“Does it work with the first one? Keep what you kill or whatever?”
“They are compatible.”
Frowning, Ash scratched at his head.
It’d be a pretty quick way to the top, right? I mean, between the three. Everything would just become this… this train with no brakes.
A loss would set me back, though. Any loss.
But that’s the risk, right? The risk and the reward.
It’s all momentum.
“Add that one, too. Those three techniques. Let’s move on to abilities,” Ash said.
“It’s recommended the Chosen One utilize his first three techniques. This will help in identifying which abilities are best taken next.”
Ash thought on that and then nodded his head. It made sense. Up until now, all of this had seemed like a strange culmination of functions between Locke and the ring.
There was no telling if they were one-hundred-percent accurate.
“Alright. Give me those three techniques and we’ll go from there,” Ash said. “And we—”
A sudden burst of information racked his brain. It scattered his thoughts and he felt his body lock up as if he were made of steel rods rather than flesh and bone.
Gritting his teeth, Ash stared at the ceiling of the room. The three techniques were being directly transmitted to his mind. Straight into his memories.
To the very bottom of his Qi Sea.
After what felt like hours, it ended as abruptly as it had started.
Ash crumpled to the ground, falling to all fours.
Then the world faded to black around him. With a dizzying shift, he suddenly found himself where he’d been previously.
In the ruined courtyard outside the building.
Shivering, covered in sweat, and feeling as if his mind had been split apart. Ash felt awful.
Bile rose in his throat and he began to retch violently, throwing up the contents of his stomach.
***
Opening the door, Ash slipped into the home he’d spent most of his time here in.
The home of his adoptive family. The Sheng family.
“Ah? Is that you, Ashley?” asked a female voice from inside.
“Yes, it’s me, Far,” Ash said with a smile, moving into what he’d call the kitchen. He found the mother of the family next to the entryway. Far Sheng.
She’d treated him as if he were one of her natural-born children, even though she’d said he looked like the strangest outlander she’d ever seen.
Admittedly, Ash looked very much an outlander. He was Caucasian after all, and as far as he could tell, everyone in this world was of Asian descent.
“Oh, welcome home,” Far said, standing over a hearth set in the wall. Sitting over a tripod was a beat-up cauldron, and she was stirring its contents with a long handled large spoon.
She was a small woman who looked to be in her late forties, with black hair and dark eyes. She was only a citizen, as was her husband.
Though both of their children had turned out to be cultivators, much to their great surprise.
“Duyi is working late tonight.”
He’s been doing that a lot lately. It’s not good for his health. He’s much too old to be working hard labor for so long each day.
“Mother Far, why?” Ash asked. Walking over to the smaller woman, Ash touched her gently on the back and kissed the top of her head.
“Aaaaah. It’s nothing you need worry about,” Far said, shaking her head. “Sit, I’ll serve you a bowl. It’ll be truly ready later, but it should taste just fine now.”
“Thank you, Mother Far, but please—tell me. What’s going on?” Ash asked, taking a seat at a flat board laid out on the ground that served as their table.
Sighing, Far reached over to a stack of bowls beside the cauldron and pulled one off the top.
“Jing and Yan have not done well in their sect. Father Duyi is working hard to help support them so they can succeed,” Far said after she began pouring the stew into the bowl.
Ash felt his heart thump oddly in his chest.
They’re not doing well?
“What’s wrong, exactly?” Ash asked.
Taking the bowl from Far, he brought it up to his lips and took a hearty drink.
“Ahh, they didn’t really say. Just that they’re not able to succeed right now. They didn’t ask for anything, but Father and I think if we send them a little extra, maybe that’ll change things,” Far said with a smile as she sat down in front of him.
“I see. They really didn’t say anything at all?”
“Nothing that I understood. Something about the cultivation techniques costing too much was about the only thing that made sense to me,” Far said.
“Which is why you want to send money—that makes sense.”
Far smiled and nodded at him. “Yes.”
“What if I worked? I could always skip out of the examination and get a job. Work with Father Duyi.”
Ash lifted the bowl to his mouth and took another drink, managing to capture several slivers of vegetables and a bit of meat.
I wonder where they got the meat? That’s a bit of a surprise.
“I don’t think… that is…” Far sighed and gave him a tired smile. “Ashley, Mother and Father worry that no one will hire you because you look so much like an outlander.
“Father Duyi has already been asking around… even his friends… no one is willing to take you on.”
Ash nodded at that.
It wasn’t unsurprising. While people didn’t hate him for being an outlander, or even dislike him, they treated him as something of a bad omen and simply ignored him.
On the list of problems, it hadn’t been much of a concern since he wasn’t treated like an outsider.
People just didn’t like being around him for extended periods of time.
“I was wondering if you thought you might successfully pass the examination this year?” Far asked, looking at him intently now.
Ah. Yes. That’d be the one place I could excel based on my own merits, regardless of my looks.
My destiny would be my own. Fortune and fame entirely dependent on me, and maybe some luck.
Smiling at Far, Ash nodded.
“I do believe I’ll pass, yes. I wouldn’t be concerned. I’m actually fairly confident in myself this year,” Ash said.
Far didn’t move. Then she smiled brightly at him.
“Truly, Ashley? You think you’ll pass?” she asked.
“Yes. I do. I can’t guarantee my results beyond passing, but I do believe I’ll pass without a concern.
“I’m almost certain of it,” Ash said, unable to smile back at her.
Her genuine joy at the possibility of him succeeding had struck at the core of his being.
This is the path. We’ll move forward to protect the family.
The question becomes… how far can I go?
“Oh, I’m so happy for you!” Far said, reaching over the table to pat his cheek.
Ash grinned, his cheeks turning a faint red at the attention.
“Thanks, Mother Far.”
***
Sitting quietly by himself in his room, Ash focused inward on his Qi Sea.
The energy there flowed gently back and forth. The waters nearly still and undisturbed.
So, first we have to condense all this Qi into our “snowflake” and then set it rolling, right?
As if the simple thought of the ability was enough, he knew exactly what he needed to do.
Siphoning his entire Qi Sea into one spot, he began to push it together. Pressing it down onto itself.
As if he were rolling aluminum foil into a ball, he kept pressing in on it. From every angle, he pressed and pushed on his Qi.
Slowly, it began to shrink into itself, vanishing and becoming denser with every pass.
Then it suddenly felt like it could go no further. The Qi was as dense as it was going to become.
Pulling back from the tiny dense ball of Qi, he let it sett
le back into the bottom of his Qi Sea.
Which was little more than a puddle now.
Sighing to himself, Ash collected his thoughts. Then he began to work through the steps to cultivate.
Taking hold of his puddle, Ash used it according to the ability. He let it gather around him to literally flow through his surroundings, gathering and trapping all the Essence in the waking world.
I can see how this truly can become a frightening skill later on, and why the introductory stages would be so complicated.
I cannot imagine doing this with something smaller than my puddle.
If I were just starting out, wouldn’t it be little more than a rain drop?
Ash could feel the puddle soaking up the Essence.
This was by far the simplest method for cultivating with this technique. It was also the only way Ash could do it for now.
He’d have to wait for things to change within his body, and his Dantian, before he could do more with it.
Essence continued to circle around the puddle, ever being drawn into the mass.
It brought all that Qi into itself and rapidly condensed it to the same level as the puddle.
And the amount of Qi needed to be condensed was significantly less than what he’d spent to reach the same goal.
Which made sense when he thought about it. The whole point of this technique was that the further you invested into it, the more it could give back.
But with each investment, one would eternally shuffle themselves backwards.
Ash could already see the problem he imagined many cultivators faced with this technique.
How much do I invest back into it, and at what point is it more a hindrance than a help to do so?
Sighing to himself, Ash drew a line of Qi from the very meager supply into his body through his meridians, and then circulated it back to the sea.
Let’s start with refining our body. That’s what we must do first if we have any chance.
To cultivators, the Dantian was the main reservoir. Where the Qi was stored and held.
The meridians running throughout the body were the rivers that carried the Qi far and wide.
Ash directed his Qi like it was as easy as breathing, like he’d always known how.
Apparently, our little training ring taught me all the subtleties as well.
Qi seeped into Ash’s internal organs. It fed his body as if it were a dry riverbed flush with new rains.
All the Qi that cycled through his body was diminished. Absorbed by his flesh.
Though it wasn’t lost. It simply lacked the vitality it had once had.
Cycling it back through his Dantian, it became once more what it had been.
Though Ash couldn’t feel the changes during his cultivation, he was sure it was having an effect.
Then a strange thought struck him.
He needed to get his abilities tomorrow before training, and he had to begin working hard immediately.
The examination was only a month away.
It’s just not enough time.
Three
Ash had spent the night cultivating.
From the time he sat down on his bed to the moment the sun touched his skin in the morning, he cultivated and cycled his Qi.
Nourishing his body with the energy of the heavens.
With a slow breath out, Ash let his cultivation end.
Sitting in his room, he contemplated what to do next. Soon he’d have to head to the training sect and begin the day.
He didn’t feel tired for having been up all night. He attributed it to having never cultivated before, and this being the first time.
We should see if we can pick up an ability.
If we can win some matches today, we can start gaining some of that multiplier, right?
Though if we lose, it’ll set us ever further back.
I’m confident in my martial skills. If it’s simply a trial of combat, I could win.
That means… we should focus on a cultivation movement ability? Something that can help us keep speed with our opponent?
Looking at the ring on his finger, Ash was momentarily puzzled.
It looked significantly less damaged than it had previously.
Many of the scuffs and scratches were gone. Healed over as if they’d never been a problem.
In fact, even the large deep crack that had run throughout it was sealed over.
Feeding a trickle of his Qi into the ring, Ash immediately had his answer.
Much of the visible surface of the ring had indeed been repaired. The damage throughout was still very much there though. Just beneath the visible layer.
Then the ring responded to his Qi and dragged him into the training world it held.
Ash was standing once again in the courtyard in front of the old building.
It no longer looked like a moldering wreck, about to fall over at any second.
“Now it just looks like a shit-hole, which is still an upgrade,” Ash said aloud. Walking to the door, he was surprised to find it was repaired, and even attached at both hinges.
Ash opened the door and stepped inside the deceptively large library.
“Locke?” Ash asked.
“The Chosen One has returned. The library has been cleaned up. Free-floating Essence that the Chosen One was unable to capture has been transmitted into the heirloom to speed recovery.
“At the current rate, it will take two hundred and three years to repair the treasure,” Locke said.
“That sounds like a while,” Ash said. Moving past everything, he headed straight for the evaluation chamber.
I imagine there was a lot more to do here before Locke integrated himself into it.
I probably would have needed to familiarize myself with everything available.
“Locke, I need a movement ability. I want to try and win some fights today.
“I’m fairly confident in my ability to fight without cultivation, but they tend to cheat when it’s obvious I’m going to win,” Ash said.
“Two abilities given the Chosen One’s current limitations are most suited to the request,” Locke said immediately.
“And they’re both things I can learn and utilize today?” Ash clarified.
“Correction, one ability,” Locke responded. “One other ability requires a month of practice to completely utilize.
“There are many more abilities available; however, the limitations of the Chosen One’s body has severely restricted these numbers.”
“Uh huh. Believe me, I get it. Need to work on leveling all that up as quickly as possible.
“Oh, speaking of leveling up, what rank am I currently?”
“Level-two body refiner. The Chosen One’s body has absorbed enough Essence to move to the third level, but has not cultivated enough to do so.”
Ash nodded and stepped into the center circle of the evaluation chamber.
“So what’s the movement ability?” Ash asked.
“Coiled Spring Step,” Locke said. “It’s an ability that is activated prior to use. It stores kinetic energy that can be expelled rapidly to generate force in a direction of one’s choosing.
“In effect, propelling oneself.”
“That sounds… interesting. And the amount of force stored?”
“Normally it would be uncontrollable, and the notes in the back of the skill book recommend that this is not continuously utilized. But more of a preplanned move.
“Due to my presence, this is no longer the case. A limiter can be set on this ability.”
“In other words, it’s a toggled ability now,” Ash said. “I can turn it on and off at will and it’ll just… hit the set level and remain there.”
“Correct.”
“Great. How much of my Qi do I need to expend to keep enough kinetic force to move five feet in any direction?”
“Two-point-six percent. Once that amount of force has been met, Qi will no longer be spent.”
“Great. Transfer the ability over to me
and set it at that for now. That’s… not too bad. That means I can use it quite a bit,” Ash said excitedly. “This’ll be gre—”
The sudden intrusion of the skill book into his mind cut him free of all further thought.
***
Ash warily stepped into the sect’s primary courtyard.
It existed for the sole purpose of training new recruits to join larger sects.
In truth, this sect was simply a smaller branch academy of a much larger sect that had a contract for this job.
Every city had several training sects like this set up to filter students upward. While they weren’t all the same, one could always say the opportunities they granted were equivalent.
Ash stepped out of the way of an outlander slave hauling a sack of rice.
The black, iron slave collar bound around the man’s neck was a clear indicator of his status.
The collar wasn’t magical in any way, just a symbol.
This was how the vast majority of outlanders spent their time in the nine kingdoms. They were captured in the other veils and brought into the cities.
Captured and bound, lashed to servitude.
Until they died or were freed.
The latter being rather unlikely, since someone had paid good money and would be unwilling to free them at a loss.
“Ash, good morning,” came a soft voice at his side.
Turning his head, he found Jia standing there.
Now that he knew Jia was a woman, he wondered how he’d ever managed to believe her when she’d stated she was a man.
“Good morning yourself, Jia,” Ash said, grinning at her.
Jia blinked at him, her brows drawing low over her eyes.
“You are rather… bright… this morning,” Jia said, her tone odd.
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t be? I mean, you always tell me to look on the positive side. Don’t you?”
“Yes. Though you typically scoff at me and dismiss my wish.”
“Maybe I finally took your words to heart,” Ash said.
Two junior female acolytes wandered by, both eying Jia as they did so.
Ah… if they only knew.
Though… it could be fun to mess with her a bit.
“What’s your ideal woman, Jia?” Ash asked, changing the topic.
Cultivating Chaos Page 3
