Fishing was relaxing.

That was why Jake liked it.

Sitting on the shore of the lake, drinking a beer while occasionally glancing at your pole, it's the best.

Catching something is just a bonus. It’s a bonus because it was by no means guaranteed.

You could be the best, most prepared fisherman in the world, but if the fish don't wanna hit, it doesn't mean jack.

In Jake's experience, fishing comes down to two extremes, with a few days in the middle every now and then. Either you are pulling so many fish out of the water that the most challenging part is deciding whether to dig the hook out of the fish's mouth or cut the line and put on a new one.

Opposite to that is you stifling on shore all day under the relentless sun and only getting a single hit.

Not that you actually pull anything to shore; that would be too good of a day for you. You just get to yank back on your rod a few times while reeling something heavy before the weight disappears.

Because your line snapped.

Was it a fish? You hope it wasn't. At least then, you could pretend that you never had a chance to catch something, and that stick that had been hanging around all day that suddenly started bobbing tends to agree.

But as you glare at the stick pretending to be a fish, an actual fish starts jumping out of the water twenty feet off shore, mocking you. The stupid fish is just lucky that you really aren't serious about that passing thought of getting your gun out of the truck.

Whether you get the gun or not, though, the fact that you will forever not know if a fish was on the line will haunt you all day.

Anyway, those were not Jake's problems. Those were normal problems, and Jake had not had normal problems for… who the hell knows.

Right now, Jake was tapping his fingers on his stone thrown, glaring out at the lake. He was not fishing because he could not keep his line in the water.

Every single time he throws it more than ten feet out, the annoying-piece-of-shit fish jumps out of the water, snapping at the hook while it was still midair. Can’t fish if you can't get a line in the water.

From the second Jake got to study the fish hanging in the air whipping its head around, Jake was sure the hook held. It was his line that was being cut as the fish snapped its jaws shut.

His new braided super line, which was the culmination of a week and a half of effort, was meant to fix that problem by replacing the original line Jake made. It did last longer, but instead of thrashing around once, it now had to do it two to three times.

The line was something Jake was really proud of. He tied it to a boulder and pulled as hard as possible on the fishing line. The stone was dislodged by Jake's effort and ended up bouncing across the ground towards him, causing him to jump away or be hit.

Before the stone broke free, though, the line must have taken hundreds if not thousands of pounds of tension.

Jake even performed another test where he spun around holding the braided line tied to the stone to test if it could withstand the centrifugal force. Of course, he had to let go suddenly at some point; trying to slow down with all that weight could be dangerous.

And what better direction to let go than the lake? Maybe I will hit the stupid fish.

The line even survived pulling the rock back to shore unscathed. Though the stone was having some issues with long gouges missing around the line.

It was not surprising that the braided line survived the testing unscathed. The fishing line was made by Jake condensing vines until they were little more than a hair before he wove them together into a string. Then Jake coated the string in sap. After that, he formed another scaled layer of oak bark coating the whole thing, which was meant to contain and shield everything with a rugged exterior.

Jake knew. Wanted…hoped, really, that the sap would heal any of the woven together vines that frayed or snapped while also sealing any holes in the outer shell. The sap could also act as a slight cushion for anything clamping down on the line.

Jake was proud of his work. He might even go so far as to call it a masterpiece, and that was not just him being conceited.

The braided fishing line might be alive. Not like Fluffy and him, but other plants.

Several times now, Jake had caught the fishing line burrowing into the ground, lake, and fruits he left lying around. Movement usually means life in Jake's experience.

A being able to take random parts of other plants and combine them together, making a whole new form of life, and not call that a masterwork, well, calling them a god is probably be a massive understatement. And was not someone Jake wanted to meet.

Plants are simpler than animals, but that does not mean splicing them together on a whim was easy. And even with Qi, Jake would have assumed it was impossible for him.

Really, Jake should not be all that surprised. With the amount of Qi he used making and enchanting the thing, something weird was bound to happen.

There is a massive difference between something weird happening and making a new form of plant life. But if something could create life out of scraps, vast amounts of Qi would be it.

And that was exactly what Jake did. For the past week and a half, Jake emptied himself out of Qi while making the different parts for the line, then fitting them together.

It does explain why I have so much line. I was shrugging off why I kept thinking there was more than I made. Must have been growing...

Jake fed some of his Qi to the fishing line as an experiment at the thought. The line twitched before one end sunk into the ground as new line began to rapidly curl around the planted end. Within moments Jake had another twenty feet of fishing line.

Taking a few moments to process his fishing line was growing out of the ground, Jake scuffed his foot over the mess, pushing it to the side.

He was using a substance that he had no idea what the practical limitations were. Surprises were to be expected. Although, when I finished making the line, and it started writhing around on the ground like a convulsing snake, that was a pretty big clue in hindsight…

Ignoring whether the line was alive, it was the strongest cordage Jake had ever used. It’s probably stronger than most of my towing straps.

At least Jake had succeeded in what he set out to do. If not in the way he expected.

It did not matter, though. His braided super line still snapped within moments of the fish hitting.

Which begged the question, "Why in the flaming-fuck is my line snapping so fast."

Jake even tried feeding more slack and taking up as much slack as possible before the fish hit.

He was hoping a loose line would somehow miss being cut, or a taught line would allow Jake to yank the fish to the side, distracting it from doing whatever it did to cut his fishing line, but neither helped.

“Fucking worthless!" Jake shouted to the sky before glaring down at his supposed super fishing line.

Well, not entirely worthless. Jake did have some awesome, definitely-alive, fishing line. He couldn't really use it as rope because the outer shell was so strong and sharp that it acted like a wire saw.

So far, Jake had not found a single thing the line could not cut through if looped around and given a bit of tension. Jake was sure the fishing line would eventually be useful for something, if not helpful in catching the oversized rainbow trout.

At the very least, it would make a great saw if he ever wanted to slice some more boulders in half. Could use it as a snare.

Jake was contemplating the same thing he had been contemplating since the fish first snapped his line, "how the hell am I going to catch that fish."

He was going to catch it. It was just a matter of when and how much effort was needed.

Right off the bat, Jake discarded his idea of draining the lake. He still had other options, and it would take too long to do all the prep work. As gratifying as it would be to watch the fish dart around in an ever decreasing area of water, Jake had better things to do.

If the time came for such effort, he would rather it be after he tried all the alternatives.

It was always better to work smarter, not harder.

So instead of seeing if the fish could dodge a boulder when it jumped out of the water. Or if he could collapse a mountain into the lake. I could try to dump so much ash into the lake that the fish would suffocate, but then all the other fish would die too, and I couldn't fish anymore. That’s a pretty major issue... should think of something else.

Jake was taking a moment to think.

There had to be an easier way. One that did not end with the deformation of the nearby landscape.

Not that Jake was opposed to overkill per se, there was a certain level of enjoyment in imagining draining a lake to kill a particular fish and then doing it.

Time was not the concern, Jake had no idea the total time he had spent in this cage, but his gut was telling him that it had been years. Years with an unchanging season and light.

And if the past was any indication of the future, he could look forward to years more. Jake had plenty of time to kill.

At least he had the possibility of actual conversations... unless he was already crazy. Na, if he was crazy and imagined the rabbit, he would give it a personality that didn't constantly annoy Jake.

The creature was a spineless cretin bowing to anything with more power and stomping on anything weaker. He does make a great servant, though.

With a garden full of food and a willing butler—it does not matter why the rabbit was willing, just that he was—Jake was totally ready to put his time into some absurd cockamamie plan to catch a fish.

The thing that mattered was if it was actually necessary.

At some point in the future, Jake would tell a story. Who this story will be told to was anyone's guess.

Once he was out of this prison and was sitting in some random bar enjoying a pint, he would regale the crowd with memorable absurd moments of his time here.

Few, if any, would understand why he did it—why he was still considering it—but Jake wouldn't care. In the moment, all that would matter was getting a laugh.

They might be laughing at him, or it could be the situation's absurdity. However, in their heart of hearts, Jake would know they would want to be able to say they did the same thing.

At some point in everyone's life, a moment of unrivaled annoyance and irritation comes. Where an absurd, unrealistic thought passes through the mind.

If someone could actually follow through on that thought... well, that would be a tail people would listen to.

And Jake's story might even prompt another to explain how this woodpecker always shows up outside his window at five in the morning, waking him up. "And in a fit of rage one morning, I stormed out to my shed, grabbed my chainsaw, and chopped that wood-pecking-son-of'a-bitch's tree down. Let's see him knock on wood now."

Jake would have to assume that most people would be laughing by this point. Because who the hell wouldn’t laugh at the man who chopped down a tree to get back at a bird? All he really needed was a pellet gun and early morning to solve the issue.

If the stories were told right, laughter would erupt from the crowd, creating such a din that maybe someone from outside the bar might stick their head in to see what was going on.

That would be the moment Jake raised his beer and took a sip, reveling in the noise. It would all be worth it because people could commiserate with him. They might doubt some of his stories, but Jake would not care because he would not be…HERE.

But! And this was a massive, but. It had to be worth it. It had to be such a challenge, such an overwhelming problem, that it required an overwhelming solution. Otherwise, Jake would know he was using an over-proportional time-consuming response to what was, in all reality, a mild irritation. I could just not fish… Na, fuck that.

Jake couldn't simply kill the fish. To do that, he would need to catch the thing, which was the whole problem. So he will have to systematically progress his plans on catching the fish based on the level of severity. If he ran out of ideas and got to the point it was time to drain the lake, so be it.

The mere fact that Jake was even considering such a response to a mild irritant was probably so he could ignore the burning anger of being placed in jail for some disagreement his ancient ancestor nine-hundred-ninety-nine times removed had with some ass-hat. It was not going to change anything, but being aware of oneself is always important.

That disagreement might have also had the repercussions of destroying his world and every living creature there upon! It was bullshit!

Well, probably not kill everyone. But if cultivating was genetic, then at the least, some of his relatives would be, at best, set up like him. Assuming being able to cultivate was moderately uncommon.

Jake rather doubted his experience was in any way normal.

Calming down and accepting his reality after a few moments of reveling in righteous anger, at least until something could be done, Jake got down to thinking.

His line should hold. That was an indisputable fact at this point. Jake had got to the point his line was holding up multiple tons, or close enough not to matter. The fish did not even weigh that much, so it was a pointless test.

It did remove a possibility, but it was never really one, to begin with. Jake was holding the other side of the fishing line; if the fish was yanking so hard on the line it was comparable to tons of tension, Jake would have at least felt something.

More likely have his pole ripped from his hands, but that’s semantics.

He never felt anything. More than that, every time Jake looked at the end of the line, it did not appear to have been snapped but rather cut.

Jake wasn't even able to cut his own line. He even asked Fluffy to use his wind blades, which was after Jake using his teeth, nails, sharp rocks, raw strength, and looping the braided line back onto itself to saw itself.

The last one did kind of work, it broke the outer shell, but the sap was too good at its job to allow Jake to make it all the way through. Only Fluffy's wind blades came as close as the line cutting itself, and that was a momentary scratch that appeared before vanishing.

All of that just went to show that the fish cutting the line was a bunch of bull.

His braided fishing line was comparable to a steel cable and could be used when people go fishing for great white sharks or towing semis.

Whatever the oversized rainbow trout was doing, it was related to Qi.

A type of fish that is uncommon to see one more than ten pounds in nature is now at a size it is comparable to an ATV. Someone must be crazy to imagine Qi being involved with such a creature, right?

If you think that, you probably still believe size doesn't matter. Who looks at a man and is amazed when he whips out a cute little two-incher? No one. It's all about that guy who's having trouble standing up straight as he cradles it in his arms.

That’s the type of fish people really get excited over.

Sure it's cute when a child catches a fish of any size, but there are expectations Jake, as a man, needs to uphold.

Jake had run out of ways to deal with the fish in a mundane physical manner.

He tried making a stronger line. It broke.

He tried giving more and taking in as much slack as possible as he was casting to see if anything changed. It didn’t.

The fish was still mocking him. Like an asshole.

It was time he started practicing controlling his Qi. As of now, Jake was little more than a firehose straying Qi on everything around him.

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The way Fluffy treated him made it clear he had raw power. No way someone with that type of personality would ride the coattails of anyone who did not have the raw power to force others to submit. And with him still being here, I would guess nothing in the area is comparable to my strength. Whatever it is.

Now all Jake needed to do was learn to use the power he already had.

The damn fish was using Qi to cut his line, so Jake would have to use Qi to stop it.

It was still aggravating for Jake, though. He spent what felt like months, not that he had an accurate way of knowing, given the fake sun does not move!

Ignoring that, it would be a week and a half if Jake went by how much he slept. But, again, Jake had no way of knowing this; it felt longer. He thought he was staying awake longer and not sleeping as much now that he was no longer malnourished.

He could ask Fluffy, but that would mean talking to him, and Jake would rather live in ignorance.

It didn't really matter anyway.

Time was one thing he was fine with burning. He had plenty of it. That did not mean he enjoyed having all of his wasted time rubbed in his face.

No one liked their wasted effort. It made them look stupid. Incompetent, at the least.

Even if it was true they are incompetent, actually, especially if it was true, rubbing their face in it was never a smart idea.

Jake might have spent almost two weeks trying to make a fishing line able to catch a monster fish, which ended in utter failure. And deep down, he did feel like a fucking idiot for spending all this time and effort just to catch a fish.

But this fish was going to learn the hard way, not to fuck with Jake.

Sure, making the super braided fishing line was fun, and it taught him a lot as he experimented with Qi. The thing was, he could have stopped with the other line he had that was basically a shrunken vine with a strength enchantment.

When he first made that line, it had been the best fishing line Jake had ever used. He had never gotten into deep sea fishing, so he never used the really heavy-duty stuff.

Now that it had been more than a week since he made it, Jake was learning an important fact.

His enchantments broke down.

The line was so brittle it was now prone to snapping when bent and couldn't take shit in the way of tension. When Jake tentatively put one end in the water, it disintegrated.

Jake did reenchant the vine line, but the effects were not nearly as good. He could not put a quarter of the same Qi as before, and the overall effect was less.

Any of those problems pretty much defeats the purpose of using the line for anything, but that was not the point.

The point is that Jake would be in the same place even if he stayed with the crap line.

Neither one worked, and he still had to learn how to actively use Qi to enhance an object instead of throwing a bunch of Qi into something and hoping it becomes stronger.

If Jake was going to learn how to do something, he was going to learn how to do it right.

It might not be as fun in the act for Jake, but there is no victory so sweet as the one that takes all your skill after years of effort and comes at the border of victory and defeat.

So what did Jake have to do? Well, that was simple. This whole time, Jake had been pushing a bunch of Qi outward or into something with some intent and then letting it go.

Calling Jake a muscle head would be accurate.

Now Jake had to learn how to extend a strand of Qi outside of his body while keeping control of it. He will have a guide that will offer some support, i.e., the shit vine fishing line.

If Jake is going to catch the thing, he is damn well going to make it an achievement.

All Jake has to do is extend his Qi in a thin layer down the shit fishing line to protect it while reinforcing the internal strength of the shit fishing line so it won't fall apart, but not reinforcing it to the point that it would interfere with its ability to bend. He will also need to keep his rod functioning correctly to reel in the fish that can bite through steel cable. Easy.

"Shit... This is gonna suck..." Jake groaned.

**********

White Flash, more recently known as Fluffy, stalked through the grass, watching his Lord.

Another miracle was playing out before him. "He doesn't even know what he is doing." Hissed Fluffy.

The vary pulsed of the land beat with his Master’s heart, and all the Qi of heaven and earth bent to his wishes.

All spirit beasts have knowledge of the world and how it works. That knowledge comes from three, but really two, sources.

The first, and the one that does not matter, is their own experiences. Not all, or even most, spirit beasts are born. Most are normal animals that encounter an opportunity to absorb a large amount of some type of Qi and attain awareness.

For those who achieve sentients, their memories of before are sporadic and covered in a haze, with hunger or fear being the dominant driving force. While the ones born are just like any infant and must learn as they progress through the world.

The second source of knowledge, which most spirit beasts rely on in their interactions with others, is the knowledge The Heavens grants to all spirit beasts who attain sentience and progress along their cultivation path. Although one could gain more heaven-granted knowledge if they achieve significant Achievements or gain Authority, but those are so rare as to not be worth mentioning.

A spirit beast will know how to progress through whatever cultivation rank they are at with the heaven-granted knowledge. This does not mean they know all the forks and dead ends along the path. It only means they know what needs to happen in order to reach the end and what to do once there. How or if they get there is up to the individual.

More than that, they are instilled with the knowledge of speech, what different races there are, a basic understanding of how Qi works, and how the different races use Qi. Along with thousands of other pieces of information so they can move into, or develop, a society with relative ease.

Ancestral memory, or a heritage, is the last of the three forms of instinctual knowledge, but there are several ways to attain this knowledge.

The most common way to gain this knowledge is by a parent instilling the knowledge into an infant while it is still in the womb or recently born. The problem is that the extent of this knowledge is wholly dependent on the giver. If there is no giver or the giver have little to no knowledge, it is useless.

A less frequent way is when an old codger decides to pass along knowledge without the recipient being a direct descendent, either indirectly with an inheritance trial or directly in some chance in counter. The knowledge given will never be as in-depth or extensive as what a parent would offer their child but will hold concepts and understanding that would take decades, if ever, to learn on one's own. Regardless, the recipients are usually always appreciative, and the elder is content with a potential future powerhouse owing them a favor.

The last way to attain Ancestral memories is impossible to rely on and can actually be dangerous, but it is still frequently used by most spirit beasts who have no other path to power and survival. As a spirit beast grows in power, it develops certain aspects for itself. Those aspects develop into traits for the developing subspecies, like a wind-wolf being lithe, dexterous, and having fur that seems to float around, catching one random nonexistent breeze after another before becoming razor-sharp blades.

Those traits can be passed down from one generation to the next becoming more and less apparent based on the purity of the individual beast's bloodline. A spirit beast can access whatever distant heritages they have in its lineage and alter its form and cultivation to better suit that lineage to varying degrees.

And that's the problem, heritages, as in more than one. If one has multiple weak bloodlines, it would be near impossible for a spirit beast to distinguish what traits are from different heritages. More than that, if a spirit beast does not commit to its chosen heritage, by either accident or intent, it will not be able to attain the necessary knowledge innate to their bloodline to continue along the heritage's path. This makes many spirit beasts stall out in their cultivation as one mistake halts their ability to progress without irreparable damage to themselves.

For example, before a wolf-wolf became a wind-wolf, it had to at least have the potential to become one, regardless of whether it found the necessary wind Qi to become a wind-wolf or not.

If the wolf did not have the heritage, at best, the wind Qi would corrupt whatever core the wolf was trying to make. At worst, the wolf would have become a monstrosity—a spirit beast that loses all rationale and only desires to feed and will ravage everything around it in its need to sate that hunger.

Somewhere in the distant past, there was a wind-wolf in the wolf's lineage. While little to none of the ancestral memory would remain, there is enough instinct and potential left to make it a possibility it would be able to make the transition.

After the initial step of integrating whatever treasure or herb contained the wind Qi, the wolf would then gradually alter their body by consuming more natural herbs and treasures or by spending time in an area saturated in wind Qi.

As the wind-wolf becomes closer to its ancestral ideal, the more knowledge of the possible ways to advance will become available.

The thing is, the farther they are from the heritage—the weaker their bloodline—the longer it takes for them to advance any step along their cultivation path compared to those with a purer bloodline.

With their fractured ancestral memory, which could be from a single ancestor or half a dozen, they could adopt traits that come from opposing lineages without knowing, which would more often than not lead to a dead end in their cultivation.

The possibility exists that it could form an even better path, but it would be like glancing at a theoretical physics math problem and guessing the correct answer. At the low level of basic math, instinct might work more often than not, but once you pass a certain point, you need to know what you are doing if you are going to get anything right.

Most would think that this would mean the majority of spirit beasts with a weak to nonexistent bloodline would try and make their own path, but they would be wrong.

Nature does not abide weakness. Either you are strong enough to survive, or you're not.

So a path with guaranteed power and a decent chance to survive but comes with the drawback of plateauing out at some point sounds pretty good. At least you're alive, and any children you have won't make the same mistakes.

It's a hard path knowing you will never amount to much, but it's a path most spirit beasts decide to take. I never will. I will make my own path. Thought Fluffy with resolve.

What usually happens is the spirit beast would end up having offspring, and some of those offspring would jump forward on the ideal ancestral path, surpassing their sire before they also get stuck.

That pattern repeats until a spirit beast reaches the cultivation limit the area can support.

It comes down to a numbers game. Pump out enough generations, eventually, something will get it right.

There are only so many resources available, and everyone wants them, so unless one's strength is unquestioned, strife and struggle should be constant and expected.

More to the point of this long rambling explanation, spirit beasts have a certain level of understanding of the world when they are born and grow in power.

This is to say that Fluffy knew more about Qi and its interaction with the world than Master did. This was not a surprise. Looking at the amount of conscious time they both spent interacting with Qi, the rabbit far outstrips Master. Discarding the heaven-granted knowledge, Fluffy had more practical experience.

So Fluffy felt justified in saying Master was breaking the rules.

It was not the infusing of Qi into an object. Any cultivator could do that to some extent and skill. It was the way the Qi around and used by Master acted. It was not behaving how it should be around a human of his level.

As soon as Master expended Qi, ambient Qi rushed into his body to top him off. It was reasonable to some extent, given this was Master’s land, but it went too far.

Master wasn't reaching out with his Qi pulling the ambient Qi into himself. He was not circulating his inner Qi in a specific pattern to draw in Qi as he breathed. He was not forcing his will on the world to pull the surrounding Qi into his body.

The world was bending itself to please Master without him even knowing. That does not happen.

Existence does not bend to an individual, no matter how strong that individual is. Reality was, and creatures evolved and strove against nature to carve out a home, or they lived within nature and hoped for the best.

More than that, Master was using ambient Qi.

Using ambient Qi in one's techniques was far from unique. If one went far enough down their cultivation path, everyone learns it to one degree or another.

The ability to do it usually happens after one steps into the Nascent Soul realm. Some can do it before in Core Formation, but it is like a kit fumbling around in the dark. The reason why Core Formation experts are not Nascent Soul experts is that they have yet to expend their soul outside of their body, creating a domain and gaining the ability to exert their will on the world, as in, using ambient Qi at their leisure. There are other requirements, but that is the main one.

Every time Master enchants something, only about half the Qi that goes into the enchantment is actually his. As Master feeds Qi into a material, Master’s Qi pulls an equal amount of ambient Qi into the material.

It seems to happen without the Master even being aware. If he had a domain around him, it would make a little sense, though it would still leave the question of why a Core Formation expert had a domain, but Fluffy got close several times and felt no domain.

Think of a fifty-pound weight sitting on your chest. Move that pressure to your whole body, and it would be close enough to the feeling of being within another person's domain. It was not something a person missed.

Not that Fluffy would personally know, he was still in the Essence Gathering realm. He had come far as he moved his way up the different cultivation realms.

Like most spirit beasts, Fluffy does not remember his first steps into cultivation—the same steps everyone takes—at the Body Foundation realm. He was little more than an average rabbit at that point.

Fluffy does remember a few flashes of clarity while he was in the Qi Condensation realm, though it was not until he was in the Foundation Establishment realm that he became fully aware.

Since that time a few decades ago, he had been able to push himself through the three sub realms every cultivation level has and make it one major realm higher, stepping paw into the Essence Gathering realm. At which point, he was able to take his proper place at the top of the power ladder within the dome.

One of the first things any creature walking the path of power and struggle learns, if they are going to survive, is how to judge the strength of another based on the aura they give off. Some can hide or fake their aura, but it matters little if they lack raw power.

So long as a being is not one major realm above another, a person's perception can accurately judge the other's strength. If they are a major realm higher, all one will get is a feeling of overwhelming danger.

With that sense, Fluffy knew, for a fact, that few were his equal within the dome and none his superior. At least until the Master exited his seclusion.

Every now and then, there is a heaven's chosen, those that are the elite of the elites, and they can fight on equal footing with those in a higher realm without being squashed like the bugs they should be.

Fluffy was not one of them. He thought he was when he first felt Master's aura but was proved wrong. I tested myself against Master and lost. Badly. Though Master is definitely a heaven's chosen. If he's not, then who is? Yeah, I'm still one of the best. I’m just not a monster like Master. So I actually might be a chosen in that case...

Regardless of anything else Master is, he is a freak. Calling him a genius is a given. Can’t achieve what he has and not be named one. But there is the ridiculous speed he is able to learn and discover new tricks as he teaches himself to enchant, and there is him creating a living weapon out of garbage.

What Fluffy knew about enchanting, besides what he learned from watching Master, was that it was similar to reinforcing and enhancing, and it was hard to master and learn while usually requiring Runes.

Ask Fluffy about enhancing, and he could go on and on about how it was an active controlled use of Qi. It was when someone took Qi and formed it around and/or within something enhancing it. It could coat claws forming a sharper edge, suffuse the body giving more speed and strength, and permeate one's fur, making it more resilient to blows. It is not like a projection of Qi that leaves the body completely, although they are related.

What spirit beast worth its name has not used a lump of Qi to passively reinforce the walls of its burrow? Or strengthened the ground so they could push off at top speed without cracking the earth?

Enchanting though? Spirit beasts have little to no use for it other than knowing it exists, so they can be wary of a human's weapons. Why invest in something that can be taken at any time?

Fluffy is not, and will never be, an expert on enchanting. That does not mean he can't spot fox-crap when it's in front of him.

Fluffy tried enchanting a stick like Master does as a test. He ended up on his side, nearly passed out from the strain. That was after completely failing a few dozen times.

That time though, he finally succeeded. It was a weak enchantment of strength, and it only lasted minutes before it unraveled while taking up nine-tenths of his Qi, but it worked.

Then he tried to make one of the compound enchantments, as his Master calls them, which includes infusing your Qi with two or more simultaneous intents.

Fluffy passed out after a second and woke up in a puddle of his own blood with a splitting headache.

The rabbit is special. He is one of the strongest spirit beasts in the whole dome and is creating his own cultivation path.

Fluffy is a genius.

There is no getting around or denying that.

He is also not whatever fox-shit his Master is. There is no shame in serving the strongest. At least then you're not being stomped under their feet.

Having finished making his living weapon, it was a living weapon no matter what Master called it. A weapon Fluffy was willing to bet his life flew in the face of all reason when it came to enchanting.

His Master was doing something weird again.

It was some cross between enchanting, enhancing, and reinforcing.

He was taking the first fishing line he made, and he was attempting to send Qi down the line to encase it in a shell while also strengthening and making the line more flexible. Or that was what Fluffy interpreted from the muttering and cursing.

Except his Qi was not acting…normal. Cause nothing about him was…normal.

Every time his strand of Qi snapped, or he lost control while it was around the vine line, his Qi wouldn't dissipate like normal Qi. Instead of vanishing or being pushed out of the line as he sent another strand of Qi down the fishing line, the Qi was integrating itself into the vine.

It was not much, but time after time, the strands were coiling and wrapping around each other, becoming what was essentially a multi-layered enchantment on the line.

But it wasn't. A spontaneous enchantment would be too normal for Master.

He was trying to perform an active enhancement of the line to make it stronger. It would result in Master pitting his will and Qi against the fish’s. Ok, that makes sense.

For whatever reason, instead of rapidly dissipating into the air once control was lost, Master's Qi was latching onto the vine and reinforcing it. It was not enchanting—though the effects were the same, if on a far smaller scale—but reinforcing, where infused Qi has a chance to integrate and fundamentally alter what it’s infusing if given enough time.

Except this was happening in real time, not the decades or centuries it should take for a Qi reinforcement to alter a substance. Each insignificant, when taken in isolation, pseudo enchantment Master was making on the vine was integrating itself into the vine's natural Qi and structure, fundamentally changing the vine as it expanded its innate level of Qi.

The individually worthless strands were twisting together, forming a steel cord, altering a trash material into a high-level natural treasure. He’s actually making his own natural treasure... Fluffy thought in wonder.

Master was performing a process in minutes and hours that should take centuries, if not millennia, while practicing his Qi control. Because something so absurd is completely possible and common within the knowledge given to Fluffy. By. The. UNIVERSE!

No! It's the exact opposite!

No one. No. One. Make's natural treasures. Some low-level spirit herbs and treasures can be cultivated, but people have two choices that are really one for the real natural treasures. They find a natural treasure and take it, or they find what will soon become a natural treasure and wait to take it.

What little Fluffy knows on the subject screams that what he is seeing flies in the face of how Qi is supposed to function.

The absurdities his Master is performing are long past the point Fluffy has to perform small tests just to make sure the knowledge implanted in him by the UNIVERSE is accurate.

So far, they have all been correct, but a seed of doubt remains.

Everything he knows is correct.

For him. Fluffy.

Not for Master.

Why?

Why the hell is Master able to do something the UNIVERSE said was impossible, and what is the price for that ability? Everything has a price, especially power.

"Fluffy! Get off your ass and bring me some food!" Master bellowed.

"Yes, Master!"

Scampering off with its nose wrinkling in anticipation, Fluffy thought, hope Master gets more subordinates soon, it's so tiring being at the bottom of the hierarchy.