I woke up twitching, sweating, and screaming. So not the wildest Wednesday of my life, but not exactly the usual fare, either.
“Gahhh, fuck!”
The moment before I’d been desperately slashing through a veritable army of goblettes, bathing in their slick blood as I fought to get through the press of their bodies. Now I was sitting up in the booth, each finger magically transformed into a long, sharp kitchen utensil.
“Holy shit. Shit!” I tried yanking my right arm free, but it wouldn’t budge. With horror in my eyes I inspected the booth table.
The knives on the ends of my fingers were lodged completely in the wood, sunk up from beneath, blades sticking up into the air above like some twisted and super goth table décor.
“Damn,” Bryan said. I glanced up to see him standing a few feet away. “Came when I heard you cursing in your sleep, but wow, I didn’t even hear you punch through it.”
I pulled on my arm again and winced. “Won’t budge. Not a bit.”
He shrugged. “Want help breaking them off again?”
“Hell no!” My voice pitched up a bit high, and I took a breath to try to calm down. “That really hurt last time.”
“Well, last resort, then. We’ve only got a couple of hours left before sundown, and we’re moving out as soon as it hits.”
I gave another tug. How the fuck had I gotten so lodged in? One jab, really? Seemed like I should have been able to just yank them back out the way they came in; it’s not as if they were ribbed or—
Ah, shit. Serrated.
I started trying various angles and degrees of torque, putting my shoulder and elbow into some pretty weird positions in my attempt to wrench myself free.
“Where’s Sam?” I asked, unable to turn all the way around.
I heard a muffled groan from behind me.
“You ok?” I asked.
“Super,” she answered, her voice the scratch of sandpaper over an aging backyard deck.
Bryan stifled a chuckle. “She’s been enjoying her dry day. Right, Sam?”
“Fuck you.”
“Didn’t you guys rest? Shit,” I said, “you said only two hours until… how long have I been out?”
“It’s alright,” Bryan said. “I’m going to get my rest now. You needed yours; your body has undergone some pretty heavy magical alterations in a short time, far more than mine. Sam got rest.” Then he added beneath his breath, “hasn’t been on her feet all day.”
He clapped his hands together. “So, I’m going to lie down. You two need anything? Sam, you need a hand getting up to come work with him?”
“Ugggn. Can’t he come to me?”
“No. He truly cannot.”
I heard the sound of her pushing herself up, groaning and wheezing a bit as she did, and then the sound of a low, raw laugh. “I guess not,” she said. Then she stumbled into view. Her eyes were a bit puffy, but other than that she seemed fine.
“Bryan cut you off?” I asked.
She ran a hand over her face. “Can’t believe I’m spending the end of the world in a Mexican bar and this is the moment I choose to get sober.”
I raised my eyebrows and looked at Bryan. He lifted his hands and backed away, heading to lie down.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s get started.” I lowered a stiff gaze her way. “Oh, right. Forgot about your whole… Wolverine thing. Ok. Here we go.” She made it the rest of the way to me and took a seat in the chair opposite my booth.
“So,” I said. “you’re a cultivator. How’s it work?”
She frowned. “Thought you were a cultivator as well. Haven’t you done it yet?”
“Ah, well. Yes, technically. But I was sort of… forced to, I guess?”
She quirked an eyebrow.
“I got tossed into one of the invasion beams and my body was immediately saturated with super high-density Cosmic Qi, and the system told me I had to either cultivate it or die, so I said yes, I would, and then that happened for a bit I guess, and then it told me I was going to die anyway, and then I got sort of forcibly ejected from the… hey…”
I trailed off, face scrunched up. “That’s a problem. We’re planning to throw me into more of those things—ideally as much as possible, to power-level the shit out of me—but so far it’s only been by chance I’ve gotten out of them alive.”
Her jaw was hanging slack as if she hadn’t believed a word I’d said. With a shake of her head she regained her composure, such as it was, and asked, “how exactly were you forcibly ejected?”
“Oh, it was because a monster was coming down the pipe. Or a, uh, spirit beast, I guess they’re called.”
“Both times?”
“Yep.”
She shrugged. “Well that’s easy, then. Just get in the beam before anything comes down, and whenever our alien guests make their appearance, that’s the end of the dance.”
“You think they’ll just keep kicking me out by default?”
She raised her hands in a shrug. “How the hell should I know? Sounds as reasonable as anything else you’ve told me so far, though. Anyway, so. You’ve cultivated but you’re not sure how, then. That about sums it up?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.” She lowered herself gingerly to the floor and crossed her legs. “Shut your eyes. And breathe. Pretend you can feel a sort of energy in your body, like the blood flowing through your veins, and every time you breathe, it’s like you’re pumping that energy to move. Focus on that. Try to pretend so hard you actually believe it.”
“Oh, sure, so I should cycle the Cosmic Qi through my pathways?”
She opened one eye. “The fuck. Bryan?”
“Mmph,” an almost-asleep Bryan mumbled from the other side of the restaurant.
“No, no,” I said, “don’t bother him, he’s sleeping.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know what to do.”
“Oh I don’t. No idea. In my actual body. But I’ve read a lot about it.”
Her other eye opened and she squinted at me with suspicion. “You’ve read about the end of the world involving magic energy cultivation?”
“Many, many times. By many different authors. Unless they’re all secretly the same author pimping out penname after penname, but god, that would be, like, beyond prolific, you know? Maybe with AI, it’s getting there. Some of those ChatGPT prompts are really eye-opening. I don’t think it’s quite there, yet; no humor, no glint in the eye.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Is this about that super nerdy Chinese-sounding stuff you mentioned earlier?”
“Wuxia and Xanxia? Sort of. And lite novels. Add a dash of manga and anime, boil it together with the last half-century of fantasy and science fiction novels and films, toss the ball to Russia for a decade or so for who-knows-why, and then throw it back to a bunch of D&D nerds, and yep. The pinnacle of all of man’s art is the result.”
She snorted. “Leave it to men to cook that up.”
“That’s fair. Some really good women and femme authors too, though. It’s not just about the male gaze immersing itself in goblin harems.”
“I’m not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. Let’s get back to the matter at hand, nerd. What all do you know about cultivation from this… uh…”
“LitRPG, Isekai, GameLit, and Progression Fantasy."
“Sure. That. Those.”
“Well.” I gave one more tug on the old table-hand, then decided to give it a rest for the time being. So far as I could tell I was stuck solid and hadn’t made a bit of headway, which, in addition to being incredibly frustrating, still struck me as odd, but oh well. I’d come back to it.
“Usually it starts with gathering. There’s some kind of energy, be it spiritual, magical, what have you. Maybe it’s called Mana, or Spirit, or Qi. Sometimes just energy. Cosmic energy. Some sort of quantifiable presence in the universe that either wasn’t accessible or present before whatever inciting event caused the MC to suddenly be able to harvest it.”
“MC… like, Snoop Dogg?”
A grin slowly spread over my face. “Oh, you a big Snoop fan? Nevermind, doesn’t matter. Not Master of Ceremonies MC; Main Character. You know, the leading… person.”
“Ok.”
“So anyway, the MC starts gathering Qi or whatever westernized version of Qi is the nom-du-jour, and cycling it through their pathways. Which are some kind of spiritual structure overlaid on top of their physical anatomy. I’m always a little confused about this next part, because it’s very clearly spiritual energy and the pathways are very clearly a spiritual, not physical, structure, but somehow cycling that energy and refining it alters the MC’s physical body, usually progressing the standard physical markers of LitRPG like strength, constitution, agility, etc. Some western stories address this head-on by making a big deal out of the MC gaining some kind of gestalt identity that has merged their spiritual and physical being, but that’s also playing into the duality trope, which is a big, big trope feeding into almost every OP MC story.”
“You’re losing me.”
“Right, sorry. Back on track. So anyway, you harvest your Qi, you cycle it for a while, and then usually you either form a core or unlock meridians, which are some kind of structure I imagine to be like little beaver dams you have to knock out so the Qi can flow more freely, and finally, bam, you’re a full-fledged cultivator, and your body has progressed a fuck-ton, maybe through different levels named after metals or precious stones, and you basically eventually become super-super-human, some kind of divine transcendental being, and there’s usually a hint that actual inhuman, immortal gods all began as mortal cultivators and got godded by cultivating, and sometimes that happens to the MC too. Whew. How am I doing so far?”
Sam’s face had gone through an entertaining series of expressions, from boredom to surprise, to shock, and finally annoyance. It had, I’ll admit, egged me on to keep the roll going a bit, but eh, I’d gotten the gist of it out.
“That’s…” she said softly, “pretty much spot-on, nerd. Who the fuck writes these books?”
I shrugged, grinning. “Guys like me, I guess!” My face fell a little as I reflected on my erstwhile nascent manuscript, title forthcoming. Well, almost guys like me. Guys like me but who could actually do shit. Guys like me on the right meds, maybe.
Or guys who didn’t need the meds.
“Fucking executive dysfunction,” I grumbled. “Well how come you know about all this? Did you get, like, a cultivator manual?”
“Sort of. That god guy hooked me up a little. He really seems to want to help you. He made it pretty clear this was my best chance of reconnecting with my sisters. Also, yoga.”
“Ohhh, right. Lots of discussion about Linden’s pocket world in yoga class?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. But we breathe a lot. And sit in the lotus position. And meditate. And, as it turns out, that’s a large part of what you need to do to cultivate.”
“I can buy that. Alright, hang on. Maybe this’ll do it.”
I hoped that by struggling into some semblance of lotus upon the booth bench perhaps I would inadvertently free myself, but no dice. I did manage, somehow, to get my legs crossed; my arms just still chained me awkwardly to the table from beneath, so that I was forced to lean forward over my lap.
“Uh, sure,” she said. “Looks… so good. Alright. Close your eyes, breathe, and, I guess, cycle your Qi.”
“Ok.” I closed my eyes a moment, then popped them back open. “Wait. My Qi, like, the shit-ton I have in reserve? Or the ambient Cosmic Qi in the room?”
If it was possible for her to look at me as if I were any more odd, she did. “What do you have in reserve?”
I pulled up my stats and read it off.
Raw Cosmic Qi: 13,842 (stored)
“Wow,” I said. “Still going up. I guess she will be for a few days, heh.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said, her face quite serious. “Are you ready to stop fucking with me and actually do this shit, or should I pack up my little waffle griddle magic thingy and get out of here?”
I frowned. “Sorry. Too casual? Ok. I have a large pool of raw Cosmic Qi stored, Sifu. Should I cycle that, or the ambient Cosmic Qi?”
She blinked. I just returned her gaze, waiting.
“You’re not fucking around,” she finally said.
“For once, no. I know I play the idiot a bit and give off a certain ‘wow, this stream-of-consciousness dialogue is annoying and I wish there were an adult in the room’ air, but I’m telling you the truth.”
“He told me Qi capacity would increase as I upgraded my physique. But even then… it shouldn’t be so much. Not nearly so much.”
“Well…” I coughed. “I am, uh, a hefty percentage into iron, myself. So.”
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead. “Ok. Fucking nerd. But even then, the number you’ve given… it’s just too much. Look. How much Cosmic Qi are you able to cycle through your channels at once?”
I shrugged. “Should I know that?”
“Pull up that information again.”
I began to read her my stat screen aloud.
Combatant Stat Screen
Name: Quart
Level: 9
XP to Level 10: 1
Class: Battlemage Cultivator
Class Traits: Combat warrior (pugilism; blades);
Cultivator (Cosmic Qi, spirit);
Qi Magician, Journeyman (ambient and cultivated Qi)
“That,” she said, “is too many traits. Fuck is wrong with you. But anyway, can you select Cultivator from the list, and focus on it?”
“Oh!” I sat up a little straighter, wincing as my arm and shoulder, still trapped, went taut. “Yeah, I can. Wow.”
Cultivation:
Combatants who select cultivating as their preferred mode of progression must gain experience through cultivating and refining cosmic Qi. Combatants can improve themselves by allowing refined cosmic Qi to alter their mind, body, and spirit.
Current Cultivator Physique: Iron
Progress to next Cultivator Physique: 82%
Pathways: Basic (Tier 1)
Meridians: Locked
Core: N/A
Cosmic Qi capacity: 200 quanta; cultivates into spirit (SP)
Iron Physique:
Your body has undergone the first transformation initiated by Cosmic Qi, resulting in passing a power threshold sometimes referred to as the First Gate. Common physical attributes such as strength and agility operate around twice as efficiently and effectively as those of a baseline mortal. Mortal lifespan estimation increased to around twice that of a baseline mortal (barring death through combat).
Your basic cultivating pathways are now secured. Widen and strengthen them through increased cultivation to reach copper, bronze, silver, and gold physiques. Unlock nodes or meridians to reach quartz, jade, sapphire, ruby, and diamond physiques. Create and develop your core to reach saint, spirit, angel, demigod, and god physiques.
“Well, while all this is rad as absolute fuck,” I said, “it only confuses the question. What’s going on with my Raw Cosmic Qi? Where is it if it isn’t in my body?”
“What else do you have in that bag of tricks?”
I started reading down my list of skills. She didn’t know what a Qi skill was, which surprised me at first, until I remembered that while Qi Magician and Cultivator both dealt with Cosmic Qi, technically they were entirely separate class traits, and I’d gotten my hands on the former through those charming invasion-beam-spa-days I’ve mentioned a few times. So there was really no reason for her to have any other context on that.
“Let’s see… I’ve got, ah, man. I’ve literally got all the skills. So there’s pothead—pretty handy, gives me a sort of stockpot skullcap—eh, then a couple of related skills. Ooo, you saw me use Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Heh, that’s a good one. Candyman, sort of ok. Polysynthetic fall? Essential. What else?” I scrolled down the list. “Not sure what Ballers Be Balling is about. Storm Globe. Sweater Weather. Uh… Squirter.”
“Who the hell…” she began to raise her voice but took a calming breath, closing her eyes for a moment before she opened them again. “You know what, nevermind. I know who the hell. Nerds the hell. What’s Storm Globe do?”
“No idea. Let’s find out?”
Skill: Storm Globe
You are able to manifest a Cosmic Qi vessel in the form of a Spencer’s Gifts Plasma Lightning Ball, Purple. Certain skills may be coupled with this vessel to augment or alter their effects. This vessel serves as a reservoir for Raw Cosmic Qi you have harvested but not cultivated. Raw Cosmic Qi may be drawn from the vessel for cultivation or in small quantities to power skills and constructs.
When activated, the vessel appears and is accessible for use. When deactivated the vessel fades into a subdimensional background and passively continues to harvest excess Cosmic Qi if your cultivating channels are at capacity.
Effects:
Raw Cosmic Qi: +up to 50,000 quanta
5% chance on use of triggering area-of-effect Buff: Magicked; +5% spirit for everyone within 50-foot radius for up to 5 minutes (or until vessel is deactivated).
0.0001% chance on use of triggering area-of-effect Debuff: Spirit-Starved; -50% spirit for everyone with 500-foot radius for up to 5 minutes (or until vessel is deactivated); permanently -10% spirit attribute for one random person within 500-foot radius.
“I love magic,” I crooned.
Sam used her hands to crack her neck and took another deep, centering breath. “Alright, Harry Potter. Sounds like you’ve got the goods. Let’s get started.”