Chapter 5: Life 10, Age 16, Martial Disciple 1

“What is your name?” asked the elderly man at the testing orb. “Su Fang.” “Place your hand on the orb and channel your qi into it.” This time, not only did I know what to do, but the action came much easier. Qi flowed from my dantian and into the orb. A dull brown stone appeared in its center. “Earth affinity. Middle of nine-star,” the elderly man said. His voice sounded only slightly kinder than in the past. Honestly, I didn’t know what a ‘good’ result would be in this test. “What can you tell us about the blessing you have received?” “The healing and slight strengthening of my body,” I said. Playing the mysterious angle didn’t work at all, better to try to appear straight-forward. “Hmm, works with the earth affinity. Very well, give him the Earth Heart Mantra and return him.” This wasn’t much different than the past, but the faint hint of praise gave me hope. As before, I picked up the scroll and returned to my tiny house. At this point, I didn’t really need the scroll anymore. I already knew what it said. Practicing it this time, however, was different. As I followed the instructions, I could feel a significant difference. The Earth Heart Mantra had you move the qi inside your body in a specific way. The first step was to move it towards your right upper arm and effectively create a whirlpool. The goal of this was to pull qi from outside the body and trap it within the muscles. At the same time, you had to create what was basically a filter, allowing only earth qi into the body. The higher the purity of earth qi, the more effective it would be. In the past, this was extremely difficult for me. Concentrating my qi into one part of my body was difficult. Creating a whirlpool to pull in qi was nearly impossible. Creating any kind of effective filter was completely beyond my comprehension. This time, however, it all seemed to just work. Moving the qi and creating the whirlpool was as simple as breathing. I was able to quickly reach the point where my body would pull qi from the air. The moment I did so, though, I immediately stopped. Pulling in qi at random would do more harm than good. I needed to filter it first. Actually... From what I could tell, it seemed like the qi I pulled in was already at least fifty percent earth-attributed. My affinity with earth was helping me here. It was still bad to gather qi at random, but maybe not a dealbreaker? Still, I should try to do it correctly. I worked to form the pattern from the scroll. My attempt looked... close? As I pulled qi through it, the pattern quickly collapsed. So, not so easy. Still, it was just a matter of practice. “Is this worth the effort though?” I suddenly asked myself. What was the point of working so hard to purify it and only pull in earth-attributed qi? As I had learned from the scroll, it was supposed to make the qi more powerful. If a chaotic mess of qi was pulled in when cultivating, it would interfere with the earth qi, negating most of its benefits. The purer the qi, the more effective it would be. Extremely high qi purity could result in qi that was several times as effective as low-purity qi. This was why a strong, pure foundation was important. However, I continued to consider. Did that matter right now? What was my current goal? To become the strongest person in the world or to just advance one step forward, gaining experience and credits along the way. The scroll said that if one’s qi purity was too low, they would be stuck as a Martial Disciple forever, but it also seemed to suggest that one could become a Peak Disciple no matter how pure their qi was. So, I could become a Peak Disciple, learn everything I could from the experience, die, and collect the credits for a high cultivation. Then, the next time around start with an even higher affinity. I would live a series of lives that slowly built upon one another. Was I okay with this strategy? It meant I would be purposefully sending myself to my death. This wasn’t suicide, and while the death was premeditated, it shouldn’t run afoul of the System’s restrictions. Still... “I think it’s what I have to do,” I told myself. “As long as I have time in between, I will be fine.” I thought about the viability of the plan. The qi filter was something I would need to learn, even if purity wasn’t something I concerned myself with at the moment. It seemed like a waste not to practice it for the future. The next step was to find the acupoint in my arm. According to the scroll, it was supposed to be on the outside of the arm near where the arm muscles and shoulder muscles make a natural divot. I was supposed to be able to find this point by moving the qi around slowly and finding a place where it kind of became sticky. This took me several days on its own. It was easy to get fed up with the process. Basically, I was slowly groping around in the dark trying to feel something when I had no idea what I should be feeling. It wasn’t until the third day that I succeeded. After that, the process was brutally simple. Concentrate my qi into a sharp point and stab from the inside of my arm, through the acupoint, and outside my body. This seemed like something only the reckless would try without proper guidance and supervision, but I didn’t have that luxury, and I didn’t really care if I messed it up. I just needed to learn from it and do better the next time. As I stabbed, I could feel qi pour out of me. Nearly everything I had worked for so long to gather vanished in a few heartbeats. There were no visible signs I had done anything to my arm, but it felt like I was left with a gaping spiritual wound through which the dregs of my remaining qi began to trickle out. Finally, with what little energy I had remaining, I reconstructed the qi whirlpool in my arm, pulling energy in instead of letting it flow out. I should mention here, again, that I was supposed to create an effective filter so that only earth qi was pulled in, but I didn’t bother. That was something I would deal with in the future. Qi poured in at several times its previous rate. It had taken me days to fill my arm with qi before. Now, it took only a few hours. In what felt like no time, I was back to my peak, with one arm brimming with qi. Before, I had to consciously hold the qi whirlpool in place and focus on cultivation. After breaking through, this became like an autonomous bodily function. The qi in my right arm would constantly replenish itself whenever it ran low. I had reached Martial Disciple 2. There was no time to sit around. I needed to start on the left arm. By the time our week of training was over, I had made what I thought was considerable progress on reaching Martial Disciple 3. It was a bit harder to pull in energy to my left arm than it had been when working on my right arm. It felt like there was almost a form of magnetic repulsion at work. But each day, the qi was becoming denser. It was only a matter of time. As we arrived at the training yard, the instructor looked at me in surprise. An honest-to-gods smile appeared on his face. It seemed like he was actually happy, not just derisively happy, when he saw me. Since I was the only one that seemed to generate this reaction, I could guess that I was the only one to make a breakthrough this week. I felt kind of proud of myself. “Alright, pair off and fight!” This time, he actually gave a few pointers on how to fight better. Shocking. A couple of kids did end up getting brutally beaten by him, but no one died. I didn’t know if I was adapting or just developing Stockholm’s syndrome, but things did seem to be looking up. “Stop! Circle around!” he finally shouted after a few hours. “Some of you are actually progressing nicely, so I have good news for you. In two weeks, it will be the end of your first month of training. At that time, there will be a small competition. “You may have noticed that several people you started with are not here at the moment. During their evaluation, they were graded as having exceptional potential, so they have been receiving specialized training. At the end of the month, you will be free to challenge them for their position. If you can defeat one of them, you will get their spot and all the resources that come with it. Train hard.” As we were dismissed, everyone began to walk back to their home, but as I was turning away, I was stopped by our instructor. “Keep up with your current efforts,” he said encouragingly. “I look forward to seeing you challenge for a spot at the end of the month.” I smiled and bowed to him. It was a rough start, but maybe everything was beginning to work itself out.