20:
There was really only one way Xiao Feng knew that might save the dying egg. It was unsurprisingly, not a profound or even a complex method.
The original Xiao Feng had not been an alchemist and neither was he too interested in learning about spiritual beasts, besides the specific species and breeds the demonic path employed on the battlefield.
The present Xiao Feng was not much different, albeit he was strongly curious about both those fields.
The egg lives for now, but does it still have the strength to recover what was lost? Xiao Feng wondered.
He got up from the bed and walked over to a cushioned wooden chair placed slightly before a wooden study table. Dragging the chair back a little, he sat down on it, placing his hands that still contained the wooden egg on the table.
Xiao Feng took a deep breath to confront the moment of truth as it arrived.
Then, in a slow trickle, he willing the Qi reserves in dantian to move. He directed the two thin strands of Qi through the acupuncture points in the abdomen and his arms, albeit with little effect as the strands were already too thin to be compressed further.
Then, he allowed them to seep into the dying egg.
‘Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump’, An unfamiliar sound echoed in his mind, its tempo disconcertingly fast. It took him a few moments more to notice the undulations in the tempo, the first thump a loud, ear-piercing one, the second a receding, fading one. Xiao Feng made the connection between the sound he was hearing, no, perceiving and the cycle of it’s core pulsing and dimming the Essence Cultivation Art had revealed to him.
But it was too late for Xiao Feng to determine what the significance of the egg’s or perhaps, the creature within the egg’s heartbeat was, as the original strand of Qi he had offered was greedily devoured. If it stopped there, Xiao Feng would not be as alarmed as he was— for the egg, a creature not even fully formed, tugged at the Qi flowing through his meridians.
Xiao Feng instinctively fought back, as his body’s survival instinct kicked in. Unfortunately, it was too late. He tried to pull away, first physically and then via his dantian, as he willed it to stop allowing the flow of Qi to his his meridians.
The egg was glued to his hands and Xiao Feng had somehow lost control over his own meridian, as it took and took from him.
“Stop!” Xiao Feng had intended to scream, but voice came out weak and strained.
In what felt like the blink of an eye, Xiao Feng had lost a quarter of his entire Qi reserves.
Just as he resolved himself to do something drastic, the pull on his Qi ceased, the egg slipping from his grasp and clattering on the ground.
Heavily panting, Xiao Feng took the next couple of minutes to get his own heartbeat back in control. Only then did he gaze at the egg laying on the ground, noting that its surface seemed unharmed, no, even fuller than before. More rounder, even though it was still a far cry from the either spherical or ovular shapes most spiritual beast eggs were supposed to be.
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His heart filled with trepidation, Xiao Feng said, “Well…,” He trailed off, still shaken by the experience. “That wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had, that’s for sure.”
Only when he had calmed down enough, did he turn his gaze to the egg and activated his Essence Cultivation Art.
“Hm,” Xiao Feng hummed in thought. “It has reverted to its previous state. The pulsing and dimming cycle has slowed down to what it was when I first found it,” He analyzed. “Does that mean that the egg is no longer dying?”
Xiao Feng had no intention to directly touch the egg again, atleast not in the near future. He wasn’t exactly sure what would’ve happened to him if he had run out of Qi before the egg let go. Under normal circumstances, the consequences would be limited to extreme exhaustion that would last a day or two, rendering him unfit for combat. However, those circumstances had been anything but normal, making Qi Exhaustion a very real possibility.
I can die if I touch the egg again, Xiao Feng thought, as a chill ran down his spine. Granted, that was only speculation on his part, but even that was terrifying.
“Wait,” Xiao Feng muttered, as realization struck him. “If it’s Qi you want, it doesn’t have to be mine, right?”
Without waiting for an answer, not that he was expecting one, Xiao Feng gingerly stepped away from the egg and reached for a vial of milk, unstoppering it and pouring just a bit on the egg.
It slid down its surface, without absorbing any of it.
“You let me go and now you don’t want the milk. Are you full, then? Or do you not like milk?” Xiao Feng rhetorically asked the egg.
Well, I guess it should be fine for now, then, He decided, reaching for the basket that contained the rotten fruit, dumping it’s contents on his bed and then using the empty basket to scoop up the egg without touching it.
Xiao Feng hurriedly placed the egg in his wardrobe, before contemplating what to do next.
“I guess I can’t exactly leave you in the dark,” Xiao Feng muttered, even though he knew he was being unreasonable. The small egg had survived one martial cultivator and multiple alchemists manhandling it and had nearly defeated him, a foundation establishment cultivator, without lifting a finger or paw. Darkness would not be its demise, but Xiao Feng stuck in his bathroom slippers between the wardrobe door and it’s wooden casing, to let it act as a stopper and let the light keep flowing.
“There,” He said. “Now sleep tight, young one. I’ll be back and we’ll see if you like milk tomorrow.”
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Xiao Feng had underestimated the drawbacks of owning a high-quality pill furnace. Besides the obvious, that came in the form of literally everyone and their grandparents gazing at him as if he was running away with their family inheritance, as he walked down the pathway that was labeled Cultivation Halls, the darn thing was also incredibly heavy.
Oh and he was also carrying it wrong.
The other, clearly more well-informed alchemists, wore specialized backpacks that had two metal railings running parallel to each other as they jutted out from the bottom and two more that ran along the cushioned back before joining them, forming a reverse - L shape to host the pull furnace, which was further secured with a strap.
Clearly, their Golden Sunstone furnaces were a fair deal lighter than the hunk of metal he was lugging around by hand, his resources kept within the furnace itself before Xiao Feng had nowhere else to keep it.
That old codger Jian couldn’t even throw in a damn free bag after I spent over thirty gold taels at his shop. What a terrible business owner, Xiao Feng thought, wondering if this world needed marketing crash courses.
No, no, those cut-throat business models can stay back in the old world. Plus, it wasn’t like a martial cultivators would calmly go oh drat after realizing that he went to buy a new sword and came back with fifteen accessories that were worth more than the actual sword. Liberating cultivators of their gold came at the risk of getting liberated from life, after all, He wryly thought, amused by the imagery.
Finally, he arrived before a set of double-doors, above which the words Alchemy Vaults were written on a jade plaque.
It was finally time to brew some scrumptious chai.