And now, for the first time in many months, the Komainu finally felt like it had gotten some of the exercise it so badly needed.
In excitement, it began to radiate a thick wave of QI around itself.
The Qi it radiated was so thick that even someone like Tang Ze could feel how heavy it was, and instinctually took a step back. He had been told that too much Qi was bad for him...
...and while that was true, that was generally only said when it came to regards of ingesting Qi and the like. Tang Ze had forgotten this, but Qi that was released into the air was generally fine, as it could not be absorbed quickly enough for it to be lethal unless it was in an area that was exceptionally thick.
As a matter of fact, some Qi path cultivators could use an attack called [Qi Cloud] designed to overwhelm their enemy's Qi network and damage it, but this was so difficult to do it was only possible by specialists at the Nascent Soul realm.
For quite a while now, Tang Ze had been trying to break through the Zeroth Realm - to reach the first minor realm of Qi Condensation.
Despite his efforts, and attempts to find a way to make this process somewhat easier, he had failed when it came to both aspects.
It was a simple problem when it came to the amount of Qi required, but like trying to charge your phone with a lightning bolt, it would not work, and would just break your phone.
No matter where Tang Ze or his friends had looked, they had not been able to find a solution to this.
However, the wisdom of celestial beasts worked in strange ways.
Even on Earth, it was said that sometimes animals behaved in ways or comprehended things in a way that humans couldn't. For example, how exactly it was that birds knew which direction to fly in during migration was still hotly debated. And certain animals were said to behave oddly when disaster was about to strike - say, like rats who jumped off a ship that was going to sink on its next voyage, or animals like mice being able to sense an incoming earthquake.
If the Komainu could talk (something it could not do until it matured a bit more), it would not be able to describe what it had done. At least, not in ways that humans could understand.
All it knew was that it wanted to help its new friend - that is to say Tang Ze, out. It understood that something was wrong with him, and moved to fix it.
And as the viscosity of the Qi continued to increase in the air, the Komainu gently rubbed its nose against Tang Ze. The impact would've squashed a mortal, but he handled it with ease. Tang Ze then felt something run from the Komainu's body into his own.
All of a sudden, he felt something change in himself.
It was drastic - like a current had run through every pore of his body!
Not only that, parts of his brain which had been lying dormant till now had suddenly awakened. He was aware of a hundred things he hadn't been able to notice before.
In nearly an instant, his dantian had not only fully developed, but each of his miridians had been primed for cultivation!
"This is..."
"The first minor realm of Qi Condensation!" Zhang Long exclaimed, now being able to feel the Qi emanating from Tang Ze, just like he could with his other friends.
It was not only Tang Ze who benefited from this, however. The leftover Qi in the air was absorbed by the others, moving them each up a minor realm as well.
Chen Yu and Yin Tiang moved to the fifth minor realm of Qi Condensation, while Zhang Long moved to the seventh minor realm of Qi Condensation.
Tang Ze couldn't believe it.
All the time he had spent agonizing over the lack of his ability to progress.
All the time looking up ways that might work - and wondering whether he could cultivate or not in the first place.
All the while feeling like he was inferior to his other sect members - because there was so much that they could do that he could not. He had felt like he was stuck in quicksand and not only could not move forward, but had nothing to cling onto to keep himself from sinking.
And yet, despite all that brainpower that went into agonizing over anything that could give him an edge - he had not accomplished anything when it came to solving the issue. At least, it felt like so.
Maybe if he had even more time to focus on cultivating, he could have found a way even without the Komainu's help.
But, his mental state had not been very good even before coming to this world - and that was putting it mildly.
It felt so good to finally have another win under his belt other than beating those people of the Diamond Dust sect.
The Komainu could sense his happiness, and began smiling and wagging its tail as its ears perked up.
"Back on Ear- where I'm from, they used to say that every dog is the best in the world," Tang Ze said. "But, I think that applies without any conditions to you." Tang Ze was gushing with praise, and that caused the Komainu to become even happier than before, its tail wagging so fast that it was kicking up dust clouds and which could easily injure any mortal that came too close to it.
"Hey - calm down a little!"
One thing was a bit of a blemish on Tang Ze's happiness.
He knew he shouldn't have been feeling this way, but he slightly resented the fact that this teammates had benefitted too.
It had taken him so long just to get to square one - and in that time, they had all managed to move up a minor realm as well! Not to mention Zhang Long had actually gone up two minor realms in the time period that Tang Ze had joined.
Granted, there were reasons for this. Chen Yu and Yin Tiang had benefited from receiving Tang Ze's shares of resources, and Zhang Long had benefited from breaking through thanks to Tang Ze (this had let him skip a minor realm as well as increased his potential later on). Zhang Long had also had another stroke of luck with finding the inheritance near his village.
There was a reason they had been able to advance so suddenly.
"The Qi here is really thick!"
"Yeah, it must have been building up for months!"
The Qi from the Komainu was much more dense than it normally would have been - likely it had been in storage until this moment.
Though Tang Ze knew that it was wrong, he couldn't help but resent them slightly for benefitting from something that he had accomplished. It was the wrong way to go about it, especially as they had all tried to help him - but Tang Ze still felt that it would've meant so much more if only he had gotten to benefit from this.
He shook these thoughts out of his head - if he kept going down that kind of path, who knew what kind of person he'd end up being?
He should be happy for his own success, yes - but he didn't want to become the kind of person who thought, "It's not enough for me to know that I'm flying in First Class - I need to know that all of my friends are in Economy!"
He had heard that phrase from a business tycoon, and at the time he couldn't help but think how petty that line of thinking was. And yet, here he was, nearly falling prey to the same mental trap.
There was a similar story told since ancient times: A man was granted three wishes, though whatsoever he asked for, his neighbor would get double. The man asked for wealth, his neighbor received double. The man asked for land, and his neighbor got twice as much land. And for this third and final wish - after careful consideration, he asked to be made blind in a single eye.
Such thoughts disappeared quickly - Tang Ze wasn't going to let something like that dampen his mood.
And he saw no reason to give in to the green-eyed monster.
His low speed of cultivation was an issue, but now that he could use pills like the others could, he should be able to catch up. There wasn't supposed to be that much of a difference in ascending between minor realms at the Qi Condensation level, so he would likely still be behind for the foreseeable future.
Still, it was progress in some form after all this time, and he was grateful to be able to finally start. And as the decades would turn into centuries, this gap would slowly narrow.
However, this was not the only stroke of luck that Tang Ze got through this.
Because the Komainu was doing so much better after he had been with it, he had been promoted to a normal Initiate from a probationary one by Elder He Xuan.
"Excellent work - I look forward to seeing more of your exploits," Elder He Xuan had said when giving him the news.
The issue with the Komainu had actually been quite a bit of a problem for the sect, and apparently solving it qualified as an 'act of valor.'
Zhang Long explained why that was in a bit more detail for Tang Ze's sake.
"All the Komainu cubs are from a single line near the main sect headquarters - training these was supposed to be a test in and of itself, and the fact that one of them was not doing well did not look good on our division," he said.
Tang Ze personally thought it was better for the cub to be near its family rather than with the sect were that the case, though no one really seemed to care about his opinion on this matter. And he couldn't really do anything that would change their minds.
And so, that day, Tang Ze finally got his white Initiate belt from the sect, making his uniform the exact same as the others in his squad.
He had tried to modify his costume if only slightly at times so that he could get some benefit from a costume, though the prefects had always called him out on it despite how small the modifications were. They were likely targeting him specifically and just looking for an excuse to reprimand him, as he saw others walking around with small touches to their uniforms. But, whenever he protested this, they would always tell him that such a thing did not excuse him from doing something like that.
For now though, he was happy with his new uniform, as he was finally fully one of them.
This also meant that it was much harder to kick him out, to the chagrin of many of the prefects. However, upon learning that he had solved the issue with the Komainu, many of them re-evaluated their opinions of him, if only slightly. He had moved up in their eyes, if only microscopically.