"You feel tired because your body now lacks energy. That energy being Spiritual Qi, which is found in those spirit stones that you used to help create your Lower Dantian."
"Just absorb some of that energy into your Lower Dantian and you'll feel much better and nowhere near as tired. I should also mention that this energy can and will be recovered at a much slower rate even without, as it permeates the very air you breath."
With a grumpy pout and furrowed brows, Yin Lian wanted to just ignore the Will's words, but knew that it was better to listen as whatever it had to say would always be helpful.
So, with a begrudging huff, she got up anyways and went to go get a Spirit Stone to absorb its energy.
When she arrived at the pile of Spirit Stones, she snagged one away with a huff and stormed off back to the back of the throne.
Upon getting back, she sat down cross legged with her back against the throne with the Spirit Stone clutched in her hands.
With a grumble, she closed her eyes and started to pull the energy from within the Spirit Stone and into her body.
As she did so, she slowly began to absorb the energy into her lower Dantian, filling it back up, but not only that, once it had been refilled, she then started to just naturally accumulate the remaining and properly started to truly cultivate with the Qi Gathering stage.
She was not aware of this, and instead just continued to absorb the spiritual Qi within the spirit stone until it ran empty. Whereupon it crumbled to a fine dust that soon vanished into thin air until no remains were left.
When that happened, she opened her eyes and took a deep breath and looked inwards to find something she didn't expect.
To Yin Lian's complete surprise, she had accidentally completed the first level of the Qi Gathering stage. When she asked the Will about this, it responded with its old and soothing voice laced with wisdom and patience.
"You entered what is known as a 'Cultivation State' whereupon your mind and body become focused only on cultivating. It's very hard for normal cultivators to enter this state, let alone someone as young as you. As for what it does, it makes it so that when you absorb Qi, you do so with the utmost efficiency, getting the most out of the Qi, and the best results when cultivating."
Half of that went over Yin Lian's head. What she did understand was that the state she was in when she absorbed the Qi from that spirit stone, the better it was for her and her cultivation.
She then completely forgot about her prior anger towards the Will for making her absorb the Qi from the Spirit Stone when she originally wanted to sleep, and got up and ran over excitedly to the pile of Spirit Stones to grab more.
But before she could even reach the pile, the Will dampened her cheery attitude.
"Don't bother. You got lucky getting into that state, and it's impossible with your current mindset. Also, you should probably let your cultivation consolidate for a day before continuing."
Yin Lian stopped in her tracks and gritted her teeth, grumbling to herself about how unfair it was that she couldn't do what she wanted when she wanted to. She knew that doing what the Will told her would always be the best for her, but it has said that it wouldn't always be there for her, so she had to think for herself at times. Yet it wasn't letting her do so now.
If she couldn't do anything she wanted to now, then what was she supposed to do? She wanted to do things, but was constantly being berated whenever she did. At least she felt that way.
This had happened so many times, too many times now and Yin Lian didn't want any more of it, so she ignored the Will's warning as she stomped her way back over to massive pile of Spirit Stones, grabbed a handful of them and tucked them into her shirt like a basket and went back to the throne.
And at this point, she was completely ignoring it as well as any and all of its warnings or reprimands.
Once back at the throne, Yin Lian dumped the stones in a haphazard pile next to her sleeping spot and sat cross legged again, grabbing a stone into her hands and closing her eyes to concentrate.
At this point, the Will had given up on trying to get her to stop, and just hoped that what she was doing wouldn't ruin her future cultivation by upsetting her foundation too much.
For now though, the Will decided to just wait for her to either fall asleep or get bored as she inevitably would.
But to his surprise, as the hours dragged on, she continued to cultivate, absorbing stone after stone, until there were none left and they had all vanished into thin air.
Several hours had gone by, and much to the Will's surprise, she didn't sleep once, in fact, she didn't stop. It was as if her raw emotions carried her through this. Then it hit the Will.
'Of course. It's obvious now that I think about it.' It now knew what was going on, and also that this was both good and bad for her.
Once Yin Lian had broken out of her intense cultivation session, she could feel the changes within, how much stronger she had gotten from this.
She gripped her hands, feeling the energy surging through her Meridians and nearly exploding out of her. She almost felt like a completely different person compared to her previous self.
Looking up at the sky, she pointed a finger accusingly into the darkness as she shouted, "Ha! Take that! Nothing bad happened!"
The Will sighed silently before it responded to Yin Lian's provocation, "Of course not, and I can't believe I didn't realise this sooner. Nothing bad was ever going to happen. Not like this."
The calm and nonchalant manner in which the Will said that irritated Yin Lian, as she had expected the Will to be angry at her or something to that effect. But no, it still seemed to be all high and mighty in her eyes, diminishing her whenever she did something good.
To her, it felt like whenever she did anything of her own accord, it was always diminished by whatever the Will said next. Even when this wasn't the case, everything she did was dictated by the Will, and all of her achievements could be attributed to it and not her.
It was frustrating to say the least to Yin Lian. And that frustration was starting to boil over the edge of her limits.
And the Will could see this. It knew that keeping her in here for too much longer would ultimately be bad for her, so it tried to placate this anger in a way that would make her satisfied.
"I can let you out soon." By giving her freedom.
And this worked like a treat. Yin Lian was no longer seething with anger. She was a little sceptical of what the Will had said, but still, it was enough to get her attention before she exploded, figuratively and literally.
"Two more levels in your cultivation, which should take about ten more Spirit Stones, and some practice with your weapon and then you can head out."
Upon hearing that, Yin Lian didn't hesitate to grab ten more Spirit Stones and rush back to absorb them all. And within half a day or so, she had completed this task and immediately moved onto practicing with her Satanre.
It was hard to get a hand of swinging it, especially for how big it was compared to her size, but with her desire to get out and see the world, but mainly get out there and kill something to deal with her excessively pent-up rage, she was able to get a handle of her weapon.
At this point, Yin Lian had thought that she was ready, but the Will destroyed her mood again, but what it said actually made her happier just as quickly as it had plummeted.
"You're not done practicing yet. You have all that energy stored up inside of you, and it would be a waste to not use it, wouldn't it? You need some techniques so that you can harness them efficiently and make your ability to kill even greater."
This made Yin Lian ecstatic. She couldn't wait to learn them. And she didn't have to wait long either as the Will brought three scrolls over to her.
They each had a relatively simple technique on them, but all of them had immense and deadly potential within.
The first scroll was something called 'Essence Slash' which would allow the user to use their Qi energy to create a crescent slash made of energy with their weapon to attack their enemy from a distance.
The next scroll had a technique called 'Blood Burst' that would essentially allow the user to burn their blood for an increase in ability, from speed to strength and even the power of their attacks. It didn't even have to be their own blood, but something other than your own blood would require a lot more of it to pull off.
And lastly, the final technique which was called 'Essence Barrier' which was quite straightforward. It was just a technique that allowed one to create a barrier made out of their Qi energy.
The first one was an attack technique, the second, either a life saving or boosting technique, and the last was a protection technique.
The Will advised Yin Lian to only practice the first and last one since using the second one would deplete her of blood, which would be bad for her growth at this stage, advising her to only use it when absolutely necessary.