"Show me where a meridian is? Maybe I will be able to find one by chance."

Tuzai nodded. "I wouldn't have bothered showing you before but things are different now. You have eaten a heavenly treasure and repaired your profound veins. Even if it takes 5 years to find it, it will still be good for your future development."

She transformed only a part of her body and grew arms and hands. She grabbed a stick and started drawing her body. It wasn't very detailed but it showed Fuyo the general area where it was located.

He started meditating and sent his profound energy into his body and searched the area she indicated, he was in a deep trance and didn't noticed how much time had passed.

Rumble

"Urgh... my stomach." He opened his eyes and found a flower and a pile of leaves. Tuzai had been out and gotten him something to eat. He didn't see her around so he wasn't polite and devoured the leaves very quickly.

"Ahh... That really hit the spot." He licked his lips in satisfaction. He ate a lot faster than normal; he was obviously frustrated over something.

"I thought I was a genius, it seems I've deluded myself with words of grandeur. I couldn't even find a glimpse or a trace of a meridian. Will it really take 5 years?" He sighed at this development, in his mind he was hoping to find the meridians very quickly and then shooting to the top of the world as the number one genius.

Tuzai walked in the room and saw that Fuyo had awoken. "You're awake. You've been in meditation for three days."

"Three days, really?"

Tuzai nodded her head at his question.

"Wow, these meridians are hard to find. It felt like I was only in meditation for an hour."

"I told you so, but you didn't listen. It's alright though, I'm sure that you will find one eventually."

"I hope so too, thanks for the grub."

She smiled and replied "That's alright, have you gone to see your mum yet?"

"Ah... no?"

"Baka, let's go see her now. She's been waiting."

"Alright then, let's go."

They walked out together and left through the front gate of the village. When they walked pass the guards the guards seemed to feel bad for Fuyo and Tuzai because their eyes were full of pity. They followed a winding path into the forest. Along the way Fuyo made use of his bee vision and ate up lots of delicious little floating energy blobs in the air.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just eating the energy balls to increase my cultivation."

"You are just jumping around in the air biting at the air."

"I'm using my bee vision to see them and eat them."

"Bee vision? Bee vision only helps you find flowers easier."

"What? So what am I doing with my eyes? Is it something different from normal bees? I'm definitely not imagining it because I can feel the energy circulating through my dantian." He thought to himself.

"Maybe I'm a variant?"

"You could be. If what you are saying is true then you can eat energy blobs? Then you can cultivate without opening any meridians. This will be useful until you open a meridian. But don't try and use your qi because your body might explode."

"Explode, how?" Fuyo's body might explode? How fearsome...

"Qi can only be projected out of your body through your meridians, if you try to do it without any open meridians, worst case serious your body will explode. It's the same with someone that tries to use too much power at once, they can cause their meridians to crack and break apart."

Fuyo was shocked, he sudden realized why his body shriveled up when he used totemic god. The energy had nowhere to escape to but lucky his energy was insignificant to do any damage.

"Meridians play a big part in combat too. A person with 10 meridians compared to a person with 1 meridian can use ten times as much energy in the same amount of time. If they were to go head to head then the person with 1 meridian is doomed to die."

Fuyo realized how important meridians were now but he still had questions on his mind, she said something about gradeless profound veins before.

"You said that I have gradeless profound veins. What does that mean?"

"The quality of profound veins determines how strong your attacks are. I don't know all the details but there are no grade, low grade, mid grade and high grade profound veins. My own profound veins are mid grade. Mid grade means 30% of the energy I absorb I can refine into my own energy, it also means that the energy I use is only 30% of its potential."

"Enough with the 21 questions, you talk too much."

Fuyo still had lots of questions and lots of time to kill, he decided to keep eating the energy blobs since she wouldn't answer any more questions.

They walked for almost 12 hours. "How much further? Why is she all the way out here?"

"Why? You don't know why?"

"I.. uhh forgot."

"You will see when we get there."

He continued do devour energy blobs. 4 hours later Fuyo felt the inside of his dantian explode.

Boom!

He looked inside his body and found that the white energy ball at the center of his dantian had doubled in size. There were no longer ten layers anymore but nine. The center layer and smashed through the second layer and filled it with white qi.

"Tuzai-chan can you check my dantian?"

She eyed him with wide eyes and her spiritual sense scanned his body. He once again felt like his body was covered in ice cubes as her eyes wondered through his body.

"H..how? You broke through to the second Qi level! I didn't believe you before but it seems you were speaking the truth. But still... it's only been a day and you already broke through? How is this possible."

She lost herself in deep thought but still couldn't figure it out.

"Maybe its...Fuyo eat another energy ball."

"Okay.." He nodded and ran to the closet energy ball and ate it.

Her spirit sense spread through his body, she couldn't see the energy balls in the air but she could see the energy being absorbed into his dantian.

"Amazing, the amount of energy you just absorbed into your dantian is equal to how much energy I can refine and I've already undergone my birthright ceremony. At this rate you could break into the spirit realm in only 3 months!"

They came to an opening; there were no trees in the surroundings. The dirt was burnt black and in the ground was a giant hole, 100 meters in radius. Fuyo was shocked at the scene and realized what was going on. The images he saw weren't a dream of the future they were a dream of the past.

Kaguya and the army, the fight, the old man, the floating strangers, all of it was a vision of the past. That's why they lived in a little shack. Their family had fallen from grace, Kaguya was badly injured and on her last breath, the old man went crazy from seeing his daughter in such a state.

"This is the reality of war. You can't let your guard down for a second." Fuyo lamented, it was a sad sight.

They climbed down a ladder, the further they went down the colder it got. It's like they were entering an icy hell.

"Who?" ....

A bone chilling voice sounded out from the deep abyss followed by an unearthly cold that made ones heart shudder in fear.

"Fuyo and friend."

"Ah....which friend?"

"Fuyo only has one friend baka."

"Haha, I'm just joking. Come on down."

The bottom of the hole was pitch black and it was impossible to see more than an arms distance in front.

Tuzai held her arms out wide and then chanted a magic incantation "Child of Light, show us the path."

Her hands lit up as qi rushed out. A little light sprite appeared out of thin air and danced around "hehehe.." it laughed like a child and ran around. Its body was made of pure light and it lit up the dark surroundings.

In front of them was a ghost spirit sitting on the toilet reading a newspaper?

"Umm.. do you mind?" The ghost had a face of shock and disgust, like it was looking at two perverts that it caught peeking at it.

Suddenly a rock flew from Tuzai's hand and hit the ghost spirit right in the face. "Ow."

"You baka, spirits don't need to use the toilet!"

"Ahahaha, I'm just joking, just joking Tuzai-chan. You don't have to hit little old me."

Fuyo recognized this person; it was Amidamaru the sword spirit!

"Hey Fuyo, your mother had a bad feeling something happened to you."

"Something did happen to him." Tuzai quickly interjected and snuffed her nose.

Amidamaru and Tuzai continued to bicker back and forth while Fuyo walked forward towards a giant wall of ice. Inside that giant ice was a young girl frozen in time.

"M..Mother?"

Her body was lifeless and it didn't move at all.

"Are you alive?"

"..."

There was no response.

"Mother?"

"ss....ss...son"

Gasp

The voice was so weak and fragile, but it possessed an amazing power like it was being spoken right into his left ear.

"Mother, I'm fine see. Don't worry, about me. I will find a way to free you from this ice prison."

"You.... Left ... me... all...alone" crunch.

"N..no, I had an accident. I hurt my head and..." crunch.

"You...abandoned me..." crunch.

"No!"

"And now I'm going to eat your cookies!"

"NOOO! NOT MY COOKIES!" crunch.

"Wait.. what?"

Fuyo turned to his left and found Amidamaru floating there whispering into his ear while eating cookies.

Fuyo was not amused.

—–