Chapter 7 – Give It To Me

As Karlo kept on reading, it became evident why he wasn't making any progress. While it was possible to cultivate with the idea of 'pulling' the Qi towards oneself, this was essentially not how it worked.

Cultivation was more along the lines of something like a vacuum; creating a suction force inside of one's body. While he had had success the first time, instead of going straight from A to B, he was going from A to C to B.

By cutting out the middleman and viewing cultivation in the correct way, it'd be much easier to achieve results.

Karlo wondered why this information hadn't been in the original cultivation booklet, but when he thought about it, the entire booklet was quite vague. It only told him what to do, but not how to do it, along with many unusual descriptions.

His Qi had regenerated to 5, so, with the new information in mind, he started cultivating again.

The notes had given him some clues as to how to go about generating a more powerful suction force and he had about an hour to try and enact them.

He sat on the ground and, instead of observing the Qi in the air, he looked inward and closely examined his Dantian.

The reason he hadn't already done this was because it simply looked like a floating ball of Qi. Just like the sun, even if you carefully examined it, you could see no detail, only a blinding light. But in this case, the reality was different.

After a while of intense examination, Karlo began to see that the Qi wasn't stagnant, and it didn't just flow from his Dantian to his body either. Even within his Dantian, it was rotating like a whirlpool. Slowly? Yes, but surely.

This didn't surprise Karlo, as it had been written in Mrs. Dandy's notes.

Up to this point, he hadn't noticed anything special about his cultivation technique, except that based on what the old lady said, it should be faster than the ordinary technique other players had.

Now, though, he suddenly had an inkling as to why his was called a 'True' cultivation technique. He saw that while the Qi was rotating inside his Dantian, it was also, ever so slightly, pushing on its outer walls.

If his judgement was correct, his Dantian had grown compared to before. Maybe it was only a single millimetre, maybe it wasn't even enough to add a 1 Qi to his panel, but it showed that as long as he was cultivating, he would continually grow stronger.

But back to the task at hand. The notes explained that speeding up the rotation would speed up cultivation.

Before, when infusing Qi for the first time, he succeeded in controlling the Qi in his body. This time though, he was trying to affect a much larger amount. Nonetheless, with his previous success in mind, he did not doubt that he could do it.

He first focused on a small portion of the Qi and tried to speed that up. His idea was to gradually increase the amount until he was controlling the whole thing.

This method proved extremely difficult. Although he felt he did have some control over a tiny bit of Qi, he couldn't speed it up as the Qi around it would restrict its movement.

One thing he had noticed through his experience controlling Qi, was that it was heavy. Just like it would be hard to change the orbit of a planet, Qi didn't like to have its movement changed.

His next thought was to move a slice of the Qi in his Dantian. If one imagined a very thin slice of pizza, if you tried to rotate the entire pizza by only pushing that one slice, it would go everywhere. But add in some outer walls and it'd be possible!

His Dantian fulfilled that condition, so he tried it. Unfortunately, he ran into the same problem he first experienced, only worse. With more surface area it encountered even more resistance.

Now onto his last idea. He chose to control a bit of Qi shaped like a needle. Just as a swordfish cuts through the water, he hoped that the Qi would cut through and move faster.

And amazingly, it worked. He was able to speed the needle up almost twice as much. Unfortunately, this wasn't affecting his cultivation speed at all, the next step was to increase the Qi in his control.

But, no matter how he tried, the moment he increased the amount, it would drastically slow down.

Left with no options, Karlo took some time to think, 'Why is my Dantian so full? I only have... 7 Qi. Does this mean that somehow the automated technique can squeeze 3 more Qi in? Besides that, the main problem I'm having is resistance from surrounding Qi... I think I have an idea.'

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

He took the thread in hand and began infusing. Up to now, he had infused 23 Qi, leaving 27 to go. This time, he chose to infuse until he was only left with 1. He didn't forget to try a method to level the technique up, only that it failed once again.

Only when his panel showed [Qi: 1/10] did he stop.

His head was pounding and he felt like he'd collapse at any moment, but he gritted his teeth and endured.

'There was a reason I decided not to take that endurance talent. Because I can endure all on my own!'

Forcing himself to begin cultivating, Karlo felt that it was especially difficult to enter meditation this time. Only when he had calmed himself was he able to. The time was 10:30.

Observing his Dantian once again, he saw that it was almost empty. The meagre Qi that was there though, was still spinning.

This time he didn't try any fancy tricks and simply controlled all of the Qi to start moving faster.

Like the gears of an ancient machine, the speed increased and kept on increasing faster and faster, until it was moving three times as fast as it had been.

Before long, the Qi started increasing. Karlo's headache all but disappeared and he was able to relax slightly.

While he couldn't spare any attention to watch the Qi in the air, he was sure that it was moving faster.

With every Qi that entered, though, the movement in his Dantian became harder to control and began slowing down, until when it reached 5 it completely returned to its original speed.

When he checked the time again it was 10:55. Only 25 minutes had passed. It should've taken 48 minutes to replenish 4 Qi, meaning, he had almost directly cut the time in half.

For now, Karlo gave up trying to increase the speed at higher amounts.

He moved on to infusing Qi again.

'Only 21 to go.'

This time, he finally thought he had a good idea of how to level the technique up. He gathered some objects to hold the thread so the end stayed pointing upward.

Then he pointed his finger at the thread, holding it less than an inch away. He activated Qi infusion, but when it reached his finger, the Qi simply dispersed into the air.

This was unusual because up to now, he had observed the Qi in the air as being condensed into specs which were spread out evenly.

Thinking he might understand it better when he leveled his Qi Sense technique, he refocused on infusing his Qi without touching the thread.

That's right. His idea was to activate Qi Infusion from a distance. He had already wasted 1 Qi, but all he needed to do was control the Qi to travel in a specified direction in the air for a very short distance.

If that guard could control his Qi to form a fireball completely disconnected from his palm, Karlo felt there should be no reason he couldn't complete this simple task.

He tried to use a smaller amount, and for a few millimetres it came out like a string, but as it got further, it became less and less stable. Before it even reached halfway, it dispersed.

It was then that Karlo remembered an anime he had seen on Earth. In it, there was a character who shot energy out of his finger and he had no problem with Qi dispersion.

Now, Karlo knew that it was only an animation, but it gave him an idea.

He concentrated and readied himself to activate Qi Infusion at the fastest speed he could manage. Simultaneously, he prepared to control the Qi once it left his body.

When he was ready, he activated the technique.

The Qi speedily left his Dantian by the time 24 seconds had passed it reached the tip of his finger. With this extra bit of momentum, Karlo did not hesitate and pushed it out of his pores.

It was very unstable in the air, but before it could disperse, it reached the thread and entered.

Once he felt the connection, Karlo relaxed and took a look at his panel.

[Karlo Berrio

Cultivation: F

Qi: 3/10

Life: 60yrs

Affiliations: Yellow, Blue

Talents: Truth Seeker

Techniques: True Basic Qi Gathering (5/per hour); Qi Sense (Lv. 1); Qi Infusion (Lv. 2)]

Karlo smiled. He'd be more excited, but this day had tired him out. Even so, he made a goal to finish infusing the thread before he went to sleep. As for that Old Garber and his coat... That guy was probably a cultivator too, he should be able to handle a bit of cold until the morning.

Besides, Mrs. Dandy hadn't finished the coat and Karlo didn't feel like making her do it at this hour.

When Karlo tried again to infuse the Qi from a distance, this time it came out as a solid string, no doubt thanks to the panel. He even felt he could move further away.

Until his Qi had dropped to 1 again he didn't stop.

Then began the grueling process of regenerating Qi and infusing it. Each round completed another 4 meters.

It dropped to 14, then 10, 6, 2, and when he had completely finished, Karlo was left with 3 Qi.

The moment he turned and saw the clock, he fell asleep on the floor. It read 1:30.

***

Karlo woke the next morning feeling completely refreshed, perhaps even better than he had felt the day before.

"Finally awake are we?"

Karlo saw Mrs. Dandy working at the table next to him. The time was 10:00.

"I haven't been able to complete the coat for Garber because you haven't given me the thread."

He quickly rolled up the thread and handed it to her and asked, "Why didn't you just take it?"

A notification popped up in front of him.

[F+ Grade Mission Complete: Mrs. Dandy's Qi Infused Thread

Mission Objective: Give Mrs. Dandy a roll of Qi infused thread (1/1)

Increased Reward: 1 Silver Coin; Technique: Qi Infusion (Lv +1)

Claim Reward?]

"Read again what your mission objective is," the old lady laughed.

He then realized. If she had taken the thread, it wouldn't have completed the mission because it specified that he had to 'give' it.

"I see. Old lady, you really know a lot don't you?"

"What did I say about calling me old?! Besides, in this place there's a lot more to things than just what meets the eye," she said with a smirk.

The conversation paused for a few seconds before Karlo asked, "Why have you been so kind to me?" He felt a bit embarrassed about asking such a question, but he had to know.

Mrs. Dandy raised an eyebrow. "You think I've been kind to you? Don't you know? This roll of thread is worth at least 10 silver coins! I've gotten more out of you than you have out of me."

Karlo turned away with a pout and mumbled, "Fine, be like that."

The room went silent for a moment before they both broke out in laughter.