'I feel a little bit odd. Like I had one too many shots, it's difficult keeping my balance'

Ken and the group of former street rats follow after the cultivator. There had been ten other caravans beside the one Kenki had been in, each one having at least ten kids inside it. Meaning that, with their numbers added up, there are over a hundred of them, all ordered in a messy line and following behind.

'I know what the problem is, I'm taking in too much Qi and my body isn't liking it. The air here is thick with it, nothing like what it had been in Northern River's Village. I need to sit down somewhere where I can concentrate and get this problem sorted'

'At least it doesn't seem to be getting any worse. I'm a little bit tipsy and feel slightly sick but that's it. Nothing debilitating.'

The boy examines his surroundings, trying to distract himself from the problem.

Starting with the very road he's walking on. Nice and paved with square-ish stone bricks, all of them holding a perfect shape with not a single crack or chip on them. The grass that the road cuts through is nice, green and even. The sight reminding Ken of his neighbor's lawn back in America.

Last of all, there are a lot of houses. They're small ones probably consisting of one or two rooms, with a lot of space between each one.

From time to time he would see a person or two stop to look at their group in curiosity.

Most of them wear plain white clothing, Ken assumes that they are servants owing to the fact that some of them are quite advanced in age. It's the others that really grab the boy's attention, the ones who are dressed in all black.

'Cultivators. Going by their age they should all be initiates like me' He spies one of them looking at his group with contempt.

'Well…' he smells his armpit before making an expression of pure disgust 'A hundred dirty urchins probably isn't a very endearing sight. For Emperor's sake, a couple of them don't even have rags to cover their naked bodies with' The months-long trip had been detrimental to his own clothes. They aren't made with any super high-quality materials so as a result they'd worn down and even torn in a couple of spots. And then there are the street rats' clothes that are even worse than that. Several unlucky ones have had their clothes degrade to the point where they are unwearable.

With that being said, their group is being led towards a titanic hill that Ken had somehow not noticed before. One that appears to be several hundred meters high, not quite large enough to be considered a mountain but it is definitely pushing the definition of the word 'hill'. Its most striking feature is definitely the gigantic black storm cloud hanging over it even on this clear spring day, occasionally flashing and releasing a lightning bolt that strikes the peak like it has some sort of a lightning rod attached to it. Only the flash could be seen and not even the faintest sound of the resulting shockwave reaches Ken's ears.

Buildings can be seen scattered throughout the hill's surface, from bottom to top, connected through a messy arrangement of stairs and paths. And, with their approach, the more and more black clothed cultivators they encounter. All of them roughly Kenki's age bar the occasional adult man or woman.

The blue eyed cultivator leads them to a large and extravagant building at the foot of said hill.

"Hashi!" She shouts out the moment they enter, her voice comes out strong and reverberates through the entire building. "One moment, Mistress." the call of an elderly woman could be heard coming from the side. A servant in white clothes that appears to have been cleaning the wooden floors of the building until a moment ago.

With uncharacteristic speed for someone so old, she runs over to the cultivator, performing a bow when she arrives.

"Gather everyone and have them clean up the ones behind me..." She points to the kids following her with her thumb. "...clothe them in initiate robes and then have them wait for me here in the main entrance. I have some work to do" she turns around, grabbing Ken's wrist and dragging him along with her without much fanfare.

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"Of course, Mistress."

======================

Rinako Suzuki, a core disciple of the Verdant Sword sect, frowns as she walks through the halls of her manor.

'Maybe he has a unique physique?' A not too unfamiliar feeling of puzzlement washes over her. This limitless world hides many different kinds of mysteries within itself so it is not unusual to run into one, especially for a core disciple like herself.

'No, is it his soul then? Maybe a combination of the two?' She redirects a miniscule amount of her Qi to the hand holding the boy. Hers is a Qi of fire and light, a combination of elements that is neither common, nor uncommon, sitting somewhere in the middle.

The Qi passes right through the skin on the boy's palm as if the body part isn't even there.

Her frown deepens.

'Why is his body not rejecting it? Does he have my exact affinity, but that doesn't make sense!' She observes Ken's condition. The slight lack of balance and coordination, his slightly dilated pupils, it is something she is more than familiar with.

'Qi poisoning' she concludes without the slightest hesitation. It develops when a cultivator absorbs Qi above the limits imposed on them by their body and probably the single most common condition in the sect. At first it starts off with general dizziness and lack of balance before gradually moving on to more serious symptoms depending on the amount of Qi absorbed. Headaches, vomiting and bleeding through the eyes and nose is not uncommon. In more serious cases it can cause paralysis and organ failure, sometimes leading to death. Ambitious and hard-headed cultivators suffer the most from it, thinking of it as a sign that they're doing 'good work'.

'By the Emperor, how is he poisoned!? We're in the outer sect, the air here barely has enough Qi in it to feed some common herbs and I can see that he isn't actively trying to absorb the elements.'

She spreads out her senses, 'tasting' the air around her. She reasons that a wave of Qi had washed over them from a burst in the dragon vein but ends up finding nothing. The density and consistency of the elements of the Qi in the air are as they should be. That could only mean that the problem originates from the boy himself.

She leads him to the evaluation room. That place has all the tools necessary to get to the bottom of this. And he would have required an evaluation either way, might as well get it over with sooner.

"What is your name?" She asks as she leaves him at the center of the elemental circle. She picks up a piece of paper, ready to write his information down. Sadly, paper copies are a necessity. She would have loved to just input his data into the inscripted library but that poses the security risk of someone cracking the inscription and stealing all the information inside, and they can't afford that when a war has just started.

"It's Kaito, Master Cultivator" the boy respectfully bows down.

Unusually respectful, she idly notes as his information is written down. The inscription he's standing on has the secondary feature of measuring his weight, height and even age. With that out of the way she activates the elemental formation.

The Qi in the room thins out until the area becomes almost barren. He visibly relaxes in the new environment but she feels it prudent to ask anyway.

"Feeling better?"

There's a nod in response. "Where are we?" He asks, cautiously looking around.

"In the evaluation room" the blue eyed woman says "I thought it would be the best place to get a hold of your problem" she eyes him critically "Is this the first time that you have experienced Qi poisoning?"

"Qi poisoning?"

"The early stages of the condition are often compared with drunkenness as both have similar symptoms. At least until you start bleeding from the eyes. It happens when you take in too much Qi"

"Master Cultivator…" he looks at her with an awkward expression "...I don't believe that I know what Qi is."

'Of course he doesn't. He should have been taught to at least keep his mouth shut so he doesn't invoke Heaven's wrath.'

"How exactly did you get thrown inside that caravan in the first place?" She questions.

Kenki proceeds to answer, not having anything to hide from her about that particular story. He tells Rinako about his job at the inn inside the city of Ornthar and how one day a detachment of armored men had come to take him away. His subsequent stay in the dungeons and their departure from the city the very next day.

It is all short and straight to the point.

Interesting. She thinks, looking him up and down. His body is way too well built for some mortal who had just worked at a simple inn. There is something he isn't telling her, she knows it, no natural cultivator is simple. To be able to step onto the path of cultivation without assistance is no easy feat, there is a reason why the Trial of the Mind is considered the single most grueling challenge that must be passed until the higher stages. Thankfully mortals are expendable and there are many of them, their deaths will never affect the sect.

I will have ample time to pry that information out if he proves himself useful for me. She reasons, smiling in a way that would raise the hairs of those that know her. Especially so for her red-haired sect brother.

A ball of Qi is conjured in the palm of her hand, she makes it impure on purpose so it could actually be seen with the naked eye. It is as if a miniature sun had been suddenly manifested inside the room, she has purposefully overloaded it with energy so that it radiates its power into the Qi deprived surroundings.

"This is Qi" she informs him "One that holds the nature of fire and light." The spell is held for a few more seconds before a sudden cut to its power supply extinguishes it. The awe in Kenki's face fills her with a small amount of amusement.

"Over the next few months you will learn all there is to know about the different elements of Qi. Their origins and uses. It is my duty to initiate you into the sect, to teach you our laws and customs, and how to start off on your journey" She recites the lines with practiced ease.

"Buf first, I need to find out your elemental attunements…"