One year. Huabe had been living in this world for a whole year. In that time, she had continued to gather Qi, as any good cultivator would. But, she had a problem.
It was full. The strange space near her spine was packed full of Qi. Turning the rings did nothing. No new Qi was to be had. Looking in on the space, all she could see was a giant ball of light that took up almost all of the available room, slightly ricocheting off the fuzzy walls.
But, this could also be seen as some good progress in her understanding. Now it was obvious that cultivating was not just collecting Qi. After all, she was blocked from continuing to collect more Qi. And as far as she could tell, she was not immortal. But that also meant assuming that a cultivator was stopped from collecting Qi if they reached immortality. This could have well been the end of a cultivator's journey, not attaining immortality, but just a bit of Qi.
That last option Huabe refused to believe. There was no way this was the highest level achievable. But for now, she was stumped. With no obvious way to proceed, she did the only thing she could do with her Qi to use it.
It was wormhole time!
Huabe pushed, and the wormhole opened. Wisps of light were sucked off of the large ball and shot through the hole. She felt an impact in her throat, similar to before. The wisps of Qi light returned, slightly reduced in size.
She used her will and spun the rings, replenishing the lost Qi.
In this way, months passed. She would send out her Qi and then replenish it, over and over again. As this process continued, she began to notice something a tad strange. The impacts she could feel were moving slightly each time, seemingly making their way up and into her mouth.
This was of slight concern to Huabe, remembering how that little Psycho monster had entered through her mouth. But, she had no other ideas of how to progress, so she soldiered on.
.–...–.
One year and ten months.
Huabe sat at the base of the colour-changing tree, eyes closed and waiting. Soon enough, the stupid gecko spirit wandered close, its noodle neck craning to look up at her. The spirit slowly edged closer, inching its way towards her mouth.
But before the spirit could get close enough to have a look inside her mouth, Huabe opened her eyes and blew. Her breath impacted the gecko spirit like a freight train and sent it flying backwards. The spirit quickly regained its bearings and scrambled up the tree into the branches above.
“Ha! Take that, stupid!” Huabe stuck her tongue out at the branches above her.
“Yay! Let’s go Bay, let's go!” Tiaosu was excitable as ever.
“I don't know Bay, it seems a bit cruel.” Then Duanso had to go and poop on her parade.
“Pfft, are you serious, Duan? Osu liked it. Back me up here Tye.” Huabe turned to her third brother. Only to find that he was sound asleep!
“Damn it, Tye. Wake up lazy bones!” Huabe grabbed Yantye’s shoulders and gave him a shake.
Yantye opened one of his eyes and looked around in confusion. “What's happening?”
Huabe leaned close and whispered, “Say that, that jerk gecko deserved it.” She leaned back and gave Yantye two thumbs up.
For his part, Yantye just looked around with furrowed brows. “That jerk gecko deserved it?”
Huabe raised her arms. “See? Tye agrees with me.”
Duanso crossed his arm. “You told him to say that.”
“Wah? Me? No way, I would never!... Ok, fine, I did. But it is true nonetheless!”
“Kids! It’s dinnertime!” Wenku appeared in the doorway leading into the grassy courtyard. He left the door open and retreated inside.
Yantye opened both of his eyes. The four siblings all exchanged looks at one another. Then they all began to run, making a beeline for the open door. Tiaosu was in the lead, but that wasn't to last as Duanso tackled his legs from behind.
Now Huabe was in the lead. “Yes!” Then she felt a heavy weight land on her back. “No!” Yantye scrambled back up from the tackle and tried to make a run for it, but Huabe made a grab for his feet and tripped him. She then launched herself forwards, using her brother as a springboard.
Looking back, she saw that Tiaosu somehow managed to wiggle out of Dunaso’s grip and begin to run, quickly gaining ground on her. Before he could pass her, Huabe lunged at Tiaosu, hoping to catch him. But he skillfully dodged the grab and continued on.
“Not again!” Huabe pounded her little fist against the ground in frustration as Tiaosu crossed the door threshold first. He looked back at all of them lying on the ground and laughed while holding one arm in the air in victory.
“How did he slip out from under you, Duan?” Huabe looked at her brother in exasperation.
“Wah? Like you could do any better!”
Huabe opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. “Fine! I guess your right. Next time we will all gang up on him, right?”
Duanso and Yantye both averted their eyes. “Sure sure.” “Of course.”
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“Well, there's always second place!” She shot to her feet and made a break for the doorway before her two brothers could catch her. “Yeah! Second place for the win!”
…
“So, how was everybody's day today?” Wenku asked.
“Good!”, “Great!”, “Fantastic!”, “Fine.”.
“Oh? Just fine Yantye? Did something happen?” Wenku halted his cutting motion to look up at Yantye.
Yantye just shrugged his shoulders. “Fine is good.”
“Oh, well all right then.”
Dinner continued on with just normal conversation, such as what the food was, adventures in the yard, and the increased attacks along the border. Just normal conversation topics for children.
“Father, who is attacking the border this time?” Huabe would say that she had a mild interest. The rest of her siblings found it super boring.
“Well, it seems the Kiajua kingdom is testing the borders again. But that is more of a problem for the capital. Our city won’t be that affected, perhaps just a slight bump in taxes.”
<... Ok, that got boring fast, jeez.>
Yantye nudged Huabe with his foot. She looked at her brother and saw him nod his head. She looked around and saw two more head nods.
“Father, I have been meaning to ask you a couple of things.”
Wenku looked at her. “What would that be dear?”
“Well. It has to do with cultivation.”
The room was silent. Wenku slowly put down his utensils and interlaced his fingers in front of his mouth.
“I suppose I can't keep it from you any longer. I assume the rest of you would like to hear about this as well?”
Three positive replies were the answer.
“Hmm. Well, I suppose it’s pretty obvious that you are different from other children.”
Wasn't that the understatement of the year? During her time in this world, she had seen other children. She never really got close to any of them, but it did confirm that she and her brothers were weird. All the other kids? Just normal-looking humans. She had also discovered through a bit of pain that her blood was super black. Like, ink black, not just dark red. All the other characteristics could be written off as primarily cosmetic, but the blood? That was weird.
“Umm, are we descendants of Ulth, or something?” Duanso questioned.
“Hmm? No, you are not descendants of Ulth. And as far as I can tell, you all are not a descendant of anyone, as you do not have any visible blessings as far as I can tell.”
Huabe was a tad confused. “What is a blessing? And why do only descendants have them? Also, is Ulth not the only whatever descendant thingy?”
Wenku tapped his chin with his forefinger. “Well, a blessing is something that sets you apart from normal humans. It is an advantage, usually something that makes a person stronger. As for what a descendant is, I am not totally clear on that. I am not well versed in cultivation matters, being a mortal myself. But there are different kinds of descendants, one of them being Ulth.”
“Then why do we look like this?” Yantye had a supremely confused frown on his face.
Wenku took a moment to stare at each one of them. “I don't know.”
“Come one! Ugh.” Tiaosu flopped down on the table with a fed-up grunt.
“Just wait! My goodness. I do know that it has something to do with cultivation, after all, I can't think of any other reason. Also, I should mention that your mother was a cultivator, specifically a martial cultivator. You may not remember, but you were all hatched from eggs, which is an ability that martial cultivators have.”
“Do normal people not hatch from eggs?” Tiaosu looked up from the table.
“If they don't hatch from eggs, how do they hatch, father?” Duanso looked at his father.
Wenku stared at his plate for a moment. “Moving on.”
“Since your mother was a cultivator, you all have talent. So if you choose, you might be able to become cultivators. As you may know from the stories, a person is able to capture a spirit to become a spiritual cultivator. You may also swallow a beast egg to become a martial cultivator. But there is no way I am letting any of you do that. It is much too dangerous.”
“Wait, is that why we never eat eggs?” Huabe always wondered why she had never eaten scrambled eggs or an omelet since coming here.
“Eat eggs!? What made you think of that? That’s a good way to get yourself killed. Many fools venture out in search of an egg to swallow when they can’t capture a spirit, and hardly any of them come back. But to just eat eggs, plural, as in for a meal! It's insanity!”
“Alright, alright, I get it.”
“Good. So are we all clear that you all will not go out and try to become a martial cultivator?”
“Yes.” “Ok.” “Fine.”
“What if we are already a cultivator?” She may have found a loophole.
“Hmm… No.”
Or not. “What? Why not?”
“It's too dangerous. You could get killed.”
Huabe arched an eyebrow. “What if I prove I’m strong enough?”
Wenku scrunched his brows for a minute and then sighed. “I suppose I could get the fringe minister to test if you are strong enough. But there will be no going out until you are at least 15. Understood?”
“Fah! Fine.” Huabe sat back in her chair, smiling.
“Bay, did you capture a spirit and not tell us?” Duanso questioned her.
“Uhh, well. Not exactly.” Huabe stuck her food with a fork and looked away from her brothers.
“You totally captured a spirit.” Yantye shook his head like he was sure of it.
“Oh, cool! Let me see it!” Tiaosu locked eyes with Huabe and started vibrating in his seat with excitement.
“It's not a spirit, I think.”
“Oh.” Wenku looked at her. “You have noticed that thing inside you?”
“Well yeah.”
“Yes. I do not know what that is. To my knowledge, spirits do not willingly bond to a person. That was a strange thing that happened that day. You probably don't remember since you were a baby. I honestly just wanted to throw it away, but then it opened its eyes. Those eyes were exactly the same as yours, like a blotch of ink on a white canvas. And I got a feeling from those eyes, that they meant no harm. It was a strange experience, to say the least.”
“Soo, can I see it?”
“Jeez Osu, I can't just whip it out for all to see!”
“Why not?”
“I don't know how!”
Tiaosu's face fell from excitement to despair in a second.
“Although, there is this one cool thing I can do. I can use Qi!”
There were “Ooh”s from all of her siblings, and Wenku looked at her with curiosity.
“Watch this!” Huabe began the process of pushing the Qi out, which had almost become second nature at this point. The wormhole opened and the Qi shot through the tunnel from the bottom of her neck all the way to her tongue.
But then, something happened. Instead of the Qi bouncing back into her space, the Qi continued through the tongue. Her tongue involuntarily twisted into a shape that no human tongue should be able to make. The Qi left the tongue, but no expected flash of bright Qi light occurred. Instead, the Qi transformed into something.
The effects of this something were immediately obvious. It seemed like everybody around her fell out of sync. Cutlery was dropped, knees hit the table, and people tried to breathe in and out at once.
Then the effect was gone. Instead, there was an absolutely horrid taste in her mouth that coated her tongue. It was beyond an explanation of how bad it tasted. And soon enough the smell of it wafted out, and she smelt it. It was just as bad, if not worse if that was even possible.
Her family must have smelt as well, as they all began retching. Huabe herself was furiously spitting and retching as well. She spat out some kind of grainy black goo onto her plate, and it was immediately obvious that was the cause as the smell got even worse.
Finally, she couldn't stand the taste anymore and yarfed onto the floor. Then she fell off her chair and landed in the foul-smelling vomit and yarfed once more.
It seemed that her yarfing was the go signal because the dry-heaving around her soon turned wet with vomit.