Chapter Fifteen: Realities of Spirit

The second day of marching was much more entertaining than the last all due to Lacy’s training, which was surprisingly fun, despite it sounding so boring when Peegra explained it. Before she could learn even a single proper “technique” she had a few foundational skills to master: aura control, qi breathing, and qi control. Also, the ability to see auras and qi was called “second sight”.

Aura control was the manipulation of one’s aura around their body. Lacy found the task…slow. It was like if when learning to run, instead of the difficulties laying in the act of keeping balance and controlling her body, that there was no challenge at all. She just walked slightly faster when she tried to run, but she didn’t stumble or trip. And the longer she practiced “running” the faster she got, but only slightly.

That was what practicing her aura control felt like: grinding an RPG skill. Lacy wasn’t against it—noticing a slight improvement every once in a while gave her a little jolt of happiness—but her aura functioned basically like a magical limb, so it was just really weird that getting better at using it didn’t feel at all like getting better at using her non-dominant hand, for example.

Additionally, Peegra revealed that being enveloped by hostile auras had a psychological effect on the victim…which might have explained why that piece of shit Jin got angry so quickly when she refused him. Her aura exacerbated the rejection. Still, that didn’t even come close to excusing his actions.

Qi breathing was what it was called when she willed qi into her soul through her aura, usually to store it for later use. As Peegra explained it, one could not always rely on the ambient qi for their techniques. The ambient stuff might be too rowdy and hard to control or it could lack the necessary elemental components to create certain techniques. That latter part didn’t mean much to her at the moment but she would learn about the magical elements in due time.

The second skill turned out much the same as the first. There was no real sense of difficulty, just resistance. The more she practiced, the less that qi resisted her. Slowly.

The third skill, qi control, was nearly impossible to train until she got better at the first two. Reason being, qi control was when someone used their aura to manipulate qi in or around them for the purpose of casting a technique. And since Lacy was so new to the skills, she could barely even control her aura and use it to breathe qi, much less manipulate it with finesse. If she tried spending much time practicing qi control before better mastering the first two, it would be like someone trying to write a novel before they’d mastered how to write. It was doable to an extent, but not very efficient.

At the end of the second day while everyone sat around another trio of campfires, surrounded by their half-tents, Peegra asked Lacy to demonstrate her progress with aura control and qi breathing. The benchmarks for mastery he’d given were to fill her soul to the brim with qi in fewer than half an hour and be able to manipulate her aura as fluidly as he did. Of course, that wasn’t to say that he expected that kind of progress from her anytime soon, just that those were her long-term goals. He estimated it would take months to reach them.

When Lacy did as instructed—first sweeping her aura from her left to her right side, then taking in qi as quickly as she could—Peegra pursed his lips and stared at her for a minute. When his thoughts finished forming he said, “Excellent progress. Really, quite excellent.”

“Thank you,” Lacy replied, puzzled as to why Peegra looked like he was performing mental calculations.

After another minute his face erupted into a bright smile as he repeated, “Such excellent progress!” He noticed Lacy’s confusion and explained, “You are already one-tenth the way there!”

The woman’s eyebrows quirked up as she realized what that meant.

“Sorry, one-tenth means—”

“Oh, I know fractions,” Lacy corrected. “I’m just surprised because that seems like…a lot.”

He’d previously told her it could take months to master the foundational skills.

“Yes, it is a lot, but it’s not unrealistic. I’ve heard stories of geniuses from the capital who mastered the spirit arts in mere hours, so I am not too surprised by your talent. However, I am surprised you were taught of fractions. The Pole farmers thought it fit to teach you mathematics?”

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Lacy’s smile froze.

“No, that’s just one of the few things I remember. My name, age, how to speak, some math…”

Peegra nodded.

“You were likely a child of wealth. Especially considering your polite manner of speech. Anyway, continue practicing. Perhaps you will be ready to gather elemental qi and cast techniques within a few weeks! I wish to keep abreast of your progress over these next days.”

Lacy relaxed as Peegra refrained from poking holes in her story. But she did latch onto what he said about her speech. The farmers back in Pole had told her she sounded just like them—a farmer. Now this high-society “Elite” cultivator was saying she sounded very polite. It seemed her language boon made her sound like whatever her listeners thought of as normal. That was useful and good to know.

……

Seven days of marching flew by unexpectedly fast, all thanks to Lacy’s company and new training. Peegra randomly bombarded her with what to expect from being a spirit cultivator, Shu was good at stream-of-consciousness babbling, and though Hoomar wasn’t much of a talker, Guardian Mai Mosa sometimes dropped by to complain about how hard being Guardian of Yellowvine was, usually while carrying the entire, bloody head of the last spirit beast he slew.

The party had still not reached their destination—the instructors refused to say how far along they were—but Lacy had made tremendous progress with the foundational skills for spirit cultivation. Peegra confirmed that Lacy was now capable of practicing qi control and taught her the necessary basics.

Those basics included the knowledge that different flavors of qi existed everywhere all the time, taking simple forms such as fire qi which could be observed in any source of heat, and more complex forms like lava qi, which only existed in actual lava.

Interestingly enough, Peegra hadn’t thought Lacy would know about lava and went into a detailed description of the mighty volcano, revealing to her that the people here thought volcanoes were a result of gods clashing in the Underworld.

Once the spirit Seed finished explaining the basics of qi control and the different qi elements, he challenged Lacy to not only practice moving the regular unaligned qi around her, but to also attempt to sense the deeper, aligned qis. To look deep into the campfires to see fire qi. To sense the steadiness of earth qi in the ground beneath her feet. To feel the air qi lap against her hair. To taste the water qi in her every life-sustaining drink she sipped.

To everyone’s shock, Lacy managed to do just that with the bowl of water she drank from.

“You…you kid. Surely you kid,” Peegra muttered in shock, disbelieving, but clearly wanting to believe.

“I don’t think she’d joke around like this,” Shu said excitedly.

Hoomar watched silently, though his dancing ears gave away his interest.

“No, I…I really sensed it. Water qi. Not a lot, but…I mean I didn’t sense the water qi very well, but I’m pretty sure I felt it. It…is the water, as much as we are water.”

“We are water?” Shu asked, and Lacy pursed her lips.

“Umm…yeah, why do you think we drink so much? And that we sweat and pee? Our blood? Makes sense that we’re made of water…” Lacy hurriedly explained herself.

“And earth, and fire, and air, and wood, and gold” Peegra mumbled, still in disbelief. “Truly, your second sight senses the water qi?”

“Uh, yeah, if I really concentrate.”

Peegra nodded, then said, “Watch closely,” before he began demonstrating qi control again. Like before he lifted a hand like he was orchestrating a symphony and grabbed a handful of ambient qi energy with his aura, molding it into different shapes for her to see how a pro did it. Then, he lowered the mass of qi until it hovered just over her water bowl.

“Say when you can sustain sight of the water qi.”

So Lacy concentrated, peering deeply into the bowl, willing what was hidden to reveal itself.

“I see it,” she said, and Peegra nodded.

Then the qi his aura sustained above the bowl flowed down and became one with the water. It superimposed with ease, not passing through as Lacy knew it could, but mixing with the water qi. Suddenly, Peegra was a water bender. The hand gestures that had previously made just the gathered qi move now made the contents of Lacy’s bowl float through the air.

Shu, Hoomar, and a dozen other recruits who’d been secretly paying attention out of boredom shouted in surprise and gawked at the magical display, which was the first time Peegra had displayed his powers to them, since the spirit beasts were all taken care of by the guards and Mai Mosa.

“Do you understand?” Peegra asked with a rare, serious tone.

“I do.”

Peegra returned the water to Lacy’s bowl and she closed her eyes, visualizing the water qi solely in her mind through her aura, which fully permeated the bowl. She slowly, painstakingly gathered qi from the air—just a speck of it—and brought it down into the bowl.

Then Lacy called for the drink just as Peegra had, but she made sure to connect the unaligned qi with the water qi, under no illusion that she could manipulate the physical water itself.

More gasps resounded as a drop of water lifted from the bowl, barely a few centimeters, but it was enough. Lacy’s control over the water qi destabilized and the drop fell back down, rippling the surface, but it was enough.

Breathing deeply as if she’d just run a mile in a minute, Lacy turned to get Peegra’s thoughts and received a lot more than that.

Tears in his eyes, Peegra practically leaped at Lacy and wrapped her in a tight hug as he shouted, “You are the best student anyone could ask for!”

Lacy took that to heart as she patted the middle-aged man’s shoulder and wheezed back, “Thanks, please let go.”