God Of Crafting

'Emotions, huh?'

I closed my eyes and leaned myself back before lying directly on the training room's floor.

I knew I shouldn't be wasting the limited time I had in this room on just thinking… but right now, I honestly couldn't stop myself from doing so.

This whole issue was something I'd been agonizing over for more than two hours by now. And while I was no stranger to things taking much, MUCH longer… that mostly applied to when I was trying to put my theories into practice.

When it came to just thinking, however, rarely did it take me more than a few minutes to figure something out. Heck! No matter how far back I went in my memory, I couldn't recall a single instance when I'd been troubled over something for more than an hour!

And yet, even though I'd already figured out that my emotions had now affected my cultivation… what exactly was supposed to be the next step? How was I supposed to take what I'd figured out and either craft an even bigger, more wholesome theory about my current cultivation stage or find out the ways to make proper, practical use of it?

"To think I would grow so distant from the sense of loss and failure, even though it's the one thing I was familiar with for over five years of my life…"

I didn't even need to think hard to figure out what brought this change in me, when it happened, or how such a profound development could occur in such a relatively short time, affecting a mindset I'd developed over literal years.

It was all Claire's fault.

From giving me proper company, through providing me with all the means to put my theories into practice, all the way to helping me out when it came to cultivation theory or, just like an extrovert adopting an introvert, bringing me out of my room to widen my horizons…

It was no one else's but Claire's fault!

Not that I had any desire to blame her for it, though.

'Is this what the saying means with how weak men create hard times?' I thought, easily applying various parts of the popular saying to my very own self… just at various stages of development.

Back when I was still just a rebellious teenager who sought shortcuts and independence through my uncle, I was responsible for creating the hard times for myself.

Those hard times—years' worth of constant struggle and absolute lack of validation—became the catalyst necessary for me to turn from a weak to a strong man, one that knew how to deal with struggles, issues, and general failure. Yet, ever since Claire came into my life, she became a cushion that softened everything problematic about my life.

The issues with money?

Solved.

The issues with lack of status?

Solved.

The issue of general loneliness, lack of proper human contact beyond what I could get at work?

Definitely solved.

And sure, while getting engaged with her brought a fair share of new troubles into my life… she was always there, like a pillow for me to rest my head on after a long and arduous day.

Now, however, by sheer coincidence, I was deprived of it all.

The necessity for our group to stay low-key deprived me of the status of a member of Claire's clan.

The issue of my unexpected breakthrough led to a massive rift growing between us, even if it was going to be only a temporary measure necessary for her to figure out how to deal with all of her feelings and emotions.

And to top it all off, the one and only thing that allowed me to enjoy all those unforeseen and outright unearned benefits—my intelligence, my ability to solve whatever problems and mysteries I stumbled upon…

Right now, with how I failed to crack this case, it was gone too.

Back a year ago, when loss was the one thing I knew, taking this kind of series of massive losses would hardly faze me. But back a year ago, my skin was quite a lot thicker than it was now, after quite a lot of time during which Claire's presence by my side continued to soften it.

"The best example of it happening is how, rather than gritting my teeth and trying again, all I'm doing right now is moping around and whining, huh?" I muttered to myself, voicing my thoughts to make them feel at least a bit more tangible.

Hearing my own voice, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.

I didn't even bother trying hard to hold it in for an exceptionally long time. Instead, I just refused to take another one.

Bit by bit, my lungs continued to take the oxygen out of the air that I inhaled, only to poison my system with carbon dioxide in return which, as any biologist or doctor would know, only served to increase my natural reflex to take another breath.

Which I obstinately refused to do, opting to just cope with the pain while keeping my eyes closed.

Soon, the discomfort turned into a pressure. This, in turn, quickly grew into a state of half-panic that I had to use most of my focus to rein back in. Then, the oxygen deprivation turned directly into pain, a rapidly beating heart, a jumping Adam's apple in my throat as I started to gag when my body desperately attempted to take another breath.

I endured it all. Only when I felt my consciousness slipping out of my grasp, as my body, in a last-ditch effort, attempted to break past the wall of my will that was leading it down the slippery slope of a biologically impossible self-deletion, did I finally allow my mouth to open, exhaling the stinky, carbon-dioxide-rich air, only to then roll forward from the sheer momentum of my entire body gasping for the long-awaited breath.

A technique I wouldn't recommend even to my worst enemy. But a silly and outright stupid technique that I'd, back in the long five years of constant failure, found to be surprisingly effective at self-kicking my own butt.

'Strange things happen to a man's psyche when he wanders a bit too close to the border between life and death, huh?'

With my lungs now filling with fresh oxygen, my whole body went limp, too exhausted from the unexpected spike of exertion to let me maintain my sitting position.

Caring not for the small details, I allowed my body to just go limp and fall right back to the ground. I didn't even bother trying to soften the blow of the back of my head striking the floor, happily accepting all the pain that came with the fall as yet another layer of reinforcement serving to remind me of what I just went through.

'You don't have the time to just sit down and cry over your misfortunes when you are the luckiest bastard alive!'

This one thought, one line of reasoning, wasn't something I was unfamiliar with. In fact, it was hardly something I'd thought of just now, given how I kept wondering how I could be so damn fortunate every night that I got to fall asleep with Claire in my arms.

No.

This thought was nothing new to me.

Only now, however, with the memory of self-inflicted suffocation still fresh in my mind…

This thought, the very same one I'd had countless times until now…

It rang differently in my brain.

So differently, in fact, that it allowed me to just push aside all of the unproductive anger, frustration, doubt, and…

And pretty much every other emotion that could potentially interfere with the one thing that I came to this special room to do.

And that was to both inspect the state of my current cultivation, see what changes my breakthrough brought forth, and then… well, just try cultivating a bit so that I could get myself somewhat familiar with the process now that it potentially changed.

'Breathe in…' I thought, closing my eyes as I cast aside whatever was still left in my mind after I managed to isolate all my emotions.

'Breathe out,' I continued to direct my actions with clearly articulated thoughts.

'Breathe in…'

'Breathe out…'

'Breathe in… flare the core up…'

Sparks of spiritual energy started to flash out of every part of my body, connecting to the endless number of random anchors in different parts of my body.

'Breathe out…'

As if following the pattern of my breathing, as I emptied out my lungs, the constant collapse of endless points of my core slowed down, as if the chaos contained within somehow subsided.

'Breathe in…'

Bit by bit, I continued to wake my cultivation up, all the way to the point where the sparking of my spiritual energy grew so rich and dense, I couldn't perceive each individual discharge as they all merged, first into a general flow and then into a state of flux-state energy omnipresent all over my body, at all anchors ingrained deep into my soul, all at the same time.

'Breathe in…'

Knock.

'Breathe out.'

Knock.

Knock.

'Breathe in…'

"Hey, Tim…"

'Breathe out…'

"It's me, Claire."

'Breathe in…'

"May I come in?"

//PS - This technique is a LOAD OF BS, DONT try it at home. Consider it just another part of the magic system of the story >.>//