The trick Queen pulled was clearly not simple, as when she dragged me to her Spring Palace, she was visibly staggering. It was especially serious considering I could feel that she was using her essence to support herself.

Not the nicest thing, but it would be a lie to say that I was suddenly filled with guilt. I had already helped her a lot.

The moment we were inside, she put me on the bed … and collapsed to the nearest chair, already unconscious. Slightly frustrating, as it meant I couldn't simply explore the house. And, her current state of unconsciousness gave me an excellent option to examine her cultivation, both Martial and Qi.

Though, I kept the cursed Qi to the surface. In case she woke up, I could always say that I was worried for her despite my deadly illness.

I started examining her martial cultivation first, which, despite her great growth, had been filled with blockages, tainted points, and creeping problems. The incredible cost of raising people with essence pills wasn't the only reason for most martial artists to avoid it. It also created problems that were supposed to be impossible to solve.

Luckily, I cheated. Someone else trying their essence to handle the problem would have ruined her martial cultivation, but I immediately solved all but the most visible problems. And, those I kept to keep her unaware of my help.

The moment she solved those few problems, she would rise to the Peak of Bone Forging easily.

With those solved, I turned my attention to her Qi Cultivation. The last time I checked her gates, there was only a smattering of Qi remained, like I was looking at a dried well. Now, they were even emptier, like someone squeezed the ground.

It looked like her attempts to heal me wiped her off completely.

Digging someone's cultivation like I was doing was taboo, but I didn't care about that. Instead, I carefully pushed through her first gate and finally got a glimpse of her dantian, the center of her body, where her Qi was to be stored and supplied to her gates so she could use them externally.

With my cultivation knowledge, I could see that her dantian was damaged. The Qi didn't gather there correctly. Or, that was how it felt as I poked around with my essence. Lacking sensitivity to Qi didn't make things easy.

However, while exploring that, I noticed a nice benefit.

It was possible to cover up Qi cultivation with essence. It wasn't perfect, and it wouldn't trick anyone into repeating my examination, but still, it would work. Especially if I was merely at the first level, and only activated my Dantian.

"A tough decision," I thought. It was risky enough, especially if the Queen discovered what I was doing. Yet, I couldn't help but hope that, by cultivating my Qi, I would be able to interact with external Qi. If true, that would be extremely helpful.

In the end, I decided to do it. Ultimately, I was betting that, if there was some kind of signal I couldn't block, people would assume that Queen was responsible for it.

First, I purged the cursed Qi from my essence. Then, I reached into my Inventory and pulled one of the Qi strands. The moment I did so, it melded against my body, making me very glad that I waited until my Meditation technique had reached Major Familiarity.

By that, I was able to channel Qi without actually being able to see it. I channeled my essence and drove the Qi strand into my Dantian. It felt like a fire burning in my stomach, but it passed quickly. According to the technique, it was supposed to take hours, but it passed with a flash.

More importantly, my Dantian, rather than feeling empty, felt already full.

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A strand of Qi was far more effective than I expected. No wonder, even with that multiplier, I only received six of them.

I let my Dantian absorb and devour the Qi. It was a necessary step in cultivation. Dantian was the heart of cultivation. The stronger it was, the better the cultivation was. The impact might be limited, but I much preferred to keep my cultivation low to ensure higher multipliers.

However, I soon noticed another unusual thing. Nourishing it was supposed to take a far longer time. A cultivator slowly gathered and purified Qi until it turned a part of them, and then they could absorb…

Which suggested that the System provided me with subdued Qi like I had spent weeks to properly process it, so I could absorb it without problem.

Another incredible shortcut.

The moment I unlocked my dantian, I could feel my body getting stronger. Significantly so, like my body had been always running on a backup engine, and the real one had been just activated.

Tempting those capabilities was tempting, but not as tempting as finally seeing Qi. The moment I broke though, I gained the ability to detect my Qi directly. My dantian shone brightly with pure Qi. Meanwhile, what I called cursed Qi was dark, smelly, and tainted, making me want to throw up.

Yet, I kept it, because I needed to convince the Queen that I still needed her help. I hoped for another healing pulse. Qi Strand was valuable, considering one of them had been enough to make me a cultivator.

After a very brief of physical capabilities — that showed my physical capabilities were almost doubled, showing that Qi cultivation was far more effective than Martial Cultivation. Previously, I could barely contend against Peak Skin Refinement artists in a fair fight, and now, I was confident to deal with Intermediate Bone Forging Artists.

I didn't expect my cultivation to happen that easily … well, maybe not easily, as I had a feeling, that not many Qi Gathering stage cultivators raised their meditation ability to the Major Familiarity before they started cultivating.

Curious of its impacts, I pulled the book she wrote for me, and started reading. "Wow," I murmured, shocked by just how much easier it was to understand now that I was aware of my own Qi.

No wonder only a rare few could cultivate. To understand the techniques, one needed Qi awareness, which couldn't be developed directly. Though, it couldn't be just that. I continued to read her writings, and then process the knowledge that was granted by the earlier lessons.

After reading a bit more, I frowned and went to touch her wrist again. This time, I used my Qi to explore her cultivation. That way, I didn't need to make assumptions blindly. Seeing her gates, I could see that they were damaged by an external force, which left many damages.

I couldn't help but wonder if I could use essence to cleanse it … but I didn't dare to experiment. I didn't want to wound her. Instead, I peeked at her dantian and found a mess. Her Qi was messy and impure. But, at that moment, my attention was grabbed by something else.

At the center of her dantian, there was an ethereal object, one that was slowly absorbing and cleansing Qi, and outputting subdued Qi. It was a weak mist, almost invisible. Multiplying it by a thousand times wouldn't be enough to match the strand I had.

Yet, the moment I saw it, I realized one important detail.

My Dantian was missing something extremely vital. Something that allowed cultivators to interact with external Qi and convert it to their own.

Immortal Root.

Without it, cultivation was supposed to be impossible. Until now, I assumed it to be a theoretical concept, but it clearly wasn't. I wasn't supposed to be able to cultivate.

However, it seemed that the System didn't care about that detail, which was excellent news. Finding myself in a new world where people could destroy cities singlehandedly, only to end up watching from the side would have been inconvenient.

Though, it had an unwelcome impact as well. Even if I could find a source of pure Qi, it didn't matter. I couldn't absorb it, at all, which meant I couldn't improve my cultivation on my own.

"At least, I don't need to sit in a room, and look at an empty wall for years for cultivation," I thought as I tried to manipulate cursed Qi in my essence again. It reacted.

Good. The technique I learned made it clear that there were great differences between Qi which cultivators used in their techniques, and Qi they used to improve their cultivation. The former didn't need to be fully subdued. It depended on the technique, but most of the time, gathering Qi would be sufficient.

Meaning, I could fight like other cultivators, but couldn't strengthen myself in any way but the System… Honestly, the more I interacted with the System, the more I realized how poorly its rules worked.d

As if that mysterious being just threw me here, fully confident that I would be dead long before it started to matter.

"Well, it's a bet I'm willing to take," I murmured. The poorer the rules worked, the easier I could survive.

I lay back, carefully folding the book, waiting for the Queen to wake up.

Her help assistance just turned even more critical.