John awoke early.

Taking a quick shower using captured rain water and simple perfumed soap, John was ready to get going out the door. Eli had made a simple congee with shredded chicken for breakfast.

Over the past couple weeks John had helped the rest of the cohort get accustomed to the Butterfly Dream Scripture, but whether or not they were ready to handle the kind of wild Weird Qi infection remained to be seen. John was only able to manage it because of his... unique dantian situation. Enough space was open inside of him for a battle to take place between the wild qi and his own qi-forged claws without losing instantaneously. It was a slight taboo to ask the specifics of any one's cultivation so John would need to ensure others could handle a Weird qi attack indirectly.

Right as he was about to head out, John noticed a note had been slipped under his door, it was sealed with wax and stamped with both a wax seal and an official-looking ink seal in a corner. Snapping it open, only a few lines of ink were brushed and hastily. Kai had written a note, his father was informed and handled the situation with Disciple Ye, and that Kai was pulled on an emergency mission. A little suspicious timing but John wasn't too worried as Kai could handle his own issues surely.

At that, John stepped out into the rain. Immediately, he unfurled long strands of qi to snare and drip water qi into his dantian. Water qi especially seemed to take on a fog-like quality inside him, where it would then readily condense on his dantian walls to form new silk. He was still digesting bundles of Weird qi near his feet, but he had more capacity and thus more growth speed, especially with something as yielding as water qi.

Only Chloe was out in the rain cultivating, everyone else was inside. They had been provided nice cultivation rooms but John's method was more predatory, passive qi from condensing arrays didn't seem to work as well, maybe if it was a higher concentration. Regarding Chloe, John still wasn't sure what to do about her. No girl had ever showed John such forward interest. If John was honest with himself, he wasn't ready to dive into the world of sexual connection, even if he had still been a farm boy. He would have felt flattered too, if Chloe's attention didn't have such a possessive quality to it.

"Good morning Chloe. Can you gather everyone, I'm worried the group isn't prepared for the kind of tasks the sect wants from us." John spoke as he approached.

Chloe looked very pleased John had asked her a favor. "Sure~" was all he got in response before she darted off to knock on doors and shout people awake.

Sigh.

Eventually everyone gathered. John stood at the forefront facing the group, backed by Chloe and Mark.

"Good morning everyone. Yesterday I performed my first sect mission--the Outer garden had plants that were infested with wild Weird qi. Normal Outer disciples cant deal with it, but we can. In each instance, the wild qi was extremely aggressive and life-like, rushing toward my dantian," John left out how big his dantian really was, "and fighting me for control. If anyone loses this fight, I can only assume they become as infected as the plants once were."

At first, the group of Weird kids had been generally polite and got along, but schisms had started to show. Those in front were either nodding like sycophants or pondering concernedly. Some near the back looked bored and disinterested. A couple steps away a small group was scoffing arrogantly. They were led by one particular youth, Peter. Peter was something like a mayor's son before he got to the Rainy Cloud sect, or was abducted, John supposed. Either way, Peter started rejecting John's position as leader once he had started cultivating and settled into life at the sect. Ordinarily, John would have been happy to let someone take his place as leader but... he really did feel some responsibility for the other kids in the group. Especially those younger than him. There was some strangeness to be sure but he had been thrust into a leadership role already and there was a high chance the younger and more timid cultivators among them would die. Certainly if John did nothing to help.

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"Just because you had a hard time doesn't mean I will!" Peter nearly shouted, many of his clique cheering him on.

John ignored him, "I encourage everyone here to let me test their ability to resist a Weird qi invasion before you accept any sect missions. Also, I'll speak to Elder Catherine about the sect missions we can take on." The elder had been grating at times but it would be best for the group to handle some normal missions first if possible. They needed more time and resources to cultivate before they would be strong enough to handle all the Weird issues. Just one mission had seriously exhausted John and almost got him killed several times.

"Ridiculous, I'm not putting up with your charade, lets go guys." With that, Peter and his three friends left.

"Well, Peter can handle himself, who would like to go first?"

Chloe wanted to go first. John tried to replicate a bit of what happened yesterday with his own qi, bundling up a bunch of strands into a tangled mess to represent the tumor-like growths and then puppeting it with a single strand. John slowly pushed the qi toward Chloe, unsure of exactly what would happen. His qi passed into Chloe's body with surprising ease, normal qi techniques struggled to enter into someone's body. Then again, the wild qi yesterday had no problem getting to John's dantian. Maybe it was better at accessing souls and the spiritual organ that is the dantian than normal qi varieties.

When his qi entered Chloe, he could readily sense her body--in an extremely bizarre fashion. It was like seeing all her organs from multiple perspectives at the same time. It was extremely disturbing and gory. John might have blushed as he could technically sense her bare skin, except that it wasn't much like seeing her naked, using only his qi sense, and he could also sense the bloody reverse side of her skin like she had been flayed alive. John DID start blushing when Chloe started moaning lewdly and suggesting he give her his energy more directly. The double entendre was made clear as her dantian had settled lower than usual, over her womb and shaped somewhere between a uterus and a blooming rose. Chloe did eventually fight him off but it was half-hearted and John was tomato red by then.

Coughing loudly to hide his discomfort John could only barely bring himself to ask who wanted to go next. No one in the crowd looked interested. After an awkwardly long pause, Mark offered to go next. Cool as a cucumber, Mark. He wasn't even blushing, it was like nothing could shake him.

"Ehem, thank you Mark. I'm going to attack you now."

Mark nodded in response.

John made a similar qi construct and pushed into Mark to find his dantian. Once again assaulted by the gory view of human organs, John quickly found Mark's dantian was in a normal position, but shaped rough and irregularly like a large boulder. When John attacked, his qi construct quickly petrified, and he lost connection to it. He had to cut off the connecting strand in order to stop the process.

"Wow Mark, you are probably best suited for these kinds of tasks, good work!" John was honestly impressed, it didn't seem like Mark even did anything to cause that petrification effect, it was just a natural defense of his dantian. John didn't know that Mark couldn't fuel his growth this way, but it was still an impressive defense.

It went like this for several hours longer, John would test the other disciples abilities to defend themselves from Weird qi. Everyone had irregular dantians in some way. Many were differently shaped, but in the same position as normal. Their unique cultivation style would provide some kind of effect which gave advantages and disadvantages. A few had wildly different positions or shapes--in the heart, pyramidal dantians, at the base of the brain stem, etc. John's world view was widened greatly just seeing it all. The Butterfly Dream Scripture had the possibility for a huge variety of interpretations and comprehension, apparently. None was so dramatic as his own body-matching dantian however.

It was during their continued sparring and practice that the alarm went off, repeated hits of a large gong in the near distance. Elder Catherine rushed over, John's stomach dropped.

"Where did Peter go?"