"Can I open another one?" he muttered as he knew this wasn't up to him but to his body tolerance. "I hope I can," he prayed as opening up a network with two nodes in first training was something unique and great to his future.
He kept inhaling and diverting energy towards his dantian, while pushing the energy inside the closed meridians to open them.
He knew his meridians were weak at the moment, so overstressing on them would cause opposite consequences.
And so he kept his patience as his greatest ally, and his endurance as his backup, while arming himself with hope to open two nodes this time.
When he managed to reach his chest, he selected the central node there and headed directly towards it. "My chest in my machine, the place where I can absorb more spiritual energy," he muttered hoping opening this node would help in providing more energy during his breathing to sustain the node and not let it close on itself.
If it closed then he would have failed this attempt and had to go and link the meridians together with his dantian. As he knew everything would be determined by this small step, his heart bounded stronger and faster the closer his energy opened the path towards the node.
Just as he was about to penetrate the node he stopped and started to accumulate energy as much as he could until he filled up his dantian, node, and meridians.
"Swoosh!"
The moment the energy penetrated the fragile membrane he felt the same feeling he had in his pelvis node. Yet he wasn't that happy yet. The amount of energy stored inside his dantian, node, and meridian was the most he could sustain in his body so far, yet the moment it entered this node he felt they were scarce.
"Far from enough," he sighed and as he had bad premonition about this, the stap map suddenly shook inside his dantian and a sudden pulse of energy erupted to fill almost two thirds of his dantian.
"Wow, impressive," he exclaimed in surprise and had many doubts yet he didn't delay and pushed this newly created energy towards his meridians, up the way towards his node to almost fill it.
"Almost done," he muttered while his heart was bouncing off his chest at this moment. He kept his regular breathing going on despite his worry and disturbed mind at the moment.
It took him hours before he finally stabilized this relentless node. It was much bigger than his pelvis node, reaching almost triple in size. "Damn, that was hard," he sighed before smiling, "yet I did it, hehehe."
He took a deep breath before knowing he wasn't far from finished. "Should I aim for the third one?"
In his past life, only the legendary cultivator known in his world was known to unlock three nodes at his first attempt. Everyone considered him a monster. "Ain't I a monster myself?" he smirked before deciding to give it a go.
As he started to breathe again, he felt the changes in the amount of energy entering his body and going towards his dantain. Before he had to inhale the energy then guide it towards his dantian, yet right now he felt a familiar traction force erupting from his dantian, taking charge of this task.
"Finally… it's starting to beat," he bitterly smiled before setting his gaze upon the third node. "This one must be opened, after all it was the one responsible for the soul techniques and the hardest to open later on."
He started to move his energy once more and the pain he felt this time was much worse than ever. His body was already exhausted, not in his best shape while he was aiming higher, heading towards the hardest node ever in any cultivator's body.
The mind node.
As the name said, it was situated in the brain, situated deeply inside it and surrounded with a really complex network of meridians.
The issue was that he had to open all these meridians first before finally entering the node. As cultivators grew stronger through their path, their energy would start to grow fiercer and such attempts to open a delicate and highly condensed network would result in failure.
That was the main reason behind the rarity of someone opening this node in his past life, and his dedication to try this out this life.
Going through the neck meridians made him quite suffocate of pain and exhaustion, yet when he reached the brain, he stopped.
He didn't plan to rest here, he planned to organize his energy and try to use a meaningless word that the legendary cultivator once said to one of his direct disciples.
"Use the lowest amount possible of your energy, yet not too thin to fail," Arthur muttered these words to himself while contemplating deeper in the hidden meaning.
He once thought about this saying and even tried some trials on himself and others while all failed. "Perhaps he meant the newly formed energy by his words," Arthur nodded as this was the only theory he had in mind and couldn't test back then.
Yet now he had the chance to try it out, and even on himself.
"First I need to close the circuit," he sighed as he already did so much and took so long yet didn't even finish. He left his energy high up there and shifted his attention towards his chest node.
"I need to connect it again with the pelvis node before linking both with my dantian," he muttered, knowing this process would take long hours, much pain, and a lot of exhaustion.
In fact it took him less than six hours to do so, yet the pain was the same and he was much more exhausted than ever. He was deeply immersed in his world, and didn't hear the words his system repeated.
"Ding! Try to eat a piece of meat! Your dragonair's energy is hardly sustaining all this pressure."
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶