Shen awoke in a bed inside the field’s clinic. She looked around to see if Danka was there, but only saw Li Tan, laying in the bed beside hers. Of course, Danka had won their match so he would still be at the competition.
“Hey, kid.” said Tan, looking over at her. “Congratulations on the victory. I wasn’t expecting you to be such a strong Mage.” She turned her head to look back at the ceiling. “I figured you were just a normal kid with maybe a few tricks. Your Chi purity seems to be way stronger than mine, though.”
Shen was surprised by the woman saying that. “Wait, you realized that?”
The woman smiled. “When you’ve fought as many people as me, you learn to feel the difference between purities. I may be a meathead, but I have been fighting since before you were born.”
Shen nodded. “Sorry about burning your lungs.” she said.
Tan shrugged, then winced from the pain as she was reminded of the fact that her external burns hadn’t been fully healed. “I inhaled instead of holding my breath. I should have realized what would happen, but sometimes when I get too caught up in battle, I forget about things like that. Call it an anger issue if you want.”
Shen nodded, and noticed she was a bit light headed when her head seemed to want to keep moving. She tried to figure out why that might be, but couldn’t seem to focus. “Any idea how bad my injuries were?” she asked after a few minutes.
“From what I heard the doctors saying, you had four broken ribs, internal bleeding, a concussion, and some minor skin lacerations. Are you finding it hard to focus right now?” Shen nodded, her head swimming again at the movement. “That’s because there is too much water chi in your brain. Earth and Metal were used to fix your bones, but soft tissue is better with Water techniques. Of course, Wood or the Life chi they can make from it is better, but they exhausted their Wood supply on me, and even used a bit of Water on my skin. The doctors are off meditating right now because of that.”
“Is there no fire healing?” Shen asked, trying to pull the Water residue from her brain, but feeling like she couldn’t grab onto it. Even her divine sense felt like it didn’t want to do what she told it to. She looked at Tan, but before Shen opened her mouth Tan smiled.
“Fire just accelerates natural healing and other bodily processes. Trying to remove the residue? Hard to do without being able to concentrate. You can try to put tiny bits of other elements in your brain to balance it out and get rid of the side effects, or you can just wait if you don’t want to risk it. Your dantian should absorb it all in thirty minutes or so, as coherent as you are.”
Shen nodded and started trying to think. She could put Fire in her brain, right? That would neutralize the water. She was about to do that when something inside of her told her not to try, so she sighed and closed her eyes, trying to sleep.
When she woke up Tan was missing from the bed beside her and she could focus again. “Ready to leave already?” a doctor said from across the room. The woman had probably been watching with her Divine Sense.
“Yeah, my friend is still fighting, and I want to see his match.”
The woman nodded and helped Shen up, then lead her in the opposite direction of the door. Shen was about to ask her why when the woman stopped at one of the beds Shen couldn’t see from her own. In it was Danka, staring at the ceiling. “Danka?” she asked. “What happened?”
“Oh, Shen,” he said with a giant smile on his face. “When did you get all pretty and shiny?” She blushed at his comment before realizing the he had just called her shiny.
“We had to use a lot of water chi to fix his brain, so he’ll take a few hours to return to normal.” the doctor said. “I’m actually watching the patients because I ran out and need to recharge.” The doctor held up her wrist and showed that she was wearing one of the Spirit Copper bracelets Shen had made to gather and purify chi. That model was altered a bit to refill the wearer first, then work on purity, so it should only take an hour or so for the woman’s chi to be refilled, though it would only be at about 11% purity, taking at least six hours to hit its maximum of around 23%. That was more than most people in the sect could gather on their own, but compared to what Shen or others that focused on purity could do it wasn’t pure enough.
“That should definitely help you refill, but if you can meditate on your chi, I can show you how to improve your purity. The bracelet only does 11%.”
The doctor nodded and smiled. “You are probably one of the few Inner Disciples that thinks 11% is low purity. Until a year ago, only the Elders and Master Xing could expect better purity than that, but now everyone can get that purity in their chi, especially if they have one of these bracelets.” Shen nodded, and the woman smiled again. “I take it that means you are the one that made the bracelets? Or for that matter, all of the nice relics that have been popping up over the last year?”
Shen shrugged. “Well, I wouldn’t say All of the relics. Some of the other relic crafters have made some useful items. I just developed those bracelets and the body cultivation jewelry, and have recently been working on weapons and storage rings. I also made some armor and a few utility items. Oh, and the practice fields, though someone else paints those now.”
“That is actually most of the new items, but I guess ‘most’ and ‘all’ aren’t the same thing.” The doctor said.
“Well, any technique can be turned into a formation, and any formation can be added to any item, you just have to match the items and the techniques up properly. Most of the items are also available in other sects and towns, so all I really did was bring them to this sect after the ban was lifted. That makes me more of a business woman than a skilled relic crafter.”
The doctor shook her head. “Trust me, I’ve been to other sect towns and mortal cities. Some of your things, like the bracelets and body cultivation rings, aren’t available there either.” Not wanting to continue receiving praise, Shen shrugged and the doctor sighed. “So you were going to teach me to purify the chi better?”
Shen nodded and they both sat down on the floor inside special arrays that would feed them ambient chi. They looked relatively new and Shen suspected that they had been painted by her coworkers. She had suggested that some of the businesses in the sect could benefit from the formations as well, but didn’t know that Master Chen had actually followed through on her suggestion.
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Once they had both started to meditate Shen extended her divine sense into the doctor’s dantian. Her reserves of Earth, Metal, and Fire chi were full, but she was only about half full of Water and Wood chi, which were also at the 11% purity of the bracelet.
Shen felt the woman twitch at the feeling of someone else touching her dantian and sent a branch of the divine sense into the woman’s brain so that she could more easily use Telepathy. “Sorry about startling you. I wanted to see what state your chi was in.” The woman seemed a bit surprised by the voice, so Shen quickly explained. “I’ve connected us telepathically.” She told the woman. “You only need to intend to tell me something and I’ll hear it. Don’t worry, I can’t hear any thought you don’t intend to say. I’m not deep enough, nor am I certain my skill would allow me to read those thoughts.”
“Like this?” the woman thought-said, Shen hearing her properly.
“Yes, that’s how you do it. Now, here is a modified technique for purifying chi.” She lead the woman through a modified version of the chi purification technique she had added to the bracelet. This one required greater concentration, but was more efficient with the chi, as it only removed the parts that were over-represented and replaced them with copies of parts that the other person knew about or that they detected in the outside source. By the time the doctor’s chi had refilled it was up to 18% purity, though with another hour she could probably get it up to 20 or so percent. One problem with the technique was that it quickly hit a limit with its purity, as you would need to be able to analyze all of the incoming chi for new patterns and concepts in order to make further improvement. The technique which used the natural incoming chi like the bracelet used may be wasteful, but it would automatically introduce new concepts at something close to the correct rate, thus allowing it to go further.
After the Doctor had refilled her reserves they got up. “Well, I’d better return to the fields.” the doctor thought, and Shen nodded, withdrawing her threads and ending her telepathy.
“No problem. I know other techniques that can let you reach much higher purity, but they waste a lot of chi so I decided not to use them here. If you want to learn them, though, I can teach you.”
“Okay, then. I’ll think about it.” the woman said, and Shen nodded. Danka was still acting intoxicated, so she left to go watch the match. Maybe she would see that mysterious guy there, and could learn more about him.
By the time Shen returned the other viewers were starting to leave. Someone that Shen hadn’t heard of had won the tournament and gotten a Soul Awakening pill and Foundation level beast core, the pill being used to make the soul easier to detect, thus allowing a person to reach Peak Foundation faster. These pills were fairly expensive, as they had to be imported due to the fact that the needed herbs didn’t grow in the Mountain region.
Shen quickly looked around but didn’t see the unusual man, so she had no choice but to give up. Perhaps she would see him around town if she looked around. She walked the streets, occasionally looking at the stalls on the side of the path, but didn’t buy anything other than a bit of food. The stalls in this area didn’t sell materials or Beast Cores, nor did any of the techniques she saw interest her. She had seen similar things in the Inner City library but not bought them. Most of these were either duplicates of those techniques or inferior copies.
She opened a door and stepped inside a building, only to realize that she had returned to her workshop. She had gotten so used to going to work that she had walked there without thinking about it. Did that mean she should take a break? Shen shook her head. Why would she need a break? She wasn’t tired, after all. She went to her workbench and pulled her new sword from her storage ring, thinking about her earlier idea of trying to make a sword from her Fire Beast Core. Maybe by studying the superior sword she could learn more about sword making.
She remained in her shop long after the sun had set. Everywhere she looked at the weapon she could see areas where it was superior to her weapons, places where she could improve. After learning what she could for now from the blade for now, she went to her forge. Sho’s father had only used materials which contained Water chi or had an alignment to water when crafting that sword so that their wouldn’t be any restriction to the flow or purity of the chi. Shen didn’t have any material that contained the Fire element, and would ruin any materials she did have if she tried to use them, but she did have several materials of the Metal element. She would prepare it to hold a beast core of that element in case she could find one, but for now she needed to decide what formation to integrate into the blade. Perhaps Sunder, a technique for piercing armor and slicing strong materials? She didn’t know the technique yet, just a basic form of the formation from one of the relic crafting books she had read, but could buy the book for it at the Library. Maybe she could use Metal to Lightning to convert Aura into a lightning coating for the blade?
As she thought about it she took out the various metals she had and started making swords. By the time the sun rose she was polishing the third one, having gotten so caught up in her work that she had lost track of time. With the forge being outside, however, she couldn’t ignore sunrise and got up, placing the three swords inside her ring. The first contained a version of Aura that surrounded the blade in lightning. The second contained the basic form of Sunder. The third didn’t yet have a technique, but was prepared to have one added to it.
Shen had seen an inferior version of the Flash Step Lightning technique yesterday when wandering around the city, and the idea of moving at the speed of lightning kept entering her head while making it. While actually merging with an element enough to travel as that element was a Nascent realm technique, at the Foundation realm one could merge enough of the element into their body to temporarily take on some of the properties of that element. The Flash Step technique of the Foundation realm, therefore, infused Lightning elemental chi into your body to allow you to move quickly as long as the energy remained. Though not actually as fast as lightning, one could easily outrun any animal, including any spirit beast without a comparable technique, or even an arrow. It was widely seen as the fastest of the elemental movement techniques, and was far faster than the Explosive Steps technique Shen had used during the tournament.
The pommel of each sword contained a fake beast core which would produce Lightning chi, produced by Shen because she didn’t have real cores to place there. The Aura sword’s pommel was the Fire beast core, but Shen had placed a ring around it which used the Fire to Lightning technique to make it function as a weaker Lightning beast core. The Sunder sword contained a spirit stone with a similar shell which would convert the neutral chi of the stone into Lightning chi. Due to the properties of Spirit stones, one could only use a few percent of the stone’s chi to activate the technique, and then had to wait for it to restore the chi from the environment, or the stone would start to collapse, releasing all of its chi. This made spirit stones a poor choice for such uses, and meant that Shen would only get one powerful use of the effect if she used the sword. The last sword contained a Star Ore sphere which acted as a storage device to hold all of the Spirit copper and most of the Spirit Steel Shen had available. The material inside could be charged with Metal chi and, by allowing a slight connection between the outside and inside of the storage device, like running a wire out the top of a magic bag, one could draw on that chi. Even with all of the expense and material used, however, it could only store about twice what her Fire core could store in Fire chi, though at a higher purity.
While the economic prospects of the last item were dubious, using seven hundred stones worth of material to only store as much as a six hundred stone Beast Core, it was at least possible to mass produce them without farming spirit beasts as some countries and sects did.
Shen went home to grab a new change of clothes and take a bath. An hour later she met her friends at First Meal and showed them the three swords, and discussed what had happened yesterday. Apparently, Danka had lost in the round after the one in which he beat her, his challenger a much better Spearman than Danka was a Swordsman. This had resulted in him being stabbed several times, then punched in the face. His opponent seemed to have anger issues as well, though not as much as Li Tan, as Danka had taunted him for over a minute before he attacked Danka out of anger.
Everyone would have to return to work today, so Shen said goodbye to them, stored the swords, and went to the Library to buy the superior quality movement technique. She checked a few of the stalls near the outer wall as well, but only found a few small pieces of material that could be used to make relics, some of it from a stall set up by a group of refugees who appeared to had fled all of the way here while fleeing the advancing Demon army. While finishing up the transaction with the third such booth she felt like she had sensed danger for a second, but it quickly disappeared. She looked around for a few seconds but, seeing nothing, thanked the woman running the stand and returned to work. With these materials she might be able to make an even better sword than the had last night.
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Fei Hua Restricted his chi and hid behind an empty crate which someone had left outside the wall. He had seen that girl again, the one who detected him and his Core at the tournament. Had she followed him here? No, that didn’t seem to be the case. She was shopping, buying materials for relic crafting and smithing. Or was that a front?
As he thought about it he decided that couldn’t be the case. After all, she had detected his own divine sense as well as the killing intent it had contained, and done nothing but look around. It would take a particularly incompetent spy or a master spy to not react with hostility in that situation, but she hadn’t reacted with more than curiosity. That mean that she was most likely exactly what she appeared to be, a curious teenager who had seen something new at the tournament and taken a look, not realizing the truth behind what she found.
He sighed, releasing his stress. Perhaps when this assignment was over Fei Hua would ask for some time off. After all, there were many interesting human women in the nearby cities which he could get to know better, and he had even developed a liking for the human drink known as ‘ale’. Yes. He could use an ale right now.
