Chapter 63: Life 60, Age 16, Martial Disciple 2

After dealing with Gougou, I focused inward and spent the next three months in near seclusion. While I did walk around the Pavilion a bit to talk with Mei, SuYin, YuLin, and others, my focus was on cultivation. My original plan had been to spend three or four months at each level, slowly comprehend the dual-element technique, and then advance to the next. However, every day I became more and more dissatisfied with this dual-element technique. For all that it was labeled Mid-Profound, it was a piece of garbage. The qi purity generated when cultivating it was terrible. At the level I was used to working at, the slightest burr in my qi could cause significant damage to my ingredients. I was used to a nice, smooth, laminar flow of qi that I could use to delicately cleanse each herb. With this cultivation technique, I was taking purifying pills daily to maintain a bare semblance of pure qi. While I had concocted countless pills for the Pavilion, my bank account was rather barren because of all the purifying pills I had to take. The second problem was also something I expected but still hated. I couldn’t store nearly as much qi of a single type when using this technique. My total storage capacity remained the same, but now it was divided in two, so I was having to return to my apartment and cultivate to restore my qi far more often than I liked. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, though, if it weren’t for the last problem. The way the qi filter and whirlpool affected cultivating to restore spent qi was atrocious. When I needed both fire and wood qi, I could cultivate at what I deemed a normal rate, but if my wood qi was full and I only needed fire qi, my cultivation speed plummeted. It wasn’t just a matter of only pulling in half the total possible. No, the wood qi would clog up the filter, only allowing trickles of fire qi through. Overall, this cultivation technique was shockingly bad. Yes, it allowed for two types of qi to be cultivated, but the final effect was far worse than the Peak-Yellow technique I had been using. Before I moved on, I had to do something about this rotten technique. The first problem was straightforward. Upgrade the qi filter. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I had plenty of references to work from. The second problem was trickier. I essentially needed to increase my total qi reserves, but how? Remembering the effects of some of the other Profound rank techniques I had read, I began studying them more closely. That is where I found my solution to all three problems at once. I had three techniques that all claimed to improve ‘qi density.’ They were all slightly different, but they seemed to function on the same basic premise. Open more acupoints, pull in qi from more places, and use the additional forces to compress the qi. The total benefit was minor, so they were only considered Low-Profound techniques, but the theory behind them was far more powerful. Combining these techniques, I identified dozens of additional acupoints around my body that I had never used before. There were potentially even more, but I could wait to study that later. I needed to take one step at a time. “System, if I create a temporary reset point here but never use it, will that affect the price or doubling effect if I move it forward in the future?” I asked before beginning. No, however, all credits spent to create a point here will be lost. “Great. Make me a temporary point right here.” Confirmed. Cost 18,675 credits. 53,325 credits remaining That was potentially a waste of credits, but it made sure that I wouldn’t be wasting everything I spent on temporary upgrades if this all went completely sideways. I began cultivating in my lower left arm. Instead of one large qi whirlpool, I made a dozen of them with half the normal diameter at each of the acupoints I had identified. Then, I didn’t create a single complex qi filter to handle both elements. Instead, I copied the single element Peak-Yellow filters and placed the appropriate one at each point. After that, it was a matter of directing the qi from each acupoint into the right muscle groups. As I cultivated, the qi drawn from the various acupoints began to interfere with each other. I scaled down the whirlpools to a third of their normal size, and that problem disappeared. I wasn’t too happy with the size limitation. Twelve whirlpools with a third of the normal diameter only had slightly more surface area than one large one. It was significantly more workload for a marginal improvement in cultivation speed. This, I realized, was likely a big reason these techniques were only Low-Profound. The huge increase in complexity for marginal improvements was a tradeoff few would be willing to make, but it had untold benefits for multi-element cultivation. My fire and wood affinities were both high enough that I could handle directly cultivating in this way, and once I advanced in rank, these changes would be locked in through automatic cultivation. I examined my energy body with qi vision. The qi filters were working perfectly, and my body was only absorbing perfectly pure fire or wood qi. I stopped cultivating wood qi, and because of the reduced interference, the speed I was cultivating fire qi increased. When I looked at the rest of my body, I was shocked by the changes. The regular flow of qi throughout my body had become turbulent. The small but clean streams that naturally circulated around my body were instead a swampy morass. WuJing shook his head, crestfallen. “Even if you can, it may be too late. We just received an urgent request from the Su Clan. The patriarch has placed an order for several pills, and it’s unlikely we will be able to meet his request without ordering them from another branch. This is normal and shouldn’t be a problem, but one of the deputy managers is claiming that if Zhong were still here, we could have fulfilled it immediately. He’s stirring up trouble.” “Could Zhong have completed the order?” I asked, interested. “By himself, no, but he could pull in connections to do it. He wouldn’t have if he was still here, but since he isn’t, some people are saying he could have.” “I see. What pills are needed, and what is the time frame?” WuJing handed me a sheet of paper and I looked at it. Nothing was higher than Rank 2, but the purity and efficacy requirements were intense. Also, there were several pills I hadn’t seen before that required rare ingredients, meaning they were potential money pits for an alchemist. “He wants them by the end of the week,” said WuJing, shaking his head. “We have two Masters in the city, but they can’t do this quality, so we either have to order from outside the Wastes or try to source them from the Twin Mountains Sect. Neither option is good. Going outside means huge expenses, and going to the sect for this devalues the Pavilion. Again, either would be normal in this situation—” “But people are causing trouble,” I said, cutting him off. “I got it. Send me the ingredients and I’ll get started right away. End of the week is a tight timeline, but I’ll do my best.” WuJing eyes widened. “Are you serious? You’re only a Disciple...” “Deadly,” I smiled wolfishly. “Just get me the ingredients and I’ll make sure you have your pills. Though, it would be best if you included a substantial number of herbs for Rank 1 Qi Recovery Pills. I’ll probably need them to meet this deadline.” The list WuJing provided me contained a combination of Rank 1 and 2 pills. Beyond the quality of pills required, the quantity was also substantial. I began by knocking out all the low-hanging fruit. The Rank 1 pills were almost all easily dealt with. For the herbs with wood, water, or metal energy, I quickly and efficiently burned out the toxins and formed the pills. All were Perfect with around 102% of standard efficacy. There weren’t many pills that required earth or fire herbs, but I was able to use fire or wood qi with the techniques I knew to boost those all the way to at least 121% of standard efficacy as Perfect pills. The only Rank 1 pill that tripped me up required an extremely rare herb with energy I hadn’t seen before. Comparing it to my memories from the attack on the Twin Mountain Sect, I realized it must be lightning energy. I didn’t have any lightning affinity, so I couldn’t improve or perfect the pill, but I was still able to concoct it as a High-Purity pill with 99% of standard efficacy. Staring at the completed pill, I tapped my fingers. “I’m going to have to move beyond the basic elements,” I told myself. It wasn’t vital yet, and it would cost, but it would need to be done. With the Rank 1 pills completed, I moved on to the Rank 2 ones. These would be significantly more challenging with my low qi levels, but with my fire seed mastery, I knew it should be possible. Instead of focusing on herb type, I paid more attention to the prevailing energy in the toxins. Targeting the herbs with mostly water toxins first, I got to work. With peak seven-star earth and water affinities, the Cold Mountain Fire was a joy to work with. I didn’t have to use any qi at all. I just opened my soul, and it poured out exactly when and where I wanted. My qi vision had advanced enough to see through Rank 2 herbs, and with my higher affinities, I gently opened up the medicinal energy to eradicate all the small traces of toxins. Where I could, I used my fire or wood qi to enhance a pill, but I couldn’t inject enough qi to push them past 105% of standard efficacy. Instead, I was much more successful using the energy from the spirit fire to boost pills. The Cold Mountain Fire was more than 90% earth energy with the rest being water energy. I used my affinities to separate the two, then I sent the earth energy to enhance metal herbs and the water energy to enhance wood herbs. Where I used earth, the pills were raised to around 115% efficacy, and where I used water, they were raised to around 104%. The water boost wasn’t amazing, but it was far better than nothing. With this new experience, I wanted to go back and redo the Rank 1 pills, but unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Where the Cold Mountain Fire was less effective, such as metal toxins, I had to use copious amounts of qi, and I burned through several qi recovery pills to get everything done in time, but by the end of the week, the order was complete. While the order had stated minimums, there was no maximum acceptable quality. The Su Clan implicitly agreed to buy the highest quality pills produced with the provided ingredients. Normally, they would be overjoyed to receive such high-quality pills, but I hoped WuJing would take advantage of the situation to milk them for as much as he could.