“Ice Breathing. First Form: Icicle Thrust!”

Alina Blake coughed, frozen-slushie-like blood splattering across the cold winter ground.

“You’re not filtering the qi correctly, Alina.”

“I don’t get it!” She spat, more crimson painting the tree she had just tried impaling. “How does breathing a certain way coat a sword in ice?”

“I told you that you weren’t ready, but you kept insisting. You’ve only been learning Breathing Techniques for three months now. You’ve got Qi Inhaling and Qi Exhaling down, but you don’t have Qi Filtering. You’re not ready for Ice Breathing.”

Alina looked down at the sword in her hands, Jaki’s katana. She doesn’t have her own, yet, though the village blacksmith has been working with Jaki for months now to produce one for her. So all of their sword lessons so far have seen her borrowing his to use.

Once she got half-way decent with her sword katas, she decided she wanted to learn Ice Breathing.

“Aren’t I supposed to be some kind of prodigy?”

“Child, you may be progressing incredibly fast, but there’s no substitute for training. Practice. You know this. Quit being impatient. We have you on the most rigorous training regimine I’ve ever seen.”

She sighed, flicked the blade, then holstered it in its scabbard, before tossing it to Jaki, who caught it fluidly. Then, she pulled up her ‘Status.’ That’s what Jaki and she have started calling it. Soul Status, or Status for short.

Name: Alina Blake

Age: 14

Race: Nephilim (UR)

Ascension Reincarnation: Triplet Soul (2*)

Layer: Body (2nd)

Level: Peak Martial State (1/2)

Qi Compressions: 1/2 (67%)

Tribulations: N/A

Techniques:

- Qi Inhaling

- Qi Exhaling

- Qi Sense (Taste, Smell)

Affinities: [+]

Feats: [+]

Titles: [+]

Learning Qi Inhaling and Exhaling was the key to doing her second-ever Qi Compression. According to Jaki, Breathing Techniques are a double-edged sword. They can be dangerous and damaging to the body if done incorrectly, and introduce lots of impurities in your qi, but can help with progressing faster. The earlier you learn them, the more dangerous to you they are, but the more useful they are. If you learn them in later layers, then they won’t help you progress as fast, especially once you reach the Qi Layer. If you learn them in earlier layers, you risk Qi Poisoning, internal bleeding, or worse.

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Honestly, she’s lucky she only coughed up blood trying Ice Breathing.

So for the last three months, she’s been breathing qi in, and breathing qi out with almost every breath she takes, passively absorbing some of the qi she breathes in. She hasn’t reached the point where she can do it when she’s sleeping, and particularly strenuous exercise can break her concentration. Still, It’s been a huge help, and she’s almost done with the Peak Martial State because of it.

Breathe in. The smell of frost, winter, trees, ground, water, air, and more. She can distinguish the ‘smell’ and ‘taste’ of qi. It’s not exact, though. Water, frost, winter, air. These things don’t have actual smells to a normal mortal’s nose, though they might smell other stuff in the air that reminds them of those things. Or feel cold in the nostrils. No, it’s like she gained a new sense specifically for qi, that mapped itself “on top of” her senses of smell and taste. She could never describe what water qi tastes like to her sister, but to her it makes perfect sense. Water qi tastes like water qi. According to Jaki, it’s the dao alignment of the qi that she smells and tastes.

Breathe out. All the scents rush by her tongue and out her nostrils, air escaping both mouth and nose silently. There’s an aftertaste, the slightest undercurrents of stronger and stranger daos. Time. Space. Gravity. Like putting a single drop of lemon juice in a room filled with water and trying to taste it. You only know it’s there if you’re looking for it. But the first time she realized she could smell Time, it blew her mind. She instantly instinctively knew what it was, as she does with all flavors of qi the first time she notices them. Jaki said most of the time, your mind instinctively ignores them since they’re ever-present, unless there’s a larger quantity nearby due to some cultivator having used a technique with that type of qi. Not that she’s experienced that.

She’d tried filtering the qi as she breathed it in, but she still didn’t understand. How would you try to breathe in the scent of bread in a kitchen, while simultaneously non-breathing-in the heat from the oven?

“It’s not the same. When you breathe normally, you’re pulling in the air with all the smells and scents riding the air. Qi is different. Qi isn’t actually in the air, it’s just around us like air is. You need to learn to separate the qi from the air, and then types of qi from other types.” Jaki would say. He’s explained it to her dozens of times at this point.

Honestly, it's an impressive pace, according to Jaki. Alina had met Jaki only two hundred and fourteen days ago. In just over six and a half months, She had reached the point of being able to use low-level Breathing Techniques.

Four years for the second level of the Body Layer. That was Jaki’s original promise with Alina. She’s already in the first level, the Peak Martial State, and she’ll be reaching the Body Tempering Stage after just one more qi compression. What Jaki had guessed would take her four years, even knowing something was special about her and that she’d likely progress fast, will have taken her just under half a year, assuming she finishes this qi compression in the next week or two.

“So what’s the plan for the next few years? Are you staying the whole four years as promised, or are you leaving when I reach my next level?”

“I’m in the Harmony Alignment Phase, Alina. That’s the third level of the third layer. You might be on my level by the time the four years is up. I’ll have had more experience, but with your unique circumstances, you’ll definitely be stronger than me by then, and I won’t have anything else left to teach you. I’ll stay until that point, whether it takes the rest of the next three and a half years, or whether you somehow miraculously reach it in a year. But when you’re at the end of the Mind Layer, then there’s nothing left I can teach you. I may seem like a strong and powerful cultivator to you, but the truth is I’m very very low on the totem pole.”

“You’re a mage though. You fight with qi formations on scrolls and the tattoos you have that do techniques that you can’t do yourself, right?” She said, eyeing the tattoos just barely visible on his arms through the sleeves of his cloak.

“Yes, and I will not be teaching you that way of fighting. It’s a last resort for a multitude of reasons. When you get in higher layers, you’ll be able to create your own techniques. Relying on static, unbendable formations that you have no real control of will always be worse than manipulating qi yourself.”

Moments of silence passed as Alina thought about it. The tattoos looked really cool, and having tattoos that could let her shoot fireballs or something seemed awesome. But if the fireball was a set size, went a set distance, and she had no control over it, then obviously that would be inferior to being the elements to her will herself.

“On another note, today is the 444th. Only four more days and then it’ll be the 1st of the new year.”

“Oh. That’s my ‘birthday.’ Well, it’s the day that was assigned as my birthday, since my parents don’t know my real birthday.”

“Yes, I asked Ariana. She also told me that this village does not practice gift-giving?”

Alina looked at the foxkin, arching a brow curiously. “What’s that?”

“Where you give a gift to those who are close to you on their birthday. It’s a common practice in the western parts of the Beast Continent, but here in the north it doesn’t seem to be as prevalent. I was also very surprised to hear you do not celebrate any harvest festivals.”

“Oh, those I’ve heard of. Apparently most in the village consider it a waste and don’t do it because we’re too poor. Or something.” Alina shrugged. Some nearby villages practiced festivals for the first of the year, or for harvest times, or other such occasions. Cat’s Creek had a more secular view on it, seeing it to be unnecessary to waste food feasting when there isn’t an abundance to go around normally.

“Yes, and it really contributes to the feeling that this damn village is frozen in time. If it weren’t for the seasons, I’d feel like literally nothing has changed since I first came here.”

Alina shrugged again. That was normal. Things did rarely change around here, and the cultivator coming to town and training the weird outcast demon-girl with magic hair has been the biggest shake-up the village has had in decades.

“Why do you ask, anyways?”

“No reason, I just figured I’d let you know that the custom exists ahead of time. Now here, let’s start breaking some wooden boards.”

Alina groaned.

“This time, I will not be scoring them with my blade first.”

She groaned even louder.