My plan worked perfectly. After a day of bothering my, by then, very exasperated mother, and a good night's sleep I could control my qi without any additional headaches once again.

I still felt a little miserable, my body felt weak, my head hurt and I was tired, but something that small wouldn't stop me!

Whatever changing qi actually did, it allowed my qi to influence other qi, something it couldn't do in its pure form. Luckily my qi sense could also discern the difference, as my qi now felt a little more in tune with the world and me, with a slight impression of circling. In my specific case that influence stopped all foreign qi from entering my body, and instead caused it to form a small tornado of qi around my body.

Not really stealthy, so I would need to make sure to not get in the vicinity of any powerful cultivator, but they were said to be quite rare. Even more so in a backwater town such as ours.

Mom once explained only the town's mayor held any real power here, with the captain of the guard a very distant second.

While good for me I still thought that sucked. The mayor's only qualification seemed to be his power. He wasn't voted for, or sent to rule the town, no. He was just powerful enough that no one bothered or dared to challenge him for his position.

To be fair, he didn't do that bad a job, as the town seemed to be flourishing over the last years, at least as far as I could see.

Still, what to do now? While I could cultivate in my state, and knew it would help me get a little better I wanted to move, to run, to explore, if only a little. And I wanted to see just how much qi the whirlwind surrounding me could safe. Yes. That was the reason. Not that I didn't want to work right now and was procrastinating. Most definitely not. Yep.

Still, that meant boredom. And I was really bad at dealing with boredom, as my mother could testify.

As I thought about going out to play a scary thought entered my head. I was three and a half years old and knew no one. Well, not no one, I knew my mother, and passingly knew the old shopkeeper we bought our stuff from.

But no one else, I had no friends, no enemies, no bullies. Though to be honest I didn't need any of the third category.

The fact remained. I was a loner. What a scary thought. Time to do something about that.

I marched towards the house's second room, opened the door, happy I had grown enough to do so without help, and walked up to my working mom.

"Mom, I wanna go outside." I said, giving her my best puppy eyes.

"Why?" She asked.

"I want to have some friends. You work all the time." I explained.

A contemplating look entered mom's eyes, and I made sure to force some tears to appear in my eyes, something surprisingly easy while still being as young as I was.

"You have until midday. If you're not back by then that will be the last time you're outside for half a year young lady." She relented.

Probably thinking about yesterday, and the stress she'd have to go through if she were to deny my wish now.

I cried "Yay, I love you mommy." and went to hug her legs for a second before I ran outside, moving as fast as possible to avoid mom regretting her decision and revoking her consent.

“Don't you dare go into the forest young lady! You will never leave this house if you do!” She yelled after me. 

Once outside I wondered where to go. The town was quite small for a town, at least by my standards. More of a village in the modern world really. It was quite safe, both thanks to captain of the guard and the mayor, so it wasn't like I was in any real danger.

Hell, I heard even theft was a rarity here.

Where would I find kids to befriend though? I could go to the marketplace, but what would kids do at the market when there was no market?

I thought hard, what did I know about the town?

Started as a fishing village, so apparently at the ocean or a big lake. Fish was still a main product of the town, though less than a few years earlier. It hugged a forest on the other side of town, which mom had just forbidden me to enter. That was about it. Not even a church? I would have to ask mom tomorrow.

Where to? The forest was my first thought, but kids probably wouldn't go in there unless for a dare.

So, onwards to the beach, searching the town itself for peers wasn't something I wanted to do.

That trip would prove useful even if no one was there, I was sure I'd be able to catch a crab or two, to experiment on. Not as good as a rat, but good enough. And crabs would do, after all they were less prone to spread diseases, even at a loss of similarity to humans. Pigs would be best, but I doubted I’d find a pig in town.

And even if I did, it was very doubtful a farmer or rancher would let me experiment with his livelihood.

As I walked through the town I was surprised once again, it was quite clean considering the level of technology I was forced to life with. Perhaps I should try to get rich? Shouldn't be too hard with my memories. And then pay someone to build me a shower. Showers were easy after all, even without plumbing, you just needed the money to pay someone move water up for you.

The beach was gorgeous. Sure it being filled with fine gravel instead of sand was kind of a big letdown, but the picture in front of me stopped my all thoughts for a moment.

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A large bay, filled with deep blue water, the sun in my back, reflecting off the water surface. Old, rustic boats were in sight, dragging large nets behind themselves.

I didn't see any children though.

How much time did I have left?

I looked at the sun's position.

Not all that much, about an hour and a half.

Finding friends would have to wait then. I moved out on the beach, in search for an unwilling test subject … wait no, a volunteer.

There were a few tests I wanted to do, tests that were too dangerous to do on myself. Like plasmatic qi. I didn't know if it existed, but it'd make for a great distraction to run away from any fights I would be forced to participate in otherwise. Of which I hoped there would be none, but you never knew living in a world filled with savages.

I didn't take long to find a crab with the help of my qi sense. Now that my cultivation moved free qi around me. Anything living disturbed that cloud of qi, so hiding in range of my qi sense was useless. I could detect anything with relative ease, hiding or not.

So, could I deposit my qi in something else? I moved a little bit of my qi into the crab, and my qi immediately started to fight the crab's own. I immediately moved more qi into the crab, if it wanted to fight me it would regret that!

In the end only very little of my qi became inert, as I just flooded the crab with my qi, overwhelming its own with sheer quantity. Could I relinquish my qi to the crab? If I couldn't I wouldn't be able to properly test my theories. So I threw the crab up in the air, just outside of my area of influence, and caught it when it came down again.

Crap.

I didn't remove any of my qi still in the crab, and had lost control of all that qi. I couldn't reestablish my connection, it was the crab's qi now. Whatever.

I released my victim .. volunteer, and went to search for a new one, it would be easier than overwhelming my leftover qi. I didn't take long to find a new, and very willing test subject, and defeating its qi  for some experiments. And a maybe an explosion or two.

How did I get my qi to become plasma though? Normal plasma was just some matter pumped full with a lot of energy. But qi was an energy already, not matter. Furthermore I already knew qi would become 'liquid' when compressed with other qi, so adding qi wouldn't work.

Adding other energy? Perhaps, but how would I do that?

Perhaps just imagining it would work? I removed most of my qi from the crab, and told the remaining what to do, before throwing the crab into the ocean with all my power.

Nothing, not even a ripple in the ambient qi.

What did I do wrong? How did liquid qi work?

Wait, the cultivator did not talk about filling the body with qi from the feet up, which meant qi didn't really change into an actual liquid.

Probably the first cultivators lacked a good way to describe what really happened, and decided to use the next best example.

Qi stayed an energy, it just got compressed beyond a certain point of stress. Probably dependent on volume then.

Could it really be that easy? Just a matter volume and perhaps concentration? Nothing to do but try. I took a moment to hunt another crab, and overwhelm its qi. Then I returned most of my qi back in my body, leaving only a speck of qi the size of a grain of sand remaining.

I focused on that little bit of qi, and imagined it being surrounded by a massive sphere of void, with about a metre diameter, before throwing the crab from me once again.

A weak wave of qi passed me only moments later, and I couldn't help but grin. I succeeded. That wave was weak, barely noticeable standing only a few metres away, but the qi required to produce it was negligible. 

I looked at the sun, and decided any further experiments would have to wait until tomorrow. I needed to get home as soon as possible, so I took off running.

     I was back at the beach a day later, the original plan of finding friends all but forgotten.

I hunted myself another crab, overwhelmed its qi, and searched for yet another crab. That didn't take all that long, and after I pinned it with a few heavy stones to prevent flight I retreated a few metres myself. Repeating yesterday's actions, I took the time to aim at my other volunteer, and threw the crab, wondering if adding a little more qi to my first victim had been a smart choice. Still I wanted to see what this 'plasmatic' qi did to a living being.

I hit dead on, and shortly after the shockwave if qi passed me again, this time a little stronger. I felt a little queasy from that, with some of my qi being affected by that wave, bypassing my qi's defence.

Something to look out for in the future.

I went over to inspect both crabs. Interestingly the one I threw wasn't off much worse, if I were to ignore the broken leg that came from being thrown. On the other hand the trapped crab was off far worse. Its qi was in complete disorder, and the crab itself didn't look much better. I quickly took care of its qi, sending my own inside to see what happened.

Wow.

A quick bash to the head ended the crab's suffering. Its internals were a complete mess, ruptured veins, bleeding organs and ripped muscles.

Not a tool to flee then, I didn't want to kill anyone if I could avoid it after all. Still, it seemed the shockwave didn't affect exhausted qi, so exhausting all my qi should be a good protection.

Now for the other end of the spectrum, what made getting liquid qi so hard, and why was it special enough to warrant a new realm?

I looked down at the crab near my feet, trying to stealthily scuttle off, and picked it up again. I sat down, the crab secured in both hands, and started cultivating, pumping the freshly purified qi into the crab instead of myself.

The crab was small, and didn't actively cultivate, so I quickly quadrupled the qi held in its small body.

Instead of having a large void sphere around the crab I created a sphere of void the size of a grain of sand in the crab's center of mass, watching and waiting.

Nothing happened. Still too big, or perhaps not enough qi then. I added a little more qi, doubling it this time, as I tied to think of something smaller than a grain of sand that wasn't an atom.

I took embarrassingly long to find something I could actually picture, but didn't waste any time. I concentrated again, created a sphere of void the size of a speck of dust, and watched as qi moved.

Fascinating. 

My qi senses, and thus I, noticed the moment critical concentration was reached. The qi within the crab lit up like a miniature beacon. A short removal from my aura later and I was watching as some sort of pulse spread through the crab, originating from the small speck of liquid qi within. Nothing really seemed to change at first, and the changes were far less the farther from the origin of the liquid qi I cared to look, but stayed noticeable, if barely.

Interesting. So the location you created your liquid qi in mattered. Good to know, but I'd need several crabs to test everything. Especially if there were any negative consequences for doing so in a brain. And what creating another round of liquid qi did in a body, if it caused the same reaction. Sadly I didn't know if I could do that last one, the liquid qi in the crab's body swallowed any qi I send into it with ridiculous ease, with my own qi only putting up a minimal fight.

I'd really like to take this one home, but suspected it would only get eaten. And I had no clue what eating liquid qi did to a being not in the second realm.

Worst case was that the same thing that happened to the dead crab happened to me or mom, and I would most definitely not risk that.

"Run little crab." I said, setting it free, before returning home.

Perhaps I would explore the forest tomorrow. After asking mom about dangers lurking within. There had to be a reason it was forbidden after all.