Chapter 11 A Loss, A Fusion, A New Future

After they calmed down enough Yun Tian said, "Okay, we need to hurry up and get away from here. I don’t want to wait for them to change their minds. Go take whatever you need and meet me back here. I will grab all the money I have and whatever else we will need. I have a lot of money saved up so we don't need to worry about that."

Shen Yu nodded meekly then left to gather what she needed. Yun Tian went to grab everything that he needed from his room including the qi gathering pills he had prepared for after his breakthrough, money, and his sword. Then, he went to his parents room.

He stood outside the door to their room and thought, ‘Mom and Dad might have some stuff in there along with some of the old gifts.’

In the end though, he couldn’t bring himself to search their room and just walked away.

After that, carrying whatever they could on their backs they left the clan in low spirits and tried to find a place to stay for the night. They eventually decided to stay the night at an inn before deciding what to do in the morning.

Shen Yu cried herself to sleep while Yun Tian held her and also cried. In the morning, with swollen eyes Shen Yu left the room saying she would go get food for them to eat.

After she left, Yun Tian sat on the bed and did his best to clear his mind and focus. He was heartbroken and extremely angry, but he needed to do his best to protect the two of them at the moment. 

‘What can I do!? Am I really so weak and incapable of doing anything!? I am much weaker than any Dantian Building expert and even Grandpa at the Peak Dantian Building doesn't dare to do anything to those people! And who knows if those from the clan might come after us! Let alone getting revenge, I can’t even protect Shen Yu if I can’t get stronger!’

He had already thought so many times throughout the years about what he should do to break through, but at this moment he was the most desperate he had ever been.

He combed through his mind for ideas, before he finally took out a bottle of pills from within his robe. He stared at the qi gathering pills within the bottle and thought, ‘This is the only thing I can do. I’d rather die than not try.’

He even consoled himself thinking, 'I know these pills are too strong for Meridian Opening cultivators, but maybe I can handle them since I am stronger than most.'

He opened the bottle, took out one of the pills from within. It was a small white pill. In fact it looked very ordinary. If one didn’t already know what it was, it would be almost impossible to tell what it was. He sat in a meditative position and slowly worked up his courage.

He brought the pill up to his mouth very slowly with shaky hands. He wanted to avenge his parents and he may boldly proclaim that he would rather die than not, but he was in fact still very scared of death.

He mustered up his courage and strong will and eventually he threw the pill in his mouth along with swallowing it all in one motion. Instantly, he could feel a massive amount of qi bursting out from the pill after it landed in his abdomen. He devoted all his efforts to concentrating and directing all of it that he could into his dantian. He did his best, but the qi still wreaked havoc within his body and meridians. His body was being greatly injured every second, but he wasn’t dying yet. However, he was still not happy as the thing he wanted most still didn’t happen.

Some of the qi that entered his dantian dissipated like usual, but the rest just wreaked havoc in his body before exiting his body. He coughed up blood and thought, ‘Why! Why! I am strong enough to barely survive taking a qi gathering pill without getting crippled, but even that is not enough! Fine! If one is not enough then I’ll just take some more!’

With that thought he took three more qi gathering pills and threw them all into his mouth. He swallowed and did his best to direct the surging qi into his dantian just like before, but he could only sigh and immediately felt a sense of regret and helplessness. He still felt no response from his dantian.

‘I can’t handle it. I’m sorry Shen Yu! I’m sorry for being so useless Mom and Dad!’ were the last thoughts he had before the pain from the qi ravaging his body made him black out. He was sure he would never wake up again.

However, after he blacked out he actually did wake up again and once he did he just looked around in confusion with extreme fright on his face. He felt no pain, but was instead just afraid and confused.

He stuttered even in his own thoughts, ‘Wh-Where am I?’

‘I was just on my way home and then…’

‘Uggh! Why does my head hurt so much!?’

And then, he passed out once more.

He woke up not long after and some of his confusion was now gone with his face once again displaying his extreme determination.

‘I don’t know why we fused and why my body is completely healed and intact, but at least I am alive.’

That’s right the Yun Tian that awoke in this body after he blacked out from the pain of the qi ravaging his body was a different person and that's not all. This other person was from another world called Earth and whether it was a coincidence or not they also shared the same name. After he blacked out once more with his head in pain, he woke up, but this time the two people had completely fused.

‘It seems like our memories and personalities have completely fused together.’

He couldn’t help but chuckle thinking, ‘It’s so odd that we have the same names and our situations are so similar.’

‘Back on Earth, I lost my parents and my Uncle was so evil to me afterwards, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I could make money and strive to live a better life, but that was it. Here I can actually grow stronger. Who knows maybe one day I can go to Earth or revive the dead like in those stories.’

He focused his thoughts, ‘But for now, I have to grow stronger and figure out how to break-’

He stopped at that moment as he felt something within his body pulse or throb. He felt qi in his body. To be specific it was in the spot where his dantian should be.

‘My dantian actually formed and there is qi inside! I have broken through into the Dantian Building Realm!’

He was overjoyed. He had no idea why any of the things that happened so far had happened, but he was happy that he could now grow stronger again and get revenge. Having experienced the loss of his parents in two different lives, the new Yun Tian only wanted to get rid of the feeling of helplessness he felt.

The Yun Tian of the modern world had lost his parents and could do nothing. He had finally gotten his life back on track somewhat and was trying to make his deceased parents proud for when he saw them again in the afterlife, but he suddenly appeared here in this Yun Tian’s body before fusing with him. He had no reason why or choice in the matter. Both Yun Tian’s fused together formed an extremely large feeling of helplessness. So, now the fused Yun Tian felt an extreme urge to gain strength to be able to make his own choices and protect those he cares about in this world.

‘And now I can get revenge for Mom and Dad!’

In this world he could gain strength and the control that he desperately wanted. He thought, 'I have no idea why I now have two sets of memories now and one of them is even relatively useless with little helpful knowledge and experiences for this world, but I do know that I can now grow stronger again and I will do all I can to grow as strong as possible and get revenge.'

The original Yun Tian of this cultivation world always wanted to get stronger and he could at first but then that ability was suddenly taken away from him. Then his parents died and he was even powerless to get revenge. He was even thrown out by his clan and could only run away fearing they would kill him. He blamed his own weakness for everything. All he wanted at the moment was strength. If he was strong none of this would have happened.

So breaking through and seeing that he could get stronger made the newly fused Yun Tian ecstatic.

Yun Tian let some qi flow out of his dantian and through his meridians before it exited out of his palm and rested there. He looked at the faint strand of cyan colored qi and was beyond exhilarated.

He let the qi flow back into him and then calmed down.

He looked outside the window of the room he was in and realized that it actually hadn't been very long since he swallowed the pill, Should have been less than half an hour. Now having the experience of two lives, albeit short ones, he made a plan for the time being. He would grow stronger as fast as he could and achieve revenge. Then he would grow as strong as he could and find out why the Yun Tian of the modern world was sent here.

While he was contemplating this, Shen Yu suddenly opened the door and came in with food. As soon as she walked in, Yun Tian stood up and hugged her. She was surprised but luckily she had already put down the food.

She asked, "What's wrong Big Brother? Are you okay?"

Yun Tian replied, "Everything's fine now Xiao Yu! I just broke through to the Dantian Building Realm and was so happy I had to hug you! I can grow stronger again! I will avenge our parents Xiao Yu! Don't worry and leave everything to me!"

Yun Tian decided not to say anything about her Yun Tian and the one of the modern world fusing together since he didn't want to scare her and tell her he almost died, let alone tell her that he was almost a different person now. They had been through enough already.

She was stunned into silence for a moment but then, even as her eyes were red from crying, she broke out into a smile and cried out, "What!? That's great brother! You can get stronger again and with your talent you will surely be able to cultivate very fast!"

Shen Yu noticed that he seemed a little different but she didn't think anything of it after everything that happened and was just happy that there was at least one ray of light in the darkness. She was extremely happy for him as she had seen just how hard he worked for it.

Then, she continued, “I can’t wait to tell Mom and Dad!”

After this though, there was a moment of silence as Yun Tian’s face froze and Shen Yu realized what she said wasn’t possible anymore. She hugged him even harder as the two of them just held each other for a while with both of them releasing a lot of tears.

Eventually, he said, "I'm going to cultivate for a little bit to stabilize my cultivation realm. After that we can plan what to do next."

She let go of him and answered with a forced smile, "Okay, then I will just sit here and cultivate for a while too."

After that she sat down and began to cultivate. It seemed like she was trying to forget everything and just occupy her head with cultivation.

He looked at her for a moment as painful thoughts ran through his head. ‘Should I tell Yu’er I might not be the same person she once knew?’ ‘We just lost our parents and she could have lost her brother as well.’ ‘I have to do whatever I can for her besides getting revenge.’

Eventually his thoughts settled down as he reaffirmed himself, ‘No I am still her brother. My thoughts and feelings toward her remain unchanged. I am just her brother and more now. It's natural for me to do whatever I can. We will continue to live on in this world together. Our lives will not end after getting revenge but continue on. I know that’s what Mom and Dad would wish for too.’

He went through this thought process very quickly and then refocused himself.

He sat back on the bed and went through his mind thinking of what he had to do next to stabilize his cultivation. 

He remembered everything his parents had taught him in order to prepare for when he broke through, ‘The Dantian Building Realm is broken into the early, mid, late, and peak Dantian Building stages. I just broke through into the early stage and need to generate a lot more qi in my dantian. The fastest way to do this should be to swallow some qi gathering pills one by one and slowly absorb the qi within them. After breaking through, my dantian and meridians’ sturdiness and qi absorbing capabilities should have greatly strengthened along with being able to use the qi within my dantian to help slowly digest the qi within the pill.’

When they left, he had taken the manual detailing the process of cultivation that his parents gave him so he took that out of his robe and looked through it again to make sure he wasn’t missing out on anything. 

He read through the part pertaining to the first stage of the Dantian Building Realm and eventually recognized some notes written within.

‘These! These! These are Mom and Dad’s handwriting!’

He nearly cried but calmed down enough so as to read through them. In the notes, his parents said that while talent was important just like the previous realm there was a much higher emphasis on resources. This realm entirely focused on absorbing qi and building it up in the dantian. If people only did this naturally then it would take far too long to break through realms even with exceptional talent. The notes also said that talent wasn't completely irrelevant since the higher your talent the easier it would be to cross bottlenecks and the better you could use resources.

His parents said that even if you had unlimited resources you would not be able to break through to the next realm instantly. Your body and dantian need time to digest the resources and the lower your talent the more that you waste qi in the resources you use.

‘So it might take me an extremely long time to grow stronger still! I can only hope my talent holds up!’

He decided to see this aspect for himself before deciding if he also needed to find a way to get more resources.

He entered a meditative state and began to draw in the qi of the world around him. He could naturally draw in much more qi since he had broken through to a higher realm, but he also felt that he could sense the qi around him much better than what was described in the book.

‘I can sense the qi around me even without focusing on it and when I focus I can feel the even outside this room. This must be thanks to our souls fusing and my already preexisting amazing talent.’

The qi seemed to be gushing into him. He began accumulating qi for a while and felt the qi build up within his dantian but he quickly started frowning.

As he felt the qi build up within his dantian it could only be described as, ‘It's one tiny drop after drop of qi accumulating in a huge space with enough room for an ocean.’

Realizing this, he thought, 'No wonder people have to use external resources to grow strong quickly. Especially since this is what it is like for me with my talent. But I didn't think it would be this bad, the qi seems to be gushing into me and it still barely fills my dantian up.'

‘I’ll get nowhere like this,’ with that thought, he stopped cultivating and instead took one of the five qi gathering pills left and swallowed it.

It was not like it was before where he felt like he couldn't handle it. Now it seemed like the qi gathering pill was being devoured extremely quickly until nothing was left. He was amazed and thought, 'Even with my incredible talent, a qi gathering pill shouldn't be devoured this quickly and it doesn't seem to even fill up my dantian that much. It is nothing like I’ve learned. If this is the case it also explains why there was so much qi gushing into me before but my dantian was barely filling up.’

‘The pill is still much, much better than absorbing qi naturally but at this rate it will take a very large amount of them for me to reach the next stage. These things are supposed to be treasures that people cultivate with for a while and greatly fill up their dantian, but for me it seems like I can absorb them almost instantly but they don't fill up my dantian that much. I wonder if my dantian has greater limits than others or if the pills and qi just aren't as effective for me as others for some reason. I will have to find out by comparing my qi with another early Dantian Building expert.'

Yun Tian finished absorbing the qi of the pill within a few minutes and felt absolutely ecstatic, 'I really missed this feeling!’

He greatly missed the feeling of growing stronger during cultivation.

‘No reason to stop now. I need to stabilize my cultivation realm.’

So Yun Tian swallowed the qi gathering pills one after the other until none were left. Others would be shocked if they saw this and Shen Yu only wasn't shocked because she was cultivating and wasn't paying attention to him.

After he stopped cultivating Yun Tian thought, 'No matter what, it seems like I will need a lot of resources in order to cultivate. After Shen Yu finishes I will tell her what I plan to do next. Even though I love her, she is just too weak for what I will do from now on.'

He didn’t disturb her though and went back to cultivating, however his attention was mostly on her. He could stop at any time. He wouldn’t waste any time even if it wasn’t particularly effective compared to the qi gathering pills.