Many long days had gone by. Each day, Tom would harvest his products and eat food that he still had in his garage or fridge, and then he would have a long meditation.
He had learned that the whirlwind he had experienced was his doing. He could move the surrounding Qi slightly, and his skill in controlling Qi grew with each day. Soon, he was not only able to move them out of his way, but forcefully collect them in one space. However, gathering Qi inside his body was still not something he was able to do.
The moment he felt that Qi was getting closer and closer to his body, it dispersed and retracted instantly. It seemed that his control was still lacking; as a result, instead of trying again and again, he decided to try and focus on learning how to control Qi properly.
He started forcing Qi into balls while trying to compress them. At first, it was a tiresome and difficult task; however, as time went by he grew accustomed to it. From being able to keep them in shape for a few minutes, he went to being able to maintain the shape effortlessly.
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Then he stepped it up a bit. He increased the number of spheres from one to two all the way to a dozen. As he practised, a new idea appeared to him. So once again he made things a bit more difficult, by forcing the dozen compressed balls made of Qi to move constantly.
He started by moving them around him in a circle at a relatively constant speed. Such a feat was quite difficult as, at first, he could barely do it for a few seconds, but eventually managed to prolong his motion longer.
By the time more than two dozen balls were spinning around him, he was still not certain about being able to absorb Qi properly, so he made it even more challenging. He started spinning the balls around their own axis.
From an outer point of view, it seemed as if he had created a miniature solar system. He was the sun around which the two dozen Qi balls were orbiting. Eventually, he gave another motion to the balls, greatly increasing the difficulty. Now they were not only spinning around their axis, and orbiting around him, but were moving away and closer to him in an increasing manner.
Finally, Tom collected every last bit of power he had and flung all the Qi balls towards him at maximum speed. He instantly knew that at first some of the Qi from the balls dispersed, but due to their speed and their compactness, some managed to touch his body and dissolved into his body. At that very moment, it seemed that the force pushing Qi away from him had shattered, and the rest of the controlled Qi instantly entered his body.
A wave of warmth spread across his body the moment he managed to absorb Qi, but then the heat skyrocketed. He screamed in pain, squeezed his fists together tight and gritted his teeth. Tears streamed down his face as the wave of heat reached its climax, and then, as if it never even happened, all the heat vanished.
Although he didn't notice it, he was visibly surrounded by a white aura, almost as if his whole body had been consumed by white flames. The flames quickly calmed, and even his glow had completely vanished.
Panting heavily, he slowly opened his teary eyes to see a few panels floating in front of his eyes. They were in an organised line, so he could read the first one, but everything behind it was blurry. He couldn't even count how many there were.
"Congratulations; the quest has been completed! The rewards had been transported to Host's inventory"
"Notice! A new quest has been issued! Make your first weapon!"
"Notice! A new quest has been issued! Reach the next major realm!"
"Notice! You have reached the first stage of Qi Gathering!"
"Notice! You have reached the second stage of Qi Gathering!"
"Notice! You have reached the third stage of Qi Gathering!"
As the last panel had finally vanished, Tom stood up and laughed.
"Finally! After almost two weeks, I finally managed to do it!"
He laughed, but then he shook his head and returned to his senses. At first, he felt as if he had been ripped off since he should be stronger than he had ever been before, but he sensed absolutely no difference.
With a hint of disappointment, he walked into his kitchen as after that much work, he felt famished. He had almost eaten everything that he had left from his original world, so as a celebration, he decided to eat what he had grown.
He enjoyed the taste of the cleansing soup, so he decided to make another bowl of that. Just like previously, while the Prist-Shrooms were soaking in the boiling hot water, he watered his garden. Everything had grown considerably, especially his apple tree.
Once the soup was done, however, he decided to spice things up. From his inventory, he grabbed two apples and a pear and then started eating. Just like before, he emptied his small pot in no time, and then he quickly ate the fruits as well.
Each had a superb taste, it was as if he had never eaten pears and apples before, only dirt, the difference in taste was so massive. Before he knew it, he had already finished him as well.
Since he managed to make quite a bit of progress today, instead of checking his rewards, he instantly went to sleep. In his sweaty clothes, he just jumped into bed and fell asleep.
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