"It's really unusual how difficult your qi is to sense, John." Kai commented.
"You cant sense it?" John asked, no one had ever mentioned this before.
"That's not exactly it, when you're actively moving your qi I can sense the fluctuations it gives off. And if I don't focus I can sense it while standing still, but when I try to look directly at it, it totally disappears."
John frowned, he was able to see Weird qi from other sources perfectly clearly, both visually and with his spiritual sense. The Elders never commented either so John just assumed everyone could perceive it fine. It was like Kai had commented how unusual it is that John is bald at such a young age when he clearly had a full head of hair.
"How strange, I can sense your qi just fine, and other Weird qi too. What does it look like when I'm fighting?"
"It's a little unnerving to be honest, especially since you are in charge of protecting me. To me, it looked like the Liger was stopped mid-air against an invisible wall."
"How strange, I guess this gives me an advantage though." John said as much, but he was pondering the tactical advantages he had with this new knowledge. The Liger seemed to know where his claws were since it was able to dodge and even shatter some of his attacks. Maybe his Weird qi became more obvious to his targets? He would need to experiment.
That fight had left him quite drained and yet John and Kai were still running at a dead sprint to their next mission location. Using his qi to enhance his body or form claws didn't expend it, since he wasn't casting any spell-like techniques. Really all he was doing was moving it through the air or to parts of his body. Doing so cost him focus though, and eventually his control over his qi would slip and fail. It was a lot like using a muscle to exhaustion, eventually it would feel weak and less coordinated. The qi itself felt slippery and droopy. His control was improving massively though, simply through the constant running and stimulation from danger.
They spent two weeks like this, sprinting around from mission objective to mission objective. Many missions required them to fight strange demons that were either disrupting important resources or terrorizing mortals. Occasionally they would run into danger on the road too, and they would kill the bandits or demons that dared to get in their way. John was surprised that cultivator bandits existed, but it was obvious when Kai explained it. Not every cultivator got into a sect or had formal teaching. Some were like hedge wizards, self-taught and living however they could manage. Since cultivation gave one great strength, banditry was an easy choice. These wild cultivators generously donated their lives and possessions to Kai and John, who were amassing a fortune in spirit stones, valuable materials, and beast parts.
The most valuable thing John gained though, was Kai's friendship. If before they had been acquaintances on good terms, now they were true friends. Kai was easy-going and friendly in the way only rich, handsome people could afford to be, but John could tell he put on a bit of an act around his other friends in the sect. Appearances and face had to be upheld after all. Perhaps he was more friendly with them in private as well. Either way, Kai had proved that knowing him was quite valuable just with the nature of this trip. Having someone with political influence in your network was simply unparalleled when it came to solving problems. For Kai's part, he seemed to enjoy John's more salt-of-the-earth perspective on life. Having grown up as a farmer and experienced the bizarre things he had, it gave him the ability to easily see through bullshit.
Fighting was giving John valuable experience, but he sorely felt the lack of proper training. The more they fought the more he could sense when he was out of position, or made counterattacks at the wrong moment, or when his strikes were less deadly than they should be. Completing a huge wave of missions would get him either entirely or almost entirely out of debt, but he would still need to save up to get proper training. During his period of stable development in the sect it was less important, but this opportunity came suddenly. John didn't want to be underprepared for the next opportunity.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
John also gained plenty of Weird qi. There were a lot of relatively simple esoteric missions on their path. Many of them were simply infections noted in the wild that needed to be eradicated, and John was happy to oblige. Sometimes John would notice Weird qi infections separate from their missions, and he happily absorbed the small sicknesses along the road. Occasionally they would encounter a Weird demon that was much more threatening, but they still managed in the end. John was better suited for combat against them anyway, so they had two real fighters in those cases. The most dangerous encounter was with a crocodile that used Weird qi to make its mouth supernaturally large. When John and Kai tried to cross the river it was hiding in they almost got gobbled up in one huge swallow as the demon lunged for them. That fight had been quite dangerous, luckily John was able to shred the artifice enhancing the demon's mouth. With all the water around to turn into ice, Kai was well equipped to fight as well.
Most of their missions were based on harvesting plants, and John found that he really enjoyed these tasks. His Weird qi strands made excellent shovels, scythes, and sickles all in one, so he could easily harvest whatever plant they came across, even in huge quantities. It reminded John of farming, and of his last nights with his family at the harvest festival. Kai was shocked the first time he saw John cut down a field of qi enhancing grass in one pass. His jaw dropped when the sharp scythes turned into sticky threads and bundled up all the grass the next moment. They were harvesting so much that they had to take out the relatively more massive beast parts and keep those in their backpacks, using their spatial rings to hold the more delicate plants and flowers.
One day, they came across an old abandoned farm that was marked as an esoteric mission. Brush and trees had started to encroach on the land, but the fields were still flush with wheat. It should have been a barren waste this deep in the winter but the Weird qi was sustaining it. All qi-plants were supernaturally hardy, usually growing over the course of years if not decades. Here though the Weird qi was more like a plague, barely keeping the otherwise normal grain alive. Indeed the stalks were sickly and spotted black in some places. The most unusual thing was how the Weird qi amassed in the heads of the grain, so much so that it was bending over from the strain. John scythed it all and took in the strange Weird wheat, but a seed of an idea was planted in his mind at the same time.
The peach tree he was growing at home was as unusual as it was interesting. Just observing it had increased his understanding. The Rainy Cloud Sect had gardens for all kinds of useful plants with varying aspects. Most of those gardens were focused on the aspects of water, with a few gardens focusing on the basic elements, as well as many gardens growing typeless alchemical ingredients. There were also various cultivation houses to match, where cultivators could go to experience their element more intensely, to cultivate dense qi of the variety they needed most, and to be inspired by qi-treasures.
The sect was obviously intending to groom a whole force of Weird cultivators, it was time to starts a Weird only garden. John had a possible centerpiece in his Weird peaches, and these wheat seeds could also help. John would simply need to look for more weird plants that he could force into their seeds or use as-is. He was no stranger to foraging in the winter, there was a surprising number of hardy vegetables that grow in the winter, or will continue to produce fruit after autumn. While it was different up in the mountains, it wasn't so different that John felt entirely lost. Also, he was fine with overdoing it a little bit--if he found plants that were infected by Weird qi that weren't useful in alchemy or wouldn't be used in a garden formation, that would be fine too. He could just absorb the Weird qi later.
Over the course of those two weeks, John found an apple tree, beets, wild cabbages, carrots, some wild herbs, various squash and countless root vegetables. Each time he would isolate the Weird qi into a seed so that it would propagate a Weird plant for later use at the sect. He also found a couple varieties of qi plants that were infected, regular qi-enhancing grass, several snow and ice flowers, and a number of earth-oriented qi plants, though he wasn't sure how much a Weird/Earth qi hybrid plant would be useful.
With most of the missions completed, and a huge haul of extra items to turn in for contribution points, John felt confident that he could being his projects with renewed vigor the moment he got back to the sect. Surely nothing too dramatic had happened, right?