“What is all this?” Li Shu asks, voice faintly horrified, face pale.
“Little pet project I’ve been working on,” Raika says, aiming for nonchalance and landing a bit off her mark. “Do you… I mean, why were you in here?”
“I-” Li Shu immediately blushes like a tomato, the way she does only when she’s having to juggle something complicated and also adorably mortified. “I was here to give you a present! I was going to leave it under your pillow!”
“Why?” Raika asks.
“Wuh- because it’s been almost a year since you got hurt! I didn’t want to do anything on the day of because I thought that might bring bad memories, but I figured a week early would be enough to form some good ones!”
“That… is maybe the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard,” Raika says sincerely. “And definitely one of the cutest things anyone’s ever done for me.”
Li Shu blushes again, the fading cherry red coming back with a violence, and Raika takes the opening, cane clacking on the ground as she crosses the space between them. Bowing rather than kneeling or sitting in front of Li Shu, she puts their faces at nearly equal height and does her best impression of a hug without using her arms. It’s really just putting her head on Li Shu’s shoulder, but… it’s the sweetest thing anyone has done for her, and the sheer tension of thinking the healer was spying on her or doing something nefarious being broken by the sweetness is such a relief.
She pulls back and knocks her forehead to Li Shu’s, who hasn’t moved. “Sorry,” Raika whispers. “I… didn’t want to say something dumb.”
“Ugh!” Li Shu exclaims, face bright and eyes a little wet, her gaze not totally distracted from the diagram. “Do you always just do the first thing that pops into your head? A simple thank you-”
“-Wouldn’t be enough,” Raika interrupts. She pulls back, not wanting to annoy or make the situation actually awkward, feeling a blush start to form on her cheek as well. “Sorry. I’m- that was silly, but I wanted to give you a hug, and I can’t really sit fast and with the cane, I- sorry. It’s… it’s really sweet, Li Shu. I hadn’t really associated the date like that, I don’t think, but… well, it has a weight and I just wanted to be sincere.”
This time it’s Li Shu’s turn to give Raika a smile as the taller woman ends up with slightly darker cheeks. But, like all good things, the moment passes as she turns to look at the diagram again.
“Well,” Li Shu says, “I’m not going to give it to you if you’re going to do… whatever this is! What is this?”
“It’s a project,” Raika admits, hobbling around the massive chunk of the room decorated in the detailed drawings and symbols. There’s not much space left in the room, but she isn’t going to keep disrespecting Li Shu by staying on her feet while the other is seated, so she finds a corner angle between her bed and the wall and lowers herself down. “I’ve been drawing it the last month or so. Took me most of my time here so far just to figure out what all the tubes and weird shapes are in those medical books or I would have started it sooner.”
“Ok, but what is it meant to do,” she asks, staring at the mishmash of symbols, organic designs, weirdly looping lines of chalk and spiraling mantras. She’s especially proud of those, even though it’s rather silly; they were way less technically difficult than the runes or the medical drawing, but each mantra, set up around the diagram, is one she either made up or found deeply personal, and as someone who’s not much of a writer she’s very pleased with them.
“Well,” Raika says, “it’s meant to drag as much Qi as possible into my skin, entirely from inside my body, while blocking outside Qi from being absorbed, until there’s nothing left of the Qi drifting around in me.”
Li Shu just looks at her. Raika lets the silence sit for a minute, twiddling her thumb, poking at a little bundle of herbs and flowers to one side of the diagram with her cane.
“Ok so bare minimum that’ll kill you,” Li Shu finally says. “Meridians or no, all living things need Qi. All things, period, have Qi, except some of the most dangerous and complex weapons in the Empire, and those are specially designed by runic, formation, and Qi specialists and experts. Removing all the Qi from your organs will just… kill you, your heart will stop beating.”
“Ah,” Raika replies, “but do you know that?”
“Yes!” the healer exclaims. “Absolutely! Full-body Qi depletion knocks people unconscious all the time, and there’s tons of documentation about demonic techniques that drain Qi to kill their victims! It’s common knowledge!”
“Well,” Raika replies, “I think that’s stupid.”
She’s pretty sure the fact that even a glancing blow from an angry Li Shu would kill her is the only reason why the cultivator hasn’t smacked her upside the head at minimum. From the look in her eyes, she thinks the healer might be genuinely considering it, too, or perhaps a full slap.
Then, proving yet again why she’s the best, most genius healer, cultivator, and all around awesome gal in the world, Li Shu stops and takes a breath. She centers herself, and then, looking only at the diagram, she breathes out. Then, when she’s back in balance and not quite panicking anymore, she simply asks; “Why?”
Raika takes a breath. Ok. First hurdle complete, even if it’s earlier than she expected. Now, to convince her.
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as “ambiental” or “neutral” Qi,” she says. “Not really. I think it might be something like “World Qi” or “Living Being” Qi, and that without meridians with which to house and connect a soul to a body, the difference is simply that a person can’t create their own unique type of Qi, or draw in a specific type. If inert rocks, or the sky, or air itself all have unique, distinct Qi, then it makes no sense to think that I, even without meridians, have “generic” Qi with no specialties, especially when more complex Qi already exist, like “mist” or “illusion”.”
“So, that got me thinking; either the Will of Heaven and the gods define Qi when they think of a concept, turning a basic background resource into stuff as it manifests and fuels the world, or! Oooor. Things generate Qi. And there’s proof! Like how you can cycle Qi to generate more of it with cultivation methods and mixing elixirs to drink, which I think isn’t a unique thing about Dantians and meridians, I think they’re like organs that can control and speed up that process, but it still happens naturally. Correct me if I’m wrong, but even if you don’t circulate the energy from an elixir through your meridians, it still does add Qi to your body, just slower, right?”
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Li Shu sits in silence. Her face is doing that thing, where she is completely focused on a single thought, and her nose is scrunching slightly but her eyes are ice cold. She just nods, once.
“So!” Raika continues, “I think that I’m not absorbing Qi and then changing it to a new type, not entirely. I mean, I am a bit, that’s part of how “ambient” Qi just sort of floats in and out of me so freely, but I think that as a living being I am already generating, simply by being alive, a type of “living being” Qi which is what keeps my body alive and working. I don’t know if I make more of it if I use my body more or do things relating to a Dao of “living beings”, and that’s next on the list to figure out, but I think it’s there and it’s being generated. So, so long as I don’t die right away, I can use it for things, and the longer I survive, even if I have none left, the longer my body has to develop more “living being” energy, and I think that by changing my skin to be less invisible and pass-throughable to Qi, I won’t waste as much or have it tainted by outside influences.”
Li Shu does not speak for a long time. Like, minutes, plural. She simply sits in that exact same meditative kneeling position she’s been in since Raika came in the room, nose just a teeny bit scrunched and eyes flicking slightly left and right, like she’s reading something in her head.
“So… you’re saying it will kill you, but if it doesn’t, then you might just… recharge?” She eventually asks. “How do you plan on doing that?”
“With these,” Raika says, pulling closer the bundle of herbs and flowers. “I spent points for some and just stole a lot of the others. Inner Heat Bulbs to keep my blood warm, Blackened Seedlings for my heartbeat so it keeps going when it shouldn’t, and as many Deepened Breath pills as I could buy, so my lungs keep taking in air while my mouth is open, I hope.”
“And the Blackened Seedlings won’t burst all your blood vessels and explode your heart because…”
“Because it’ll be still,” Raika replies. “Diluted, even a mortal in the lower realms can take it and live if their body is tough enough. The heartbeat factor is being added to by the seeds, so it’s like a heartbeat but explosively more, but without a heartbeat, it’ll just be pulses.”
“It won’t work,” Li Shu says, shaking her head. “It makes the heart beat harder, yes, but if there’s no heartbeat there it doesn’t do anything.”
“But what if I take it before the heartbeat is gone? There’s no chance it’ll keep the muscles moving, even without my brain awake?”
She pauses. Opens her mouth, pauses again. “Mmmmmh… maybe,” she allows. “I don’t think anyone’s tested for using them as a way to prevent heart failure right before death, since usually that just means you’d bleed out or spread a poison faster.”
“Excellent time to find out then!” Raika smiles.
“No!” Li Shu yells. “Terrible time to find out! With a healthy life on the line?”
Raika pauses at that.
They’re past the first hurdle. Li Shu is focusing on the herbs, now, not saying that the whole idea is ridiculous, which means it has at least some merit. Just think of it like a friendly spar; not out to hurt, but when there’s an opening, make sure to go in hard, and always aim for a big finisher if you see the shot.
“I’m going to do this whether you like it or not, honored Li Shu,” she says, keeping her voice quiet and making sure that the healer can see her eyes. Her vision has gotten a bit better, enough that she can see the younger woman lean back a bit. Move quick; the opening is closing, defenses coming up, slip through before she has a chance to hit back or steal the momentum.
“I don’t mean I don’t value what you think,” Raika continues. “I’d be far more confident of this with your help, and I was planning to show you soon to get your opinion on it. But I think this has genuine merit, and if I cannot do it with your help, if you block my access or put guards on me or keep me on a leash like a pet, I will leave this sect, memorize my diagrams, scavenge the ingredients, go to a whole other sect somehow if I need to.”
“I refuse to be stagnant,” Raika snarls, keeping the eye contact by force of will and presence, not daring to give Li Shu weakness to look away with. “I refuse to be weak. I was a cultivator, someone pursuing a transcendent self, and that was stolen from me in a fit of pique by some random bastard with more power than he deserved, and then I was thrown away like filth. I’ve defied the will of the Heavens since I’ve known how; just because my path is more dangerous or uncertain now does not mean I am going to give it up. I don’t give up, Li Shu. I lose, I die, or I win. There is no surrender.”
The silence sits in the room, heavy. A declaration like that has weight, especially in a sect, home to cultivators. Raika does not break eye contact with Li Shu; she simply sits and waits, letting some of the steel back into her eyes from where she has kept it hidden and guarded. She wants her to understand, needs someone to understand. The last time an impossible law of nature told her to stop, she bit its eyeball; a dozen more and a gamble are nothing to her, nothing in the face of the horror that would be allowing herself to choose to remain as she is.
Li Shu breaks eye contact first.
She turns back to the diagram and sighs. Looks at the herbs and seeds, sighs again.
“You’ll want to add water breathing pills,” she says. “They allow for passive air absorption, rather than just increasing how much air you get per breath. And we’ll need to set a fire, to keep you as warm as we can. I think you should use the Aldermain Curse of Blocked Breath on this section,” (she points at a spot along the outer rim of the diagram)- “it’s well known for blocking absorption of Qi through the skin, if we layer it more than once on the diagram, especially for you, it might be enough to block Qi from even getting in the circle, and definitely block it from casual absorption.”
Raika lets out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She takes her right arm, her one remaining arm, and wipes away the wetness on her face, breathing deeply, slowly.
“Ok,” she whispers. Then, more forcefully; “Ok. I was also thinking we could paint part of the diagram onto me, to better focus it on the outer skin, and if we can find any trance or meditation aids maybe I can help sort of push it along into the skin before I go to sleep.”
“Maybe, but without meridians I don’t know,” Li Shu replies. “Have you considered using Ding to enter the trance, and then use spirit enlightenment roots? We can only get lower quality, but for you, it might induce an astral experience, but… no, we should-”
They talk for hours. Raika grins the whole time, as happy as she’s been in almost a year.