"If I don't regulate my sleep, I'll go mad—or worse, die."
Xuan Feng raised a brow and asked in confusion.
"Why would that happen?"
After a few seconds, no reply came from Marlene—only a slight smirk.
"Fine, keep your secrets."
Xuan Feng spat out. He was done trying to build an amicable relationship with his mysterious sister. Instead, he would focus his efforts on a new problem that had come up.
'Adding on to the damage caused by the separation of one of the relics from me, my soul has been further weakened by the time rewind.'
After a bit of practice, Marlene and Xuan Feng had been able to control their soul-telepathy. Now they were able to just transmit the thoughts they wanted to instead of uncontrollably communicating everything.
'Though it shouldn't have been a problem since it will return in due time, I'm certain the gods are out for me right now.'
Xuan Feng didn't know what happened to the dormant Curse of Soulrot embedded in the relic that Marlene now owned. It was apparent that she had somehow managed to temporarily resist it, given that she had inhabited the body successfully.
'Should I ask her?... No. She needs to be the one to open up.'
Xuan Feng wasn't an emotional rock. He understood that no matter how he tried to build a relationship with his sister, she needed time to adapt and familiarize with her new surroundings.
'Considering that her background isn't from here, it's likely that she had been quite young when she died. Suddenly being transported into a world completely unfamiliar... Was I too harsh?'
His brows slightly eased as he thought about her condition. After thinking a little, he came to a decision.
'Sigh... Fine.'
"Try to visualize your heart in your mind. Synchronize your breathing to the rhythm of your heartbeats. After you feel a sense of fullness, take a deep breath and exhale out in short and rapid bursts."
Marlene, who was absorbed in her thoughts, turned and stared deeply at Xuan Feng.
"Isn't this interesting? I thought you would have long given up on trying to make me trust you by now."
Xuan Feng replied with closed eyes.
"Don't take it the wrong way. This is just an applogy, my actions may have been out of place considering your current state of mind."
After almost staring a hole into this weird brother of her's, Marlene simply closed her eyes and did as he told without a response.
After a few minutes of trying to sync her breathing with her rapid heartbeats, she finally succeeded and felt an inkling of the 'fullness' described by Xuan Feng.
'This is a neat little pastime. It should have some beneficial effects since this was his so called apology, but at the very least it gives me something to do while pretend-sleeping.'
Some minutes later, their father took them to the kitchen for dinner.
The real reason Marlene refused to sleep most of the nights was actually because of her adaptation ability.
She had thought about the possible applications and drawbacks of this cheat, and she quickly found a pothole she would fall into without enough care.
Sleep.
How could something as simple as sleeping be deadly for her?
Now, imagine Marlene slept as usual every night.
Every night, she would slightly adapt to sleep, until it's effect was diminished enough that her body and mind wouldn't be able to rest at all.
It would mostly be fine not resting for the first few days. But later on, this would develop into mental illnesses, and if she couldn't adapt to wakefulness fast enough—death.
That's why she was trying to adapt to sleeplessness before sleep.
Marlene wasn't 100% sure this was how her ability worked, but she wasn't willing to take any risks.
'I can only hope that I won't be adapting to things vital to me. Such as breathing, muscle and bone growth, blinking, digestion, etc.'
'The Soul Goddess shouldn't be shameless enough to include those in my cheat, otherwise adaptation would become a drawback rather than an advantage.'
'Neither of us would like that.'
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"Every five years, the Verdant Earth sect hosts a 'Youth Recruitment Festival'. We're going to be joining that."
Marlene heard in her mind as she lay on the grass. She was emptily staring at a nearby boy struggling to do push ups—like she had been doing for the past few years.
'...I'm. so. bored...'
This boy had messy black hair that fell on his shoulders along with a scrawny build.
He was wearing light brown pants and a white shirt too big for him that was covered in sweat.
The boy was Xuan Feng.
"I'll do anything if it can entertain me for even a second."
It had been 8 years since she had come into this world, and she was dearly missing the entertainment of her home.
'Eight years without internet. Eight years of silence. At this point, even commercials would feel like art.'
All she had to busy herself with was house chores and the 'routine' Xuan Feng had thought her—which she later on learned was the most basic cultivation technique.
It could barely be called a cultivation technique since all it could do was absorb and refine spiritual energy. It couldn't be used to breakthrough between levels.
In between his desperate push ups, Xuan Feng replied.
"We're going to need to escape from home, there is no way mom and dad will let us leave."
Although he was on the fence about temporarily leaving his family so soon after he had reunited with them, he had to do this.
It would not only help him get stronger on his path to revenge, but would also secure him enough funds to let his parents live happily for the rest of their lives.
His real struggle would begin after he arrived home from the festival.
He still didn't know if he wanted to leave to pursue his revenge, or stay with his family instead...
"It's fine, I don't really mind."
Marlene continued after a pause.
"But why do you only talk in between your reps? You don't need to use your breath for soul transmission so isn't it just pointless?"
After Xuan Feng barely completed another push up, he fell on his back and breathed heavily as he replied.
"I'm not training my physical body—not like I could if I wanted to anyway—I'm training my will. That's why I need to properly focus on each rep I do."
It would have been a lie to say marlene wasn't curious about the reason Xuan Feng was still a scrawny boy. He had been training non-stop for years, and even considering the fact that he is still a child, he should have put on some mass at least—their parents weren't negligent in feeding them after all.
Now that she heard him talking about not being able to train his physique, her curiosity reignited.
However, she didn't ask about it in the end.
'If he wanted to tell me, he would have already.'
So instead she askedabout the other part of his sentence that piqued her interest.
"Your will?"
"Yes. The strength of your soul is directly tied to the strength of your will."
Training the soul by training the will should have been something impossible to accomplish, but Xuan Feng did it anyway.
The extent of someone's will is the absolute limit of what they can compel themselves to do; it is entirely impossible to exceed what their will permits.
There are two ways to grow your will.
First, by doing something so tough that it pushes your willpower to the absolute maximum. This will grant a minimal increase in the capacity of your will.
This method was borderline impossible for most regular people, since it wasn't the amount of will they had that limited them but the amount they could use.
An ordinary person would at most be able to use roughly 20% of their will. Trained athletes and bodybuilders could go up to roughly 40%-50%. Using 100% of one's will was a mythical feat.
The second—and the most often preferred method of will growth—is by raising the strength of your soul. This is a much more efficient method, albeit still extremely slow.
Since the capacity of will originates directly from the strength of the soul, those who have more powerful souls would also have more powerful wills.
However, Feng Xuan's case was unique. His soul wasn't destroyed, only damaged. So he had the capacity for more will, it was just that he couldnt use it yet because of his damaged soul.
So, by pushing himself to his limits—exceeding 100% of his capped will capacity— he could force his soul to recover little by little.
Why was he able to do this seemingly superhuman feat that few people in the entire world would dare attempt, at the tender age of 8?
That question was a very stupid question.
If you had asked any living being in the world before time rewound this exact same question, they would all no doubt respond with the same answer.
It is possible because it is the Heaven Piercer Xuan Feng!