Ivor was in a square stone room measuring ten meters across from door to door and three meters across the other way, standing right in front of a door. On the other side, there was… something resembling a gorilla, with dark red fur and long, black claws. A machinelike voice echoed through the room. “Disciple, this first trial is a trial of combat. This Bloody Gorilla was randomly selected out of all the qi attunement beasts, and the first trial is always in a stone room like this.”

So this is the first trial. Seems pretty simple. It’s called a Bloody Gorilla, which probably means one of two things - it’s named after it’s fur color, or it has a blood-related ability. Alright, I’ll try and keep it from clawing me. It’s a stage lower than me, but it’s bigger, so I’d guess it’s stronger than me. Alright then! I need to circle behind it so it can’t reach me and grapple it from the back after breathing out my toxin and wait for it to die.

Ivor inhaled and then blew out a blast of poison, which the Bloody Gorilla, which was rapidly charging towards, ran into. Ivor jumped up to dodge, but the Bloody Gorilla managed to nick his leg, and his blood spurted out in far larger quantities than it should have from the tiny cut. Shit! I was right about this thing! It used a technique to bust an artery! Need… plan. I could die if I mess this up. I can’t leave this to attrition now. Wait… now that I think about it, I killed the Tiny Tiger by getting blood in its face. I guess I’ll try that to blind it.

Ivor twisted his leg to spray the spurting blood into the gorilla’s face before landing on its shoulders and awkwardly clamping his feet around its head. I’m surprised I could do that properly. Does cultivation increase body control too? I guess that would make a lot of sense.

The Blood Gorilla started to flail its arms blindly, which would give Ivor the advantage, but he was on a clock, one measured in his own blood. Ivor thought of an impossible maneuver, and decided to bend backward and stab a finger into the gorilla’s eye. The gorilla couldn’t see, and Ivor stabbed into its eye with surprisingly little resistance and ended its life. Ivor then found himself healed, with no Blood Gorilla in sight. Directly after this he falls down seven feet onto his back, but that’s not a huge obstacle for a cultivator.

Getting up, Ivor sees three objects floating in the middle of the room, presumably his options for a reward. The mechanical voice resounds again. “Disciple, you have completed this trial. If you come here again at a phase higher than Meridian Opening, you may skip the trial. Your three treasures have been randomly generated. There is a shield talisman, the basic farming scripture, and an obsidian dagger made with water-refined obsidian.”

Ivor didn’t care for this so-called “farming scripture”, and struggled in that fight because of his lack of a weapon. Against a creature with more energy in its eyelids, Ivor would’ve been helpless, so he grasps the dagger, before finding himself in a forest, below a massive tree. Then, the voice. “Disciple, the second trial is always a trial of athletics-this one is tree climbing. You have one hour to reach the top of the tree.”

Ivor looked upward and found that the tree was astoundingly tall, maybe 100 meters or so, with no resting spots and no handholds but small gaps in the bark that were probably too big for Ivor’s foot. He tried stabbing his dagger into the gaps in the bark, but the tree was astoundingly hard, which somehow didn't surprise Ivor, considering its size marked it as magical in a fairly obvious way. Heh… how am I going to climb this thing? I might be strong, but I doubt I have enough stamina for this… well, I should try it at least.

Ivor attempted to wrap around the tree to climb, and managed to awkwardly start pulling himself up while scraping against the tree. He lifted his arms up to grab onto a higher up gap in the tree’s bark before uncurling his legs, pulling himself up before curling his legs part way around the tree once more and repeating. After dozens of repetitions, Ivor was up 20 meters and starting to get tired. “Pant… I can do this… pant.”

Ivor kept pulling himself up, but by this point, 40 meters up, his face and chest were bleeding from scraping against the tree so much, and he was starting to lose feeling in his limbs. What can I do? Is there any way to do this or should I just give up? Think, Ivor, think.

Ivor’s climb came to a stop as he tried to think of something. He couldn’t think of anything-but at that point in time, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, he realized another benefit of the Hobo’s gift.

Now to talk about the Hobo’s gift, raising Ivor’s cultivation to peak qi attunement directly, one has to discuss the stages of cultivation and the tiers of qi. The first four steps of cultivation, according to the Hobo, are building a foundation, nurturing your divinity, forming a core, and attaining immortality, but reality is far more complex. Cultivation is broken down from the basic steps, commonly referred to as Great Realms, into three realms each, which are broken into phases. Progressing through each phase is linear, but different phases require doing different things and can use different cultivation techniques, although there’s normally a group of techniques for each full realm that are used in succession.

Building a foundation is known as the Foundation Building Great Realm, containing Body Tempering, Qi Gathering, and Soul Cleansing, with the qi attunement phase being the first phase of the Body Tempering realm, involving bathing your body in qi and bringing it into your body, giving your body the ability to retain qi. The fourth Great Realm is known as the Immortal Great Realm, and it’s known as this for one main reason-when you enter the Immortal Great Realm, your body becomes composed of immortal qi, which you can create through a special process that consumes super concentrated qi that can only be created with immortal qi called extreme qi.

Now there are many levels of qi, but why is immortal qi known as a full tier higher than the types of qi before it? That’s because of the massive change that makes age irrelevant to those in the Immortal Great Realm-immortal qi has undergone a qualitative change causing it to naturally adhere to itself without expending any energy. This means that immortal qi is the first qi type to totally break a law of physics, which is why it’s considered a full tier up from all weaker qi. However, immortal qi’s nature of not dissipating and extreme cost to make leads it to be more suited to achieving permanent effects.

As immortal qi can maintain permanent effects, it can create a qi circuit that lasts forever and gathers qi that it can store or use. Directly upgrading someone to the peak of qi attunement is just using a tiny amount of immortal qi to force qi into every corner of their body and making the qi permanently reside in it instead of exploding out. Doing this requires allowing the other person’s mind to slip into the immortal qi and losing control over it, but that’s not the main reason why this is important.

Ivor doesn’t know this yet, but the reason why he’s been so calm is because the immortal emotion qi placed inside of him by the Hobo has partially merged with his innate emotion qi when bonding to him, and its unchanging nature has caused his emotions to stagnate-however, having immortal emotion qi placed inside you has other benefits as well, and is called an immortal physique, as children of immortals are born at the peak of qi attunement due to having a tiny amount of immortal qi in their body from birth.

The emotion qi inside Ivor, or using its official name, his Guiding Feeling Immortal Physique, showed its power. Ivor suddenly felt a strange sensation wash over him, and he knew what he should do, a way to show the full power of his current cultivation. Ivor stopped breathing and started Breathing. Qi began to enter his lungs and spread throughout his blood, reinvigorating him while healing the scrapes on his chest.

Ivor began to climb again in his ridiculous manner, this time fueled by the constant influx of new energy, reaching the top in only an hour before standing upon its unnaturally flat and smooth top that made it look like the top part of the tree had been cut off, which it probably had been. “This is… amazing. I’m breathing in qi. I’m guessing that this is how I’m supposed to cultivate at higher stages, and I could probably use this to further force open my lung meridian.”

At this point, Ivor heard the robotic voice he was growing to loathe echo in his head once more as three objects manifested in front of his eyes: a bottle full of some swirling red substance, a tall metal tower shield, and another talisman. “Disciple, you have completed this trial. The rewards are a vial of bewildering blood gas, a qi-forged steel tower shield, and a blade of light talisman.”

Ivor considered it, but he got another feeling. He felt that inhaling the bewildering blood gas might further open and improve the foundation of his meridian. He grabbed onto it, opened it, and inhaled it all, before noticing that he had been transported to the next challenge, faced with an enormous black minotaur, he said one thing: “I give up.”