Barely three days into what the squirrel insisted would be a ‘quick two weeks’ of travel, we hit the first snag. By snag, I was referring to a wolf the size of a minivan. That was followed by a flock of crows that I swore were actually one single being, then a pack of wolves only a little smaller than the first loner that was headed by a much more massive alpha, then a freaking boar the size of a small RV...
How? How did this squirrel that could be easily squashed beneath someone’s boot manage to get us past each of these perils? Before, there had been the occasional brush against the edges of my steadily growing Spiritual Sense by this and that Beast. None had been particularly powerful. None had, or at least none seemed to have, noticed my manipulation of the environmental Qi to obfuscate our presence.
All processes emitted Qi. While at first glance it seemed to be pure, Mundane Qi, it all had attached to it some ‘flavor’, aka an ‘impurity’. The elemental and specific Qi flavors were just very strongly ‘impure’. At least, this is all in accordance with the cultivation knowledge that was scribed onto my glossy exterior. My whole cultivation method revolved around stripping literally every defining influence from Qi until it was as close to truly pure Mundane Qi as possible, before gathering into my core. There were of course all the other ways in which it described how to create an artificial Dantian that would seamlessly become a true Dantian whenever I built myself a body, but that was a total aside.
This all just meant that all of the ‘Terra’ flavored Qi that Terra’s general life processes generated could be gathered, stripped of uniqueness, then tuned to other environmental Qi.
Why not just let Terra reabsorb it though? Well, there were infinite shades of flavors, for one. ‘Terra life process’ Qi was not the same as ‘Terra Cultivated Qi’. Why? WHY?!? I want to know too, damnit! The knowledge was so extensive and yet had these freakishly irritating holes where it was clearly just not something considered worth knowing. Probably rather not related to my ability to grow to a nice, ripe harvest worth the effort.
What was I musing about? Oh right, how that snapping turtle the size of a horse and with the equivalent of a True Core Cultivator level aura was ignoring Terra and staring instead at the gray, cream, and slightly reddish fluff on the top of Terra’s head.
<...and isn’t that just the way with these things sometimes? Though of course we are never without our own wrongdoing in these...>
<...oh my, yes, I can see how that might be embarrassing. While it has been some time since I last visited, there may still be an old crane practicing Alchemy over in the bog just West of where Grandfather Toad likes to dig in for the winter. Do you know the place? Ah, excellent! Anyways, she may have a solution for your ‘problem’, if we would dare to actually call it such.>
And I had no head to ache! Oh, but if I could just rub my temples for at least the ability to convey the irritation the squirrel caused me. This endless gossip fest with Beasts that could easily consume us was a big part of that headache for sure. The other part though?
That... that word choice is so related to ‘Brother Tortoise’ isn’t it?
ARGH!!!
Terra’s snort of amusement was no help. No help I tell you!
“I’m just giving you a hard time, Pill. No need to get so stiff about it.”
One day, Terra. Just you wait. One day... I’ll make you wet yourself in an embarrassing situation!
“...can you even do- what the hell Pill!” Oh yeah. The uncomfortable chaffing feeling and Terra taking another ice cold bath, cursing all the while? Sooooo worth it.
--
The Beast encounters actually decreased to just every few days after the first week. Fluffy tail over there said that the mid-realm Beasts generally traded a sort of patrol duty every few centuries. This allowed each of them to take time to grow in strength in-between. The truly high-level Beasts remained very deep into the Wilds.
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There was an issue of total available Qi, which necessitated spreading out Cultivators and Beasts at high realms lest they fight over the scraps of energy available. There was also just the issue of pride and instincts resulting in fights. I suspected there was also the problem of human Cultivators wanting to hunt the truly powerful Beasts for resources. If they were very deep into the Wilds and far away, even just locating one would be difficult. The pull on the local Qi of just a single, lone Beast, would be much more difficult to pinpoint.
Immortal or near-Immortal realm Cultivators also apparently would seek out solitude in the deep Wilds. The Qi was richer due to the sparser population. The high realm Beasts drove the low realm ones out of the Wilds and few to no humans dared venture out so far. It made sense. The number of mid realm encounters slash ‘catching up with old friends’ that happened over just a few days suggested that even a strong Cultivator would struggle to pierce into the deeper Wilds. The very high realm ones could just fly.
Maybe there were mid to high realm flying Beasts patrolling as well.
Terra gingerly tested the roasted roots with a finger. Just shy of scalding, still a little too hot to eat, but getting close. The char had begun to give way to perfect golden browns as she gained experience with previously unfamiliar ingredients. It helped too that the versions in the deeper Wilds were far more abundantly bursting with Qi, which seemed to make them just easier to work with as an ingredient. Almost as if they wanted to be cooked to perfection.
“How much longer then?”
We all considered the journey before us. The fear of that feeling, the feeling of some great wrongness entering into the universe, that all of existence could be snuffed out if it so chose, still remained fresh in our minds. It was something we hadn’t spoken upon. Frankly, I hadn’t even spoken to Terra about it. I was still ‘total shit’ at mental communication outside of with Terra. Making the connection with me directly for two-way discussions stressed the squirrel’s minor Beast body far too much.
Terra was just damned exhausted from the constant travel and being pushed every moment she wasn’t traveling.
Terra. I think you’re ready to break through. The last two days you barely increased your total capacity by even 1%. At best if we went on for a month more it would barely be another couple of percent.
There was no response, though I felt the turmoil within her as she undoubtedly mulled it over. We’d gone over just a little bit what it was going to be like. How it would be different from when she’d done it the last time.
We’d forced basically every bit of impurities from her body. We’d then filled her to the absolute brim with pure, vaporous Qi. Then she’d eaten, and trained. The process should have taken years or decades and instead, because of her Beast blood and my efforts, not to mention the incredible bounty of ‘deadly toxic plants’ which I helped Terra safely eat, she’d bulked out.
She was barely enhanced by Qi beyond normal mortal strength, but that was only if you looked at someone at the absolute pinnacle of what a normal person could be. Then added the fact that she had pseudo-jackrabbit legs and tough, partially armadillo skin and claws. Her forearms were terrifyingly strong. Her legs could carry her in lead up almost twenty feet into the air. The speed she could jump-run through the occasional open stretches approached that of a car on the freeway.
It, uh, hadn’t helped with the attractiveness factor though. Terra’s upper body was built like a Mac truck and her legs were covered in course, mottled brown fur. The claw-like nails on her hands were more prominent and the Qi resonating with the Beast blood had made her armadillo features much more visible, distorting her nose and facial bones more.
She looked more inhuman, but one you would not want to get into a brawl with.
Er, that wasn’t helping either. Though Terra tried to insist that she wasn’t really bothered by being hideous to humans since it meant they were less likely to try and take her for her body, she was still a person. A relatively young person, one who’d rarely experienced love of any kind in her life. Everyone wanted to be wanted, for a good reason. Being attractive was a normal desire to have. So yeah, it totally bothered her.
The process of building her Meridians was going to be really different this time around than the human focused and low-quality method she’d used before. We were going to tie her Beast blood into her cultivation even more. Even without reaching Foundation Establishment, she would be able to refine the Qi she brought in, to an incredible state. Her Beast blood would be further enhanced, growing from the consumption of the impurities more than the Qi itself. That would make her traits more pronounced, if more powerful.
Then her Meridian network would be magnitudes more substantial and complicated. She’d tried to write it out for the squirrel, only for him to declare that it was a method of ‘absolutely unsustainable complexity’ and that ‘only someone without a body would consider it feasible’. Yet even Terra had noticed how fixated the squirrel had been with it. How he’d literally drooled over the sketches made on a large flat stone.
It was Body Cultivation and Spiritual Cultivation wrapped into one neat package. Normally only one path would be utilized. Body Cultivation would focus on imbuing Qi into the body tissues, purifying the body, building it up. Rather than having a large Dantian, the body itself held the Qi. In order to move it around effectively, a Body Cultivator would build a much bigger and more thorough Meridian network. It often was something they did put enough time into, cutting off their path to Immortality. Body Cultivators only very rarely succeeded in Ascending.
Spiritual Cultivators usually built monolithic, but simple Meridians. More Meridians was just inefficient. They weren’t trying to use their body to store and process Qi directly, but rather bypassing it to their Dantians. Bigger Meridians with less branching meant more efficient and high power flows.
I was planning to combine them together. Rather, them Demonic Immortal had written out the plans for me and I’d modified them for Terra’s unique Beast blood situation. Given the way her Blood worked on Qi that passed through or remained in her body tissues, her body would act like a buffer zone, storing and refining Qi, before it was eventually moved into her Dantian.
She’d need to cultivate far more Qi than normal for the same advancement. Her power though within a realm would likely be unmatched. That and we’d not only stretched her pseudo-Dantian nearly to its limits, but we’d done so for the Qi capacity of her body tissues. That and we’d done it at least two realms before a Body Cultivator would have done it.
If not for my higher realm and my overpowered Will, gathering so much Qi and purifying it all would have been impossible even in a decade for Terra.
We’d done it in just a few weeks, while mostly traveling.
That’s right. I’m a total badass.
“Then I’ll break through.”