The man was wearing some blue flowing robes, with flowing black hair, and so much liquid like earth qi it was almost blinding.
Mortal, stand still and do not move.”
The cultivator stepped forward and placed a finger on his brow. Wen Zixin watched as the cultivator’s qi flowed through their finger into his head and circulated around his root before flowing back into them.
You have a trash root but have not cultivated. With what just happened there should be a difference. If you have not advanced in cultivation, then...”
Standing there the cultivator looked over the field with its depleted qi in thought. While he was distracted Wen Zixin quickly bought the Lower Spirit Cultivation Method his technique said he should have. As the knowledge flowed into him the cultivator turned back to him.
Tell me mortal do you suddenly have some sort of new knowledge that you didn’t before this happened?”
Yes, honored cultivator I somehow know a way to cultivate that I didn’t before.”
The cultivator tossed him a green rock.
“Mortal, do as the knowledge instructs to cultivate. Once you have gathered some qi hold this jade slip to your forehead and push the qi into the jade while thinking about the knowledge you now have.”
Following the orders, Wen Zixin used the Lower Spirit Cultivation Method to gather some qi. This took longer than normal because of the depleted qi in the field. Once he had some qi he held the slip to his head and directed the qi towards it while going over the Method in his mind. After a moment the jade slip began to glow and was immediately taken from him by the cultivator. The man held the slip to his head and Wen Zixin saw the cultivator’s qi circulate between him and the jade. When he took the slip from his head he looked over at Wen Zixin with pity.
“I can’t tell if you are lucky or unlucky, but the heavens seemed to have willed you to cultivate. Though with this method I don’t believe you will be able to walk far down the path of cultivation. This method is best for low talent servants and no real cultivator would use it if they had a choice. Now leave.”
With the dismissal Wen Zixin grabbed his pack and rushed off continuing his journey without looking back. It took another week before he found a road headed in the direction of Shichang. When he got to the road, he saw mortals for the first time since he started seeing qi. In a world where qi illuminates everything from within, mortals were grey, dull, and easily overlooked. The second day on the road he noticed a smudge across the horizon he was heading towards. While he was on the road, he heard some gossip and facts about Shichang that he hadn’t heard in Bai City. Shichang was an independent city ruled over by a Qi Consolidation Stage cultivator. That put Shichang’s top cultivator on the same level as the local Sects. Usually only the Sects had the resources to nurture a Qi Consolidation Stage cultivator within this backwater area of the world. While the clans only had the resources to raise a cultivator to Liquid Qi Stage. The city was directly in front of a mountain pass that was the only connection between this Podunk section of land and the world beyond. With that connection came plenty of work, a way out of the area, and small branches of larger organizations from the bigger world. Between the first and second day passed the smudged horizon came into focus. It turned out to be the mountain chain that separated this low qi area from the higher qi saturated environment in the west. During the next four days it took to reach the city the mountain chain grew at an alarming rate. By the sixth day as Wen Zixin was cresting a hill that overlooked the city walls, he had to tilt his head up to see the mountain summits and, in the distance, directly ahead of him was the start of the chasm that led through the mountains. In front of the chasm, he could see the other side of the city. From there it stretched towards him for what looked like fifty miles or so before stopping at the wall facing him about three hundred yards in front of him. The wall looked to be the same size as Bai city’s wall but with three large gates. The middle gate was ornate and was used exclusively by cultivators since he didn’t see anyone without qi coming or going through it. There seemed to be four lanes through that gate to handle all the traffic it saw, and the cultivators were bunched up more than Bai city without killing each other. The gates on either side of the ornate gate were plain and unadorned with unorganized masses streaming in and out of them. Some three hundred yards from the gates and on his right side was a tent city for some reason. He hadn’t heard about it on the road, and it looked relatively new. Wen Zixin decided to go to the tent city first to learn more about it and make a plan based on what he had heard on the road and the story behind the tents. The outer ring of tents was a chaotic mess with little rhyme or reason other than individual wants and preferences. The inner ring of tents was more organized and seemed to belong to a single group for the most part. It even had signs outside of some tents indicating there was a general store, an apothecary like Cheng’s store, and a tavern? for some reason. While wandering among the tents he learned the inner ring was mostly made up of a small clan driven south by their rival and had set up outside Shichang for now. Everyone else were mortals taking advantage of the situation to earn some money or use it as a cheaper alternative to the city if they weren’t staying long. Wen Zixin set up his own sleeping bag in the outer ring on the other side from the road and sat down to plan. Originally, he was just going to enter with the mortals and find work inside the city. With the tent city though he could earn some money and xp to enter the city as a cultivator. It would let him look like a wandering cultivator which would stand out less than a twenty-something year old suddenly becoming a cultivator in the middle of the city. To enter the city as an individual cultivator without a pass of some sort would cost him a silver, but he would need to look like a cultivator. With his technique active he would look like a mortal until he was at the Liquid Qi Stage, and he hadn’t even taken his first step into Qi Condensation Stage yet. Looking through his pack he counted out his money, and found he only had ten coppers left. He also looked to see how much xp he had.
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User has 15 xp
He opened the Qi Condensation Stage Items Menu to see if he had an option other than turning off his technique. Wen Zixin would rather not advertise his Primordial Chaos Qi if he could help it.
Qi Condensation Stage Items (100 xp)
Pills
Weapons
Armor
Formations
Talismans
Artifacts
Quickly skimming the different types of items, he was able to eliminate pills, weapons, formations, and talismans from having what he needed. Pills had a wide variety of effects upon oneself but nothing sustainable without eating them like candy for long periods of time. Weapons only had effects that were offensive in nature and needed a constant supply of qi to function. Formations involves setting up wide area-of-effects that couldn’t be moved once placed without breaking it down and setting it up somewhere else. Talismans did have potential but were one use temporary items and were more like something to have in case of an emergency. In the armor category he found some things that hid his cultivation stage but nothing that made it appear like he had a different type of qi. At first Wen Zixin was confused about what Artifacts were but looking through them it appeared to be a way to refer to jewelry that had qi powered affects while differentiating them from regular jewelry. In the artifacts category he found what he needed.
Defective Qi Mask
Changes the appearance of user's qi to look like unaspected qi of a First Step Qi Condensation Stage cultivator. If user is above First Step Qi Condensation Stage, they will appear to have two types of qi with two types of cultivation. (Qi Mask is supposed to reflect user’s actual cultivation level.)
Despite the name it was an amulet, and it was perfect for his situation. He just had to take that first step into Qi Condensation so that he could use qi to activate and use it. With a rough plan he gathered his stuff to head to into the inner tent city to check if he could earn some money. It wasn’t the best situation. The medicine tent would only pay a copper or two for any herb he brought in. The general store tent was willing to pay more for some mortal items he could get from the System, but it would cut into any xp he would earn harvesting herbs. He would have to focus on cultivation and herb harvesting for now. When he got enough xp he would buy the mask and what he needed to sell to the general store tent. If he kept selling items with no apparent origin it might draw some unwanted attention. For now, with it being later in the evening he went back to the outer ring on the opposite side of the city and road to try his first night of cultivation. He set up his area for the night and laid down pretending to sleep. Unbound Primal Chaos Rules Over All Cultivation Method let him forgo sleep as long as he cultivated for at least eight hours, and it didn’t require any particular pose thankfully. It started with him breathing in the surrounding qi. He could feel the different types of qi within him. There was Fire qi that lingered in the air from the day’s sunlight. He had pulled Earth qi from the ground beneath his feet. Small traces of Metal qi from the elements within the earth. Water qi came from the moister in the air. The grass around him gave some Wood qi, and he got a small portion of unaspected qi. He finally understood what unaspected qi was. It was the leftover qi after every other type of qi was taken away. There was no Dao qi in the area because it needed special circumstances or locations to manifest. As he held the qi within him, he felt the Elemental qi swirl, mirroring the Wu Xing, but he didn’t have enough qi to take the next step. Wen Zixin breathed out the air in his lungs while holding on to the qi that had come with it. Then he breathed in more qi, and repeated the process until he could melt the unaspected qi into the Wu Xing. He kept repeating this until he had enough Elemental qi to reverse the Wu Xing and return the Elemental qi to Primordial Chaos qi. Come the morning Wen Zixin had a thimbleful of Primordial Chaos qi that he stored in his core. Even if it wasn’t enough qi to start up his core and have it circulate his qi like it should when he reached the First Step of Qi Condensation Stage, he could still hold onto the qi between cultivation sessions. With the coming of the dawn, Wen Zixin packed up his things and began to enact his plan to enter Shichang as a cultivator.