I was walking through the industrial district of sector E. The hammering of metal, roaring of flames, and the hiss of steam coming from the pipes around me made me feel at home.
As I passed by one of the larger forges in the industrial district my eyes were overrun with Text alerting me that something has been found nearby using my senses.
"What did you find Text?" I asked.
"ANSWER: A suitable source of fire and metal qi has been located nearby. Body cultivation is possible." Text answered. I looked around but couldn’t find anything that immediately jumped out to me.
"Where?" I asked.
"ANSWER: The metalworking foundry nearby has an abundant amount of fire and metal qi within it. Enough to easily train to halfway to the training bottleneck at least in each fire and metal qi."
"I see." I said, contemplating. I guess I can just go in and ask.
"No." The gruff metal worker in the foundry stated.
"Why would we let you just sit around the forge while we’re working lass?" he asked.
"Because I won’t get in the way, and I’ll pay you?" I said using my most winningest smile.
He seemed to falter at my words.
"You’ll pay us? To just sit around and not get in the way? Why didn’t you say so lass, pull up a chair and just don’t get in the way." He said excitedly, pulling a chair over to me. I took a seat and watched the men in the foundry work for a while. Eventually, I decided it was time to begin cultivating.
"Text, how do I cultivate my body here?" I asked under my breath.
"ANSWER: Bring the qi in the surroundings first into your flesh until you feel your flesh is overflowing with the qi, this should fundamentally change your flesh over time as you steep your flesh in the qi. Then do the same for your viscera, your muscles, your bones, and finally your marrow." Text said simply. I didn’t know what all of those things were exactly, but I decided to just try it out.
I felt around me for the metal and fire qi and decided to start with the fire qi first. I brought the qi from my surroundings and into my flesh slowly. The area around me began heating up as the fire qi concentrated on my location. After minutes of pulling fire qi closer to me I felt that I reached a limit on the amount of fire qi I could bring into my body. I sat there focusing, and sweating profusely as it felt like my entire body was on fire. After what felt like hours, I felt something snap and my body immediately cooled off, the amount of fire qi hadn’t decreased, but I could feel something markedly different within my body now.
Using the fire qi still surrounding me I brought the qi first into what felt like my viscera. Whenever I let the qi flow where it shouldn’t I felt something in my brain tell me it was wrong and adjusted until everything felt right. Again, I focused on my breathing and cultivating as the qi infused first my viscera, then my muscles and bones. When the qi finally finished infusing the marrow in my bones, I felt something click within myself and the room suddenly felt no warmer than a lukewarm bath.
I opened my eyes to find all of the foundry workers watching me closely. I looked around between them wondering what had prompted them to act this way when I smelled it. A horrible putrid stench like rotting flesh and a dead carcass had a kid flooded my nostrils. I looked down at myself and realized I was now covered with black gunk.
"Ew! What is all this gunk?!" I asked to no one in particular.
Text flooded my vision, but I wasn’t able to begin reading it as the man I had talked to earlier came over.
"Girl, I don’t know what you’ve been doing over here for hours, but with the state you’re in right now I can’t have you sticking around any longer. Go to the bathhouse and get yourself cleaned up." He told me, shooing me out of the building and shutting the door behind me.
I blinked a few times and realized the text in my vision wasn’t going away. Text seemed to be able to tell if I had read it or not.
"ANSWER: When reaching the end of a stage with an element, the force of the qi changing the body causes the impurities still residing within the user’s body to be expelled. This process will happen for each realm of body cultivation and each element within the realm."
"Well it’s really gross, I wish you had warned me about this." I said back to the snarky text in my vision. It disappeared and thankfully didn’t reply. I walked to the communal bathhouse near the industrial district and before I entered the building a ‘ding’ showed up in my vision.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"LOCATION: A suitable location for cultivating water qi has been found. This bathhouse establishment has an abundance of water qi suitable for cultivating the user’s body."
I rolled my eyes, but if I was going to body cultivate, it might as well be somewhere where I can clean myself off after it.
I had to pay a premium for bathing in the bathhouse, but once I was inside the baths, I focused again on my body cultivation. As opposed to fire qi which seemed to burn me from within, the water qi suffusing my body now made me feel like I was submerged in an icy sea, darkness all around me. I shivered despite the warmth of the bath and continued cultivating the water qi. First my flesh, then my viscera, my muscles, my bones, and finally my marrow, I cultivated them all slowly until they were all finished. Again my nose was assaulted by that rank smell of the impurities being purged by the qi.
I cleaned myself off again and felt rejuvenated as I left the bath house. I was forced to buy a robe from the bath house as my clothes were ruined from the gunk.
I walked home as quickly as I could but partway through the market district I got stopped by Text again.
"LOCATION: The symbol you asked me to look out for has been located."
Down an alley to my right, I looked and as expected, outlined in green was the symbol on the holo-note I still kept in my pocket. Below the glowing symbol on the wall was a door inlaid into the wall.
I walked over to the door and knocked on it, a slat opened in the door, bright solid gold eyes looking out at me from within.
"You got a token?" A gruff voice from the other side of the door called out to me.
I was confused, but thinking about it a little bit I decided to try showing the holo-note of the symbol. I pulled out the holo-note and showed it to the man.
The slat in the door closed and I heard some locks being unlocked before the door slid open. The man on the other side of the door moved out of the way and beckoned me inside.
"May the one true Dao lead you to prosperity." He said as I passed him going inside.
I looked at him strangely but walked inside anyway.
"That was weird" I thought to myself.
I walked into the small room inside the door. Two separate hallways broke off from the room on opposite sides. I took one of the hallways at random and walked out into a room adorned with red and gold banners with the symbol from the holo-note adorned on them. The room had pews going up and down its length leading up to an altar at the far end. At the end of the room with the altar, a man in red and gold robes stood, reading from what looked like an honest-to-goodness paper book.
The pews were filled with various people in robes of red and gold. The whole room gave me a creepy vibe. The man reading at the front began speaking loudly through the room as I watched from the open door.
"In the beginning, there was only the Dao. The Dao created the elements and the elements created all life in the universe. But in the beginning, there was only the Dao. The true meaning of the Dao is the true meaning to all life. The Dao is in everything and the Dao is the only thing that truly matters." He proselytized to the gathered audience.
I began backing away from the room, but I ran into something as I backed up. I slowly turned around to find an acolyte in red robes looking down at me.
"You’re new here I see." he said.
"We always welcome new converts to the church of the one true Dao" He said. He beckoned me to join him as he walked into the room, and I sat through the rest of the sermon given by the man at the front. After he was finished, and he closed the book the rest of the acolytes stood and began exiting the room.
"So, what did you think?!" The man who led me to sit down in the room asked me.
"Wasn’t that truly enlightening?!" He asked with additional fervor.
"Uh.. Um yeah it was very enlightening!" I placated the zealous man.
He nodded fervently at me with a big smile on his face.
"Come, come, you must meet master Zanador. He began this local chapter of the church and has been leading us and teaching us all about the true meaning of the Dao." He said as he practically dragged me along to the front of the room where one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen was standing. He was all chiseled angles and strong muscles from what I could see outside of his robe.
"Ah, acolyte Yeltzen, it is good to see you here. Have you brought another new acolyte into the fold? You’re making quite the name for yourself in the church." The man said.
"Yes, master Zanador, I found this young lady watching your sermon and invited her to watch the whole thing, she must be truly enlightened now." The man next to me said to the man, a look of awe and reverence in his eyes.
"So young lady, what did you think of the words of the one true Dao?" Zanador asked me.
"It was interesting!" I hedged, trying to inject even a fraction of the enthusiasm Yeltzen had into what I said. This was clearly a dangerous place, and I was getting the heebie jeebies just standing in front of this man. He gave off this weird atmosphere around him like he was restraining an untold amount of power behind the facade he wore. The problem was that no one else around seemed to notice the facade. People would come up to Zanador as we stood there and thank him for his words and his smile that never reached his ears combined with his slanted eyes unnerved me.
I again tried to back away and Yeltzen didn’t stop me this time. I walked out of the room through the throng of onlookers waiting to speak to Zanador. I felt someone’s eyes watching me leave and I turned around. Zanador was staring directly at me. I shivered and quickly left the room. I made it back to the main room and left through the door I came in from. As I left the alley, I heard a commotion coming from back inside the church’s base. A few acolytes in red robes came out from the hideout but didn’t come out to the main thoroughfare. I ran back to my apartment and once I locked the door, I slid to the ground breathing heavily.
"What in the worlds was that?!" I exclaimed.