The forest was large, having more than enough room for someone to hide out for a few days or weeks. Andric, who planned to stay hidden for much longer, searched for several hours before finding a place suitable for his needs. He landed at the base of a rock wall, near a small stream. He could hear birds chirping nearby, as well as the churning of water over rocks.

Andric quickly created a cave in the rock wall and walked inside. Then, he closed the majority of the entrance, only leaving two spaces for air to enter and exit the cave, as well as some light. The cave wasn’t made very deep, and only extended inward for about twenty feet. With that short of a distance, Andric had enough room for his purposes.

Andric’s next objective was to open his meridians, so he used magic to craft a bed for himself and took off his shirt. All of the major meridians were inside the center and upper body, and there wasn’t a single one Andric couldn’t reach. His only concern was with the heart-brain meridian and the lung-brain meridian. Both of them went from his chest to his skull, but Andric couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they were located. He estimated their locations to be at the base of his skull, but he wasn’t willing to perform the meridian-discovery process so close to his brain and arcane core. However, with the Spirit Sense technique he picked up from the Erfdag bandits, he would be able to sense his meridians quite easily.

Several days passed. In that time, Andric studied the Spirit Sense technique and worked on opening his meridians. On the first day, he opened his diaphragm-lung meridian. Using three days each, he then opened his lung-lung meridian, his lung-diaphragm meridian, and his lung-heart meridian. With those additional four meridians opened, Andric achieved a state of Five Pointed Chest Circulation.

He didn’t know it, but the state of Five Pointed Chest Circulation was highly beneficial to endurance. After the meridians were open, Andric felt his heart beating stronger, his lungs breathing better, and a general increase in energy throughout his body. He spent a few hours practicing the Standing Tortoise Manual, and he was shocked to see his cultivation speed become more than triple of what it was in Einburg.

After Andric obtained the state of Five Pointed Chest Circulation, his rate of opening other meridians increased. Next, he went after the meridians that were connected to and below his diaphragm.

Weeks passed, and Andric’s progress along the martial way increased by leaps and bounds. With five meridians open, his cultivation speed was already unbelievable to the people of Einburg. After he opened twelve meridians, his cultivation speed increased another fold, further increasing the speed at which he could open new meridians.

After two months of living in the cave, Andric successfully opened twenty-two of his twenty-four major meridians. All that remained was the two meridians that connected to his brain, and then the thirty-six minor meridians that were located throughout his body.

Spirit Sight was an ability that only Instructor Hubert had, and it allowed him to view the spirit energy inside other people. A martialist could only hope to be born with Spirit Sight, but all of them could learn Spirit Sense. With Spirit Sense, they would be able to sense the spirit energy inside their own body. Andric had the technique manual for it, and he only needed to devote himself to learning it.

The Spirit Sense technique required the user to alter the spirit energy inside their body into a form that could be detected much more easily than normal spirit energy. This used a large amount of spirit energy, but it helped martialists to visualize the movement of spirit energy through their body when they used martial techniques. Andric wanted to use Spirit Sense to locate his meridians, which was inline with others’ uses of Spirit Sense, meaning it was definitely possible.

Andric had studied the Spirit Sense technique while he was opening the twenty-two major meridians, but it took him another week of practice to actually use the technique. When he activated his Spirit Sense, he could feel the spirit energy inside his body much more clearly. Now, instead of a vague feeling that would only be noticed when moving from zero spirit energy to full spirit energy, Andric could feel all the locations in his body that had spirit energy in them.

The heart-brain meridian and the lung-brain meridian were both located inside the head, near the spinal cord, at the base of the skull. Once they entered the skull, they continued toward the brain, but Andric was confident that his technique for opening meridians would be able to clear away the debris located inside his brain without him needing to disintegrate and regrow his brain. Most importantly, neither meridian overlapped with his arcane core.

The meridians of the body were pathways used to absorb spirit energy from the atmosphere. Where in a state of meditation, martialists drew spirit energy toward their body, and their meridians absorbed the latent spirit energy before circulating it to other parts of the body. If a human didn’t have any meridians open, they wouldn’t be able to consciously collect spirit energy, but it could still happen incidentally. With one or more meridians open, humans could become martialists.

When the five chest-located meridians were open, it gave a large boost to endurance. When the seventeen torso-located meridians were open, it gave a large boost to power. When the two head-located meridians were open, it gave a large boost to reaction speed. When all twenty-four meridians were open, the body would obtain a state of Perfect Circulation. Under the effects of Perfect Circulation, cultivation speed increased tremendously, and many abilities were boosted.

Andric meticulously worked on opening the meridians in his head, and he succeeded after five days. Immediately after doing so, he felt an intense power throughout his body, but he also felt slightly hopeless. At the ends of his heart-brain meridians and lung-brain meridian, there were several minor meridians reaching into his brain. Unfortunately, they weren’t opened with the opening of the major meridians, and Andric didn’t know how he would open them in the future.

But, even so, Andric wasn’t deeply worried. The minor meridians were somewhat useful for increasing cultivation speed, but they weren’t as important as the major meridians. Meridians were used for - in addition to gathering spirit energy from the atmosphere - transferring spirit energy throughout the body. With all twenty-four major meridians open, Andric’s speed of moving spirit energy was much faster than before. Once he opened his minor meridians, his speed would increase by another level.

At his current realm, the speed of his spirit energy activation wasn’t very important. Once martialists reached the Adept realm or higher, a fraction of a second was all it took to end a battle, and every microsecond was valuable.

Andric finished opening his major meridians, then took a break. He wanted to observe the changes inside his body before he opened his minor meridians. He decided to train with his martial techniques while his minor meridians were closed, then to open them once he had mastered the techniques. That way, he would increase his level of mastery without any extra work, and he would be able to appreciate what having his minor meridians open meant.

The silent cave was lonely, but Andric continued to diligently study the six martial techniques he had picked out from the loot he obtained from the Erfdag bandits. In addition to those, he also studied the Thunder Fist Technique, which he found in Veremund’s bag of storage.

Martial techniques had ranks, similarly to meditation techniques. Rank one martial techniques were good for Human realm martialists, and rank three martial techniques were good for Apprentice realm martialists. If the martial technique didn’t have a Novice realm first rank, it meant it used too much spirit energy for a Human realm martialist to handle. Of the martial techniques that Andric selected, only the Burning Palm Technique, the Silent Gallop Technique, and the Boulder Crushing Sword Technique were possible to be practiced at the Human realm.

Andric spent half of his days meditating, and he spent the other half studying the martial techniques he could activate with Human realm cultivation. The effects of Perfect Circulation was immense, and it lowered the time he needed to reach the next stage to one-ninth of what it used to be. He had previously used almost two weeks to reach the third stage of the Human realm, but he only needed a few days to reach the fourth stage of the Human realm.

The fifth stage came a week later.

The sixth stage came two weeks later.

The seventh stage came a four weeks later.

The eighth stage came eight weeks later.

The ninth stage came sixteen weeks later.

Almost eight months quickly passed while Andric meditated. He nourished his body with magically-obtained nutrients, and he added mass by drinking water. After he reached the ninth stage of the Human realm, he noticed his body was much larger than it used to be. He was still proportionally the same, but his frame grew larger. His muscles were sleek, but each of them held the power of a strict bodybuilder. But, after everything was over, it was still within the bounds of humanity.

To truly step on the path of the martial way, Andric needed to reach the Novice realm. While he was only at the Human realm, he couldn’t learn many of the martial techniques that seemed actually powerful and deadly. Furthermore, Human realm martialists were simply too weak. At the moment, Andric could effortlessly kill hundreds of Human realm martialists with only a spell or two. His highest priority was his own safety, so he understood the need for greater power.

The cave he was presently inside was safe for reaching the ninth stage of the Human realm, but it wouldn’t help him reach the next realm. According to the Standing Tortoise Manual and the other meditation techniques Andric looked over, reaching the Novice realm required a martialist to temper their spirit with the flames of battle and experience hardship; Andric only needed to look through his memories to experience countless hardships.

One week later, Andric reached the correct state of mind, and the strength of his body explosively rose upward.