Samantha had been switching which meridians she tried to open because her priorities kept shifting. While in the Gutter, she had been working on clearing her right hand meridian so she could learn some arts to enhance her spear strikes. After gaining [Flurry], however, she quit investing in her right hand meridian and decided to clear her right foot meridian instead. Now that would have to be put on hold as well. Because she had injured her spirit to the point where some of her abilities were non-functional, she felt there was no other choice than to open her mind meridian in a bid to fix things.
All of her affected abilities seemed to be related to the mind in some way. It was her hope that clearing the mind meridian would have enough of a restorative effect on whatever part of her was damaged that she would regain access to [Inspect], [Prey’s Awareness], and [Sage’s Rumination].
She had learned from Xiao Qian’s Compendium that each new meridian she cleared would be more difficult to open than the last. The first meridian she opened hadn’t taken her long, but she had almost crippled herself by overusing beast cores to help speed up the process. As such, it was not a good measure for how long her mind meridian would take. Still, she couldn’t imagine it taking more than a few days if she focused only on this singular task.
She slowly built pressure within her dantian, but instead of using the energy to compress her qi and advance in rank, she funneled it through her mind meridian as she entered a deep trance. Similarly to when she cultivated, she focused inwards and lost touch with her surroundings. Time ceased to have meaning as she gave her full attention to drawing in more qi, increasing the internal pressure of her dantian, and burning away the impurities in her meridian bit by bit. She could not clearly mark her progress, but with each passing moment she felt the fresh infusion of qi restore and revitalize her spirit.
In her mind’s eye she felt, more than saw, the intricate maze of meridians that branched out in every direction within her. Most were darkened with only a gossamer thin trickle of qi passing through the blocked channels, but one bright line traveled upwards from a shining core to bathe her heart in vital energies. As she diligently focused on her task, she observed another line begin to shine brighter and brighter as the dark specks within it were consumed by the powerful stream of qi.
For some, she imagined the isolation of one’s inner self could be suffocatingly lonely, but she was never truly alone now. Within that sacred space where previously only she could enter, there was another being whose steadfast companionship was a comfort to her. Silas was ever present as she tirelessly worked towards her goal, encouraging her however he could through their bond. He gifted her small sparks of resolve when she felt her anxiety rise up or her willpower flag, and cheered alongside her when she made a burst of progress. In the last stretch of cleansing her clogged meridian, she felt his excitement at her imminent success and they celebrated as she finally broke through.
A sudden wave of qi flooded into the newly open space through the meridian’s many tributaries, soaking her mind in a cold energy that seemed to freeze her head solid. The chill spread throughout her body and she felt the lingering tenderness in her spirit wash away as it was passed over.
Congratulations, you’ve cleared your Mind Meridian!
You are now able to utilize arts that require a cleared Mind Meridian. Lesser arts that can function even with the reduced capacity of a clogged Mind Meridian will gain efficiency.
Mental processes have been enhanced, +6 to Qi pool
[Inspect] efficiency has increased by 50%! [Inspect] will more easily pierce an opponent’s natural qi defenses.
Content, but suddenly acutely aware of her exhaustion, she stretched and took a deep breath. The unsteadiness of having an injured spirit was difficult to describe, but now that she felt fully like herself again she couldn’t deny how unsettling the experience had been.
When she began opening her meridian she had 24 days remaining on her timer. She quickly pulled up her hidden quest to see how many days had passed.
Hidden Quest: Cull the Weak (Part 2 of 2)
Time Remaining: 22 days
Enter any ascension obelisk and begin your climb. WARNING: Failure to ascend within the time limit will result in severe restrictions to your cultivation advancement and system access.
Judging by the light coming through her window, it was most likely early afternoon. This meant she’d spent about two and a half days in a trance, and had four and a half days remaining until her duel. With this time frame in mind she began forming a strategy.
She remembered back to when she was challenged by the Braxands and noticed something odd. Her memory of the incident was incredibly clear in her mind now. The accuracy and detail of the memory was so potent that it felt like she had traveled back in time to that moment and was standing there again–to the degree that she could recall the faces of the strangers in the crowd and what their conversations were. This wasn’t the only memory affected either. Everything from the past few months seemed burned into her mind whether she wanted it to be or not, though beyond that timeframe the memories did start to become less clear.
Taking advantage of this new clarity, Samantha pored over the memory and picked apart everything from the sentiment of the crowd to her exchange with the Braxands. Now that she had a clear head, she could see that everything was not as bad as it seemed. The group had caught her off guard with their approach and challenge, and then after she had agreed to the duel they had tacked on a wager on top of everything else.
She realized two important things, however. There was no Adjudicator present, and Samantha had never signaled any agreement to their additional wager–verbal or otherwise.
Finding Eileen likely took some time, and since they were eager to ambush her, they probably couldn’t find an available Adjudicator as well. Any wagering or loss penalties needed to be mutually agreed upon by both parties with an Adjudicator present. This way, the Adjudicator could ensure that one party was not being unfairly taken advantage of, and they could enforce the correct payout after someone lost the fight. As things stood now, there was no wager. She let out a sigh of relief. Coming up with that much gold on such short notice would’ve been incredibly hard.
Knowing how cultivators like to play games with face and reputation, she suspected that the Braxands had made such a blunt demand of 50 gold to publicly embarrass her. It had worked to a degree, too. The high amount was intended to make her hesitate, and seem as though she was unconfident or guilty of their accusations. It was also a demoralizing tactic that would cause her to worry and despair about the upcoming fight, possibly affecting her performance. If this was a war, the Braxands won the first battle.
The Braxand brothers had been a thorn in her side ever since her earliest days as a cultivator. She would’ve been content to let the situation blow over if they had shown they moved on, but with their most recent attempt to shame and bankrupt her, she’d had enough. She was determined to make it so that this would be the last time they bothered her or her family, one way or another.
Samantha turned the issue over in her mind, feeling something tickle at her subconscious. She let her thoughts wander, hoping that her heightened mental acuity would help her suss out some solution. After a few minutes, it clicked. A smile crossed her face as a wicked scheme came into focus in her mind–something that would cost her nothing, and them potentially everything.
After eating lunch with her parents she returned to the Athenaeum to see if she could find any information about Eileen’s past fights. A formal record of sanctioned duels were usually submitted to the Athenaeum by the overseeing Adjudicator, which was made publicly accessible to any registered cultivator. This was one of Samantha’s few advantages going into the fight–knowledge about her opponent.
Looking broadly at the reports, Eileen had been professionally dueling for the Braxands for years–since she was a Low Copper and before ever getting her spirit bond. Her win to loss ratio was very good, with 26 out of 35 battles ending in her victory. Granted, most of those losses were concentrated early in her dueling career, but Samantha still took comfort in the fact that she was not invincible.
Looking deeper into the records, Eileen seemed to be well versed in the main weapons favored by cultivators (staves, sabers, straight swords, and Samantha’s favorite: spears), as well as a variety of other armaments. Samantha–with the improved reasoning her cleared mind meridian afforded her–noticed a pattern immediately. Eileen chose her weapon for a duel primarily based on what would be most inconvenient for her opponent, rather than any personal preference.
If this pattern held, Samantha guessed that Eileen would fight with a sword and shield combination. The aggressive, close-quarters attacks would be the bane of a spear wielder such as herself if Eileen managed to get inside her spear’s attack range. She felt frustrated that she wasn’t experienced enough with other weapons to surprise Eileen by wielding something other than a spear, but had to hope that [Flurry] could act as a trump card if Eileen got too close.
After Samantha felt she had gotten all she could from the duel records and brushed up on knowledge about Sungleam Eagles, she returned to the Southern Business District. She purchased some items that would give her an edge in the fight, and also made a small commission from Cray’s Creations for a new armor piece. Her final task for the day was to travel to the Coliseum to reserve space for the duel and make arrangements for a Peak Copper Adjudicator to oversee the proceedings.
The rest of the week was a frantic blur of activity. Most of her days were spent training with the sadist and experiencing new and creative torments in the name of improving her attributes. After getting back from training thoroughly exhausted, she split her time between having Thomas teach her the Mid-Copper Vital Wellspring Cultivation Pattern and doing what she could to investigate those involved with Aiden’s death.
She felt herself being run ragged in every sense of the word as she kept postponing sleep to give her more time to keep up with all of her responsibilities. Her stress quickly built as she watched her funds get increasingly low with each day she was unable to spare the time to pick up a job and earn funds to fuel her training regimen. Although she had won another free day of training with the sadist on the third day of this routine, she needed to pay 10 gold for the other days she attended and was left with only 32 silver and 46 coppers to her name.
Guilt over not making much progress with learning about Ol’ Man Whisper and Harold Greene also ate away at her. Due to her relative newness to the cultivator scene, she had no contacts she could leverage other than Thomas to ask around for information. Even expanding her scope to ask mortals, no one she knew had even heard of a contest to make an elixir for the City Lord. With each failed lead, she feared that she wouldn’t find anything out before it was time to ascend.
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The night before her duel she reached her limit. Thomas had been in the process of learning the High Copper version of the Vital Wellspring Cultivation Technique, and was using his knowledge to help Samantha with the Mid-Copper one. After long hours hunched over the Granvich tome in meditation and letting Thomas look into her spirit so he could give her pointers about her qi pattern’s flow and stability, she finally got the notification she was looking for.
Vital Wellspring Pattern has ranked up! +5 to qi pool. +0.5 qi regeneration/hour.
She pulled up her and Silas’s profile to look over all the recent changes.
Name: Samantha Cray
Age: 17
Attributes:
Aptitude (Approximate Max Value):
Strength: 6
Low (10)
Agility: 11
Exceptional (24)
Endurance: 8
Average (15)
Resilience: 6
Low (10)
Cultivation Rank: High Copper
Pattern: Vital Wellspring (Mid Copper - Rare)
Qi Pool: 29 / 29
Base: 20, Meridian(s): +9
Qi Regeneration: +3.0 / hour
Base: +1.3, Vortex Mark: +0.2, Sage’s Rumination: (x2)
Cleared Meridians:
Heart: +1 Endurance, +3 Qi pool
Mind: +Mental Processing Speed, +6 Qi pool
Passive Arts:
Prey’s Perception (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
Standard Effect: Gain increased awareness of your surroundings. Affects all senses.
Alternate Effect (Rank 1: 15 foot sphere): Can enter a hyper-focused state that greatly enhances spatial awareness of immediate vicinity
As One (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
Rank 1: You and your bond share vitality. If one is wounded or healed, the effect is split between the two parties. You will rise or fall as one.
Rank 2: Agility Aptitude Increase (Samantha), Strength Aptitude Increase (Silas)
Poison Connoisseur (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: N/A
Inherit the toxin processing abilities of your bond. You will more easily gain resistances to any poisons you encounter.
Current Resistances:
Draff Toxicity: Rank 2 - 34% (-⅔ effectiveness and duration)
Corrosive Poison: Rank 1 - 13% (-½ effectiveness and duration)
Sleep Poison: Rank 0 - 16%
Combat Arts:
Inspect (Common)
Qi Cost: Variable [+50% Efficiency]
By focusing your spiritual senses on a target and expending qi, you can either retrieve basic information or gain useful insights that can be used in combat.
Swift - Rank 1 (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: 1 qi/second
For every 1 qi point spent per second, gain +1 Agility. While active, your steps gain perfect traction.
Flawless Regeneration (Rare)
Meridians Required: Heart
Qi Cost: Variable
By cycling qi through your heart meridian and circulatory system, you can regenerate flesh to heal your body to flawless condition. 1 qi invested will restore approximately 1 ounce of flesh per minute, with additional qi invested resulting in diminishing effects.
Flurry (Bond Ability)
Qi Cost: 2 qi/second
By spending 2 qi points per second, your kick speed will be doubled and kick damage will be increased by half.
Mindsets:
Sage’s Rumination (Rare)
Qi Cost: N/A
Embodies unshakable tranquility and allows one to maintain a meditative state without entering a trance.
Spirit Bonds:
Lunar Jackalope (Rank 4 - Mid) [ View More ]
Silas - Lunar Jackalope
Rank 4 - Mid
Attributes:
Aptitude (Approximate Max Value):
Strength: 4
Average (12)
Agility: 14
Exceptional (20)
Endurance: 7
Average (12)
Resilience: 6
Average (12)
Active Abilities:
Passive Abilities:
Thump
Cooldown: 30 Seconds
Herb Hunter
Leap
Cooldown: 10 Seconds
Poison Connoisseur
Swift
Cooldown: Variable
Prey’s Perception
Translucence
Cooldown: Variable
Iron Gut
Antler Genesis:
Cooldown: Variable
As One
Offered Bond Abilities:
Bond Ability Points (BP) Remaining: 1
Swift (Rank 2)
[2 BP]
For every 1 qi point spent per second, gain +2 Agility. After ability ends, effects will linger for a short time before returning to original levels. While active, your steps gain perfect traction.
Herb Hunter
[1 BP]
Like the Lunar Hare, you have the uncanny ability for finding the best quality herbs around.
Translucence (Rank 1)
[1 BP]
For every 1 qi point spent, you will become partially transparent for 30 seconds. Remaining motionless while translucent will make you exceedingly difficult to spot.
As One (Special - Rank 3)
[3 BP]
??? [Requirements not met]
When counting the gains from her mind meridian, the new pattern brought her total pool capacity from 18 to 29. The pattern also increased her qi regeneration from +2 qi/hour to +3 qi/hour while [Sage’s Rumination] was active.
Samantha punched her fists in the air in celebration, whooping with glee. Then she promptly fell over, forced by her body, at last, to sleep.