Did you… Did you really just quote Rick James to me?

[It has been found that humor after a near death experience can be helpful with mitigating the seriousness of the situation.]

Do I look like I find any of this funny to you?

[Unfortunately you do not seem to be. But don’t worry, I have a solution.]

Really? You have a solution for me almost dying, when you said that “I should have no issue at all cultivating.”

[Yes, yes I do.]

A big congratulation panel pops up in front of Zhi, but he completely ignores it and closes it.

Buddha you lying piece of shit, we are gonna talk about what just happened and you are not changing the subject till you do!

A big congratulation box pops up in front of Zhi again, but it is completely ignored as he closes it. Another pops up and that closes just as fast, then another and another one after that. As panels open and close repeatedly in front of Zhi, multiple boxes begin to open, and they all get closed just as fast.

I can do this all day Buddha! We will stay here till you explain to me what the fuck happened. If it takes a week, a month, a year, I will not move till you explain why you lied to me and why I almost died.

The boxes stop appearing, the only noise in the room is Zhi still breathing through his mouth. A stray thought appears in his head, “Wait, why the hell am I still breathing through my mouth?” Closing his mouth he exhales through his nose and when he starts to inhale something atrocious invades his sense of smell. He immediately opens his mouth and begins to gag. But now that he can smell it, with his mouth open he can almost taste the vile stench. His body begins to react and he starts to retch from it. But then the smell and taste are suddenly gone. His body that is hunched over feels fine, his stomach no longer waiting to empty its contents. He sits back up, with his eyes closed and takes a slow steady breath in. No smell at all, nothing, like it never existed.

As he thinks over what just happened, he hears Buddha's low remorseful voice say, [I am sorry.]

Shocked at hearing his normally snarking system monitor give him an apology, Zhi doesn’t respond. He just sits there, waiting for Buddha to continue. It could have taken a minute, it could have taken an hour, as Zhi waited quietly. But finally Zhi heard Buddha speak again.

[I didn’t lie to you. You should have had no issue doing Qi Distillation stage cultivation at all. Something outside of my control happened. There was of course a statistical possibility of it happening, but the chance is… Was so small that it is… Was a theoretical impossibility. A .0000000000000000000000000000001% chance that it would happen. By the time I detected what was happening it was already too late to stop the process. The only thing I could do was try to use system resources to bring you back.]

Zhi sits quietly for a while before taking a long deep breath, before letting it out. He replies, “I have lived long enough to know that no one is perfect. I accept your apology Buddha. It’s nice to know anyone can make a mistake, even a snarky ass system monitor like you.”

[... Thank you.]

So what the hell happened. I pretty much lost myself when I was cultivating, I forgot everything, the only thing that mattered was that thing I felt. FUCK! I let that thing inside me! Do we need to remove it? Can we remove it?!?

[That thing inside you is actually Qi, technically you are fine and have nothing to worry about.]

Why do I feel like a “but” is coming the way you said that?

[You are no longer allowed to cultivate.]

I can no longer cultivate!? I mean after that experience I really don’t want to. But what about Qi? Will I be able to use Qi at all?

[No you can still access and use your Qi, you will be able to do all the normal things cultivators do with Qi. You are just forbidden from doing cultivation yourself. The only way to increase your cultivation now is through the system.]

Alright, that’s fine. But could you tell me why?

[Your soul and the Qi in this existence are compatible. So compatible, that when you started to cultivate, the Qi resonated with your soul. If you would have completely let go to the Qi, your soul would have dispersed. What was once your soul, would have just become more Qi for this realm of existence and you would have ceased to exist.]

Fuck me. I was really close to letting myself drift off into my lover's sweet embrace of oblivion. How were you able to wake me up?

[When you didn’t come out of cultivation after reaching the first stage of Qi Distillation. I started to probe for issues, but nothing came back negative. It wasn’t till I found that your soul was starting to become unstable and showed signs of dissipating that I forced your adrenal glands into overdrive. The adrenaline pumping through your system is what helped bring you back from the edge.]

Well thanks for that. How is my soul since you said it became unstable? Anything I should worry about?

[No, your soul is now healed and stable. A big positive from this incident is that your soul is now stronger, and more stable than ever before.]

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Well it’s always good to look on the bright side, whatever doesn’t kill you, only makes you stronger after all.

[No not really, most people tend to be dead or worse off than before when something like this happens. You were lucky. Astronomically lucky.]

You really need to work on your bedside manner when talking to people. Speaking of which, what the hell was that god awful stench earlier? Or did I just imagine it?

[No that is still there, I just turned off your sense of smell, taste and touch so you wouldn’t be distracted while we talked. You are currently covered in secretions from your body. The smell is from the secretions itself, which have soaked into your clothes, the blanket and part of the futon below you.]

Gross, thanks for turning off my senses. I suppose this isn’t normal either?

[Not until a later stage of cultivation. But your soul's compatibility with Qi caused this reaction. You will notice some changes to your body because of this. Like I said, you were astronomically lucky.]

Alright, so what now? Can I get some help with cleaning this mess up?

[I can give you a suggestion, but let me give you the notifications you missed first.]

Can you leave out everything that doesn’t matter? Like the stop cultivation and heart rate stuff?

[Removing all messages not relevant.]

A big panel appears in front of Zhi, which he begins to read.

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[Congratulations, you have broken through to Qi Distillation stage 1!]

[Congratulations, for entering the Qi Distillation phase your inventory has increased by 1 meter!]

[Congratulations, your compatibility with Qi has increased you to Qi Distillation stage 2!]

[Congratulations, for almost dying from soul dispersion, your soul has been strengthened!]

[Congratulations, for almost dying, the system has awarded you a system music player!]

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I feel like the last one is kinda out of place.

[I forced the system to add it, consider it part of my apology.]

Thanks, I appreciate it. So now what are we gonna do about this stuff that is covering me?

[Stand up on the futon, strip and make sure your clothes stay on the blanket. Then focus on the Qi in your dantian, and begin to cycle it through your body. Once you have it cycling around yourself. Focus on the top of your head and force some of your Qi out. Then force that Qi down your body, it should collect everything on your skin as it moves. I would suggest doing it a few times to make sure you get everything. And move to a clean part of the blanket each time you do.]

Following Buddha’s instructions, Zhi looks inside himself to find his dantian. But to his surprise his Qi is already slowly flowing around his body in the same pattern he saw when he was losing himself to Qi. His dantian slowly pulsed with each beat of his heart.

My Qi is already cycling my body, is that okay? And it seems to be in sync with my heart beat.

[Really? That is an unexpected gain. Normally it takes years of practice for you to subconsciously cycle Qi around the body. It just means you don’t have to focus to use your Qi, it will still take practice though. But you won’t have to forcefully cycle your Qi every time you wish to use it from now on. Go ahead and try focing some out on the top of your head.]

Alright, I will give it a shot.

Zhi focused his Qi and made it ooze out of the top of his head. Once done he made it move down his head, neck, as it went he forced a little more Qi into to keep the same amount over his whole body. As he watched in the darkness of the room, he could see a thin green glow of energy going down his body. With the small glow of light, he could see what his body pushed out. It was a dark, almost black, mucus-like substance. When it got to his ankles, he lifted his right foot first and then pushed his Qi all the way to the bottom sole of his foot.

Okay how do I release this so I can get this junk off me?

[Focus the Qi to push everything away from your body. Then release your hold on the Qi. The Qi will diffuse into the air and the junk from your body will fall to the blanket below you.]

Following the instructions, it works fine. So Zhi does the same for his left foot and repeats the action. Afterwards he does the same process three more times, until he no longer sees any junk mixed in with his Qi. Finally clean, he steps on the blanket and looks down at it. Even in the dim light of the room he can see the pitch black spot where he was sitting. Even though his sense of smell is turned off, his nose still scrunches up in disgust just looking at it.

Alright, so now what should I do?

[Take one end of the blanket and futon, then roll it up and store it in your inventory. Until a time when you can toss it into a big fire. Make sure you are not downwind of the fire when you do.]

That was not what I expected, I figured you would have some way to clean it all up or something.

[You can not clean out that stench. It is best to purge it in fire.]

Not finding a reason to argue with logic, Zhi rolls up everything on the futon and stores it in his inventory. Then pulls out a water skin and a clean towel, before emptying the water skin over his head and rubbing his body down for good measure. Once done he pulls out another set of Zhi’s old clothes and puts them on, then walks to the door and opens it up to let the room air out. He walks back into the room and sits back down.

How much longer till the alarm goes off?

[You have about an hour till the alarm goes off.]

Alright, turn my senses back on once the alarm goes off and thanks.

[You are welcome.]

Zhi pulls out the music player he was given and inspect it. It is small, not much bigger in size than his last smartphone, but a good bit thicker. It has a display that lights up at his touch, and it has some options at the top on how to listen to music. He then uses his skill to inspect it.

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System made music player.

Has the option to play from your inventory.

Can play directly into your mind with high fidelity surround sound.

If not in inventory it can play music through included earphones.

Or it can also play music from built-in speakers.

Holds all music that the host has ever heard.

Doesn’t need to charge and is almost indestructible.

System comment,

“The perfect gift for the audiophile in your life.”

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A smile plays across his face as he stores it away. He lays back on the floor and tries to get a little sleep before his alarm goes off.