It was late that night when John returned to his personal pavilion. The Head Librarian was pretty clear about the nature of dual cultivation, Chloe needed to keep a tight leash on her impulses or there would be havoc among the disciples. John didn't want to deal with the headache of a swarm of young men competing for her attention. The Weird kids were in an awkward position politically already, and any disruption to the Sect's designs might end them up dead, or just significantly restricted in the best case. Not to mention the risk of Chloe getting completely possessed by her cultivation demon. Dual cultivation already had some demonic tendencies, so she would always be at risk and John didn't want to kill another mutated Weird cultivator.
The sliding screen door bled light out into the night. Others were still awake as well, presumably reading what they found today, or cultivating for those who did not go to the library. John found Chloe in the main room. She was obviously calmer than before but her face was still quite flushed.
"You're back, finally!"
"I'm back." John held up the notebook that the Librarian had copied for him. "Let's read through this together."
The notebook was quire neat. It was 'hand' copied, but really it was printed using a qi technique to carry ink to the page. John had watched as the Head Librarian had written pages at a time rapidly, all the characters and spacing were supernaturally even while still looking like it was brushed onto the page. John couldn't help but blush when Chloe practically crawled into his lap to look at the pages together.
The notebook started by expounding on the dangers of dual cultivation done wrong. Imbalance in the partnership quickly made for calamity, demonic female practice would drain their partner of all his qi and vitality to fuel cultivation. Male practice would burn up their female partner, reducing them to a cripple if not outright killing them, absorbing the energy let off in the reaction to fuel their cultivation, often increasing the purity of the man's spiritual roots or other side effects. A balanced partnership was synergistic, both partners would gain qi in the process. It was no substitute for more conventional means of cultivation however. Too much of it would drain vitality, and you would not gain in comprehension through it. Also, really balanced dual cultivation required more than just equal pleasure-sharing; you needed trust and affection between the partners as well. Otherwise, sects would look a lot different.
This first section was a lot more philosophical than John had feared, and he was growing used to how close Chloe was sitting, but all his fears were realized with the next sections. The next part delved into intricate detail how to help impulse control as a woman in the partnership. It was clearly tailored to Chloe's situation which made John think the Librarian knew a lot more about the specifics of the situation than he had let John believe. Most of the strategy revolved around tracking menstrual cycles to keep from getting pregnant, which was more likely at lower cultivation levels, liberal use of masturbation, and ways to monitor vitality so that you could have as much sex as possible without it negatively affecting either partner. Both their faces were flushed red by the end, and Chloe kept glancing at John with a wolfish grin.
The third and last section was even more agitating, going in depth in ways to ensure both partners got pleasure from the experience, down to the specificity of positions, techniques, and foreplay. Really the text was not that dissimilar to regular martial arts techniques, it was just the subject of the notebooks guidance that was unusual. At this point, Chloe had had enough stimulation, directly standing up and stripping vigorously. John briefly thought how he had imagined settling down with a nice village girl and making a family just like the one he grew up in, and how it had all gone wrong somewhere. John hadn't expected it to be like this, not had he expected to leave home and become a cultivator rather than a farmer. In the end, Chloe had flustered and embarrassed him on multiple occasions, but she was extremely willing and pretty, John could do way worse. He got up and they quickly became entangled.
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Laying in the afterglow, John was quite surprised by the whole process. It was simultaneously more and less than he had expected. Chloe had broken through the liquid stage mid orgasm, and both sensations had rocked through her body at the same time. John himself was shocked at just how much qi he had gathered from the process. Usually John had to hunt his qi himself, a gathering array was less effective for him. In just one session with Chloe, however, he had gathered as much as several hours worth of cultivating by himself. That sure was one way to help bypass his early Foundation Establishment phase... Also surprising was just how sweet Chloe had become after finally having her needs met. She clung to him even now, murmuring quietly as he stroked her hair. John was much more obliged to her like this. Looking back it wasn't that surprising, Chloe's mutation had increased her desire massively, while also making it more fundamental to her as a person. She had essentially been starving with no way to eat for months. No wonder she was so forward.
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On the other hand, sex had been a lot less important than John had expected. Now that he had experienced it, it was less of a big deal. In many ways it was one of the few regular things he had done in a while and it made him feel more mundane, more mortal. Eventually, they went to sleep for the night.
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The next morning was unusual, in that John and Chloe bathed and ate together. Chloe had a lot to say regarding her cultivation now that she had made some progress. She actually did gain comprehension of her cultivation technique since it was directly related to dual cultivation. John shared some of his experiences with his own quirks. Later, John went to cultivate outside and meditate on his Foundation Establishment technique. Most of his qi was spread into the air as a web, gathering in water qi to mutate into more silk. A small portion he kept separate to experiment with.
John first tried what he had done with his running, flooding qi into his legs. He could feel the enhancement to his strength, both muscles and bones were empowered, but it was only a temporary bonus. John needed something permanent. Next John tried layering his qi into just a small section of his body and severing his control over it. The strands of qi simply empowered the small area more intensely, before leeching into connected parts and back into his dantian.
From his reading, qi should suffuse the area and elevate it over repeated infusions. John's qi didn't cooperate. Regular qi acted a lot more like shellac, readily laying down in layers upon layers, transforming the body in a steady progression. John's guess was his silken qi simply had a different nature. Looking back at his initial jump into Foundation Establishment, after John had defeated the demonic spirit invading him, the remaining qi rushed out of his body and formed a qi silk cocoon around him, using up the remaining qi to heal his ruined legs and other wounds. John hadn't seen much improvement to his body during that episode, but his marked improvement in control and the ability to naturally enhance his body showed that he had indeed stepped up in realm. John theorized that most of his energy going to healing himself was primarily a fluke. If he had advanced while full of qi hi might have seen improvements. Cocooning his body to transform it was more in line with the strangeness that guided his cultivation.
Annoyingly, John couldn't see a way to effectively improve his foundation in stages. Creating the cocoon itself took a large part of his qi capacity, and he couldn't do it every single time he wanted an inch of progress. Realistically, he would need to whole sections in a single pass each time. That meant progressing through Foundation Establishment in four distinct stages: skin, muscles, bones, organs. While ordinary cultivators would do things this way, they could afford to improve incrementally. John would need to save up until he could do each section. The main downside was John would continue to be weak for longer. Each stage of Foundation establishment would increase his strength dramatically, but before then he would remain as he was now, physically.
On the plus side, some of his needs synergized. The more qi John had, the faster he would gather ambient qi. For fastest progress, John should gather qi until he was completely full again and then ascend part of his body, refilling and repeating. Also, since John would do each body part all at once, he was less limited by some practical issues that regular cultivators faced. Normal cultivators started with skin since it was the easiest to access and made the next steps easier; some cultivators would beat and abuse their skin to assist in the process, healing and elevating it with qi and medicinal baths. Then with strengthened skin they could do the same to the muscles without tearing and ruining their skin each time. Repeat for bones, usually the most painful part of the process as it involved repeatedly breaking them to flush out the impurities in the marrow. Normally cultivators would do this with each bone one by one which took a lot of time. Organs were simplest and least painful, as the qi blood would flow through the organs to enhance the organs slowly, it did take a lot of time though.
John was less limited in these regards. John could elevate his skin, muscles, bones, or organs all at once. Probably, John would not get away from the pain entirely. He had already experienced the elevation of his flesh during his intake, but that was simply to the peak of mortal possibilities and not nearly so thorough. The greatest benefit was his ability to ignore the order normal cultivators were limited to. Since John's mutation process was contained within the cocoon, he could choose any order without worry. Enhancing skin first did little to increase one's strength, it was the smallest percentage change in the whole process. While it would increase one's defense to a degree, it was no replacement for a powerful artifact or defensive technique. Enhancing muscles before bones was also problematic, as the greatly increased strength could easily shatter mortal bones if one was not careful.
In the end, John decided to do his bones, then muscles, then organs or skin in any order. If he could come up with ways to increase his absorption and conversion rates, he would advance through Foundation Establishment in record time. In the mean time, he would focus on gathering as much qi as possible, cultivating with Chloe, and training his spear art.