Upon awakening she felt different. Her body felt refreshed as if she had spent the previous day in a luxury spa.

‘Haha you have awakened master!’ An awfully too joyful voice sounded. 

‘Huh, is that you Cense?’ Ava asked distrustfully, the friendly and respectful tone of taken by the spirit was complete opposite to what he had been like when she had first met him.

‘Of course it is, who else would it be? You’ve truly impressed me, who’d of thought I finally found a master which I can finally be of use too! Haha, looks like those other spirits will get a good hiding when I can finally be used as I was meant too by a genuine Astral Qi wielding cultivator!’ Cense said ruefully. 

Now gaining an understanding why the spirit was so pleasant to her, she realised it was purely because he had spent who knows how long being suppressed as being useless he finally seemed to find a suitable host. 

However Ava felt the spirit was getting off track so decided to ask, ‘Why did I feel so exhausted afterwards anyways?’

The need to rest overwhelmed her senses in a way she had never felt before. It was a type of exhaustion that was difficult to describe. 

Cense straightforwardly replied, ‘That’s simply because of soul exhaustion, you practically completely relied on your soul to manipulate the Astral Qi to saturate your body, the good thing is constant manipulating Astral Qi like you did previously will only strengthen your soul each time, as it is similar to straining a muscle through repeated strength training causing your soul to effectively recover a bit stronger each time. Though it is not as effective as pure meditation focusing on increasing your spiritual energy.’

‘Then why am I not just doing them both separately?‘ Ava questioned.

‘That’s because meditation is highly tiring and it is daunting for anyone to train both. The most important reason though is your body quality is very low, so low if you began training now your Battle Qi’s purity will surely be affected. It is why you will use your soul purely to temper your physique with Astral Qi, it will allow you to slowly strengthen your soul and make sure you have a good foundation before you start properly training in either path.’ Cense replied. 

Ava decided to take the spirits words seriously. After all it was no point in rushing ahead, she was still an infant after all and it was no point ruining her future prospects believing she knew better than some ancient spirit. 

‘So when can I continue then?’ Ava asked causing the spirit to chuckle.

‘Tomorrow. Your still not fully recovered. Early on this will be exhausting, but as time goes on it will become as easy as breathing. By then we will know it’s time to move onto the next step, additionally I should warn you there may be interesting effects of tempering your body with Astral Qi.’ Cense said.

‘Like what?’ Ava asked confused.

‘Who knows, tempering bodies with other Qi types usually makes your body more receptive to that Qi, it is why expensive natural treasures belonging to a cultivators attributes are often used to saturate the bodies of prospect cultivators. We’re not in the position to do so, therefore we’ll have to do it this way, but it may have an affect on your appearance, maybe.’ Cense said with uncertainty. 

‘And let’s say how unusual would this appear to be, let’s say if this were to happen towards an infant out of no where?’ Ava said with clear annoyance. 

‘A bit strange?’ Cense said stupidly causing Ava to let out a sigh. 

‘I guess I’ll just have to hope for the best that nothing happens’ Ava said hopefully. 

‘Sure’ Cense said not giving her much confidence at all. 

After that the days went by quickly. She would spend her time circulating the Qi around her body like the spirit instructed until exhaustion, in other times pretending to be an ordinary infant for her doting mother. 

Ava never complained about the tiring routine which continued to earn the spirits respect. On the other hand Ava started viewing Cense more favourably, despite being likely considerable older than her, she started to view him as that annoying little brother she had a love, hate relationship with. 

Cense was after all the only person she was able to talk too after all this time. The good thing though is that the constant state of soul exhaustion has strengthened her soul greatly.

The effects were already clearer to see for Ava, her memory became sharper and her overall comprehension skills improved, she was already on her way to deciphering most of the elven language. 

It was a beautiful language and she was already great full she was starting to be able to understand what those around her were talking about. 

Her Father visits has been growing less and less frequent. Nonetheless, she understood he was a busy man. 

She had already discovered her Father status importance was higher than even she anticipated, though she supposed she should have realised sooner with how respectful the other elves were, her Father was the tribe’s chief and was the leader of this entire group of elves. 

She would have been proud of the fact if it wasn’t for her mother missing him all the time. She knew her Fathers had his hands full with his duties and all, but it didn’t prevent her feeling resentful to the man who made her mother constantly full of worry when he went out to do dangerous tasks all the time. 

She was also able to finally learn her parents name. Her mothers was Loriel and her Fathers was Xandas.

And it turned out Cense was right about the appearance changes. Constantly saturating her body with Astral Qi, left her body, with the smoothest, glossiest skin. 

And paired with her big blue eyes made her stand out as a very beautiful baby. Paired with her calm temperament made her well loved in the tribe. 

Her mother was proud like a peacock as she went out with some escorts, going around the tribe introducing her to the other elves.

Even she felt a bit embarrassed at how carried away her mother would get at how over the top she praises her for being such a good child.

With the passing of days, soon enough over a year went by. 

Ava woke up as usual however this time she was met by a sharp shriek.

“What’s wrong?” Her mother asked with a groan.

“My lady! The young misses’ hair has become blue!” A servant said surprised. 

Her mothers eyes gazed upon her with a mix of disbelief whilst Ava was cursing Cense deep down. 

‘Wasn’t my hair blonde like most of the other elves? What happened!’ Ava thought until she realised what Cense warned a year ago had come to pass. 

‘I guess we’ll have to hope a suitable excuse comes along to explain this one…’ Cense said trying to calm her down. 

Most of her appearance changes has been superficial so far and easily explainable, however this one was far more difficult. 

‘Better hope so because that snake beside Father was looking for opportunity like this one…’ Ava said angrily thinking of the egotistical man who follows her Father around like a lost puppy.