by Ryan DeBruyn
I manage to add some qi into nearby nerves, but it only dulls the intensity slightly. My sliding slows, and I feel Mur begin thumping his club against the reinforced head beside me. Each thwack of his mace sends shivers down the shaft of my spear and causes the pain in my leg to increase. My backward slide finally slows to a stop, and the Leporid teeters to its left. Is this a new form of attack?
My spear follows the motion, and I am jerked sideways from the point of pain in my leg. I cry out in agony again as the Leporid and I crumple to the side of the tunnel. Its other eye unfocuses and whitens. It takes me another heartbeat more to realize that it’s dead. Then what is attacking my leg? I look down and find the shaft of my spear is connected to the limb. A strong urge to vomit rises from my stomach when I let go of the shaft with my bottom hand. That hand, which is butted up against my leg, peels off the wood and reveals that the shaft goes into my leg. A glance tells me nearly two feet of the shaft is missing, and has likely punctured right through my thigh if the pain in the back of the leg is any indication.
Breathing heavily and thinking fast, I summon the corpse of the Leporid into my subspace. The relieved weight on one side of the weapon eases the flex of the shaft slightly, and I feel the pain mute ever so slightly. My breathing won’t slow down though as I look at the bulge on the side of the limb. It seems to have missed the bone, but how should I get it out? How do I even heal from something like this?
“Mur kill hopper. Two blow,” Mur crows from beside me, but I can’t correct him or give him much attention. I feel my shoulder begin sliding down the wall and slowly collapse onto my side on the floor. Swallowing bile, I begin circulating qi to heal and numb the area further. I’m not going to pull it out, but I think if I have a bandage ready I could summon it into my subspace, right? Mur looks around the tunnel before seeing the spear stuck in my leg.
“Mur! Don’t!” I shout and realize too late it wasn’t in Gartuski.
The wood makes a sucking sound as it exits the wound, and my brain holds up the proverbial white flag as the new level of pain overwhelms the qi.
Chapter 28
September 2nd, 151 AR
Jeff Turle
An insistent slapping of my face slowly recalls my consciousness from whatever dreamscape it’s been in. As is often the case when waking up, it takes several moments for my eyes to come into focus. Maybe that’s because of the change in lighting?
It becomes clear that I am no longer in the Leporid warren. The bright fluorescents of the Training Room come into focus as a hand continues to sting my cheek. Reflexively, I move my arm to block it.
“Good. Jeff awake. Eat. Heal.”
The bark-growl gives me a moment’s notice. A vial of something is then practically shoved into my mouth, which I open to drink. The liquid is dumped down my throat, and I sputter as the taste hits my tongue. My convulsing forces half of it to fly back out while the other half splits between my lungs and stomach. My eyes lose focus again as tears form, and my sputtering turns into raging coughs.
When I gain control of my body again, my face is stained with tears, my lungs burn, and all I can smell is whatever sewage water Mur poured into my mouth.
“What. . .the. . .?” I sputter.
“Jeff back with Basement Tribe. This tonic, dork shaman show Mur. It from nearby herbs. Great for blood-spirit,” Mur states proudly while banging his own chest with a fist. The image is blurry, but the outline of the goblin and the sounds make his proud action clear.
Now sitting up, I can see I am naked and on my cot. My chest and bed have green stains from multiple applications of Mur’s tonic. Looking down, I find my clothes forming a heavy bandage on my leg but feel very little pain from it. Did Mur drag me back naked?
“Master is awake,” Crash says in his standard monotone, and I can’t help but smile. Considering I was staring down a charging Leporid last I remember, this outcome is far better than the death I had been sure was coming.
I’m alive and safe with my—friends, I guess? I hesitate and test the word in my mind. Is that what they are? Well, one is an AI, and the other is a goblin. They’re my team. And our team killed a Leporid. Could it have gone better? Certainly. But it definitely could’ve gone far worse.
“How long was I unconscious?” I ask, realizing I said it in English and not Gartuski.
Still, Mur holds up all eight of his digits and flashes another three.
“Over eleven hours, sire. While the paste the goblin fed you wasn’t very efficient, it did contain small amounts of Earth qi. Your wound is closed, but the muscles will need a few more hours.”
I test the limb in question with a bit of weight and feel the pain radiate out. It isn’t unbearable, but I wouldn’t ever call it pleasant. Considering how late we went out the night before, it must be nearing noon the following day, and I still have to check in with the church.
The first auction must’ve completed as well. Pain forgotten, I stand up on one leg and hop my way to the shop.
“Master, the book is on the central table,” Crash informs me, and I change direction to the much closer concrete table. There I find a journal. The bindings on the back are ready to burst apart and spray pages in all directions. In between the bound pages of the journal, there are strange glossy ones that are vibrantly colored. The whole thing is held closed by an ancient belt. The tooth of the sad-looking belt looks to have been pushed through the leather using force, not through a hole made for the purpose.
Looking at the already-tattered book and then down to my disgustingly green-caked chest, spattered hands, and naked body, I make the decision to turn back and take a shower first. Probably should have been my first decision anyway.
During the shower, I realize how little qi I have remaining, my healing body having used all of what I had remaining, plus most of what I gained from that foul tonic of Mur’s. I really need to make a larger batch of soup for these exact situations because, even if Mur hadn’t knocked me unconscious in the tunnel, it’s hard to see myself calmly eating the Pulled Rodentia Sandwich in crisis situations.
My impatience to read the book rushes my shower and won’t allow me to cook. So, I pull out two of the remaining sandwiches, one each for Mur and me. He’s earned it and more. Then I sit down at the table with my sandwich, a plate, and a towel to ensure cleanliness. It’s time to read. The first page summarizes the Church’s cultivation teachings, and I can tell that the previous owner wasn’t a fan.
Wrong Order? Possibly just wrong!
-F-rank – Clearing of God organ Arteries, Arterioles, and Capillaries. No texts, other methods disagree with this step.
oOther methods claim spiritual abscess’s should be cleared slowly and carefully – Too late, My arterioles and capillareis have Spiritual scar tissue.
-The church is unaware of spiritual affinities and activating liquid? Perhaps but doubtfull.
-Venules, Veins, and path ways around the body. Probably best to discuss in E Rank.
-E-rank – Church method is to begin pressurizing liquid to hold more in God Organ, and to strengthen the muscles of the Organ itself. The user can then shoot out liquid as spell or skills. Nine ranks based on strengthening layers
oReading suggest otherwise. Some organs should be cleansed identicaly to the God Organ; heart, lungs, stomach, brain, muscles, bones, liver, kidnys, digestive tract, colon, skin, etc. What is most important?
That is it for the first page, and I can literally feel my blood bubbling with excitement. What ancient texts could the old owner have studied to develop all of his theories and summaries from the first page? From the notes, it seems that he died while in the E-ranks, but I have a feeling from what Crash has said before. . .
“Crash, did the old Master die in the E-ranks?”
“No, sire. He was A-9 when he perished. We can’t recall where this journal is from, but we do seem to remember him collecting a great deal of information to put within it once he passed the twentieth level of the Delving Spire.”
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Not responding, I flip the page and blink. There is a colored drawing that appears to be ripped out of a book. I tilt my head, seeing a language with English scrawled beneath. The characters seem to be Cantonese, Mandarin, or perhaps Japanese. To be honest, I am far from worldly enough to be able to distinguish between them. Still, the English underneath is entirely legible.
I pull the page closer to myself to try to make sense of it. There is an outline of a man in the first image with eight large dots across his body and then a swirling central point with lines connecting to each of the eight points. The next picture shows an old man teaching a younger one about the image. Why is this set up in such a way? Did the old owner draw this? Wouldn’t it be easier to just write out the lesson? Perhaps, this is the story of the old owner of the book.
Wow, is that meant to be a woman with pink hair and—
The book falls to the table with a thud, and the page I was holding flutters away from me. I know what this is. Alrick had shown me his collection of what he called comic books, and these are eerily similar. But Alrick’s picture books showed what he described as fantastical superheroes who flew around and saved people. I breathe out, and my heart deflates along with the exhalation.
“Crash, are the ancient texts that Barclay was studying those?” I ask as I point to the ripped page I just held.
“Yes, Master. Barclay believed that the old tales of Earth had a kernel of truth to them. He couldn’t afford a cultivation manual at first and so was attempting to sift through the myths. He called these graphic novels and said they had some of the best descriptions he could find.”
Well, the fact that Barclay was aware of what the ‘ancient texts’ are makes it slightly better. . .
My eyes scan the roof as I stand atop the ladder. I poke my head up a little higher, scrutinizing the caged garden, and don’t see anyone. Do I really need to use this rooftop? Unfortunately, many other rooftops may see me arrested—at least here, the owner seems to be friendly.
I’ve already searched the immediate area, and this is the only roof I can easily access. Considering the amount of time I plan to cultivate for today, I can’t use the street or sidewalk. A glance at the cresting sun tells me that I am wasting that time. Time I could be using to practice what I found.
Sighing, I pull myself onto the roof and sneak over the gravel to a heavily foliaged corner of the cage. If I am going to use the roof, I should try to at least hide from the people that come out to use the garden. Hide myself from Veronica.
I sit down, crossing my legs, and pull out the two creased and colorful sheets. While reading the journal, I found two exciting theories heavily annotated: the Jade Bones Technique and the Iron Muscle Foundation. According to the annotations, both have the same fundamentals and can be used in concert. They also lend themselves to future purification techniques and meridian forming.
In essence, both of these methods require me to clear out my entire circulatory system of abscesses. That sounds simple, but in truth, it’s like taking my Dantian and increasing the size and scope of purification thousands of times. Still, a scrawled note explains that this technique’s slow build is as important as it is within the Sea.
As for what gains come from the Jade Bone and the Iron Muscle foundations, well, it’s quite simple. Every injury taken by my body will be healed by my activated qi. The more damage I accrue, whether from working out or fighting, the more my body will change. The theory is that every muscle and bone within my body will be rebuilt using qi. In this way, my body will become a fusion: muscle, bone, and permanent qi.
My blood is rushing through my heart at an insane rate due to my excitement. So I begin meditating, allowing the sunlight glowing off my skin to imbue its energy. Now that I have instructions, today is about taking another step on my path. The cultivation journal claims the only real danger in hasty cultivation is forcing breakthroughs. Clearing an abscess will always leave the area raw. Still, as long as I don’t forcefully break down blockages and cause Spiritual Burns, the book’s term for it, I have nothing to worry about.
It’s just after noon, and I plan to cultivate until the sun sets and the moon begins to rise. A rough estimation tells me I should get upwards of two hundred drops of Sun qi if I spread that qi out over my body, intertwining it with my vascular system. In that case, I will not only increase the amount of qi my body is holding but also take that first step on the path of both foundations.
Part of me wants to sit here absorbing qi all night, but Mur and I need to run another dungeon and that can only really be done at night. That dungeon run is the only reason I need to rush. The Suburb, from my understanding, runs around the clock because of the cultivators’ schedules. Both the merchant streets and suburbs run in shifts, to make sure that cultivators can follow whatever schedule they choose.
So theoretically I could come in the middle of the night to sell items, or visit the church, but I’ve chosen to try to get that out of the way in the evening before our dungeon run. I’ve also decided to sell approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of Leporid meat here in Beach. I’m holding the same amount in reserve to sell or cook in the Training Room. It would be silly to sell all of the meat in one of the locations without checking the prices in the other. So that’s a secondary goal today after my cultivation.
Fifteen minutes later, I can feel the barest whisper of activated Sun qi circulating in my body. I can feel the light breeze of the day wafting over my sweaty skin. This is usually where I have stopped in the past, and I swallow a forming lump in my throat—time to push forward.
After thirty minutes, the breeze is a godsend. Each light caress of it is a relief to my soaking body. While some of the activated Sun qi vanishes over time, a light current traces itself through my body now. The one stumbling block so far has been how to return the flow to the heart and the Dantian. It seemed so easy in theory. All paths lead back, right?
Wrong! Most of the large arteries around my body have no full blockages. Other than my left leg, which I can’t access at all right now. Still, transferring from larger arteries to arterioles steeply increases the chances of a full blockage from abscess. Transferring further to the capillaries so far proves absolutely fruitless as every one of the small vessels has multiple spiritual clogs. So, in each case, as pressure builds, I have been putting out proverbial fires and releasing it.
The method is the same as what I did with my Dantian: create an undertow that leads back to the larger artery. At the end of the large arteries, I generate a jump to the large veins that return to the heart. Sounds simple, but to create the undertows hundreds—no, thousands—of times all over my body is beginning to take its toll on my brain. To cope, I sink deeper into my meditation—I can’t miss a single one, or I risk serious spiritual injury.
Time becomes meaningless as my mind goes into autopilot. Adjust the flow, rebound, and cut under to rejoin the main rivers. I repeat the process each time I reach a blockage and feel like a pendulum swinging back and forth. Right to left and left to right. The rhythm becomes soothing as I continue.
Heat. My meditation wavers as I realize the air around me feels like a furnace. What happened to the breeze? Half my brain continues to work at the remaining backflows as I use the other half to find the source of the new problem.
Sulfur, excrement, death, and decay wash over my nose like a foul beast’s breath. The shock of the stench breaks me completely out of my meditation, and my eyes fly open. The sun is falling into the curve of the earth with a beautiful orange salute, and I am sweating so much that I truly feel like I am in a river of scalding water. My sweat feels alien, oily and thick, almost like rendered monster fat.
Cold. A deluge of water splashes down over my head, and I cry out. With my current wet-rag status, I can only tell that it was water because of the temperature difference.
“You smell like a backed-up sewer!” Veronica’s voice calls from above me, and I look up to find her holding a bucket.
Adrenaline
punches my heart into overdrive, and I try leaping to my feet, only to find them uncooperative. I attempt to use the muscles in my right leg to correct the world’s strange tilting and instead find that leg is too strong. That strength causes me to overbalance onto my left leg, which feels like a wet noodle. I recall the blocked artery that heads that direction as I crumple to the ground.
Some of the water and sweat enters my mouth as I attempt to cry out in alarm. The taste is something between taking a drink from the latrine water and eating decaying leaves. Or at least what I imagine those tastes to be. My stomach chooses to object violently to the flavor palate, and the food I ate earlier that day makes its reappearance.
“You probably taste as bad as you smell,” Veronica calls with laughter hidden just behind her words. Her voice turns serious shortly after. “I think it’s time we chatted. No more running away. I have suffered through your reek for the last hour. And if you leave looking and smelling like you do now, I’m ninety percent sure you’d end up in jail. . .”
“Water?” I croak to the gravel below my hands. I hear a half-chuckle and then some metallic creaks and a slow whining screech before a bottle is pressed into my shoulder a few minutes later. I take a mouthful and swish it around in my mouth before spitting and taking an actual sip. Unfortunately, even after cleaning my mouth out, it appears I will be tasting that foulness for a while.
I look up to meet Veronica’s eyes, and she twitches the corners of her mouth up slightly. She clearly feels that I am now trapped here with her. I look down at myself and realize that I am coated head to toe in the thickest layer of black grime I could have imagined. I’m somewhat surprised the sun was still able to be cultivated with the layer of black on top of my skin. . . I guess it isn’t fully opaque, more of a dark brown. I wipe a layer off and shudder with a bit of revulsion. I didn’t expect this much. . .
