'I hate this form of travel,' Harry groaned as he was whirled around, one hand tightly grasping the tattered shoe, the other holding the Exalted Cat.
He experienced this once before, back when he was teleported away from Crystal Mine City. Back then, his necklace transported him through space in a similar manner. After he landed, he was caught up in the sight of Ox Ford City, and the need to find shelter, so he didn't have time to dwell upon the bizarre form of travel.
The spinning stopped, and he crashed into the ground. He braced himself for a hard impact, but the ground was surprisingly soft, like sinking into a carpet. Getting up, he took a look around his surroundings.
He was standing on a soft, golden-brown land. The ground was made of countless grains of tiny rocks, forming a smooth surface. Each step he took sank into the ground, and left behind a footprint. In front of him, and to the left and right, were three towering cliffs, many meters high. Compared the forest scenery, his surroundings were completely different.
Harry took a deep breath. The air here was cleaner, fresher, with a salty smell. It was also very humid.
"What was that? And where are we?"
"That was a Portkey. It's a teleportation device, like your necklace. As for where we are – look behind you," the cat answered.
He turned around, and let out a surprised gasp.
Behind him was an endless expanse of water. It took him some time to realize he was looking at the ocean. It was enormous. Enormous wasn't enough of a word. In fact, Harry didn't know if he had the words to describe it. It was endless.
The blazing Sun hung in the sky, backed by the pale blue sky. The clouds reflected on the water, which stretched towards the horizon. The color of the ocean matched that of the sky, to the point where Harry couldn't tell where the water ended, and the sky began.
'Sand,' Harry realized. 'I'm standing on sand. Real sand, this time.'
"I've never seen the ocean before," he smiled. "It's beautiful."
"It is," the Exalted Cat nodded, in a rare moment of agreement. "Now, let's get going. We're on a tight schedule."
Reluctantly, Harry turned away from the ocean and followed the cat towards the cliffs. They stopped and sat down by the base of one.
"Boy, the recruitment event will start tomorrow. You must break through the 7th level of the Body Tempering Realm by tonight. Sit here and meditate for a bit, strengthen your will, and prepare," the cat instructed.
Harry nodded and mentally prepared himself. Opening the 6th meridian, the Large Intestine Meridian, was already extremely painful. Harry couldn't help but feel some fear over opening the 7th.
He reached into his pocket, and pulled out the 24 high-quality Body Nourishing Pills he got from the Alchemist in the market, along with the healing pills. With a wave of the cat's paw, the 12 pills Slughorn concocted appeared on the ground. In all, there were 36 high-quality pills.
"36 pills, just to get from the 6th to the 7th level," the cat muttered. It sighed and shook its head.
"Boy, are you ready?"
'No,' Harry thought.
The 7th, 8th, and 9th meridians were the Blood Vessel, Muscle, and Skeletal Meridians. Unlike the first six meridians, which were located in a specific area of the body, the last three were spread throughout. The Blood Vessel Meridian, for example, transported Qi through the body along the veins. When he started to open the meridian, not only would he feel agonizing pain, he would also feel it everywhere in his body. It was no exaggeration to say that every inch of his body would be hurting.
'Let's just get this over with,' he sighed. Opening one of the vials, Harry took out eight high-quality Body Nourishing Pills and shoved them all into his mouth.
The Exalted Cat would normally have stopped such an action, but it had grown used to the way Harry cultivated. Instead it opted to sit by the side, and made sure nothing interfered with Harry's cultivation.
'The sooner this is over, the better.'
With that thought, he extinguished the last bit of hesitation in his mind, and pushed the Qi through.
It was just like he expected.
Agony. Pure agony, felt in every region of his body. Every bit of his body was on fire, from his face to his toes, every inch of his body felt like it was being cut and torn apart.
On the shore of a picturesque beach, the sound of a scream shattered the silence.
The pain of opening this meridian was on a completely different level than before.
He ground his teeth until he felt like they would snap off. He clenched his fists so hard that his nails left marks in his skin, no easy feat considering how tough his body was. He relentlessly poured Qi into the meridian, through his bloodstream, into every inch of his body, fighting back against the poison wreaking havoc in his system.
Every little movement brought endless agony, but he persevered. Under normal circumstances, he would long have refined all the Qi by now. But this time, the poison was fighting back, preventing Qi from normally flowing through his body. Every time he pushed, something pushed back, and wrought his body with pain in the process.
Without warning, he lurched forward and vomited out a mouthful of blood, along with the contents of his last meal. But even through it all, he continued cultivating.
An hour passed. Since the 7th meridian was spread throughout the body, opening it and fighting the poison were far more difficult. If opening the first six meridians were like fighting against single opponents, opening the 7th was like being surrounded on all sides.
It was the most pain Harry ever experienced, far worse than opening all his other meridians, combined. Even the pain of being burned alive by the Scarlet Flame Wolf paled in comparison.
'Just a bit longer, just a bit longer,' he lied to himself.
Every time he thought he experienced the most pain possible, reality cruelly opened his eyes.
It wasn't until the Sun nearly set when he finally felt his Blood Vessel Meridian start opening, and Qi began flowing through, throughout his entire body at once. Harry flopped onto the ground, gasping for breath.
Though the pain was gone, the lingering effects were still there. He could barely form coherent thoughts, much less move. Instead, the Exalted Cat shoved the rest of the pills into his mouth, and Harry just let his body refine them.
10 pills, 15 pills, 20… now, it didn't take long for the rest of the pills be refined. After 34 pills, he felt his Blood Vessel Meridian open completely.
If he hadn't been in crippling pain, he would have celebrated. He finally reached the high-level of the Body Tempering Realm!
"You're not done yet, boy. Refine these next."
With a wave of its paw, a pile of glittering red rocks appeared, each exuding heat and harsh light. The Sun had just set, but the Natural Essences brought light back to the beach. The temperature harshly increased, and Harry felt like he was sitting right next to a fire.
Harry forced himself into a sitting position, and in a pain-induced haze, he reached over to grab one. The moment he touched a rock, he yelped and snatched his hand back.
Hot!
'I should have known,' he grumbled. Since these rocks were pure Fire Qi, of course they would be hot.
"Boy, it's just a little bit of heat, was it worse than opening the Blood Vessel Meridian? Was it worse than the Beast Flame?"
Harry supposed the cat's words had some merit. After the pain of opening the 7th meridian, this heat was nothing in comparison. Steeling his mind, he grabbed a handful of the rocks, and willed the Nameless Seed into action.
Tszzzzzzz…..
The sound of searing flesh filled the air, and the smell of burning skin filled his nostrils. It was a very strong, nasty smell, and knowing it came from his own flesh only made it worse. He gritted his teeth, and resolutely blocked the pain out of his mind.
The Nameless Seed greedily absorbed the Fire Qi, but Harry was in too much pain to appreciate it. All he could feel was the searing heat on his palm, along with a line of fire stretching through his arm and into his abdomen.
It wasn't as painful as the Beast Flame, but it was more prolonged. The Fire Qi in the Beast Flame was pretty much sucked away instantly. But the Fire Qi in these rocks was very condensed, and there wasn't enough contact room for Harry to absorb it all. A few minutes of agony passed, then the rocks in his hand had all their essence drained. With no more Fire Qi, they turned into piles of dust that scattered to the ground.
The palm of his hand turned red and black from the heat of the Natural Essences. Gross lesions covered half his hand, while the other half was peeling off. He quickly swallowed a healing pill, and watched his hand heal at a visible speed.
It was another quirk of his body that Slughorn couldn't explain. For normal people, it would take hours, or days, for a Healing Pill to be refined. But for Harry, it took minutes.
When he recovered, he grabbed the next pile of Natural Essences. Once again, he forcefully endured the heat as he cultivated. Bit by bit, the Fire Qi was extracted out of the rocks, and drops of blood were converted in his veins. The pain he was feeling was diminished by the joy he felt with the birth of each new drop. He knew these drops of blood represented an extraordinary amount of power.
'Pain is but a temporary thought,' he chanted to himself, repeating Slughorn's words to himself over and over.
The pile of Natural Essences didn't disappear until well past midnight. As for the Healing Pills, they were long gone. After a night of self-torture, the result was that his hand was a charred, ugly mess… and only a third of the blood in his body was replaced.
"Boy, take this Healing Pill. What's your progress with Burning Blood?"
"I'm only a third of the way done," Harry groaned. Once again, he got the feeling that he tortured himself for absolutely no reason at all.
Surely there was a better way to cultivate Burning Blood? Getting Wood Qi was so easy and painless, why was getting Fire Qi so difficult?
He tossed the pill into his mouth, and watched as his hand began to heal.
"One third," the cat muttered. "Damn, you really are a bottomless pit."
Harry just sighed as he refined the pill. For Strengthening Flesh, he refined the Wood Qi in hundreds of trees, and only finished the First Minor Accomplishment because of Slughorn's mysterious block of wood, which was basically a cheat item that saved him weeks of time.
The cat estimated it required the Wood Qi in 400 Mulberry Trees to finish Strengthening Flesh. It had to be known that Mulberry Trees were already among the richest Ordinary Grade trees, yet he needed the equivalent of 400 of them!
Then for Burning Blood, he knew he would need around the same amount, just in Fire Qi. The Yellow Ember Berries he ate were pretty much negligible. If he were to rely on those berries alone, he would need tens of thousands to complete Burning Blood.
The Beast Flame was rich in Fire Qi, but he didn't have access to it for long. Besides, it wasn't a method he wanted to rely on. After the Beast Flame, he used the Beast Cores of some Ordinary Grade Scarlet Flame Wolves, but those barely helped. Doing some quick mental math, Harry calculated he would need to kill about 6,000 Scarlet Flame Wolves. No need to mention how much time or effort that would take, where in the world would he find 6,000 of those beasts?
The most helpful items were those Natural Essences. But Natural Essences were rare items. They took a long time to condense, and were difficult to find. It would be unrealistic to expect to find more of them.
He hadn't realized just how much Wood Qi he refined, since it was readily available in the forest. All he had to do was wander around and hug trees when he found them. As a result, he ended up taking Wood Qi for granted. But for Fire Qi, he was quickly realizing the difficulty of the task in front of him.
Harry couldn't help but birth some self-doubt. Would he be able to complete the Nameless Technique in two years? He only obtained all the Wood and Fire Qi with the help of the Exalted Cat and Slughorn. Once they were gone, would he be able to do it alone?
"So, it seems it'll take you a while longer to finish Burning Blood," the cat said. "Well, good luck with that."
Harry's face fell. Why did the cat sound like it was amused?
"Go ahead and get some rest. I'll wake you up in the morning."
"Boy, what is your name?"
"James Evans."
"What cultivation technique do you practice?"
"I don't practice any cultivation techniques."
"Why is your body so tough?"
"I was born like this."
The cat nodded approvingly. "If you are asked those questions, respond as you just did. Don't mention the Nameless Technique, no matter what. Don't mention the Nameless Seed or Rock, no matter what. Don't mention your ability to identify Magic Plants. Don't mention me, or Slughorn. Don't give your real name. And don't take off your mask, or else anyone who knew James Potter will recognize you."
"Who here would recognize my father?"
"Boy, just don't take the mask off."
"Ok, I won't."
"And about that thing with the snake… I have spoken to Slughorn about it."
"What snake – oh, you mean, how I can talk to them?"
"Never, ever, ever, display or disclose that ability. Ever."
Harry looked at the Exalted Cat, and it stared back at him with nothing but dead seriousness in its eyes. Without him even realizing it, the atmosphere around him was trembling, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose up. For the first time, he felt a sense of danger from the cat, as if it could kill him with a single glare.
"I won't," Harry promised. Immediately after, the world returned to normal.
"Keep walking down this road, and you'll arrive at the Swan Sea Sect. But before you go, I want to say one last thing."
"What is it?"
"Your mother… Lily, she loved you very much. She hoped you could live a peaceful life, and not be caught up in the struggles of cultivators. Slughorn and I respected those wishes – until we found out about the poison. We had no choice but to help you cultivate."
"Once you reach the 9th level of the Body Tempering Realm, you should be free from the poison. After that, your life is your own to live. Whether you continue this path, or decide to follow your mother's wishes, the choice is all yours. But, never forget those questions I just asked you."
Harry nodded, but hesitated before making any movement. Instead, he stared at the cat with an odd expression on his face.
"Boy, what is it? If you need to fart, then let it out. If you need to speak, then just say it."
"Exalted Cat, will I see you again?"
The question slipped out of Harry's mouth, as if the words were beyond his control. Even though he had plenty of frustrating moments with the cat, it was his friend and companion. Now that it was leaving, he was already beginning to miss it.
"If you keep cultivating, we will surely meet again. Those who are strong are destined to cross paths."
And with that final remark, the Exalted Cat turned away, took a step forward, and vanished.