Aaron was on his feet soon after, the pain on his skin had greatly reduced, now he only felt soft stings, child's play compared to what he felt before. Just walking around, he felt how light his body had become. Compared to this, one could argue that he had been carrying around a baggage the entire time.
He stepped outside after reactivating his artefact, the only reason he could deactivate it inside the cave was because of the array formation which blocked out at least 90 percent of the mana outside from entering, with a little mana from the remaining ten percent sipping inside. That little amount was able to cause such effect, imagine the full one-hundred percent.
After jumping over the crystal clear stream that was at least four meters wide easily to the other side, he realised just how much his body had developed. He ran like a mad man all over the place enjoying his new speed, even an olympic gold medalist wouldn't be able to catch up to him now.
He could run almost as fast as an antelope, could jump over four meters vertically, and his leaps were not bad, he could leave a mark on boulders with his bare fists and many other advancements in his senses and so on. Cultivation was truly fascinating.
..
As he had just established his foundation to start cultivation, to do so, Aaron first needed to open his dantians. Everyone possessed said dantians throughout their body, it's just that the people in Aaron's world hadn't noticed them.
These dantians are like a highway for qi to circulate around the body to help strengthen and vitalize it. Until the formation of a core, one would have to store the qi they absorb in their dantians. At this moment, Aaron had only opened his dantians and freshly started cultivating, there was no core yet.
Aaron returned to the cave with excitement in his every step. He wasn't one who expressed his feelings much, but merely studying him a bit, Li could tell that something was different. He wasn't wrong to guess the reason to be his improvement in cultivation, as had experienced something he thought he had lost for the rest of his life, power.
..
In Aaron's world, there was no qi in the atmosphere, instead it was replaced by another energy, mana, and qi was required to cultivate.
The long and short of it was that, cultivation would be impossible without qi. Because of this, Aaron had to think of a way to maneuver around this fact if he wanted to regain strength.
He first figured out a way to replace qi with mana, which wasn't hard, just absorb mana in place of qi, and instead of allowing the mana to go towards the mid-section where a mana core would be formed, he directed the mana towards his dantians and stored it there.
Unlike most cultivators, (and by most, I mean 99.5%) Aaron had another trick up his sleeve. Through his understanding of mana veins, he thought out a plan to connect them to his dantians, that way the mana in them would reach more parts of his body, and create a more complex system.
It was a good idea, but like most good ideas it was painful, painful beyond measures. He had to disconnect thousands of tiny veins, then reconnect them, and he had to do it to himself and by himself, with no anesthesia or adequate help. Good thing Li was there and was able to suppress the pain using some acupuncture techniques, if not, Aaron wouldn't even try the procedure.
..
"Hahaha, you look like a baby fawning over it's mother's breast." Li said. Although Aaron wasn't showing much change in emotions and expressions, compared to his normal self, the difference was clear.
"Now that you have established a base, you will have to train your body physically. Looking at you, if not for the blessing of a good physic, you would be much worse."
"Yeah, you mentioned that earlier. I'll start the training right away. Let's see how far I can go, I've never really done exercise and physical training before.".
"You shouldn't over stress yourself, as that could work against you in the long run."
"Yeah, I know."
Starting then, Aaron stepped outside the cave and started training his body, following the routine provided by Li.
He would run for as long as he could without implementing any of the mana in his body, just using his natural physical strength. After that came swimming, then practicing vigorous stances that would make you wish you were dead, followed by maintaining balance at the top of tall trees for hours, sometimes days and many other daring and brutal body conditioning.
At first it was extremely hard for him to keep up, but he never slacked off, nor complained. He put in his all until he transformed truly, like a baby crawling, to it walking. Soon, deactivating his artifact inside the cave no longer hurt his skin.
Over the course of four months, he developed his physical body to the best shape it had ever been since birth. The thirty something year old looking Aaron was now toned, with well defined rigid muscles covering his body. He wasn't bulky and at the same time not slim, just the perfect fit in the middle.
All these were good except the terrible news that Li's soul would completely decimate in the next two months, or within that time period.
"Hmm, looking good. Now that you've trained your body, it will amplify the strength of your physical attacks. Make sure to firmly establish your base before advancing further, a house can't be built on weak foundation." Li said with a gentle smile as his formless legs hovered just above the ground.
"You talk like it's some kind of farewell speech. You still have some time, no need to be all sentimental."
"Haha, did it sound like that? Also, I should transfer to you all the knowledge I possess that will be helpful in cultivation."
And so, Li transferred his knowledge of cultivation, which was everything he knew that concerned cultivation, into Aaron's head. Now, Aaron knew almost everything that Li did. The information was so much that it caused Aaron to pass out for some hours. When he came to, he franticly looked around, as he couldn't find Li immediately in the open cave.