“Give me a minute to get the visualization right,” Kevin licked his lips, anxiety growing within him.

“Sure thing,” James grinned back, his smile easy and free. No doubt the man was relieved to have gotten the technique down.

Behind him, Li said nothing, though he could feel her still lurking there. The extra attention did nothing for his nerves, but it wasn’t something he could change. All he could do was focus.

With a deep breath, Kevin closed his eyes and dove inward. He’d studied the technique enough to know the steps by heart, but trying it was another thing altogether.

The first step was the one that worried him the most. He needed to draw enough Qi to power the technique from his sealed land. The manual mentioned the Qi Sea or Dantian, but his sealed land performed the same function.

It shouldn’t be that different from how he compacted the stored energy into his canyons to form the spiritual void. If he just did the same thing in reverse…

Focusing, Kevin pulled energy up toward one wall of his transparent dome. The Qi struggled at first before forming a sluggish stream. It felt like he was trying to lift a pile of mud with his bare hands; his natural Earth Qi did not want to get moving.

Yet Kevin persevered, focus honed over months of complex visualizations proving its worth. At his demand, the Qi reached the edge and flowed out as if it wasn’t there. Bemused, Kevin faltered for a moment; that was far easier than he’d expected.

He now had the QI out in his body, though it felt far different from the free-floating Qi he was used to. That was like a cloud dispersed through his body, unlike the thick, refined energy coming from his sealed land.

This effect was something he’d read about but never experienced. A cultivator’s Qi increased in potency as they drew from the world and stored it within them. This effect grew stronger as the cultivator advanced and was a large part of why high-realm individuals were so powerful.

Now he had the QI out but still needed to move it to the right location.

The usual instructions were to use the closest meridian to his target to move the energy. That allowed you to use a pre-existing path for as much of the journey as possible.

With all his meridians blocked and not connected to his sealed land, he’d have to try something different. Moving it through his body the whole way might not be ideal, but it was all he had.

Focusing on his right arm, Kevin willed the energy toward it. To his further surprise, the Earth Qi obeyed his direction. Without fuss, it flowed along his limb and pooled in his forearm.

Was it that easy?

Had his body become used to Qi flowing around where it shouldn’t? He had been filling his body with free-floating Qi at every opportunity. That energy might not feel the same, but perhaps the adaptations his body had made still applied.

Kevin snapped his eyes open, elation filling him. At his rate, he was going to pull it off on his first try!

Smirking, he readied his stance and gestured James forward. “Go for it.”

Nodding, the man stepped forward and launched a slow jab.

Thankful that his partner was keeping it to a reasonable speed, Kevin brought his arm up to block. At the same time, he focused on an image of Qi bursting from his skin and forming a thick layer of armor.

His block intercepted the strike with a light thump as James’ arm struck bare skin. He’d failed; as soon as he’d tried to pull it out of his skin, his Qi had refused to budge.

“A decent start, Mr. Blake,” Li said, mild approval in her tone. “You have an odd cultivation style, but it seems to lend itself to moving your Qi outside a human’s usual energy network.”

“However, your energy draw is far too slow, and you face the same issue your partner did. Your skin is a barrier for a reason; without it, you would lose Qi with every moment.”

“Keep trying, and it should come to you,” Li’s words trailed off without a sound. If not for his Qi sense, Kevin would have assumed she was still there; with it, he could tell she’d moved on to another pair.

“Nice, sounds like you got further than I did on my first try!” James gave him a thumbs-up as he reset his stance. “Ready for another go?”

Pursing his lips, Kevin focused on the Qi in his arm. It had faded a little, but there was still a decent amount there. Perhaps he’d gotten a little through his skin after all. Or his body might be using it to fuel its natural processes.

Either way, he had a few more straightforward attempts before he had to pull more out.

“Go for it,” he grinned, echoing his earlier words. He might not have made it on the first try, but the attempt had still put a lot of his worries to rest.

“Yes!” Kevin gasped, sweat dripping off his forehead as he stared at the energy coating his arm.

He’d been practicing with James for over forty minutes, drawing ever more Qi from his sealed land. The effort had grown taxing, but seeing his first-ever technique in action was worth it.

The Qi coating his arm was the same faded orange-yellow as the cracked ground in his sealed land. While lacking any physical sensation, it had a dense, enduring feel to his spiritual senses.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Nor was it mere visual effect. Instead of the usual bruising force of blocking James’ strike, he’d felt nothing at all.

It was almost as if he’d donned a metal bracer, though one with no weight or flexibility issues.

However, the technique did come with its own limitations.

Kevin would wager he’d spent more Qi in this one class than he’d get back in a whole cultivation cycle. And that was with all his attempts so far resulting in failure.

He’d been wondering why so many of his fellow disciples were still in the body-cleansing realm after cultivating for years. This had to be the reason.

If every technique drained some of the Qi you’d strained to pull in, you’d need to work harder to make any progress.

“Good work, Mr. Blake.” Li had arrived in a flash again, this time stepping into his line of sight. “While you still need to work on your speed, it appears you have the basic technique down.”

“Take a rest and give Mr. Marsh another chance. We’ll see if he can replicate his earlier success, and then you will have one more session before class ends.”

Turning to James, she continued, “The other arm this time, Mr. Marsh. You will need both, and it’s best to break the skin barrier now so they heal at the same rate.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” James responded with a wry grin.

Kevin nodded in agreement; thank god he was getting a break. Forty minutes of trying to channel his Qi had been exhausting. Along with the plain exhaustion, he could feel the sting in his arm now that Li had mentioned it.

It seemed his body had not appreciated him forcing that burst of Qi out.

Still, the technique had worked, so he couldn’t complain. It didn’t feel like he was leaking Qi or anything like that, so his body must have adapted without too much issue.

Over the next twenty minutes James had his turn, this time managing the technique in the first ten minutes. After that, the other disciple alternated limbs, improving with each attempt.

Then, it was Kevin’s second session. To his embarrassment, he took most of the remaining twenty minutes to get the technique working with his left arm. In the end, he only got a couple of tries using it in earnest.

Though that was still far better than he’d feared for this class, slow or not, he now had an actual Qi technique under his belt. The pride of that was even enough to offset the loss of all the energy he’d used.

This single class would need at least two cycles to recover from. That was even more work piled into his schedule just to break even on his advancement.

“Nice work, partner,” He grinned at James as the class entered a set of cool-down stretches.

“Right back at you,” James nodded back.

“Congratulations, class,” Li’s voice rang out, pulling all attention back to her. “I am pleased to say that everyone here has succeeded at least once at the Qi blocking technique. We will continue to drill it over the coming weeks until you can activate it as a split-second reaction.”

“For now, do not perform any out-of-class practice this week. Let your body heal and settle until our next practical class. If no issues are present, then I will give you approval to practice as much as you desire.”

“That is all,” Li gave her usual finish as she vanished from the room.

Kevin exchanged goodbyes with James and a few others in the class before leaving.

He had lunch with Amelia today and didn’t want to be late.

----------------------------------------

Amelia’s pick for lunch was an outdoor cafe overlooking the sect’s single park.

There were plenty of other areas of plant life in the sect, but all had some purpose for cultivation or training. This was the only one designed for nothing but relaxation.

With the area’s pleasant atmosphere, he could see why she’d wanted to meet here.

There was no constant pinging on his spiritual senses from techniques, nor was the ambient Qi dense enough to warrant cultivation. Even the noise level was low despite the small crowd getting lunch.

Were there formations or something keeping the noise down? He was pretty sure the library had the same thing, so it wasn’t impossible. Either way, it was just the break he needed after such an intense class.

Within moments, he spotted Amelia already sitting at a table. Today, she wore the same white cultivator robes as when he’d first seen her at the entrance trials. In the bright sunlight, they would have almost faded into her skin if not for the stark lines of her tattoos.

She looked up from her book as he approached, nodding at the seat across from her.

“Hey,” Kevin said as he took the seat.

Amelia snapped her book shut and held up a finger as she returned it to a bag on the floor. With a familiar motion, she slid a hand into her other sleeve, pulled free a blank page, and slid it onto the table.

A single finger touching one corner was enough to spread black ink across the page.

Hello Kevin, it is nice to see you again.

“Same,” Kevin grinned as he held an arm out. After Amelia clasped it, he continued, “How have your classes been? Mine have been pretty intense so far.”

For a moment, something flashed across her face that resembled apprehension. Then, her expression returned to a simple smile.

Boring. The outer sect only runs a limited set of classes. TAL-139 was the most complicated, and it’s still quite… basic despite my limitations.

I had hoped for something more interesting.

Kevin paused, struggling to contain his shock at her response. Then again, this was the woman who’d learned a whole technique in a day without any help.

He should have expected something like this.

From the look on her face, it wasn’t hard to guess that some people didn’t take that level of intellect well, either. She wasn’t quite bragging; every part of her posture screamed sincerity, but he could see it coming across that way if you weren’t good at reading people.

Even he felt a flash of annoyance after trying so hard at a single beginner class.

He squashed it down hard. Instead, he gave a commiserating nod. “That must be difficult. I can’t imagine going to all these classes if they were super easy.”

It wasn’t even a lie. Twenty-five hours a week was a lot of time to put in, even when he was enjoying it. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if they were just going over things he already knew or learned faster than anyone else.

The bright smile that spread across Amelia’s face was proof he’d made the right move. “So there’s no two-hundred-level classes you could start early?”

Her face fell again as she shook her head.

The two hundred prefix is for the inner sect. The outer sect only has one hundred levels. It's the second digit that indicates the difficulty.

“Oh,” Kevin responded. He assumed it was the same as back home, with the first digit representing the year level. However, the sect’s structure was nothing like the college he’d attended; of course, it would be different.

It made sense with his own classes, too. Taking the second digit as the difficulty level, most were at zero level. They must be intended for fresh disciples. Then, the combat formations class, at one level, was a step up in difficulty.

“Are you going to try making it into the inner at the cutoff in a year?” He couldn’t see that she had much of a choice if she was already taking the highest-level classes. As it was, she had three more cycles to get through.

He hadn’t even checked how much merit that would take, being too worried about making the minimum cutoff. It had to be a lot, though.

Given how skilled she seemed, Amelia might be able to make it. While he wished her well, the thought still sent a slight twinge of worry through him. A year was a decent amount of time, but he’d still hate to see her go so soon.

Amelia burst into one of her silent laughs, a hand covering her face as she shook her head.

Heavens, no; I would die of boredom. I’ll be taking my cutoff early in six months.