I leave the clothing shop with a little less change in my pocket but three new sets of clothing to my name. I’m happy about my purchase despite the woman running the store today trying to persuade me against it.

With my only real chore for the day taken care of, I quickly make my way back to my house. I have an idea that I want to try out, but I need to make sure I’m not being seen while I’m doing it. Or, at least, I need to make sure no one notices it. For that, I need Physician Bing. Sort of.

Running quickly, I’ve probably knocked off an extra two to three minutes from my run yesterday, so I am definitely getting faster. I really need to get around to getting a movement technique sometime soon, but I think that will wait until I’ve tested my experiment first.

I head straight to my cultivation room and plop myself down in the middle of it with a simple, “Hey Physician Bing,” as I go.

He nods his head at me while he meditates so I say, “Just want to let you know, I’m going to try something real quick. Should be fine, but, uh… Let me know if it’s really obvious.”

That gets Physician Bing to open his eyes as he raises one of his eyebrows at me.

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” He asks.

“Meh,” I respond. “It shouldn’t be anywhere near as noticeable as what I did yesterday, so I think it will be fine. Probably.”

“Being less noticeable than an event that grabs the attention of every capable cultivator in the city means very little. How much less do you mean?”

“Hmm…” I think about it for a few seconds and then say, “Probably the difference between getting kicked in the face by a donkey and maybe stubbing your toe. The big one, not the small one.”

“That doesn’t mean it will go unnoticed,” Physician Bing replies.

“Yeah… but if it works like I’m hoping, hopefully there’s nothing to notice. Oh, uh, you can’t see inside my dantian, right?”

He shakes his head. “I can see the elemental energies running through your body with the vision technique you showed me. I can also sense the elemental signatures of those same energies with my spiritual awareness. However, I know of know technique, nor have I ever heard of any technique, that would allow someone to see into another person’s dantian.”

“Oh, good!” I grin knowing that it’s entirely possible for me to pull this off. Hypothetically, at least. It should work.

“Do I need to know what you’re doing?” He asks me.

“Uh, I think you’ll realize it. I don’t know how to reposition the 3D video player without having it open first.”

Physician Bing looks confused for a moment until I open up one a webpage I had bookmarked earlier. Unlike the sun, this is a manageable fire law that I think I actually have a small hope of comprehending: The first Fire Law, the Law of Burning.

After failing so hard yesterday, I actually did a little bit of research to figure out what I was doing wrong. Turns out, much to Physician Bing’s credit, Daos are divided into nine concepts known as their Laws.

Furthermore, each Dao follows the same sense of logic when it comes to understanding them: The first Law is the easiest to comprehend and the ninth Law is so far beyond impossible to comprehend that I couldn’t find a single historical record of anyone having done it before. In fact, there are only speculations as to what the ninth Law of any Dao actually is.

The closest I had found, at least as far the the fire Dao is concerned, were people who descended from phoenixes that managed to comprehend the eighth Law of Fire, Nirvana. Ironically, though they were able to comprehend the Law and record it, they were burnt to ash trying to gain control over it.

What’s worse is that I’m half certain that’s what was supposed to happen considering I searched for ‘Nirvana’ online and found that it is the exact same process as what the sun went through: Death and rebirth.

Now that I think about it, it’s probably a good thing I failed to understand the sun yesterday. I probably would have, uh, unlifed myself with that one.

I bring my attention back to the Omega Browser and my surroundings as I finish my rambling thoughts. My plan is simple: take the 3D projection and shove it inside my dantian so it makes a Dao scar there rather than inside the cultivation room.

Pressing play on the video, I quickly switch it to the 3D version so it pops into existence between me and Physician Bing.

I quickly ask, “Is this really noticeable?”

He shakes his head in response and says, “Not nearly as noticeable as it was yesterday, but I suggest you accomplish what you intend to do quickly. I can already feel the fire qi in the surroundings stirring.”

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I take a look around and realize that he’s right. While I cannot tell if this would have the same effect as the projection from yesterday, I’d rather not find out what happens if I leave the projection in my cultivation room for too long.

Moving quickly, I mentally grab the projection and shove it inside my stomach and direct it toward my dantian.

Physician Bing practically jumps when he sees my actions, but I ignore it as I push the projection further inside my until it finally pops out inside a field of near complete desolation.

With the projection inside of me, I ask, “Can you feel it anymore?”

Physician Bing shakes his head, his eyes wide and stunned as he looks at me as though I’m a complete nut.

With his confirmation, I move the projection to the ball of fire so the video overlaps with the flames. It’s nothing too special, just an inferno blazing through a forest. I’d seen the same thing half a dozen times on the news, and I think I’d only started watching the news a few years back.

The only real difference between this forest fire and the kinds I’d seen back on Earth is that this one is covering a lot more acreage than any California forest fire I’d ever heard about. Maybe by a factor of four or so.

The video has some, minor, immediate affects on my Soul Fire. Namely, they start burning hotter brighter than they were before. Other than that, there’s no real difference so I don’t worry about it and just choose to sit back and watch what might actually be a very flat world burning.

I do this for a little while before Physician Bing catches my attention by clearing his throat.

Opening my eyes, I look at him and ask, “What’s up?”

I’m not even entirely sure he knows what he wants to ask because we end up sitting in silence for a solid two minutes.

Finally, he asks, “What you did right now… You can control where the laws form?”

“Nah,” I reply. “All I did was open the video. Why? Do you think it left another scar out here?”

I look around, but I can’t see an increase in the rate of the fire qi’s gathering. Hopefully, that means I did everything quickly enough that it simply didn’t have enough time to do anything.

At least out here. I want it to do things in my dantian so I can try to understand the Laws of Fire better and, in a perfect scenario, have an increase in my qi absorption; but I want everything to be on my own, non-empire-destroying, terms.

Physician Bing also looks around before shaking his head.

“I don’t believe so,” he says. “I could feel a similar resonance to what I noticed yesterday before the Dao scar formed, but I don’t believe that specific Law was powerful enough or here long enough to form a scar.”

“Oh, good!” I exclaim, glad that I don’t have to deal with the awkwardness of having completely altered the qi landscape of Physician Bing’s compound twice in two days.

He hesitates, but he eventually nods his head before saying, “It is good that another scar did not form in this area. But it should be that you are trying to make one form inside your dantian?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Physician Bing strokes his beard and says, “I would very much like to know if you succeed. If so, would you be willing to attempt the same thing inside my dantian?”

Inside his dantian? Is is even possible for me to put it in someone else’s dantian?

Plus, I’m not sure it will work for me, much less someone else when I can’t even see .

“I could try,” I say. “But I’m worried that the scar would form somewhere awkward inside your dantian. I probably wouldn’t be able to see the projection after it goes inside, and I’m still not even certain it will work in the first place; outside of stirring up my Soul Fire, it really hasn’t done much for me.”

“I understand. Then, in that case, if you succeed then I will consider some possibilities. Until then, I only hope you find luck in forming a Dao scar inside your dantian.”

“… Thanks,” I reply and turn my attention back toward my dantian.

Unsurprisingly, a few minutes is not enough for anything significant to happen. A small part of me, a very small one, even considers switching to a more powerful Law to see what would happen. Fortunately, I decide something powerful enough to create a qi anomaly is a not-good kind of idea and quickly shake off any thought of doing something like that… at least for now.

‘Man, what am I supposed to do now? All I’m doing is sitting on my ass at this point…’

I find myself growing bored quickly. While I enjoy cultivating, I don’t need to actively throw myself into it if I want to make any progress. In fact, the only thing that makes my cultivation room better for cultivating than almost literally anywhere else is the fact that there’s a Dao scar here to bring in more fire qi.

But, unfortunately for that line of logic, I don’t need the extra fire qi. Even if I were to actively cultivate as fast as I possibly could, I wouldn’t even make a significant dent in the area’s qi before I did a dumb. Now? I feel like I’d end up with the qi equivalent of a stomach ache if I tried to keep up with consuming the qi around here.

“Hey Physician Bing, what can I do for fun around here?” I am bored enough that I even consider going to that brothel. Not for sex or anything, but because there is music there.

Actually… I look up music with the Omega Browser and quickly find a massive selection of it.

‘Okay, don’t need to go to a brothel,’ I think to myself while trying to remember the names of any songs I like. I can remember the melodies and names of the genres, or at least how they sound, but I find myself unable to use that knowledge to fill in the search bar.

While I’m pondering that peculiarity, Physician Bing replies to my question. “I suggest going to the arena to exchange pointers with your peers. That, or you could go to the Martial Hall in the Inner City to broaden your personal knowledge of the city and its inhabitants. I understand you have your own means to gather that knowledge, but first-hand experience is invaluable for cultivators.”

“What’s the Martial Hall?” I ask.

“It is an academy, of sorts, for the city’s nobility and cultivators. Any noble and any cultivator of the fourth level of the Mortal Foundation Realm is granted general permission to enter the confines of the Martial Hall to learn from the city’s various experts. While I believe you’ll find them to be… lacking, they do have knowledge relative to the region’s baseline.”

I think over his words for a minute and ask, “Are you telling me to learn from them so I know what I should and shouldn’t do?”

Physician Bing doesn’t reply, but I can see a slight smirk on his face so I know I hit the nail on the head this time.

“Wow, what confidence. Thanks!” I grumble, annoyed but accepting of his not-so-veiled criticism.

“ do want to go to the arena sometime, and I probably should go to the Martial Hall. Guess I’ll head to the Inner City and figure out which one sounds like more fun on the way.” I sigh, not really too thrilled about my choices.

I was looking for something along the lines of actual entertainment, not just occupying my time until I work hard on something again.

Oh well. If I can’t find something fun, I suppose I could make it myself. I’ll just have to explore the city to find out if it’s necessary.