The nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians are ready, and fusing them would be the last part. That was Krune's idea, but how exactly will he proceed with that? That is another matter entirely. He is pretty sure that his Myriad Energies Technique is incomplete, so he is still lacking the part that shows how the fusion is done. But from what he heard from old man Su Feng, everyone considers this technique a very ordinary one. In that case, he won't be able to find it.
'If I want to fuse all nine meridians, I will have to rely on myself. And since someone was able to create it before, I should be able to repeat it. There is nothing else to do, I can only try it out and see what happens.'
Krune tried to put the nine meridians together. Still, nothing happened. He then put spiritual energy in between and wanted to attract them, but nothing happened either. He also tried to enlarge one and put another inside. Unfortunately, the meridian broke, and he had to reform it again. He attempted to fuse three at a time for later combine the results, but it didn't work as well. After a full day of trial and fail, Krune was already running out of ideas.
'Could it be that I'm wrong? There is no such thing as fusion, and this technique was really made to be used with only nine meridians? No, that's definitely not it, I'm missing something!'
Krune spaced out a little and looked up, trying to get more ideas when suddenly, he noticed one of the spiders building up the web on the roof. The spider was connecting its points one after another. What initially was just a star-shaped thing, slowly started to take the form of real web. Every time the spider circled around the web, it got bigger. It was at that moment that Krune's mind felt like it was struck by lightning!
'Right! It's not that I cannot fuse them, nor is it because I cultivated it wrongly. The first stage is indeed so that I can form the nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians, and that part is right. But that was not for the purpose of fusing them, it was for the purpose of practicing!'
Krune felt like divine enlightenment fell upon him. At first, when he created every single meridian, he would take an entire day or more. But once he knew how to make them, reform them for later use was so easy that he could make them appear in less than a minute!
'Since that's the case, then now I already have all the experience that I need. My meridians are already formed, but they can't be fused since they are a complete product. So I only have one option now...'
In an instant, all nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians broke into countless specks of spiritual light. It wasn't the same as dissipating them for later use, they are totally gone this time. If Krune wanted to reform them, he would need to create all from zero once more. Of course, he wouldn't recreate all nine meridians in one minute, but he definitely would be able to remake them is less than a day. But that was not what he was going to do. The practice time is over, it's time to take the next step!
'What I need to do now is to create all nine meridians at the same time from scratch. But instead of forming them separately, I will need to form and attach them together. I need to use all nine of them to create a single sturdy one. If I'm not wrong, each one of the nine spiritual energy pseudo meridians has its own properties and purpose. If not, why is it that after I formed the first one, I still took more than a day to form the second? If they were exactly the same, it should have been effortless to create the second one, right? If my conjecture is right, they should be able to do the conversion of spiritual energy just like any other natural meridian!'
Krune didn't waste any time, and he started working straight away. At first, as soon as Krune tried to create all nine together, they immediately broke apart. Let alone form the initial shape, they didn't even gather together to start with.
But Krune wasn't dispirited, it was just his first try, and he could tell where it went wrong. It turns out that when he was forming the nine meridians, his own poor control over the process made so that some meridians were forming faster than the others. That created a conflict between their spiritual energies, so that's the first thing he needs to address for his plans to work.
Time went by, and soon two weeks have passed.
Inside the cave, one could see that nine meridians were taking form together. Their energy was pretty much the same, while at the same time, they were attaching themselves with each other and fusing. Krune had already spent an entire hour in this trial, and so far, this was the furthest he got. By now, even if he fails again, it won't matter. Krune is absolutely sure that his conjectures are right. This is how the real form of the Myriad Energies technique should be. It all depends on himself now.
The meridians' formation was practically done. Their energies were harmonizing with each of their properties, and slowly, they came to be a single one. By now, it seemed like there wasn't even a need for Krune to keep the process. They looked like to be attracting each other to the point where one couldn't even say that they first were nine different meridians.
But Krune didn't dare to slack off now. Even if everything seemed to go okay, he would keep giving his assistance for the final step. Even though he can try again later if he fails, there is no reason for him to not strive forward for success now!
'Click'
An hour later, Krune heard something that seemed like it had been attached. It was quite weird. Krune never felt that energy meridians would create such a sound. But he didn't even have time to think about it. Right after that, the spiritual energy of the surroundings started to tremble!
'Brummmm'
Krune was alarmed!
'What's going on?!'
As a wisp and a being of energy, Krune could feel that the spiritual energy around him seems like to be... Excited! Yes, the spiritual energy around him was really excited as if it had found a long lost friend!
Immediately, all the energy of the surroundings started to flow in the meridian that had just been created. That's right, it wasn't coming for Krune, but for the meridian itself!
'So much spiritual energy! And it seems like the shape of the spiritual energy pseudo meridians is getting smaller.'
Krune wasn't seeing things wrong, the bigger single meridian was really getting smaller. Although it was still much bigger than a single spiritual energy pseudo meridian from before, it wasn't like the size of the nine meridians put together. It kept shrinking until suddenly, the meridian started to break apart again, which made Krune's heart sink!
'No, no, no! Why is it breaking?'
But he only had to give it two seconds of thought to immediately understand the reason.
'There isn't enough spiritual energy!'
Krune was frightened, the energy meridian absorbed all the spiritual energy around, and more spiritual energy from the further away came to fill the void. But it wasn't enough! Krune's only chance now was to use the Demon Core that he got from the four-winged demon crow. He really didn't want to use it since he was planning to utilize it for his own cultivation if he succeeded with the new meridian creation.
But there was no more time to hesitate. Krune made up his mind and grabbed the demon core, expecting that its energy would be enough. At the same time, he was afraid. The demon core's spiritual energy is different from the energy of heaven and earth, so it could very well break his new energy meridian apart. But he really was without any other choices now.
For Krune's surprise, not only could the meridians absorb the energy from the demon core, they immediately converted all the spiritual energy coming out of it. Not to mention that the conversion could be said to be almost instantaneous! Krune didn't know, but even natural meridians couldn't possibly convert spiritual energy this fast!
Ten minutes later, the cracks on the meridian disappeared, and it looked normal again. Slowly, the spiritual energy of the surroundings started to calm down. The rate of absorption from the demon core got lower and lowered the more the time passed. Krune finally let out a sigh of relief. It seems like the process of the meridian formation is finally coming to an end.
'Crack'
Krune heard this sound, but he didn't even need to look to know what happened. All the spiritual energy from the demon core was gone, so it broke into powder and scattered on the floor. The demon core that almost cost his own life to obtain disappeared just like that. Krune's felt gloomy but not for long. The flow of spiritual energy from heaven and earth also stopped entirely, and the final process of the meridian formation came to an end.
Just as krune was about to test its new meridian, it suddenly started to shine!
'What is up now? Is it not over yet?'
At the same time, many galaxies away, in a dilapidated cave in the middle of a mountain from an unknown planet, a statue-like old man was sitting in a meditative position. He was totally covered in thick dust, who knows how many years, centuries, or maybe even millenniums haven't he moved? If people don't know any better, they would definitely think he was dead.
But just now, that statue-like old man suddenly opened his eyes. They looked like they could see through anything and anywhere, like nothing in this universe could ever be able to hide away from them.
He then looked at a certain direction, his gaze penetrating into the space-time. The direction he was looking at was, of course, Krune's planet, the Planet of Makui.
The old man was a little surprised and let out a gentle smile. He could see Krune inside the cave looking at the energy meridian, obviously alarmed for not knowing why it is shining at all.
"Haha! So this little friend is a wisp. No wonder, no wonder. The Myriad Energies technique does indeed fit wisps very well, and this one seems exceptionally talented at it."
He then sighed and said.
"I guess there is still hope after all!"
He kept looking for a little longer. One could see expectation on his face, it looked like he had been waiting for Krune for countless years.
"Little friend, do not disappoint this old man."
He then stopped looking and closed his eyes, who knows how long it will be until they are opened again.
Back at Krune's cave. The meridians finally stopped shining and settled again. He couldn't make heads or tails from what happened, he didn't feel anything different after all the brilliance either. He waited a little longer to make sure nothing else was going to occur, but it seems like it was really over this time.
'Phew... Now then, I hope you don't disappoint me. My future accomplishments depend on your performance!'
The meridian's final form was pretty much the same as any of the previous nine pseudo ones, but with almost three times the size of a single one. As he thought, the nine meridians are now one single sturdy meridian, and he could feel the energy of all nine meridians coming from this single one.
Krune calmed himself first and then started to cultivate using his new meridian, he first only absorbed a little bit of spiritual energy in case something went wrong.
To his surprise, that bit of energy was instantly converted and fell into his core straight away. Let alone need to wait to harmonize with the spiritual energy inside his core, it felt like this has always been part of his core spiritual energy to start with. It was added up to his cultivation in an instant.
'Great!'
Krune was ecstatic! Slowly, he started to increase the amount of spiritual energy gathered from the ambient. An hour later, he had already reached the same rate of absorption that his nine meridians could do at the fastest speed. But surprisingly, there was still space for more! Krune kept at it, slowly but surely gathering more and more spiritual energy. It wasn't before two hours later that he finally could feel that the rate of which the meridian could convert the energy had finally reached its limit.
'Amazing! This is already almost three times the speed of my previous nine meridians working together! And this is just the very first one. Once I build more spiritual energy pseudo meridians, it will only get faster! No, wait. This meridian now works in the same way as the natural meridians from the other races. They can't be called pseudo meridians anymore.'
Krune pondered a bit and quickly decided on a name.
'From now on, I'll simply call them spiritual energy meridians or energy meridians for short.'
Krune enjoyed the feeling of success a little more, but it didn't take long for him to calm down.
'This is just the first step. I still have a long way to go. If not for that four-winged demon crow's core, my meridian would have shattered, and it would end up in failure. I can't start the creation of another one now, there is simply not enough spiritual energy here. I will have to stick to my initial plan, I have to break through into the 5th stage of Qi Condensation first. No, with this speed of cultivation, it shouldn't be a problem to breakthrough into the 6th stage.'
'After that, I will look for a low-level spirit vein that doesn't have too strong beasts guarding it and take it for myself. In the process, I should also gather more demon cores. I have the feeling that the more meridians I make, the more spiritual energy will be necessary.'
Krune steadied his mind and put all his focus into cultivating, his luck is finally turning for the better.