I wake in the basement. Somehow, I am surprised but I really should not be. I don’t quite remember just what I was doing before I went to bed, but it must have been something serious. Otherwise, I would not have been tied to a medicinal bathtub with formations. They didn’t even do that while I was a newborn, so I don’t know why they started now.
The squad is nearby, pacing in the cramped basement, yet carefully avoid bumping into each other despite not looking up. Like little worker bees, only bigger and stronger. Within moments, they realize I’m awake and they buzz on over to me, throwing a whole litany of questions and check-ups my way.
“What’s happening?” I shout over them, as they speak over each other so quickly yet still expect me to understand them.
They stop for a moment as mother hugs me. “You were unconscious for a month.”
Ah, is that why I feel so well-rested? I close my eyes and check my spirit strength: 792. My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. It was 260 or so when I passed out. I’m all for sudden power-ups, but nothing I have read in the notes have suggested such a jump, even in everything Ratel and Li Angry left behind.
All three of my dantians have opened, so perhaps that could have attributed some. But not that much, so I check the three dantians. In my mind dantian, any presence of a mini-me has disappeared and my spirit is fully humanoid as big as my body. In my spirit dantian, my lake of life does not even reach the quarter-mark of the sphere. If I’m right, somehow, decades of my life has been converted to spiritual strength now – would not be the worst thing if I didn’t have less than a decade of life left. My qi dantian has formed its own lake from liquid qi, which basically means it’s working fine.
I open my eyes and look around. The squad is still there, looking at me confused, but still there. So I close my eyes once more and check my spirit strength: 792. I check my spiritual shelf and find three more talismans have shattered.
It dawns on me that seeking cultivation advice from people that I hide crucial information from them may very well doom me, but just how am I even supposed to tell them? Would they even understand? Or would they become frustrated that I may have killed their actual child and took their spot? Would they get mad that I didn’t share this earlier? And more, so I chant Spirit Like Water in my mind, let my worries pass, then I open my eyes.
My spirit is not the only change. My body has grown considerably – not surprising given the purpose of the medicinal bath, but I no longer look like a toddler but a kid, easily three and a half feet tall. Is this how big I would have been if I did not absorb all the medicinal bath qi to strengthen my spirit?
“How do you feel?” mother asks.
“Good.” I say. “Perhaps even great.”
“That’s good.” Father says. “We are just going to run a few tests to make sure everything is alright, then you can get something to eat. It’s good to finally see you grow.”
҉҉҉
Being in a coma for about a month doesn’t seem long or will bring about any particular amount of change. However, I have forgotten while I am technically only five months old, my body is around about six years old according to Ascetic Yang. That means my teeth are all in and I am actually able to eat solid food – an opportunity no one misses, for I am brought to the dining room for the first time.
The round table is big enough to fit the five of us. Dozens of dishes cover the table – grilled fish, sushi, eggrolls, multiple types of meat buns, multiple noodle dishes, dumplings, tribes, ribs and more. It doesn’t take long for the four adults to put a few samples of everything onto my plate and I’m beaming. The thought of my eyes being bigger than my stomach floats through my mind, only to be taken back and ruthlessly quelled by my stomach.
Despite the deliciousness of the food, it feels like cold comfort. It hardly takes long to realize that this is the first time I have really enjoyed food, and it’s not just because of my new teeth. My mini-me that normally does all the eating and mundane matters for me has gone, without a trace. Even as I take a couple of breaks between bites to sit there and savor the food. No cries, no screams, no hostile takeovers. They were not exactly desirable, but its absence leaves a hollow aftertaste.
The feeling soon passed as I recite the Spirit Like Water sutra.
҉҉҉
I expected Ascetic Yang’s classes after the meal or even meditation doublehour since it’s almost nightfall, but instead, Aunt Meng takes me on a walk around the garden in the back of the house.
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“Do you know what the Ying family is famous for?” She asks, opening the glass door to the greenhouse.
“Alchemy.” I say automatically, then frown. I shouldn’t technically know that yet.
Aunt Meng pays it no heed. “Correct, but what type of alchemy?” She asks, bringing me into the greenhouse. While trees, flowers and more could be seen from the outside, a dense layer of qi, almost like a fog, swallows the green house. I lose sight of Aunt Meng almost immediately, until she grabs hold of my hand.
“Not sure.” I say. Xin Feng was the type of alchemist that could do everything the story needed, which was a rather large range, from longevity pills to cosmetics and regrowth. “Longevity?”
“Longevity medicines are extinct at the moment.” Aunt Meng says, carrying me. “They don’t really begin to grow until when the Spiritual World descends, which generally starts five years before the turn of the new millennium.”
That will be…annoying. My life is short and the sixth rank seems like my only path to survival – while most things could be obtained earlier on, longevity was not one of them. The extension came from the transition from mortal to Xiantian, which would continue to increase once it progresses closer to a Divinity.
“So there’s no way to extend lifespan until 9995?” I ask.
“Depends on the person’s remaining lifespan, cultivation rank and resources they have at their disposal.” Aunt Meng says, reaching her hand out into the fog and returning with a withered branch. “The Ying Family specializes in cultivation breakthroughs, as well as repairing spiritual and bodily damages in that vein.” She reached in a few more times, grabbing a seven-color flower petal, ginseng and a few different berries.
“So I’m learning alchemy?” I ask.
“Not for another week.” Aunt Meng says, moving once more. “You have just woken up, and the Day of Reverence is a few days away.”
Day of Reverence? Isn’t that a Vyram holiday? “To honor the Divinities?” I ask.
“Technically, but we already had that official holiday at the beginning of the year. You went into a lake during it.” Aunt Meng says. “This Day of Reverence is for the Ying Ancestors, some of whom are Divinities, and for babies like you to gain a little physical boost. Cleaning meridians, strengthened physically, grow a bit.”
Physical boost? Now that it part is mentioned, I do remember that there was a physical cultivation that I could be doing. White Lies, A Hundred Faces, I think? I close my eyes and look towards the spiritual shelf.
On the bottom row are talismans, only three of which are intact and seven broken sets of shards. The top row are a series of scrolls – three for Spirit Like Water, one for basic knowledge about cultivation, two for the letters I have received, and a few other scrolls that I have yet to touch. Most of them were sealed off before I reached the first rank, but one of them shines brightly, ready to open.
White Lies, A Hundred Faces uses qi to change physical appearance. At the earlier ranks, it can only change simple things – hair and eye color, adding or removing marks, like tattoos. Later on, height, musculature and more can be changed. More a clandestine technique than fighting. The most important part of it for me, however, is the meridian opening section included within. Definitely should work on that the next couple of days to prepare – if the boost is anything like the spiritual lake.
Aunt Meng taps my face a couple of times. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, putting the scroll away. “What’s wrong?”
Aunt Meng sighs as she continues to walk. “As I was saying before, with the Spiritual World descending, increasing one’s cultivation will not only be easier, but more important. Being an alchemist that specializes in that would be paramount importance.” The fog soon clears, unveiling a clearing with one giant Taiji-shaped stone at the center, with eight sets of three stones surrounding it. The BaGua symbol.
Aunt Meng puts me on one of the outer stones. “All you have to do right now, is just watch me work. Feel free to ask any questions during the process.”
“What are you making?” I ask.
“A food pill for you.” She says. Seeing confusion on my face, she continues. “Not like your normal food – we learned that something within you consumes qi, not any disease we ever seen, so perhaps some special ****. However, that has prevented the qi within the food and baths from properly feeding your body. This pill feeds you through other means *** and ****. We did not want you to ****. So now you have pills and baths.”
Well, those were words. Not exactly sure what she intends to do with such a longwinded explanation, since expecting my mediocre Shanhua is rather questionable. But she doesn’t seem to expect me to understand much of it, I suppose, as she begins the alchemy process. Because if using alchemy to mix four items wasn’t enough already, Aunt Meng brings out ten or twenty more in rapid session, some materials already fully prepared so I don’t even know what they are.
So I sit there, nodding my head like I know exactly what’s going on. Honestly, it’s like watching a cooking video. Only no one is telling me what’s going on step-by-step and I’m unable to pause the video to search what exactly the producer is talking about. Worst of all, the camera angle prevents me from looking into the pot. All I see the lovely black sheen of the cauldron, a bit of flame. And the smell. For all that is holy and sacred, I can only smell something so putrid that a thousand cesspool cannot rival.
Luckily, I have Awareness, which can dull my senses a bit. Haven’t particularly tried it at all, but I now have some motivation. Aunt Meng is fully aware of what’s she doing too. For even before I can get Awareness working properly, she somehow removes the smell, then tosses the sweetest, flowery scents money can buy into the cauldron. After a couple of potential explosions within the cauldron, a batch of orange orbs, about an inch in diameter.
She throws a pill at me and says, “eat it.”
I probably could eat the sickeningly sweet pill if I didn’t know what it originally smelled like, but with Aunt Meng staring me down, down the hatch the pill goes. It’s much heavier than I originally thought, but has so little qi that it actually disappears into my stomach, like food on Earth but it is the first time has actually happened here. Even milk is much richer in qi.
Then Aunt Meng brings me home for bed.