26: Body Cultivation

Body Cultivation

The night was upon them all as the only light in the village was from the stars. Not even the moon was out this day.1

Hyesi's mother, whose name was 'Belini', had moved out of her house and was sitting outside in the dark, continuing to make her ornaments.

She would first take a stone and rough it around the edges using nothing but her hands and then use a really thin fishbone, that was sharper than a needle to pierce through it.

It took her a lot of time to shape the stones in a preferable shape, so she still wasn't finished with it.

Ning looked away from her and into the village. Everything was the same. There was nothing but darkness.

'Is body cultivation really so good, that they don't even require light to see anymore?' he wondered. He had asked the system about it, and all it had said was that it was thanks to body cultivation.

Hyesi finally returned home, easily finding his way in the dark. 'I want night vision too.' Ning started to complain seeing everyone fine in the darkness.

He had asked the system, and it had said a ridiculous amount of price for it. Right now, he was collecting for a human body, so he decided to not waste any energy on anything else.

"Are you done for the day, son?" Belini asked Hyesi.

"Yes, mother. I am done." He replied.

Ning was surprised at how formal their talk was. 'Or maybe it's just because I have beginner-level language so I can't understand any of the internal nuances,' he wondered.

"Alright, go and sleep. Only when you sleep after a long day of work can you grow," said Belini.

Ning thought he could see the silhouette of Hyesi nod to his mother and go back in. 'Are they not going to eat? I haven't seen them eat anything?' he wondered.

There was an entire fish in the other room, yet they were going to sleep with an empty stomach. This really surprised Ning.

Belini finally finished making the ornament. It was a necklace that she made using stones and some sort of very durable thread. She put the necklace on a table and laid down on the floor outside the house and fell asleep using one of the rocks as a pillow.

'These people are monsters. Is their body so strong that they don't even need a proper bed anymore? And what if it rains? What then?' he was getting more and more dumbfounded by seeing the daily life of these tribes of people.

Ning decided to sleep too, so he ordered the system to wake him up when the mother woke up or when the sun rose tomorrow. He made sure to say 'tomorrow' since the system liked twisting his words and making his sleep forever.

Early in the morning, Ning came back to consciousness. He looked at the sky and saw that it was just before dawn. 'So, the mother is awake?'

He looked around to see that the mother was already on her feet doing some sort of funny maneuvers. It looked like exercise, but it also looked like she was dancing.

As the sun started coming up more and more, he saw that nearly everyone in the village was doing that. Even Hyesi was a little bit away from him, doing the same thing.

'What are they doing so early in the morning? Exercising or dancing?' he was really confused.

<They are cultivating their body

'This is how one cultivates their body? By dancing?' he was surprised.

<There are many ways to cultivate the body

<The Klavians use this particular method

Slowly everyone that was doing these routines started to glow a little. Some white light started coming off of their skin.

'Are they succeeding?' he was surprised. He looked around to see that everyone was glowing a little now. The higher the sun came up to the horizon, the more they glowed.

Everyone except a single boy, Hyesi. He was still dark with no glow at all.

The sun came up higher and higher into the sky and just as it came out of the horizon, the light coming off of everyone's body peaked. As the sun came up more and more, their body's lights started dying down, until the sun was fully out of hiding and in the sky.

Everyone, including Hyesi, turned to the sun and got on their knees. They placed their foreheads on the ground and screamed in unison.

"Thank you for your blessing, O bright Inikaka."

Everyone started standing up and going back to their own things. "Come here," Belini said as she called Hyesi towards her.

She took the necklace Ning was in and put it around Hyesi. "This is something I made for you. Congratulations on living for 13 years, my son."

Hyesi looked at the dark blue stones around his neck and said, "Thank you mother, for giving birth to me."

"Come here," Belini said as she gave Hyesi a tight hug. "Ow, ow, ow. Mother, you're hurting me." Hyesi screamed.

"Inikaka's shadows boy, go train some more. You are very weak." Belini said and left Hyesi to go train.

Hyesi left towards the palm forest to train. Ning was curious to see what this training was and looked forward to it. But when he saw what it was, he was greatly disappointed.

All Hyesi did was climb up a tree and dropped on his back. Once he got up, he would once more climb up the tree and jump down on his back.

Ning sighed when he saw this. He was expecting some sort of body training regime where the young man would do push-ups, sit up, squats, and a lot of running, but all he did was climb up the tree and fall down.

Hyesi got up from the ground. He was about to stand up and climb back up the tree when he suddenly heard a voice in his ears.

"Hey boy, Do you want me to help you become stronger?"

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