so small, so intricate, they’d make a fly’s eye seem bulky in comparison. Then he placed eight more, strategically across his torso and limbs, forming an internal emergency array woven directly into his flesh.