A week later Shen sat in her quarters, practicing with refining chi. As her roommate was out playing with some of the other girls she wasn’t practicing with any of the five elements. She was practicing with Blood Chi. At first she had thought about what Teacher said, that if chi is inside something, it takes on the properties of that thing. That meant that their should be Blood chi in her blood, right? So she looked for it inside her, concentrating on trying to feel inside her heart and veins. Surprisingly, what she found the most of wasn’t Blood Chi and she knew it. She wasn’t sure what it was, but eventually she found a tiny bit of what she was searching for and pulled it out.
Now she had a tiny ball of very impure blood chi in her hand. Based on how strong the samples of elemental chi was, this couldn’t be more than one tenth of a percent pure. She wasn’t sure how it was that weak. Water chi in a bowl of water was 1%. Earth chi in a rock was nine tenths of a percent. Why was this only one tenth of a percent?
She had, however, been taught how to refine chi, so she started doing so. First, she tried to remove the excess. This only seemed to make it go away. Then she tried to focus on the concept. What did it feel like? An hour later she had her answer to what this was, exactly. This wasn’t just Blood Chi. This contained death. This was Dead Blood Chi, and the pills that they took were a poison.
Upon realizing that she threw it away and started working on a different form of chi. It was not surprising that the masters thought it was so dangerous, with it being tied to a concept like Death. Instead she thought about which of the elements she was the closest to. She liked fire, and seemed to be good with it, so she lit a candle and decided to practice her refining techniques on the fire chi within it.
Several months passed as she practiced purifying the various elemental forms of Chi. At cleansing they wanted you to be able to refine chi to 3%. At Gathering that went up to 6%. At Foundation seven and a half percent, at Nascent nine percent, at Immortal ten percent, and at Ascended eleven percent. Not coincidentally, those were also the purities of the chi energy you got from a chi pill or elixir at those levels. The students had all been given one Gathering level pill of each element once they reached the Gathering phase so that they could start off with some chi of the correct purity in their Dantian to compare to. This meant Shen had been given these pills on day three, but hadn’t bothered to take them until she thought she could make chi that was just as pure. She was wrong, and the chi she created was only 3% pure even for fire, her best element.
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Master Xing walked into the testing lab. “Have your finished your analysis of those ‘bloodburn’ pills the children had?” he asked the alchemist.
The elderly alchemist woman bowed. “I have studied their effects on various animal, Master, but there are still things which I don’t understand. For example, this jar was labeled as Gathering stage pills, but when I give one of them to a wolf the chi which is created has a purity of 10%. These Cleansing stage pills are similar, and produce 6% purity blood chi.”
“That explains how the children were able to defeat the cultists with them. The children had purer chi to work with, so the fact that they had much less didn’t matter as much.” The Alchemist nodded. “I want you to figure out how the low quality pills are producing such pure chi. If we can figure out how they made such pills, we may be able to create elemental pills with higher purity chi as well.”
The alchemist bowed. “It will be done, master.” With that, Master Xing left and the alchemist started a new project.
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Shen gathered some of the fire chi within her dantian into a ball and threw it at the target. It hit the stone plate on the target’s chest and exploded. When she passed 5% purity on her fire chi one week ago she noticed that her fire bolts started to explode when they hit the target. Now that she was at almost 6%, that effect had increased drastically. As the master in charge of the target range told her, the effect of a spell increases exponentially with the purity of the chi. She wasn’t sure what “exponentially” meant, but she knew that the 20% increase in the purity of the chi made it do a lot more than 20% more damage. It was closer to 40% more.
She knew that she would need a new technique to stop it from exploding. She had seen others use even purer fire chi than her and not have it explode, so she knew the technique existed, she just didn’t know the technique.
When she was finished practicing, she went to the library. There you could have copies of the various techniques made in exchange for contribution points. They had been taught the way contribution points worked in this sect when they had received credit for their confiscated items, the sect treating it as if they had willingly handed over the items. Ponma had been holding onto all four jars of pills when they were confiscated, but he had made sure to tell them that they belonged to everyone in the group so that they all got credit for turning them in.
The Bloodburn Pills had given them 100 contribution points for each of the three jars, even though they were two different grades. The blood recovery pills had given them 300 points. Apparently, one could receive two contribution points for each Gathering phase pill you donated, and there were around one hundred and fifty pills in the jar. That came to 600 points split across 8 people, so each of the eight children received 75 points. They also received 50 points for the daggers, and all of them had one on them when they were rescued.
This meant that all of the children received one hundred and twenty five contribution points in their account. Unlike the demonic faction where everyone carried their contribution points on them, here your bracelet simply linked to an account, and could be used along with your mental command to transfer contributions to others. For example, say Shen bought something from another recruit. She might will the bracelet to give them five points while touching hers to the other person’s. This would create a record on the jade of both of the bracelets, a memory that the promise had been made. Jade had the ability to hold memories, and the bracelets had circuits in them to help with that. In order for the balance on the account to be changed, you only needed to go to the bank where the records were kept and transfer the memories. This way, no one could fake a transaction, as both people involved would need to be linked to the memory.
Each of the Cleansing stage techniques at the library came on scrolls and cost 25 contribution points. These were fairly basic second class techniques, mostly being concerned with the various forms you could mold the five elements into and their benefits and drawbacks, as well as how to make other forms of elemental chi from the five basic ones. The library had first class techniques available, but, because they were much more difficult to use, one of the elders created simplified versions of all of the Cleansing stage abilities, allowing the weaker members of the sect to have some useful abilities. Gathering stage techniques generally cost one hundred points and were more complex, usually first rate techniques, dealing with specific forms that worked well with specific elements and triggering specific effects with certain elements. For example, if one wanted to relieve pain with wood chi, that would be a Gathering phase effect. These were usually on scrolls, but the longer and more detailed effects were sometimes written in books.
At Foundation stage all techniques were in books. They included complex descriptions of specifics of different elemental abilities, and between two different elements the techniques they describe might have nothing in common. It is at this rank that the more complex effects begin, like healing and element based movement. These generally cost anywhere from five hundred to two thousand points depending on how complex the technique is, and therefore how difficult it is to copy the book. After all, the best way to check if a technique was properly copied was to do it as the copy describes and use the ability. This takes time and the more complex abilities may be difficult for the librarians to learn.
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The Nascent and Immortal stage books were all locked away in a back room, and therefore not available for her to browse. Shen wasn’t sure what they might cost or what they might be like. She was fairly certain that the fact that only five percent of sect members ever reached the Nascent Soul stage and the sect only currently had one Immortal, one of its founders, meant that it would be difficult to test the books that were copied.
The reason that few ever reached that level, however, was simple. Only about 1% of the people who joined the sect had Nascent level talent. Shen had been the only one among the recruits, and among the children of the sect members in the 8 to 10 age range, there were only two. Add to that that there were only two known ways to increase one’s stage beyond their talent level. The first method was called a tribulation. If one pushed themselves to the limit in their cultivation they may realize what was keeping them from advancing. Usually this was not something physical, as that would usually be repaired during cultivation due to the superior health of cultivators, but something mental. Some people referred to it as ‘facing your inner demon.’ In a state of deep meditation similar to the ‘image training’ the martial cultivators used, it would appear as a physical enemy, one which attacked not just physically, but mentally. If you faced it and defeated it, however, your talent would usually increase by one level, unless you had another ‘inner demon’ of about the same strength.
The second method is to re-cultivate. This was by far the more reliable method, but it was far slower. It required a cultivator to tear down all of the shells they built around their dantians and, using the superior knowledge they had now, compared to when they first made the shell, to start cultivating again from the ground up. Every time one did this the base of their cultivation would get stronger, and the weaknesses would be ironed out. It was like a builder tearing down a tower and building it again with what they learned as they built and the stronger materials they now knew about. Eventually they will build a strong enough base that the tower can be built past their limit. If a cultivator managed to do that, they will find that their inner demons will lose influence over them due to them being too strong willed for it to effect them, and the inner demon will either be defeated or go away. This is the method that all but a few within the sect use.
Teacher used himself as an example when telling them about this method. He once had an addictive personality. Since he was young he would become obsessed with games or toys and refuse to give them up. As he got older he started gambling, then started drinking alcohol. It took him over one hundred years to develop enough willpower through cultivation that he could say ‘no’ to the things that formerly controlled him, and enter the Nascent stage. At that point he was able to stop drinking, as he no longer found it difficult to say no, and within a few weeks he stopped drinking at all other than one celebratory drink at major celebrations for social reasons.
Shen walked over to a shelf by the front door and looked over the Cleansing stage effects. She had enough contribution points to learn one technique each from the Cleansing and Gathering stages, but she decided against this. Instead, she would learn five different Cleansing phase techniques. She would need many of them if she wanted to understand the Gathering stage techniques. Like the one she was currently looking at, ‘Fire to Lightning’. There were two techniques listed for converting elemental chi to lightning chi, as lightning chi was difficult to store within one’s dantian. These two techniques were ‘metal to lightning’ and ‘fire to lightning’. They both had the benefit of making it no longer necessary to produce Lightning chi as she attacked, which was slow and usually about half the purity of the chi they had gathered and refined through meditation, and therefore one quarter of the effect of the stored chi. Instead, they used the similarity between the two types and made minor adjustments to the chi so that it would change to the other type. For this ease and speed they only somewhat decreased the purity of the chi. In the case of the second rate ‘metal to lightning’ the lightning chi would have 90% of the purity of the metal chi, and in the case of the second rate ‘fire to lightning’ the lightning chi would have 80% of the purity of the fire chi. The first rate version of both produced lightning chi 95% the purity of the one it was converted from, but was much more difficult to use,
For Shen there was only one possible choice if she wanted to learn to use lightning magic. She chose the ‘fire to lightning’ technique. While the other was more efficient, she was naturally more talented with fire chi, and therefore the resulting lightning chi would be slightly more pure than if she created it the other way. She took that technique and the Bolt technique to the counter and told the woman behind the counter that she wanted to buy them both, crediting the purchase to her account. The scrolls were in such demand by the new recruits that the librarian and her assistants had made several copies of each in advance and just replaced the one on display as they were purchased rather than making copies after they were ordered.
The Bolt technique was fairly simple. It made an elemental chi ability hold together better, doubling its range and penetration ability at the cost of concentration. Shen was confident that, with a bit of practice, she could concentrate properly and use it with the same skill she displayed with the ‘bolts’ she was currently using.
She went to the training field and practiced the Bolt technique until she was out of every type of elemental chi except fire, then practiced creating balls of lightning. When she was starting to run out of Fire chi she succeeded, and managed to throw two weak lightning balls at the target before running out of Fire chi completely.
As she wouldn’t need to be at a higher stage for now, upon entering her room she started to break down the barrier around her dantians. Technically, having a store of higher quality Fire chi would let her practice the ‘fire to lightning’ technique easier, but if she wanted to do that she could just make fire chi at the field or spend some of her contribution points to buy elemental pills, as the Cleansing phase ones only cost one point each and the Gathering phase ones only cost four points each.
What concerned her was how shaky her foundation was. Now that Teacher had taught her to cultivate she knew that the Cleansing phase wasn’t just about removing toxins from the main chi pathways. She had ignored that fact when trying to rush to increase her chi reserves, only caring about improving her physical abilities. This was mainly because she had originally Learned Cultivation for the third rate “Dao of the Militia” technique book which was widely used by militaries to train troops. They were mostly concerned with making the soldiers stronger, faster, and with better endurance, so the side pathways, which were mostly only needed for the movement of chi outside the body, could largely be ignored. In militaries, only the third rate “Dao of the Mage” book which they used to train their healers and magic users mentioned the need to clean the side pathways, as those support staff needed to be able to easily use chi magic.
The Cleansing stage was about allowing chi to flow throughout the entire body. This meant that even the smallest chi channels had to be cleaned out. She had largely ignored them, however, as the improvement to your physical stats and reaching the Gathering stage only required the main channels to be cleared. The Martial manual she had read only went over the cleansing of the side channels as a way for Cleansing level talents to maximize their power, while warning that it was slower than reaching Gathering for those that could.
Her failure to do this step properly was limiting her ability to use magic. Specifically, it was restricting the flow of chi and therefore slowing her down and making her concentrate more. For the basic spells she was currently using this wasn’t really necessary, as she could brute force a successful use of her techniques, but for the more complex ones this would be needed.
It took her about two hours to destroy the shell around her dantians, and when she unraveled the shell enough it rapidly decayed, releasing a burst of neutral chi. Many nearby people detected this, but most assumed it was one of the recruits failing to break through and losing control before the shell was fully formed. After all, the average time it took a recruit to break though to the chi gathering stage was almost one year.
Just as she finished lowering her cultivation Mae entered the room. It was evening meal time, so the two of them went to eat. They got the free food like always. Unlike the demons whose free option was basic survival rations, this sect’s food was actually decent, even if it rarely included meat. Still, as neither of them were developing their martial arts skills they didn’t really need the meat to rebuild muscles, so they were fine with not having any.
Some of the boys joined them after a few minutes. They were all covered in sweat, and stunk. Shen assumed that they were trying the martial route. The boys, of course, had to share what they were learning at the training field. Din, or was it Dan, tried to share the specifics, but Shen wasn’t paying attention, finding his story boring and still thinking about her own training.
Eventually Ponma started telling them about how he was practicing dodging first. After all, even if he chose to be a mage that would be useful. Shen thought that was a good idea as well, and when he asked her to join them she said she would think about it.
The next day Mae left for the apothecary shop and Shen was left alone. She had used Restrict to stop the flow of chi into her body so that her dantian would expand, so she couldn’t cultivate or practice techniques. When she came back to this later, however, her dantian would be able to hold slightly more chi and the release or even Release of the pressure will help blow the toxins out of the minor chi channels in her body. This would make her cultivation tonight even better.
One of the special things about the Cleansing level of the dantian, the stage at which it had no shells below it, was that it would naturally refill with neutral chi over the course of a few hours, depending on the density of the chi in the air. It would even purify any chi that was placed in it, turning it into neutral chi, so that the chi would always remain purely neutral. No other layer would automatically refill like this until it had a shell built around it, at which point it would refill with the same type of chi that was in it at the same purity as that chi. For example, when one was at Foundation stage, the Gathering level of the dantian, between the first and second shells, will constantly refill with elemental chi at whatever purity was in that level when the shell was built. Chi at this purity was often less useful to the cultivator, but because it couldn’t be updated to a higher purity, the drive to recultivate, at least for that one level, was reinforced.