“Please help him!” The young man shouted, “An evil cultivator cut off his hand! He’s already lost so much blood, I don’t know how much longer he’ll survive.”

Lelao stepped forward and touched the boy in his arms, drifting him weightlessly to an empty bed. She rolled up the bloody sleeve, revealing a crimson stump. Like a log separated in one strike, his hand had been cleanly cleaved off.

“Stop, Elder Lelao. Let Dalian take care of this.” Alano said.

Like a well trained pet, she immediately stepped back. The outer disciple who had brought him trained his gaze on Dalian, and his jaw gradually widened. As though a bolt of lightning had struck him, his face contorted. “You’re going to let him do this? He couldn’t have even known about qi until a month ago!”

“Silence!” Elder Alano demanded, making some hand signs. While the disciple’s mouth continued to move, he was astonished to find no sound coming out.

“You may begin,” Alano said, looking at Dalian.

Dalian felt bad about the boy. He was right to be angry; his friend was being entrusted to an amateur, when someone who had mastered their craft for decades was right there. Unfortunately she had stepped back, and Dalian felt as though Alano would rather the boy die then let her heal him and take away his opportunity for practice.

So, he mentally searched for every parcel of information he could remember about the anatomy of the hand. The bones, cartilage, tendons, veins, skin, flesh. Everything. He couldn’t fail. Not when someone’s future had been entrusted to him.

Reserves half drained from the round of healing, he felt the pressure ramping up. But they had to be enough, imagining the consequences if they weren’t…

Circulating energy, a luminescent orb gradually began shining.It was all he could do to stay standing, the amount of energy he packed within.

Referring to a mental model he had created; the light began to be shaped into a hand. Occasionally, he took a look at the boy’s other hand as a guide, but mostly he had to visualise it, since everything on the inside couldn’t be seen.

Dalian somewhat wished that he had a hand that he could dissect to study from. Then, he dismissed the thought as irrelevant to his situation and returned his attention to the task.

After a couple of minutes, the model had been perfected as much as possible in such a limited time frame. If he waited any longer then the boy really would bleed out.

Using a tendril of qi to connect the hand to the stump on the boy’s arm, information from the boy’s body began to be transmitted into the model. It began to shift slightly; the white skin transformed into an olive tone, and the thickness of the fingers began to alter. Dalian could feel the inside change as well. Tendons realigned and nerves attached to different spots.

Eventually, no more changes occurred, so Dalian lapped the arm and hand with life qi to allow them to reconnect. The bleeding stopped, and he smiled. Although the hand was likely to be of poor quality. He had done it.

He had created a hand.

Joy took his mind, but only for a moment, before he collapsed to the ground. Putting his all into that hand had truly drained him. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the young man who hadn’t trusted him looking guiltily. His eyes nervously darted between him and the boy on the bed. Dalian felt a slight heartache; people were always like this.

Summoning the final remnant of strength, he nodded his head, to say that the disciple could go over to his friend.

Thankfully, the boy understood and ran over to the bed.

Dalian closed his eyes and felt the spirit root in his navel. With a great effort, he set in motion the Nine Life Scripture. The flow in his meridians was extremely sluggish, with only a tiny amount of vital energy to push things along. Very gradually, slivers of qi entered his neidan.

Recalling the incredible speed he could cultivate within the life-attuned area, he felt regretful for not appreciating it enough.

It was unknown how much time had passed before he opened his eyes again and stood up. He hadn’t recovered all of his energy, but certainly enough to move around. The rest would be left for later, at a more convenient time.

He saw the two elders still standing in their previous positions, both looking at him.

“How long was I out for?”

Alano replied, “Only about forty five minutes.”

Lelao interjected. “Really, it’s unbelievable what difference a high grade spirit root makes. Recovering that much from near depletion would have taken me hours back in my youth.”

Dalian just smiled politely, leaving her to shake her head.

“Well, that was a good showing. I checked and that hand had about a thirty percent compatibility. Not bad for what Elder Alano tells me is your first time.” She said,

Dalian asked, “what would have been the compatibility had you made it?”

“Hmm, about fifty percent?”

His eyes widened slightly. Only that much? She had been practising all her life and that was all she could reach? Was it because she lacked talent, or was it just that hard?

Noticing his confusion, she commented, “I never focused too much on controlled healing. Since I only have a low grade root, I didn’t have much energy to form body parts. At your level of advancement, I would have only been able to form a single finger.

Anyway, your work here has been good enough to earn a reward. So I’m granting you twenty contribution points.”

Points. He already had a hundred of them from purifying that girl after the test. Mersault’s reaction back then had been encouraging, but he still had no clue of their purpose.

“What are contribution points used for?”

This time, Alano spoke.

“For all disciples of the sect, contribution points are what they need to use to advance. You can exchange them for nearly anything. Materials, treasures, weapons, cultivation environments. If you have enough, you can even get access to the secret realm.

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Now that you have 120, and have set a foundation for your cultivation, it might be worth it for you to take a visit to the outer sect treasury.” Alano said.

“Outer sect treasury?” Dalian asked.

“The things in the inner sect treasury are far too expensive for qi gathering disciples. So we separate them. There’s no reason to sway the path of the young when it can be avoided.”

Dalian felt enthusiastic towards the idea, but not specifically for the treasures. Whilst he was sure that they would be very helpful for him, if he was visiting the outer sect, then he would probably be able to visit his brothers; Ferjuz, Tybalt, and Johan. He hadn’t seen them in nearly a month, and wanted to know how they had settled into the sect.

“Then I shall visit the outer sect.” He replied to Alano, receiving a curt nod in response.

—

Alano didn’t fly him to his destination this time, which he was thankful for, as he wouldn’t just be doing what the man expected. Unfortunately, this meant he had to climb the mountain himself. At least it was just the next one over, and it was rather small.

He had finished his healing session in the late morning, and factoring in a few hours to recover and travel the mountain, it had turned to evening. Dalian did notice that it felt rather easy for him to climb. Even with only a half full neidan, he made much better progress than he would’ve before he began cultivating. The body strengthening aspects of qi were becoming apparent.

He had finally made it to the top of the path, and entered the compound of buildings on the top of the mountain. As he looked around, he saw that it wasn’t as finely crafted as Elder Alano’s mountain. The buildings were constructed from roughly cut stone, and even many were made of wooden logs. They reminded Dalian of his home village, and he smiled slightly.

Just as he was relaxing into the comfortable familiarity, he was shocked back into wakefulness by a loud shout.

“Motherfucker! If I don’t get you back for this, then my name isn’t Ferjuz!”

Dalian scrunched his brows, wondering if he had heard it correctly. Then realising he had, started running over to the origin of the sound. Did someone really have the audacity to bully his brother? He had chosen not to value his position as Alano’s disciple, but that didn’t mean others didn’t. Surely word had gotten round that he was close with those three?

Quickly, he came to a clearing. There was a crowd forming a circle. He forced his way to the edge, and saw Ferjuz, Tybalt, and Johan standing opposite to a group of three disciples. Looks of anger plastered his brother’s faces, whilst nasty sneers masked the others.

“You think you can take revenge on us? Don’t you know the distance between us is unpassable.” One of the disciples said.

Johan snorted. “Only for now. You’re still in the outer sect, despite having been in the sect for three years. That says enough about your potential.”

That seemed to prickle the three oppressors’ pride.

“Scum!”

“Bastard!”

“Insolent!

Together, they began making several hand signs, signifying they were about to use a qi technique. Dalian prepared strength in his legs. He wouldn’t let them release their techniques.

Tybalt spoke to the two quietly. “Don’t worry brothers, we can be beaten today. Once we bide our time, an opportunity will one day arise.”

Dalian nodded to his words, and saw the three coming to an end of their hand signs. His brothers were in ready stances. Not wanting to let the situation go any further, he launched off his back foot.

Because their attention was planted firmly on their targets, they didn’t notice his approach, and he was able to land a fist directly on one of their heads. He had gathered vital energy and qi in his fist, causing the disciple to go sprawling across the ground.

Large smiles appeared across his friend’s faces. “Dalian!” They all shouted in unison.

The two other disciples weren’t able to continue their techniques, as they were caught by surprise. The gathered qi caused a backlash and they stumbled backwards.

“You’ve done well brothers. No matter if you die today, you can rise again tomorrow. This is the kind of attitude I see within you.” Dalian said, as he walked over to their side. “But you were wrong about one thing Tybalt, right now, you won’t be beaten.”

Dalian felt confident. Even though he hadn’t learned any offensive techniques, he had glimpsed the difference between low grade and high grade spirit roots. If these were disciples of the senior generation still in the outer sect, they no doubt had the former.

Having taken one out of the fray, it was now a four versus two.

Tybalt nodded seriously. “Dalian, I don’t know what you’ve experienced in the past few weeks, but these three have opened all of their qi gates. Don’t take them lightly.”

Despite feeling a prick at his pride, Dalian replied. “I won’t.”

The two opponents had recovered by now, and they looked furious. As they snarled, one of them spat at the four. “Now you’ve done it. I don’t know who you think you are, but don’t think you can talk your way out of this one.”

A sparse blue light began emanating out of their bodies, and they approached with bloodlust in their eyes.

Dalian settled into a fighting stance, with his two legs spread far apart to secure a stable base, and his hands up. He had no offensive techniques to be used against people without evil qi, but he had cultivated in a dense atmosphere of life, and made significant headway into opening the second gate already.

“You don’t need to know who I am. Just that today, you will regret touching my brothers.” Dalian said and pushed off his back foot to move closer, before they could use any techniques.

With him, Johan and Tybalt charged by his side. Johan had a smooth deep blue aura covering his fist. Tybalt had nothing visible, but Dalian was sure he had something he could trust.

Ferjuz stayed at the back, doing something. He would’ve turned back to check, but he was advancing, and needed to keep his eyes on his enemies.

The two groups collided like a barrel of gunpowder had been set off. Punches flew in a flurry. Their foes threw punches that struck sharply. Dalian grimaced as a few landed on his shoulders, whilst he blocked and dodged some others.

Tybalt didn’t punch, rather he crashed into one of them. With that much momentum, Dalian fully expected the opponent to be tackled to the ground, but instead he ate the charge, wrapped his arm around Tybalt’s neck and began choking him.

Johan kept on throwing hooks with his glowing fist, which actually seemed to be dealing quite a lot of damage.

However, as Dalian viewed the fight, it seemed as though his side was on the losing side. Their opponents weren’t losing steam at all. Whilst Dalian had ample reserves, he wasn’t sure about Tybalt and Johan.

Somehow, he needed to do something to change the way the fight turned out.

Maybe he could figure out an offensive technique using life qi? No, it was too dangerous, and he wouldn’t even know where to begin in the middle of a fight.

Was his only option to keep fighting?

Suddenly, Dalian felt a heavy pain as a ball like object struck his back. It began burning his skin for a couple seconds before it went away. However, the distraction proved fatal, and the disciple which had been absorbing Johan’s punches whilst fighting Dalian took the opportunity to deliver a heavy uppercut.

Dalian fell backwards onto his back.

“Fuck! My bad Dalian, I meant to shoot it at them, not you!” shouted Ferjuz.

Dalian tried to quickly get up, not bothering about Ferjuz’s failure, but the disciple was already upon him, delivering kicks to his side and stomping on his hands when he tried to lift himself up. He tried to grab his leg a few times to no avail, eventually resorting to healing himself as the beating continued.

Soon, the other three were forced onto the ground and thoroughly smashed.

“You thought you could fight against us! This is what you deserve!” One of them shouted.

Eventually, the blue light faded from around them. Dalian supposed that it would’ve been a good moment to fight back, but his energy was spent. He didn’t even need to think about the others to know they were probably in a worse shape than himself.

“Don’t ever try something like that again.” they said, and left with a menacing walk. The crowd parted for them freely, leaving only the group of four lying on the floor.