Chapter 8: Pathways

After four days of resting in bed and focusing on the Standing Tortoise Manual, Andric felt a sudden rush of energy. In an instant, his spirit energy surged, becoming more potent and flowing faster. He realized he’d reached the third stage of the Human realm.

In Einburg, ordinary folks typically took between two to six months to hit the first stage of the Human realm. Moving on to the second stage usually took another four to twelve months, and reaching the third stage could take anywhere from eight to twenty-four months. No one from Einburg had ever hit the third stage in under a year, but Andric had managed it in less than a month.

Andric couldn’t stop thinking about his fight with those four boys. If he’d been stronger, he could have defended himself. But even if he had been stronger, Audovacar could have just brought more reinforcements. One of Audovacar’s older brothers was at the fifth stage of the Human realm, which meant he was as strong as Andric might be at the seventh stage.

Clearly, Andric needed to get stronger, and fast. At his current pace, he might only reach one more stage before leaving Einburg. If he couldn’t defend himself against four teenagers, there was no way he’d survive the dangers of the outside world. Andric spent a lot of time thinking about how to boost his strength quickly.

The next day, Andric lay in bed, using Spirit Sense to visualize the meridians inside his body. Right now, he could only see his heart-lung meridian and lung-diaphragm meridian. The pathways continued beyond these points but were clogged with debris, making it impossible for him to see the ends.

Meridians were new to Andric. Even though he’d regenerated his body multiple times in his past life, he’d never encountered meridians or spirit energy. He tried an experiment: he cut off his left arm and disintegrated it, then grew a new one. But the new arm still didn’t have any visible meridians.

Recalling how Instructor Hubert had cleared his meridians, Andric tried to replicate the process by stabbing himself above the clogged pathways. He couldn’t release any spirit energy, no matter what he tried. He even combined techniques, pressing on the meridian while flooding the area with spirit energy, but it didn’t work.

After several failed attempts, Andric thought he might need an external source to unblock his meridians. It seemed plausible that a separate person needed to use their spirit energy to clear them, supporting the idea that martial artists needed to engage in combat to open their meridians. If it were possible to do it alone, martial artists would be constantly harming themselves.

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Andric’s magic could regrow limbs to their exact previous state, including the spirit energy within them. However, he noticed that his spirit energy didn’t fully regenerate with the new limbs. It entered them at such a slow rate that it was barely noticeable. Concentrating spirit energy in his right hand, he saw a deficit in his newly grown left arm. He found that he could move most of his spirit energy, but a tiny amount always stayed behind. Over time, this loss added up, requiring him to meditate frequently to replenish it.

He also learned how to sense the locations of his meridians and the pathways between them. When regrowing his limbs, he saw that his spirit energy couldn’t enter the clogged areas. To learn more, he cut away the flesh around his lung-diaphragm meridian and then regrew it. The new meridian was clear, confirming his hypothesis.

Andric repeatedly destroyed and regrew parts of his body, gaining knowledge about his meridian system. The human body had twenty-four major meridians and thirty-six minor ones. The major meridians included various pathways connecting different organs and systems.

Over the next few days, Andric continued his experiments, regrowing and cutting away his flesh to uncover the meridian pathways. He discovered that unclogging a meridian pathway by a tiny fraction was possible with his current method. He estimated that he could clear one or two major meridians a day if he continued.

As the merchant caravan’s arrival approached, Andric’s excitement grew. He theorized that his spirit energy rushing through the unclogged meridian was dislodging debris in the clogged pathways. He spent his last days in Einburg testing this theory.

He started by concentrating his spirit energy above his right lung and then disintegrated the flesh around his heart, diaphragm, and lungs. Using a spell to temporarily support these organs, he removed them entirely, suppressing his urge to breathe. He then regrew the flesh and organs, and immediately released the concentrated spirit energy near his right shoulder.

The spirit energy filled the void left by the removed organs and flowed into the clogged meridian pathways. This caused some debris to dislodge, unclogging the pathways slightly. It took under a minute to see noticeable results, and Andric estimated that with constant effort, he could unclog one or two major meridians per day.

For two days, Andric focused solely on this process, refusing food and staying in bed. He observed that debris closer to the meridian was denser and harder to clear. Despite working for fifty hours straight, he only managed to clear about four-fifths of the way to his diaphragm-lung meridian. He guessed one more day would be enough to finish.

However, with only two days left before the caravan arrived, Andric decided to stop. He considered the potential consequences if Instructor Hubert noticed the changes. He didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention, so he wrapped up his experiments.