Jiang moved through the trees, breath steady as his boots crunched over frozen earth. The Qingyun mountains loomed closer now, rising in the distance, jagged peaks half-shrouded in cloud. The cold bit deep, sharper at this altitude, but he barely noticed. His body had long since adapted to the steady exertion of travel, muscles hardened from days of pushing forward with little rest.

  More than that—he could feel it now.

  Not just the ache in his legs, not just the pull in his shoulders from the bow slung across his back, but something else. Something deeper. A presence thrumming beneath his skin, slow and faint, like a pulse he had never noticed before. His Qi.

  It had started a few days ago. A strange awareness, surfacing in fleeting moments whenever he moved—whenever he ran, climbed, adjusted his balance. It was different from when he meditated. There, his Qi was sluggish, resisting his grasp, something to be coaxed into motion. But when he was moving, it wasn’t sluggish at all. It flowed, subtle but present, drifting through his limbs like an unseen current.

  He just couldn’t touch it.

  Elder Lu had said that manipulating Qi should be easier while at rest, and that had proven true enough – it was just sensing that was easier while he moved. Or maybe it wasn’t based on movement at all, just that he found it easier to slip into a state of focus while moving through the woods. It made a kind of sense, really – he’d spent years hunting, a task requiring focus and patience in abundance.

  Whatever the reason for his improvement, the important thing was that he could guide his Qi now, shifting it through his body in slow, careful cycles. He had even started drawing in ambient Qi, absorbing it into his own.

  It was… difficult, to say the least. The process required more control than he currently had, but it was happening. Only a tiny fraction of what he managed to draw in actually stayed in his dantian, and even that much seemed to drain away as soon as he lost focus. He could see why it would take years without using something as a shortcut.

  Either way, he was improving. That was what mattered.

  He reached the crest of a small ridge and slowed. Below, the land dipped into a narrow valley, the winding path ahead barely visible between clusters of pine and frostbitten underbrush. A good place to stop for the night.

  Jiang picked his way down, scanning for tracks as he went. No signs of anything large, just the faint, scattered prints of small game. He would need to set traps before nightfall—he still had some meat left over from a rabbit he’d brought down yesterday, but it wouldn’t last forever.

  By the time he reached the valley floor, the sun had dipped lower, casting long shadows through the trees. He found a clearing tucked between a thick cluster of rocks and set his pack down. First, the traps. Then, the fire.

  Then, training.

  — — —

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  The world narrowed. The flicker of firelight, the distant rustle of wind through the trees, even the quiet, steady rhythm of his own breath all faded away.

  Manipulating his own Qi felt… weird.

  He couldn’t really explain the sensations properly. It was vaguely similar to the swooping feeling he’d got when he was younger and used to jump out of trees into piles of leaves in autumn. Like he was soaring, like his stomach was in his throat – but not in a bad way. It was like a warm drink on a cold winter night, like his mother hugging him tightly. It was the crispness of the air, the kiss of snow on his face as he hunted. It was the crackle of fire, the static in the air that heralded an encroaching storm.

  It was all of that and more, all at once.

  It scared him and delighted him, and every time he touched it felt like standing on thin ice above freezing waters.

  He almost wanted to fall.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  — — —

  Jiang moved through the thinning trees, boots crunching over frost-hardened ground. Days had passed, each blending into the next—running, hunting, training, pressing forward toward the Qingyun mountains. His Qi was growing steadier and easier to grasp, no longer slipping away the moment his focus wavered. He still wasn’t close to igniting his dantian, but the progress was real. Tangible.

  He adjusted the bow slung across his back, shifting his weight to descend a shallow incline. A thin stream trickled through the rocks below, its surface crusted with ice. He knelt, cupped a handful of water, and drank. The cold bit into his fingers, numbing them instantly, but he barely noticed. He wiped his hands on his cloak and stood.

  Movement flickered at the edge of his vision. A cluster of dark shapes against the pale sky, wheeling in slow, deliberate circles. Ravens.

  Jiang frowned, following their arc. They were distant, further west, away from his route toward the mountains.

  Something dead?

  Ravens weren’t uncommon, but they rarely gathered like that unless something had drawn them in—carrion, most likely. If it was a fresh kill, maybe he could scavenge something from it. Even if it wasn’t, ravens tended to avoid most predators, and he’d made decent enough time – he could afford to check it out.

  Jiang exhaled through his nose and changed course.

  The trek was slow, the terrain rougher than he’d expected. The land sloped unevenly, patches of bramble and ice-slicked stone breaking up the forest floor. He moved carefully, mindful of his footing. The air grew colder as he climbed, the wind picking up, stirring through the trees in low, whistling currents. The ravens still circled ahead, a shifting black spiral against the grey sky.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He crested a small rise, and stilled.

  The ground sloped downward into a shallow clearing, the earth disturbed as if something had struck it with force. At the centre of the disturbance, jutting out of the dirt at an angle, was a feather.

  Jiang stared at it, something instinctive and wary curling in his gut. This clearly wasn’t from any bird he knew of. It was massive, almost as tall as he was. Black as night, slick like polished obsidian. Even from a distance, he could feel it—a presence, a weight in the air that pressed against his skin.

  Qi.

  What was he looking at?

  The idea of a spirit beast losing something like this didn’t sit right with him. Would something powerful enough to shed a feather this large even notice it was missing? And if it had been wounded in a fight, where was the blood? The signs of a struggle? The ground was disturbed, but it didn’t look like anything had crashed into it. No broken branches, no torn-up trees. Just the feather, half-buried in the dirt.

  Which raised another question: Was it even a feather at all?

  It looked like one. Felt like one. But Elder Lu had mentioned that natural treasures came in all forms. The idea of one taking the shape of a feather wasn’t any stranger than a fruit or a root or a rare type of stone.

  Jiang glanced at the sky, at the swirling black shapes above, the ones that he had followed in the first place. The ravens were oddly, ominously silent. They made no sound save for the fluttering of wings.

  Were they here because of the feather? Or was the feather here because of them?

  Jiang frowned. The latter didn’t make much sense. He’d never heard of natural treasures appearing because of birds, but he wasn’t precisely well-informed on the subject. Maybe the Qi in the feather was attracting them somehow. Or maybe they were just birds, scavengers waiting for something to die.

  His gaze drifted back to the feather.

  The Qi inside it felt strong. Stronger than the elixir. That much, at least, he could tell. But was it useful?

  Elder Lu had barely touched on the topic of natural treasures, only mentioning their existence in passing. He hadn’t said anything about spirit beast parts aside from their cores. Was this something he could use? Or would he be wasting his time?

  Jiang exhaled through his nose. The answer didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that he wasn’t making enough progress.

  The elixir should have been enough. Elder Lu had said that once his Qi cycling reached a certain level, drinking it would ignite his dantian and push him into the first stage of Qi Condensation. But Jiang wasn’t sure he’d get there in time. He was improving, but not fast enough. The cycling was still too inconsistent. Too inefficient.

  Jiang shifted his weight, jaw tightening. The Qi inside the feather felt overwhelming, but that was the point. If it really was a natural treasure, then it would have more Qi than he needed, enough to make up for his lack of control. He wouldn’t have to be perfect. Just close enough.

  And if it failed?

  Jiang’s fingers twitched.

  If it failed, he still had the elixir. But Elder Lu had warned him—using a natural treasure was harder on the body. It was why the elixir was the safer option. If he was going to do this, he needed to do it now, while he still had time to recover in case something went wrong.

  This was a risk. A big one. But it was also an opportunity.

  Jiang exhaled.

  He’d never been very good at taking things slow anyway.

  — — —

  Jiang wasn’t totally reckless. Before trying to absorb the Qi from this massive feather, he figured it would probably be a smart idea to set up a little camp. Chances were that even if everything went perfectly, he wouldn’t be in a condition to set it up later.

  He shrugged his pack off, letting it drop beside him, and started gathering wood. The clearing wasn’t the best place to camp - far too exposed - but he didn’t want to drag the feather anywhere. If it was sensitive to movement, he didn’t want to disturb whatever Qi was inside it before he could absorb it.

  A fire crackled to life soon enough, thin smoke curling into the sky. Jiang sat back on his heels, watching the flames flicker.

  Then he turned his attention back to the feather.

  The Qi inside it pulsed. Not chaotically, not wild or uncontrolled, but steady. Heavy. It reminded him of storm clouds before a downpour, thick with tension, pressing down on his skin. Even though he wasn’t touching it, he could feel it pressing against his own Qi, like a tide lapping at the edges of his awareness.

  The ravens had settled around the clearing, perching in the bare branches, dotting the trees like shadows. Silent observers.

  Jiang ignored them.

  Elder Lu had said there were three ways to use natural treasures – consuming it, refining it, or simply meditating near it. Even if this thing wasn’t actually a natural treasure, he figured there had to be some overlap.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled, settling into a cross-legged position. He rested his hands on his knees, shut his eyes, and reached with his burgeoning Qi senses.

  Nothing.

  Or rather—he could feel the Qi, but it didn’t respond. It wasn’t like drawing in ambient Qi, which moved sluggishly but at least followed his pull. The Qi inside the feather didn’t even acknowledge him. It was like trying to move a boulder with his bare hands. No give, no response.

  Jiang frowned, opening his eyes. That ruled out meditation. He had no idea what ‘refining’ a natural treasure would look like or entail, and had no way to find out, which left only one real option – consuming it.

  He looked at the feather again.

  It was massive. Tough-looking. The edges didn’t fray, the individual strands that made up the feather itself—whatever they were actually called—lay sleek and smooth, almost metallic. He reached out, pressing a hand against the surface.

  Solid. Cold.

  It flexed slightly under his touch but had no softness to it. It felt more like tempered steel than anything else. Jiang sighed through his nose. He wasn’t giving up that easily.

  He shifted, gripping the edge of one strand and pulling. It didn’t move at first, but with steady pressure, it started to peel away, separating with a dry, fibrous snap. He repeated the process, tugging loose a couple more and inspecting them closely.

  Thin but strong.

  He rolled one between his fingers, feeling its stiffness. No way he was swallowing this raw. It would slice him up from the inside. Still, some of his sisters earlier cooking experiments had taught him how to handle food with the consistency or texture of rocks.

  Boil the hell out of it.

  It rarely did much for the flavour, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Jiang tossed the strands into his metal canteen, half full of water from the last lot of snow he’d boiled yesterday, and set it over the fire.

  The ravens in the trees around him shifted, rustling, but made no other sound.

  Interestingly enough, as time passed and the water in his canteen started to boil, he could feel the Qi in the strand start to… fray. Not unravel, not disperse, but more like the edges were a little softer.

  He gave it another couple of minutes, just to be safe, then pulled the canteen from the fire and set it aside to let it cool a little. The strands had darkened in the water, edges curling slightly, but they hadn’t dissolved or broken apart.

  He ran a finger along one, testing its texture. Still firm, but pliable. Soft enough that he wasn’t worried about shredding his insides.

  Good enough.

  For all he knew, this was how people refined natural treasures—toss them in a pot, boil the hell out of them, and hope for the best. Probably not, but the thought almost made him chuckle.

  He looked down at the strand in his hands. The Qi inside was still there, thrumming faintly beneath his fingertips, though it felt weaker than before. The boiling had done something, but not enough to make it useless. He considered adding a few more strands, hedging his bets, but dismissed the idea just as quickly. This was already a gamble. Better to start small. If it wasn’t enough, there was still plenty of feather left. If it was too much…

  Jiang rolled his shoulders, exhaled, and before he could second-guess himself, picked up the strand and swallowed it whole.

  The world shattered.

  A force slammed into his chest like a hammer, an impact with no source, no warning. His breath seized, his body locked.

  Dimly, he was aware of the ravens. They had erupted into motion, wings beating, their once-silent vigil shattered by a chorus of raucous caws. It almost sounded like laughter.

  The sky twisted.

  His thoughts shattered.

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

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