Qi Perception check made! You are one with the forest. You sense no hostiles within 80 feet of your party.
Alex took a reassuring breath of humid jungle air, face blossoming in a fierce smile as he felt a renewed connection to the beautiful arboreal wonderland all around him, savoring the sight of so many majestic trees reaching for the heavens, the jewel green canopy enlivened by splashes of brilliant color in the form of countless blossoms perfuming the air from the branches overhead.
Immediately the interface in his mind’s eye lit up with multiple sights of interest, hawk-like gaze immediately catching ahold of brightly shimmering spirit fruit dangling larger than life from a nearby branch that his friends’ eyes seem to slide right past.
He gave an exultant chuckle. “You were right, Reny. There are prizes aplenty in here, and we don’t need to tangle with a single spirit beast to claim them!”
Reny flashed a pleased smile. “That’s wonderful to hear, Alex. I assume you’ll point them out to me?”
Dui Zhong cleared his throat, almost apologetically. “My pardon, Lady Wu, battle-leader. But the jungle is deep, with unknown predators, and we have the least exposure to waste Qi, so long as we stick beside the shallow river. And with time at a premium… perhaps it’s best if we stick to hunting spirit beasts?”
Just as Reny furrowed her brow, Alex gave the man a reassuring clap on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re looking out for us, Dui Zhong, but best as I can sense, there are no spirit beasts in this stretch of the jungle at all. Just some choice fruit that we would do well to claim.”
The guard captain’s eyes lifted politely in acknowledgment. “Is that so? Remarkable. We still have the issue of limited time that we dare this rift, no matter how beautiful and pristine the flowers and trees blooming so brilliantly before us. Time, if you’ll forgive me for saying, I’d far rather spend hunting rich prizes than waiting for another to collect plants that personally do me little good.”
Alex frowned, before nodding his head in acquiescence. “You’re right,” Alex acknowledged, despite Reny’s sigh. “Us standing here collecting waste Qi is a stupid use of our time. So let’s change that.”
Alex ignored their looks of consternation when he went perfectly still, closed his eyes, and gently touched Linnea’s shoulder. Because for all that their relationship was an odd one and he saw himself as her champion far more than he did her future husband, knowing she needed the pretext for independence, however, the truth remained that she was the one who meshed best with him.
And when he strove to remember what it felt like to infect an enemy with Dark Qi, she only hissed for half a moment, not fighting him at all.
“Alex? Please, it hurts!”
Alex winced in apology. Both ashamed to have caused her discomfort, and relieved.
Because that meant that some locked skills were far more accessible than others, particularly in rifts, particularly regarding elements that his divine enemies loathed. Now, all Alex had to do was chase that feeling of toxic giving and reverse it.
“Alex!”
“Please… just a few more seconds?”
“Only for you,” she whispered, Alex swallowing as he desperately strove to catch the tentative thread of something… there!
At firsti, it was just the tiniest trickle of something.
“Alex? I’m feeling a little bit sick...”
“Alex, what are you doing?” Reny’s alarmed scolding nearly broke his focus entirely, but Alex held on as a tiny thread became a tightly wound fiber and then a cord of thick, luscious darkness he claimed from a now gasping Linnea, gazing at him in wild-eyed wonder, shuddering as if she had peaked, before collapsing against him, gasping for air as her legs trembled, having such a reaction as to immediately snap him out of his half-trance.
“Linnea?”
“What did you do to her?” snapped a genuinely irate-looking Reny, glaring Alex’s way as the dappled sunlight piercing the canopy ceiling raced over her crossed arms.
Alex took a shuddering breath of his own. “How do you feel?” He tentatively asked.
Linnea chuckled throatily. “Wonderful!”
Ya Ling’s eyes widened with surprise, then dismay, before settling for an exasperated chuckle. “Here and now of all times and places, Alex? Seriously?”
Linnea quickly shook her head. “No, you don’t understand! That wasn’t a climax… or rather, it was, but rather of the best sort!”
Ya Ling’s blush was a mirror of Alex’s own. “You didn’t actually have to say it...”
“He purged it!”
Ya Ling blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“All my waste Qi! Not just the nasty plaque you feel like gummy residue on your teeth if you forget to scrub them with soft-bark and peppermint. I mean the sticky tarry plaque all over my joints and soul that I wasn’t even aware was stuck there until just now, when Alex scrubbed me as fresh and clean as I last felt at fifteen!” She shook her head in wondrous disbelief, before clasping Alex in a fierce, tight hug.
“Alex, darling, I don’t even know what to say! I… I feel better than I did during my last level-up where I invested all my points in enhancing my body!” Her laughter actually had tears in it. “I’m just so used to a certain cruddy feeling that the glory of flame helps me forget, and it fades so steadily during the growing seasons that I hardly realize how bad it had gotten or how much it had bothered me… but to have it gone all at once, it’s such a striking contrast! And not just the most recent plaque… but so much awful gunk I never even knew was there!”
Linnea trembled, actual tears in her eyes. “Alex, I feel reborn!”
Ya Ling was gazing at Linnea in poleaxed disbelief. “Alex did it,” she whispered breathlessly. “He gathered all the plaque and degradation in her entire body. In one fell swoop.”
An absolutely striking Linnea pouted. “What do you mean degradation? I’m in wonderful...”
Her words cut off when Ya Ling solemnly handed her a beautiful glass mirror backed in silver. Linnea paled at the sight before her, tears coming out of her eyes. “Oh my goodness, I look absolutely fantastic!”
And she did, Alex thought. She had always been a beautiful girl, and a few laugh lines and blemishes was perfectly normal for anyone who embraced the outdoors, let alone the inhabitants of a desert culture. It was only cultivators who achieved any sort of perfection, and more Bronze Body cultivators than not showed features that were the farthest thing from flawless beauty. Rather, their body was so infused with vitality that the flaws hardly seemed to matter. But not so with Linnea. All signs of aging skin had vanished. No tiny laughter lines, moles, or blemishes of any sort. Her skin had the ageless flush of a true beauty who was only now reaching her majority. She looked far closer to 18 than 22, and was now absolutely glowing with health and Vitality.
For all that Alex had been the instigator, he was as stunned by the transformation as anyone else. But perhaps he shouldn’t be. He had unlocked the secrets to ageless perfection with not just one but two healing arts. Was it that surprising that the potential for transformation had been catalyzed to rejuvenate countless cells before the excess left entirely? It was exactly how he had learned to cultivate Dark Qi when mastering Eternal Fox, a lifetime ago. And somehow the transformative pattern had stuck, the Dark Qi leaving its host only after one final rejuvenating revolution of the cells they had flooded… just as he had taught himself.
Of course, what was truly remarkable was that it wasn’t applying solely to himself. It was that the pattern still worked even if he was claiming that dark boon from another.
Elder Wu’s eyes widened, before locking gazes with Alex… then wordlessly bowing before him.
Alex was at a sudden loss for words.
Even Ya Ling looked startled. “Grandfather?”
“Bow your head, child,” Elder Wu said in a husky voice. “For the disciple before you has done what no known master has ever accomplished before.”
Ya Ling’s eyes widened. She visibly trembled while holding Alex’s gaze and bowing before him, Reny and Dui zhong immediately following suit.
Alex forced a chuckle. “Wow. Now I’m really under pressure not to fuck up.”
Elder Wu chuckled quietly. “Indeed you are.” His gaze held Alex’s own. “Are you ready?”
With a quick survey of his interface map showing no glaring reds or the subtly dark pressure he had learned to recognize as Shadow Puma, he dipped his head. “Dui Zhong should keep an eye out… but give me your hand, Elder Wu, and I’ll see what I can do.”
He pretended he didn’t see the anxious look Reny sent their way, or how Ya Ling wrapped her grandmother, who really didn’t look that much older than a beautiful woman in her thirties, in her arms.
Instead he closed his eyes and, with exquisite care, probed his friend who somehow knew without a word being said to lower his deepest defenses, revealing a trust that humbled Alex utterly.
Soul Sight skill check automatically passed. You sense the flow of spiritual energy within Elder Wu!
Qi Perception check successful!
For a moment Alex felt an unwelcome sense of dismay as he looked at the exquisitely complex knotting of countless spiritual fibers and cords. Before his grim frown transformed to a relieved smile when he sensed the link he shared with the much older man even now, their hands joined as one.
He then opened his eyes and stepped back, smiling almost apologetically into the older man’s crestfallen features. A painfully vulnerable look that near instantly transformed to stoic calm.
“Disciple?”
Alex gave Elder Wu his best bedside manner smile. “May I speak freely, revered one?”
This earned a snort. “So long as you’re not going to tell me that I’m doomed to die of a wasting disease in the near future.”
Alex smirked at that. “No, Elder Wu. Nothing of the sort. But you are indeed blessed with an… extremely complex weave of threads that make up your spiritual cables.”
Elder Wu flashed a bitter smile. “The struggle to Silver was fierce and hard-fought. I was a half-step for years, and no one was more gratified than I, when a transcendant breakthrough allowed me to bridge the gap and ascend a second Silver Rank.”
Alex bowed his head in acknowledgment. “It was a most remarkable feat, and your meridians and Dantian both share the tale. For your foundation is a miracle of anchor points and synergistic strengths giving you lift where others would have crumbled to dust. But were I to do anything at all to affect that, were I to scrape away even a trace of the Dark Qi plaque which you brilliantly used in ways even I have trouble comprehending to cement the cracks in your foundation to a glorious second Silver Cable...” He shook his head. “Your foundation would crumble to dust. Your ascension to Tier 2 Silver was a miracle. I dare not touch a thing.”
For an infinitesimal heartbeat, the killing aura of an irate Silver washed over him… before Elder Wu’s fierce, hard features softened into a grandfatherly smile. “And you say that just as plainly as my awkward grandson would have.” He chuckled softly, then shook his head with a sigh. “And I know I should feel only gratitude to you for your counsel… and find solace in even making it this far along my cultivation journey.”
“That you should,” Reny said in a scolding voice filled with deepest love and affection as she claimed her husband’s hand. “You’ve managed to carry on for centuries after repairing yourself from bitter rinds when others would have given up and crawled away, forever broken men.”
Elder Wu nodded philosophically before bowing his head Alex’s way. “Thank you for your counsel, disciple.”
“But there is one bit of good news,” Alex hastened to add, earning a bemused brow from Elder Wu.
“And that would be?”
“I dare not touch a single fiber of your own brilliant creation. But at the very least, I’ll be able to claim every last scrap of Dark Qi pouring into you from our delve.”
Alex smiled as Elder Ru’s eyes widened, the man gazing down at his palm, where Alex had last held his hand. “I feel it flowing right out of me!” He said with whispered wonder.
Alex winked. “Yup, right into my hungry hungry bones.”
Reny’s eyes widened. “Alex, be careful! Allowing excess waste Qi into the bones is a recipe for the most painful of deaths, no matter the short term strength some desperate fools actually claim to feel!”
Alex flashed a bittersweet smile. “Believe me, I know.”
Reny shook her head. “I fear you don’t.”
Alex gently squeezed her hand, locking gazes with the petite woman. “I do.”
Her eyes widened. She flinched and looked away before giving a rueful chuckle. “And somehow I’m now certain that you do.” Her eyes filled with bemused warmth. “And now you have me under your power, hero. What will you do?”
Alex blinked and flushed. “Just had to make this awkward, is that it?”
Her only response was to open up her soul to him, Alex’s eyes widening when another automatic success with Soul Sight made it clear that Reny’s foundation was even more tumultuous than Elder Wu’s had been.
“I can tell that you and your husband both overcame fierce obstacles to get where you are,” he acknowledged at last.
This earned a bittersweet smile. “We did indeed, enduring hardships I will spare you children from having to hear.” She sighed. “So, is there any hope for Silver?”
Alex winced, earning a smirk. “I know. It’s a miracle I ever achieved Deep Bronze,” Reny confessed.
Alex then frowned, finally registering the oddity of the mass of tangled threads and cords and what it truly meant. “Wow, I’m actually impressed.”
Reny blinked. “I’m sorry?”
He shrugged. “You’ve managed to turn a weakness into a strength! Your foundation is incapable of forming a proper cable, so instead, you’re wrapping Bronze cords directly about yourself, while using your own knotted masses to leave room to anchor spiritual abilities as well! And the beauty of it is, you can ascend past Bronze Rank 7. You’ll never hit Silver, but further ascension as a Bronze, countless steps along the path of ascension is not beyond you,” he admitted at last.
Reny and Elder Wu exchanged a look.
“Do I even want to know how impossible what Alex is doing is?” Dui Zhong asked with a smirk, arms crossed.
Reny chuckled throatily, taking a deep breath. “No, you don’t. But however humbling the analysis, we’ve both managed to claim the true prize we were after with this.”
This earned a cocked eyebrow. “Really.”
Reny nodded. “The ability to delve, at least as a member of the party we’re now all part of, without any limitations in the length or frequency of our delves.”
The former caravan master’s eyes widened. “Wait, you mean he can actually claim our waste Qi?”
Alex chuckled. “Only one way to find out,” he said, before repeating the process with both Dui Zhong and Ya Ling, pleased to see that both of them had had a far easier time of progressing than Reny and her husband had, and that Dui Zhong actually had the potential for Silver. And as for Ya Ling…
Anxious eyes locked with his own long minutes later, Ya Ling’s hand gripping him with almost painful tightness. Which at thirty strength, was definitely saying something.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Alex?” Her word was almost a plea.
Alex gave her his most reassuring smile. “It’s alright. The hairline cracks to your foundation have fully healed.”
Ya Ling gave an exultant cry before wrapping Alex up in a fierce hug, sobbing against his shoulder. “Thank you, Alex. Thank you!”
“I guess you two really were close.”
Alex winced at Linnea’s acidic thought, carefully keeping his own thoughts guarded, because the last thing they needed was bitter recriminations and divisiveness now, when they were on the cusp of forming a party, and friendships that could last them a lifetime, or at least for countless delves to come.
“You’re giving me too much credit, kung fu sister. I but reminded you of the feat you yourself managed to accomplish. And if you seek to further hone your martial skills and forge yourself to new heights in the crucible of battle, or at least the hunt, then I have news equally as good.” He gently squeezed his hand. “You’ll be able to delve the Western rift, by your grandparents’ sides, of course, as often as you all wish to come here by my side.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re actually doing it. I can feel you!” Her cheeks blushed at her grandmother’s arch look. “I mean… I can feel myself lightening, like I’m cleaning my bedroom, only my bedroom is me, and you’re the damp rag wiping all the soot away.”
“Pretty much!” Alex quipped. “Because my bones delight in tasty soot.”
“And what tier would these waste-Qi heavy bones be that you don’t collapse with blood poisoning inside a month, my dear wayward boy?” Reny said teasingly, for all that her eyes were heavy with worry.
Alex winked. “Divine tier, of course. Nothing less than the best for these bones!”
Ya Ling laughed at his saucy smile. “Sure, Alex. Let’s go with that.”
Elder Wu gave them all an indulgent nod, breathing deep of the primal woodland air, rich in exotic blooms and the scents of tree sap and rich loamy soil. “A sight of beauty, isn’t it? And now we can savor it’s wonders without the pressures of limited time or fears for our cultivation bases.” He clapped Alex’s shoulder, bowing his head as to an equal. “Thank you, Alex. You may rest assured that you have both our gratitude and our discretion.”
Reny flashed a teasing smile when Alex’s eyes widened. “So generous of heart that he didn’t even think til now the ramifications if word of his gift gets out.” She raised her hand. “No need to say a thing, Alex. Your life is your own, as are your gifts, and we are already delving for the highest of causes, the prosperity and stability of the city we would make our home once more. You owe nothing more than you care to give, and that will never change, so long as we have anything to say about it.”
It was a weight off Alex’s chest when all his friends nodded in unison and support.
Alex swallowed the lump in his throat, surprised by how touched he felt. Not necessarily by the commitment, but by the warmth and comradeship that came so naturally to these people that he met and befriended this time around, so very different from the utterly ruthless temperament that had been the wont of even his allies, a lifetime ago. Everyone except those he would have married in a heartbeat, if the machinations of his enemies hadn’t foiled him at nearly every turn.
“Thanks for that,” he said, with a rueful chuckle. “It’s good to know that a moment’s inspiration and blind luck won’t turn around and bite me on the ass.”
“How eloquently put, Alex,” Reny teased. “Now, assuming that no one senses trouble in the immediate vicinity, I do believe there are any number of choice spirit herbs that my protege and I would do well to find.”
Alex blinked at the pointed look Reny was now giving him. Protege? His heart skipped a beat, surprised to find himself so excited to find a new path suddenly opening before him, wondering if maybe he had it in him to be a healer after all… or at least an alchemist, he supposed, calmly walking by Reny’s side when he, much to his relief, sensed neither hair nor hide of any spirit beasts at all. And for all that he wanted to forge a completely new path this time around, that didn’t mean he had to deny making any strides along alchemy’s path, with all its wondrous potential to both refine, purify, and heal, even if he had walked several of those steps before.
“I’m not sensing anything, Lady Wu,” Dui Zhong declared, getting similar shakes of the head from Elder Wu, Ya Ling, and Linnea. “How about you, Alex?”
Alex took a deep breath, and gave a thoughtful shake of his head as he led his friends to where he could all but taste a glorious cache of spirit fruit. “No, I don’t sense a thing,” he said with a smile, for all that Reny was beginning to scowl as Alex continued leading them around winding pathways that perhaps only he could see.
“Alex, I see absolutely no trace of spiritual treasures. I don’t even hear the chatter of monkeys! Where exactly are you going?”
Alex didn’t bother answering. All his focus was on feeling out the path before him, ignoring all distractions, whether they be lesser spirit herbs or even the flash of golden nuggets, glittering so prettily within a nearby wooden stream. Because the moment he pulled himself free of the winding trail that even Linnea was complaining in his mind, he knew he’d loose it.
Lose that path that could lead them all to a wonder that would surly be worth the trouble so far.
Or at least, that was his hope, he thought, as Reny, now glaring, ground to a halt. “Alex, stop! You’ve passed at least two spiritual treasures that I sensed so far!”
“And I swear I saw a lump of gold in the stream!” Dui Zhong said excitedly.
Ya Ling’s gaze grew concerned as Alex squeezed his eyes shut from sudden dizziness. “Alex, where exactly are you taking us?”
Alex blinked back a bitter tear, afraid that something beyond priceless would now slip away, before laughing with relief, realizing that he was exactly where he needed to be.
“Look in front of you,” he said with a reverential whisper, earning silent frowns from the group entire.
Ya Ling stared at the thick foliage before her. “Alex, that’s just a massive wall of very pointy looking vines, covering a ledge of stone.”
Alex grinned. “Is that a fact?” he said, before gently waving the vines back, ignoring the whispered curse and looks of awe this earned him, revealing a narrow passage they could just squeeze through, which Alex promptly did.
“Alex, wait up! You don’t know what...” Ya Ling’s words cut off in wide-eyed awe when she glimpsed the sight before them all.
A grove within the forest, a copse of pristine lychee trees blowing in an unseen breeze and glistening with perfectly ripened fruit glistening like rubies, kissed by morning dew, sunlight, and absolutely radiating vibrant Wind Qi.
Ya Ling squealed with delight, racing toward the orchard.
Reny turned to gaze Alex’s way with something surprisingly close to awe. “And I didn’t sense a thing. Even as you drew us ever deeper in, I wouldn’t have thought even once to break through those thorny vines, and they moved with a single wave of your hand!”
Ya Ling’s eyes were wide with both wonder and a desperate sort of hunger. “Grandmother! These fruit! I can feel the potency the radiate! Please tell me these lychee are best eaten fresh off the vine?”
Reny’s awed gaze grew grave. Her eyes widened as she raised an anxious hand Ya Ling’s way. “Wait, grand daughter, these are Gold-tier spirit fruit! It’s perilous to eat unless its affinities match your own!”
Her anxious gaze turned to panicked desperation when Ya Ling’s eyes dilated with a desperate hunger. “It compliments me. I can feel it!” She flashed a joyous smile, having eyes for nothing save the fruit in her hand. “It promises a gift like no other.” And before anyone could do anything, or even raise a hand to stop her, she had plopped precisely seven carefully peeled lychees into her mouth, then swallowed them with a look of sheer rapture upon her features.
“Ya Ling!” Elder Wu’s voice was filled with panicked despair as he stumbled forward, only to be pulled back by none other than his wife. “No, look, husband, It’s best we don’t interfere,” she whispered, and Alex couldn’t help but agree as Ya Ling’s collapsed form was hovering prone at waist-height, surrounded by a protective cocoon of wind.
“Alex, that fruit totally charmed her! Do you think it’s an evil mind-melding… Alex?”
But Alex paid no heed to Linnea’s query, also captivated by the fruit in his hand, calling out to him in ways that it seemed everyone save himself and Ya Ling found easy to resist.
If there was a Willpower check he clearly failed it as his fingers rapidly pealed the carmine red skin from each of the fruit, before placing exactly seven of the indescribably aromatic treasures inside his mouth, tasting its promise and power as as it whirled through his meridians.
For only a second did he fear disaster.
Then, when he found how effortlessly he could channel its flow to mimic the Qi flow that had once been at the heart of his Qi Deflection technique, now mirrored by his Wind Qi Deflection technique… he knew he had played the wise fool once more.
Or at least the lucky one, though wise enough to immediately assume the lotus position and allow the furious maelstrom to roar through his meridians and infuse a bit of its eternal insight and essence into his own soul, sensing how this experience too was both enhancing his awareness of all of life’s potential and possibilities and unlocking further avenues of advancement and mastery. All of which was causing his own super cable to spin about what might have been his Dantian or perhaps a pristine singularity at ever greater speeds.
You have imbibed sacred Spirit Fruit! You now understand the element of Wind with greater clarity than ever before!
You now enjoy Greater Wind Affinity!
Note. Pristine divine tier configuration does NOT allow for additional meridian enhancement, but you sense the flow of wind through your environment with greater clarity than ever before, bringing you secrets others would keep hidden, and the scents that none but the most savvy blood hounds could detect.
Perception has been permanently increased by 1 point to 19!
You have increased affinity with any Qi Discipline incorporating the element of Wind! You will master Wind Qi skills far faster than otherwise and be able to use them at reduced cost!
Wind Qi Deflection is now Rank 2!
Wind Qi Deflection is now Rank 3!
Wind Qi Deflection is now Rank 4!
Alex had never expected to savor such a fortuitous encounter himself on what he had hoped would only be a safe expedition with his friends in what should have been the ideal rift. But he was wise enough to take full advantage of the opportunity to solidify his gains, consciously directing the flow of fearsomely potent Wind Qi through his meridians and skills and enhancing his understanding and affinity for that sacred element in so many ways, even as he sensed it rewriting an element of Ya Ling’s very soul.
And for all that the tiniest part of him mourned Ya Ling’s state and prayed she’d be alright, the vast majority of his psyche was invested in embracing the howling winds now roaring through his soul to the utmost. So that he might use them to sail to new heights, where one mistimed thought or action would otherwise see him founder and crash upon the shoals of his own ineptitude.
Fortunately, it seemed that both Reny and her husband understood the perils and pitfalls of what he and Ya Ling had perhaps quite foolishly dared, at least knowing enough not to interrupt what was either the grandest of breakthroughs… or the inevitable crumbling of their foundation.
Alex was surprised by the breathless silence from his friends when the dream of Wind roaring through his soul had transformed to a gentle breeze he could even now feel curling his golden locks, taking a final moment to gaze upon the character sheet of his soul and appreciate just how far he’d already come before opening his eyes and preparing himself for whatever reprimand was no doubt to come.
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Alex Hammer
Class – Cultivator: Disciple of the Boundless Path
Rank 6 Cultivation Achieved!
Physical Characteristics
Strength – Bronze Rank 3 (30)
Vitality – Bronze Rank 3 (30)
Quickness – Bronze Rank 1 (20)
Finesse – Bronze Rank 1 (20)
Spiritual Characteristics
Scholarship - 14 (Exceeds 84% of Population.)
Perception - 19 (Exceeds 99% of population.)
Willpower – 25 (Rank 2 Bronze achieved the hard way! - You have the resolve to walk in the Valley of Death and slip free of the River of Souls.)
Qi Pool – 19
Health Points: 455
Perks
Insightful – Rank 2
Charismatic – Rank 3
Lesser Shadow Affinity
Increased chance of cultivation breakthroughs.
Draconic Ancestry.
Greater Wind Qi Affinity (You have increased affinity with any Qi Discipline incorporating the element of Wind! You will master these skills far faster than otherwise and will be able to use them at reduced cost!)
Favored Skills
Golden Realms Kung Fu – Rank 10
Wind Crane Kung Fu – Rank 7
Poison Spitting – Rank 6
Stealth – Rank 4
Lock Picking – Rank 4
Qi Disciplines
Enhanced Water Shield – Rank 6 – Enhanced Salt Water Variant Learned.
Enhanced Water Strike – Rank 8 – Enhanced Water Strike may now be used in conjunction with Wind Strike and may pierce Silver tier or lower wards with a skill check. (**most definitely not Black Swan!)
Thorn Shield – Rank 5
Oak Strike – Rank 5
Fire Shield – Rank 4
Flame Fist – Rank 4 (5)
Earthern Shield – Rank 4
Stone Fist – Rank 5
Forest Flight – Rank 5
Dark Qi Absorption – Rank 4 – Effortlessly absorb Dark Qi from your environment, your friends, or hostile forces! All will be consumed and used by your Divine Tier Prismatic Bones!
Spring Leap – Rank 5 – This skill is effectively Forest Flight but includes grassy fields and lichen. You also enjoy instantaneous movement over forests and fields involving dashes of 50 feet or less.
Wind Piercer Strike – Rank 1 – Pierce most Qi wards, walls of flame, or shrapnel barriers with ease! Much less effective against rigid metal or stone.
Wind Qi Deflection – Rank 4 – Deflect most Qi Disciplines and physical attacks! Note! Ineffective against Lightning & Spirit Qi!
Wind Blade – Rank 5(6) (May now be used in conjunction with Enhanced Water Strike with a skill check! You may now instantly summon forth Wind Blade with a skill check. - Adept perk chosen: Spiritual Harmony: You may use this elemental attack freely, with minimal spiritual energy expenditure!)
Storm Blade – Rank 5(6) (Infuse your weapon with the power of the storm at its most fearsome, to cut through any foe (or deliver a healthy dose of lightning) from three feet beyond the edge of your blade! - Adept feat chosen. Internal Harmony. The strain of this technique has been limited to Bronze, stabilized by Advanced Comprehension.)
Prismatic Shield – Rank 6 – Can now counter half-step elements & dark curses! - Note! Unorthodox meridian configuration is prerequisite! - You have chosen the Adept Perk: Spiritual Harmony. Spiritual Energy expenditure to maintain this technique has been significantly reduced! Prismatic Shield now draws energy directly from Desert Fox. Prismatic Shield Rank may not exceed Desert Fox Cultivation rank!
Prismatic Strike – Rank 6 - This is a Pristine Technique! All elements are boosted by previous elements in a Divine Tier cascade only Long Wang and his chosen disciples understand. Note! No mortal may wield this technique before Gold Tier without saving versus Meridian Rupture!
Your Divine Tier Meridians are immune to rupture!
- Spiritual Energy Cost: Significant! Best only to embrace when fueled by P**e**y Ma**ery or when your Qi Pool is well into Bronze!
Dantian shift has stabilized. You must achieve Deep Bronze (Rank 4 or better) to safely expel Life Force without straining your foundation!
Qi Perception-linked Disciplines
Artificer – Rank 7
Find Weakness – Rank 7
Qi Perception – Rank 8
Soul Sight – Rank 7
Spiritual Teacher (Student) – Rank 8
Forest Sense – Rank 7 (8)
Congratulations! Your communion with nature has grown fresh roots. Your understanding now transcends individual plants and now incorporates entire ecosystems! Forest Sense is now Rank 8.
Alchemy – Rank 4 (Foundation Restoration Tincture)
Desert Sense – Rank 2
Additional Abilities & Techniques
Full Regenerative Capacity
Gift of Tongues
Biochemical Mastery – Rank 8
Desert Fox Cultivation Technique – Rank 6
Prismatic Fox Restoration Technique – Rank 6 You now have a base passive regeneration rate of: (32) health point per minute. Your focus on mastering the interplay between heat and entropy has unlocked the Ageless Perk. - You enjoy your Prismatic Fox Restoration Technique Rank as a bonus in saving versus all poisons, toxins, mental ailments, curses, taints, and all other areas where another UNDEFINED art had once reigned supreme! Continue to master your body and yourself to expand this art and it’s capabilities!
Sacred Perk – Can now neutralize all infernal taints.
Prismatc Fox Restoration Technique is now incorporates Basic Blood Mastery! (You may use Blood in place of Water for all Water Qi Applications. Note! Additional cost of Health points in addition to Qi Points will be expended upon such use and application, subject to normal regenerative properties of Prismatic Fox.
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