Next day, Ankit again practiced his "Earth Control Technique".
His control had improved drastically because he had already learned the water controlling technique. He had experience in it and could perfect this earth controlling technique faster.
Ankit then made breakfast for himself.
After eating, he started to cultivate substage 4.
He had already planned that he would deeply cleanse his body and open his core in this substage.
He could already imagine the enhancement he would get after completing this substage.
Ankit then began the process. He used the condensed Essence Flow formed during the high stage—now ultra-pure and dense—to intensify cleansing. This condensed essence flow flowed through all meridians, burning away deep-rooted toxins and karmic residues that normal cleansing couldn't reach.
He then focused his meditative awareness on each of the 12 meridians, visualizing the Essence flow drilling through blockages, simultaneously expanding and crystallizing meridians.
This process was very painful. Ankit almost screamed during the process but quickly controlled himself. He felt like a snake was walking in his meridians.
These meridians differed from the 72,000 pathways he would open later.
The 12 Meridians are:
Lung
Pericardium
Spleen
Heart
Kidney
Liver
Large Intestine
Triple Burner (or Tri-Heater)
Stomach
Small Intestine
Bladder
Gallbladder
The ancient meridians—Lung, Pericardium, Spleen, Heart, Kidney, Liver, Large Intestine, Triple Burner, Stomach, Small Intestine, Bladder, and Gallbladder—were classified into the upper six cold/water meridians and lower six fire meridians.
Cleansing these circuits was essential groundwork for his future growth, as they connected with the upper cores, particularly the Sacral and Solar Plexus. The purified circuit now allowed Essence to surge faster with greater efficiency, lowering consumption and amplifying potency.
Then he began the process of marrow washing. He visualized condensed Essence flow cooling and flushing marrow canals in bones/spine, dissolving dark sediments and refining marrow Essence until it glowed pure white-yellow inside.
Ankit then finished this process. Ankit rested afterward because this process had taken all of his strength.
Ankit didn't expect that this process was at least 20x harder than substage 2.
He had thought that this process was the same as substage 2 and would be easy. But reality hit harder than his mother's sandal.
He rested for some time, then continued again.
Then he began to deeply cleanse his body again because all the cleaning hadn't been done yet.
It would take at least 13 or 14 days to complete full body cleansing.
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While Ankit was cultivating, his subscribers were going wild in Yash and Gyan Gaming's livestreams.
They were asking where the 'Returner' was and when he was going to give custom-made controls and sensitivity for his subscribers.
This mess happened because of Ankit's uploaded video.
After seeing the improvement players got using Ankit's custom-made controls, their gameplay improved by leaps and bounds.
And nowadays, because of Ankit, Free Fire had made a solid base in India.
Because of Ankit, Free Fire had gained popularity much faster than the previous timeline.
And many players had begun to flex their gameplay to their friends.
And Ankit's uploaded video was exactly what they wanted—improvement in gameplay.
So when they saw this opportunity, they wanted to be the next subscribers to get custom-made controls and sensitivity.
But Ankit had again gone into hiding after uploading that video—who knows where—and this caused them to go wild in Yash and Gyan Gaming's livestreams.
They questioned: where was Returner? When was he going to choose subscribers? What was the criteria for choosing?
But Yash and Gyan also didn't know where Ankit was. He didn't play Free Fire even a bit nowadays. What was he doing?
After being forced by Ankit's subscribers, Yash again called Ankit, but this time Ankit didn't answer because he was cultivating and his phone was on silent mode.
Yash tried again, but still no response. So Yash said on his livestream that Ankit wasn't responding for now and was very likely busy and couldn't answer the call.
After hearing this, the subscribers suspected Yash was lying, so they spammed his livestream, and he had to close it.
The same thing happened to Gyan.
-------
When Ankit awoke from his cultivation and wanted to rest, he saw Yash and Gyan Gaming's missed calls.
So he called them back. Yash was almost crying and said to Ankit that his audience was really wild.
"You have to give justice to me. Every time I open my livestream, your subscribers spam my livestream, ahhhhhh," Yash said, not in a good mood.
Ankit saw this and understood that his surprise for his subscribers had really worked, but it caused damage to his friends.
After hearing Yash, he said in a serious voice, "Again start a livestream and show them my messages that I am going to send you."
Yash quickly agreed; he knew that this time Ankit was really serious.
After opening the livestream, Yash saw the same spamming. But he quickly said without beating around the bush:
"Returner is here. You want to hear from him? See here, he wants to say something to you." Yash shifted his phone toward the camera.
Subscribers quickly stopped their spamming. They saw the Returner name on the screen. Then they saw a message from the Returner account.
It said:
"All subscribers who had spammed are not eligible to be chosen."
"Custom-made controls and sensitivity event is going to be held every month, but chosen subscribers will be increased from 5 to 10."
"There is no specific criteria, only luck."
"But in the future, there will be competition and tournaments. The winner will get this opportunity instead of luck."
After this last message, subscribers didn't see anything else.
Yash also ended the livestream.
Ankit did the same process with Gyan Gaming. But there weren't many subscribers spamming anymore after Yash's livestream.