"I'm sorry that I cannot join you." Zae Zin Nim apologized, then to his shock got down on her knees in the courtyard and put her forehead to the ground. There was no one but the two of them, but he was still stunned to see her lower herself like that. "You were there for me when my cultivation was blocked and I most needed allies. But I can only guide you this far."
"Is that why you've gone over everything so many times?" Kai asked. "I don't get why you wouldn't watch."
"When you break through to the next stage of cultivation, especially with such pure qi, you will attract the attention of the Brightwind cultivators. If they see me, things will turn very bad. But if they see you alone, using similar techniques, it will put them on a false trail and help me hide in the future. Again, I apologize for doing this when I should be helping you on your path."
"Hey, hey... you don't need to apologize." Kai bent down uncomfortably and touched her shoulder, trying to draw her up. "We work together, right? You've taken me so much further than I thought I could go, I'm glad to do this to help you."
She rose to her feet and pushed his hand away, but her fingers seemed to linger on his wrist. "I... remember that you need to push through at the absolute limit." She pulled her arm back and set her face in a defensive scowl. "If you let the qi ebb, your breakthrough will be weakened. At worst, you'll be weaker than every other Body Refinement cultivator. But even a small flaw could make it impossible to reach the next stage."
"I know, we've covered it enough." Kai smiled and let her review the facts one more time before he finally departed.
Reaching the first major stage of cultivation had been so long in coming that Kai had been half-convinced that something terrible would happen to stop him. There were more than enough opportunities for something to go wrong: the search for the thieves, the Cloudspire delegates causing trouble, even Graetri demanding a duel.
None of those were enough to prevent him from walking out of Yulthens and preparing himself. The guards searched him thoroughly and suspiciously, but it didn't turn into any blood vendetta and he was eventually allowed through.
All the details he'd gone over with Zae Zin Nim were easy in theory, difficult in practice. He'd completely prepared the dantian inside him, now he just needed to fill it with qi to the absolute bursting point. If he pushed further, all the qi would be condensed into a more powerful form that would then reinforce his body.
This was supposed to be a science, not some matter of luck, so there should be no way for fate to ruin everything for him. Kai didn't let himself get confident regardless.
Once he was outside and alone, he sat down and spread out the items that had cost him so much time and effort. The most valuable were three qi pills: one white, one red, and one black. Far outside the norm, they had a nearly clear pill derived from some monster. There was also a vial of liquid that was the qi equivalent of a potion, plus some generic pills in case he needed more qi than he had available. Zae Zin Nim was very insistent that he not use any of the muddied or crystallized qi from the local environment, only the pure type.
Kai took a deep breath and focused himself. First the white pill... an enormous flood of qi cascaded through his body, far stronger and more potent than anything he'd ever experienced before. Was this really what qi felt like on Cloudspire? It was harder just to deal with the shock than to actually gather it.
Soon his dantian was filled, but that was when the first complication arose. Zae Zin Nim had told him that there might be interference with his mana, which was the part of the process that held the greatest risk, because there weren't good paths for mixing the two types of energy. If he started to feel pain or the qi destabilized, he needed to abort before he deviated dangerously.
His mana surged, responding to the energy, but that intense power was the exact opposite of the calm he needed. Kai held his dantian firm in one part of his mind while focusing on his mana, willing it back down. He managed to pull it off surprisingly quickly, his mana pulling away from the dantian and instead suffusing the rest of his spirit.
Next the red pill... as soon as he swallowed, he felt his dantian begin to tremble. Not like it was going to break, instead attaining some sort of higher energy state. That was supposed to happen too, but it meant that he was now on a timer.
Qi gathered, mana quelled, dantian prepared - he could make the attempt provided that nothing was wrong. Kai checked his Physique and Soul, but they were both irrelevant to the Qi Condensation stage and fortunately he saw no problems at all.
Except that there wasn't as much qi as there should have been. Kai frowned and checked his technique, wondering if he'd been inadvertently losing it. But no, his control was solid, the only problem was that some was missing. He'd never experienced so much before, so he hadn't noticed when some of it slipped away somehow.
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When he realized the problem he felt the bottom drop out of his stomach: something deep within him was consuming the qi. Not all of it, but a steady drain into the monstrous side of his soul. Zae Zin Nim had said that his monstrous powers would not exist in an ordinary cultivator, and hoped the monstrous essence would remain uninvolved. One of the reasons he'd needed to spend so much was to have contingency plans in case it didn't play along. Apparently it wasn't going to.
Kai took one of the extra qi pills, which temporarily topped him up. Only enough for a moment... he could try to turn off the drain, but he was so hungry...
Instead he put several of the pills in his mouth at once, followed with the clear monster pill, and washed them down with the potion. As his body exploded with a frankly dangerous amount of qi, he directed half of it into the consuming maw and the other half to his dantian.
It swelled and for a moment he thought it would shatter, then all at once the qi began to shift. Every drop of it became denser and more powerful, a process that swirled through his dantian and transformed everything. As soon as it was done the power surged on, spreading through his body. Even though he was already suffused with mana, his body drank in the qi as well.
That left him sitting alone, burning with energy. Kai blinked several times, wondering if that could be all. He'd nearly failed a couple times, but compared to being attacked by a dragon, breaking through his cultivation had been downright serene.
Someone was watching him. His spiritual senses were far sharper than before and he immediately identified the source: one of the cultivators from Cloudspire was hovering over the city, standing on some kind of flying sword. The man looked at him briefly, seemed to shake his head, then he vanished back underneath the crimson wall.
Another problem out of the way. Kai finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief and checked his soul.
<
Name: Kai Clanless
Total Power: 228
Cultivation: Body Refinement 0% (100)
Physique Level: E-4 (92)
Soul Level: 6 (36)
Monstrous Hunger - VIII (theta)
Behemoth's Heart - I (alpha)
Direboar's Strength - V (epsilon)
Isulfr's Bite - V (epsilon)
Tyrant's Claw - IV (delta)
Infernotoad's Burst - II (beta)
-
Wallcrawler's Feet - I (alpha)
>
After the long grinding path, cultivation was finally paying off for him. The raw boost had raised his Power rating above 200, but more importantly he felt as though his soul was in some way enlarged. When he tried to draw on more monstrous essence, it didn't quite work, yet all of the abilities within him felt free, as if eager to grow.
Breakthrough accomplished, Kai headed back into Yulthens. His achievement was critical to him, but the city at large didn't care, so he just had to endure the search again, slip through the crowds, and get back to the estate. He had barely arrived before Zae Zin Nim came to greet him with a small smile on her face.
"Congratulations, Kai. You can truly be called a cultivator now."
"I didn't screw anything up?" he asked. "I followed all your instructions, but I don't know about evaluating meridians and all of the complicated stuff that makes one different from another."
"I cannot find fault with your advancement." She nodded in satisfaction. "This will be useful for me, as I should be able to cultivate more easily without being discovered, but it should be even more useful to you. Even if you use your full abilities, others are unlikely to understand your real nature... unless you physically go all... monstery."
"You'd actually say 'monstrous' there."
"I choose to say monstery."
Over the next two days, they dedicated themselves almost wholly to training. Zae Zin Nim remained focused on her cultivation, despite the gap between her and the next stage, and Kai decided that it wasn't his place to argue about her strategy. For his part, he divided his time between strengthening and control.
One of his primary concerns was using his monstrous abilities while appearing completely human. He could pull it off with everything except Isulfr's Bite, and Infernotoad's Burst simply looked weird. But there were people from the Elemental Nations running around with flame-like or wind-like hair, so it wasn't the weirdest thing seen in Krysal. So long as his soul remained intact, he looked like a cultivator with some sort of foreign technique.
Simply using those abilities was beginning to strengthen them, he could tell. Just sparring with Zae Zin Nim made Behemoth's Heart raise a level and he could physically feel a difference in how durable his skin was when he was struck by an attack. Direboar's Strength seemed to rise along with it, as if they reinforced one another, and his other abilities felt primed to grow further.
They discussed the issue and their theory was that while his cultivation and Physique had slowed, the monstrous powers had grown to the limits of his soul. Eventually they began to stagnate, which was just when he began breaking through on cultivation and Soul Level.
Mastering this power would take a lot of careful work, but Kai was eager to try.
The frenzy in the city subsided from chaos to sullen resentment as the lockdown persisted. People still filled the streets, sometimes more than usual given the disruption to business, but normal life felt suspended. Aside from the top crystalliers and merchants, most seemed willing to accept it. Kai was beginning to hope that the thief would be found and punished, or an agreement would be reached, or the threat of violence would otherwise dissolve as cooler heads prevailed.
He hoped that right up until the point Tareth landed in the courtyard.
"We have a problem." The enormous man rolled his shoulders and gestured at Kai. "Several of the merchants plan to break out and they'll annihilate the city guard. If we can't stop them, there's no hope of investigating the theft. Consider this your test, boy. Time to see if you're worth it."