The roar of the hauler’s horn jerked Kevin out of a fitful doze. Despite his best intentions, he had not slept well. Beyond the frequent interruptions, endless nightmares had plagued him.
An empty hospital bed and swirling mist were the most common, but there had been others. An enraged response team cutting him down, being lost in a foreign land, or lying penniless in a gutter.
Yet the fitful sleep had a single upside: He’d never had the deep loss of consciousness that might have made him forget all that had happened. He was still aware that he was in a new world, living in the country of Caldain.
He had resources, a cultivation method, and a bright future ahead of him. More than enough to banish the lingering specter of his nightmares and grant motivation for a new day.
The sun was up now, and the hauler was bustling with fresh arrivals; he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. Licking his dry lips, Kevin shook his head clear and navigated his way to the central aisle.
The alluring smell of coffee and fresh food drew him into the first carriage. There he found, much to his joy, that the new world had coffee. This morning, he focused on the value of different coins as he watched people move through the line ahead.
Matching the purchases to what he had in his wallet, he memorized the different ‘squares’ as they were called. As the name suggested, all the coins were square and came in two forms.
There were empty squares, each a frame with a hole punched in the middle, and full squares without the hole. An empty square was worth half a full square, providing more options for combining them.
This seemed important, as the currency wasn’t as easily divisible as the dollar was. From what he could tell, it was on the gold standard, with the value of each coin being based on the value of its metal.
The coins he had the most of were in different sizes of tin and brass, while he only had a few small silver coins and one gold. The exact values of each were still beyond him, but he at least knew enough to find the right squares when asked for them.
Purchasing a double-strength coffee — the names were all odd, so he just asked for the most common — and a pair of sandwiches, he returned to his seat. On his return, he had a moment of panic that his cultivation method was missing, but after rushing back, he found it by his seat.
Losing that would be a setback; he’d have to be more careful. He didn’t know if the booklet was worth anything on its own, or if the value was in having it matched to him, but it would be best to keep it with him either way.
Energy buoyed by sustenance and caffeine, he checked how long it was to his stop. Three hours would be enough time to get a decent practice session in; he’d just have to be careful not to overshoot.
To begin with, he found focusing on the image a little harder than the night before, his mind hazy and jittery from the coffee. As the minutes ticked by, however, he soon found his enthusiasm again.
Even with a lack of obvious progress, cultivation was amazing. Every moment dripped with potential as if a breakthrough could happen at any second.
While there were no breakthroughs that morning, Kevin still made progress in conceptualizing the details of his visualization. The flattened ovoid shape from the night before was a good start, but still lacking.
The key, he found, was focusing on his idea of what a sealed land would entail. A land suggested a flat, or mostly flat, surface, and he believed that was why flattening the image had felt better.
The image had to remain empty for now, but he could still use the idea of it having land within to guide him. A flat base felt ideal, but when envisioned it as a three-dimensional disk, it felt wrong.
After playing for an hour, Kevin came up with the idea of a dome to represent his land. With a flat base and edges that curved upward until they met at the top, the last image felt like it represented a distant horizon where land met the sky.
Wanting to be sure, he tried other shapes and concepts over the second hour but found nothing that fitted as well. Another reading of the exercise confirmed his suspicion that this was enough detail to progress beyond the first exercise.
A great start, but he was far from done. He still needed to find the right position, and then practice until he could keep both image and placement consistent over multiple sessions. If he couldn’t even achieve this with his initial visualization, he’d fail as the exercises became more complex.
In the third hour, he tried placing the image at various spots along his mid-line but found it more difficult. Two hours of solid focus was already more than he was used to, and as his station grew closer, the worry of missing it became distracting.
By the time the hauler’s horn sounded for his stop, he’d only made a little progress. Lowering the image from his heart felt a little better, but the sensation of improvement faded as he kept going.
With little feedback, he found it hard to pick out a single spot; and without a clear idea of the ideal location, he wouldn’t have anything he could consistently bring his focus back to.
Ensuring he had his few possessions, Kevin alighted from the train and took in his temporary home.
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Ostlare was a medium-sized town nestled near the base of a solitary mountain. Bracketed by a wide highway on one side, and a river on the other, the town sprawled out into a long rectangle.
Before doing anything else, Kevin took a couple of hours to explore the area. He’d visited a few country towns back home, and it was fascinating to see how things differed with not only a different culture and history but with the existence of Qi.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Many of the buildings were small clumps of narrow flats reminiscent of the ones he’d seen in the city. Alongside them were shops, eateries, bars, and workshops; all the bits and pieces a community required.
At his best guess, Kevin would place the population a little north of two thousand, with the number of residences outnumbering the apparent jobs by a wide margin. Given the rolling farmland spreading out along flatter land away from the mountain, he guessed most jobs were in farming.
At first, the location in the foothills of a mountain felt a little odd. Surely they would have more space further away? However, a little thought suggested a few reasons.
Agent Travis had confirmed that mountains were good for Qi and that you wanted solid Qi flow for orchards. Given that, being as close as possible to a mountain made sense. Further, it looked like there was a sect, or something similar, on the mountain itself.
Such an organization would require support, and while he didn’t see many cultivators in town, it seemed likely they would get it from Ostlare. Having a sect so close was intriguing, but the chances of it being suitable for him seemed low.
Nor did he want to deal with cultivator nonsense quite yet; best to leave that until he had power of his own.
After a pleasant lunch at one of the local cafes, he located the local real estate agent and negotiated for a flat. There were a few available, and he avoided being talked into one of the more expensive options.
A simple two-story building on the edge of town met his needs nicely, without pushing his debt too hard. He was pretty sure he’d still be running at a loss working part-time, but shouldn’t run too far into the negative.
All that was required to get the key was signing a contract and handing over a cheque for two months’ rent. While he could have rented on a weekly basis, locking in the longer period provided a discount.
Kevin couldn’t see himself finishing the complicated Sealed Land faster much faster than two months, so paying in advance made sense. Key in hand, he wandered back through the town and let himself into his temporary home.
His flat was better than he’d expected for the price, and more spacious than most of the apartments he’d used in his youth. The first floor held a kitchen, dining area, and a small lounge, while the second had a bathroom, bedroom, and laundry.
Of these, the kitchen and bathroom were the most interesting, providing the modern comforts he was used to with strange new methods.
Water and stove alike were heated with glowing runes, while cupboards promised to keep food fresh at room temperature. At least, if the resident information folder he’d been given could be believed.
The place had to be using a store of Qi to run all its devices somehow, though Kevin couldn’t be sure where it was coming from. Ambient collection perhaps? Or did the town have a wired Qi network?
While the entire concept was fascinating, it would be easy to fall into procrastination if he wasn’t careful. Putting aside his questions for now, Kevin settled into the lounge room and returned to his practice.
He’d confirmed the date when signing the contract and found that it was a Thursday. Caldain operated on a seven-day week, and though he suspected the names were different, they translated into the ones he was used to.
With his new job not expecting him until the following Monday, he had a solid set of days he could dedicate to cultivation before any distractions arrived. If he split each of those around mealtimes and then added another break or two, he should be able to spread his focus over most of each day.
That afternoon, he made further progress on deciding the location to place his visualization. It was still difficult to focus on how the shifting image felt, but after a lot of playing, he was confident that the base of his sternum was best.
While there was no noticeable improvement from the spots above and below it, the location was a solid landmark to which he could tie the image. Having a spot he could feel, and come back too easily, would help him remain consistent.
This would also place the sealed land roughly halfway between his shriveled Dantian and his heart. Somehow, that felt appropriate.
Unclear how the kitchen worked, despite the information provided, Kevin ate out before pushing for another round of practice. Despite completing the first two parts, he was still having trouble remaining consistent between sessions.
Still, he’d made solid progress again, and that night he fell into an exhausted slumber with a smile.
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The next few days fell into a comfortable rhythm as Kevin worked on the last part of the Sealed Land methods’ first exercise. Now that he had a solid image, it felt a little more real every time he imagined it.
It was too early to consider this a sign the greater method was working, but it made staying consistent easier with each day that passed. And as Kevin grew more practice, the length he could keep the image stable increased as well.
At first, unable to maintain focus for much more than a minute, his attention grew by leaps and bounds each day. By the end of the week, Kevin could hold a single visualization for fifteen minutes when he was in deep meditation.
He also grew more familiar with the town and its inhabitants as he shopped for necessities. Most were pleasant, welcoming, and willing to accept his lack of understanding.
Concealing his nature as an outsider seemed impossible, instead, he was upfront about it whenever someone asked. This often led to questions he couldn’t answer, but he simply responded that he wasn’t allowed to talk about it.
In the beginning, this led to a spike in interest, and a few visitors, but the excitement soon died down. By Sunday, a cultivator fight had broken out in the town’s nicest restaurant, and people had something else to gossip about.
His brief period of fame had some perks, however, and on Saturday afternoon, Kevin found himself chatting with the cook at his new favorite cafe after closing hours. He’d first met Vanessa the day before when she marched out to ask about outsider cuisine.
Despite not being able to reveal much, beyond giving his positive opinion of the local styles, they’d still hit it off. She was a pleasant person to talk to, and while he got the feeling she might be interested in more, he focused on just making a friend.
He had other things to focus on than romance at the moment, and he wasn’t planning to be in town for that long. What he needed was a few people to talk to, so he didn’t go mad locked up in his house.
When he let slip he didn’t have any idea how a kitchen here worked, Vanessa insisted on giving him a lesson that afternoon. Swept along by her enthusiasm, Kevin couldn’t resist or refute her reasoning.
While he found the ingredients and recipes of Caldain somewhat familiar, the way the kitchen worked was strange indeed. Beyond the stove itself, there were few appliances, but the ones that did were fascinating.
The cupboards maintained food freshness as advertised, slowing the rate of degradation to almost nothing. Vanessa pointed out the carved arrays at the back that managed this but didn’t know the specifics.
About the stove, she was far more knowledgeable. It had an array that transmuted mechanical Qi, which the building stored into heat-aspected Qi. The array then transferred the heat to a glass area on the countertop, much like an electric stove.
Temperature was controlled by touching a symbol and focusing on the level of heat you wanted. Intent was what mattered, as it was used to control the specifics of the internal arrays.
Before long, the lesson had extended too much of the local culture. By the time she left hours later, Kevin was far better prepared to fit in.
While he’d offered to pay for her time, the lesson was more than worth it, she only brushed him off with a laugh and a comment about talking to an outsider being interesting.
Now equipped to keep himself fed, Kevin made up the lost afternoon on Sunday by staying in to cultivate all day. Starting work the next morning wasn’t a real deadline, but he still felt the need to wrap up the first exercise.
As if making such a leap would help guard him against losing momentum when distractions arose.
After hour upon hour of the deepest focus he’d ever achieved, Kevin knew he’d succeeded.