The Ambassador’s room was much like the one we had at the sect, only the density of qi in the room was only twenty times that of the outside rather than the thirty of the sect. Mine, on the other hand, only condensed the qi by a factor of five, as I was considered a guard servant, not a guest, and therefore didn’t warrant a high quality room. Furthermore, the device which filled the room wasn’t a self powered gathering array like in the sect, but merely a qi feeding array which drew from an outside source. A note near the switch which turned the array on said that all of the major families, some rich cultivators, and a few inns purchased qi from the city for the purpose of cultivation. This qi came from a large dragon vein deep under the city, what the locals called quartz deposits, and was brought to the city by a line and device which the city owned. As such, the family had to pay 1% of the qi used by the array to the city in the form of spirit stones so that the equipment could be maintained. Essentially, if they drew one hundred stones worth of energy to cultivate they had to pay one stone as a service charge. As such, the note ordered that I turn off the array any time I wasn’t using it.
The city government was obviously exploiting their monopoly on pumped qi in the city, but as the charge was only 1% of the qi delivered, I wasn’t certain if they were actually overcharging the locals or not. Either way, it was a minor issue of corruption at best, far too minor of an issue to waste time on trying to investigate, even if I had the ability to stop it or decrease the price.
The fact that the qi was pumped into the room, however, meant that I might not run into an issue that I had ran into at the sect, the depletion of the room’s qi. At the sect, the qi had to be drawn in through the barrier, and the barrier merely kept it from leaving. This device, however, had a near limitless source which it could pull from rapidly, instead of having to pull the ambient qi from nearby. It was the difference between drawing on a solar panel and drawing on the local power grid. Only one required that it be sunny in my location.
I placed the five formation flags around the room, closed all of the windows, and placed the seal plate on the door, activating it and stopping everything short of air, sound, and light from moving into the room, letting air move both ways so that it didn’t grow stagnant. The fact that I was allowing sound to enter meant that I wouldn’t overlook it if someone knocked or their was a noise outside, but that my own cultivation couldn’t be heard by others. After all, lightning strikes were quite loud.
I noticed that the qi in the room quickly reached five times normal levels, then kept climbing. This is what I had hoped would happen. If qi isn’t allowed to leave, then any qi sent into the room would remain behind. After around ten times the normal density the array seemed to deactivate itself. It likely had some sort of limits placed on it in case something else caused the levels to rise more than intended. I sat in the middle of the array and started drawing the qi in, using it to construct seeds with tonight’s sparring sessions in mind. Every muscle and tendon that was used was set to grow proportionally, as were all of the other body parts that had been used, limited only by my memory and perception of what was used. This would give me several times the improvements from the exercise that I would normally receive.
Constructing a seed combined two halves of a technique. The first half was the standard cultivation technique which refined the mind or body. Any technique's method could be used for this, as long as it dealt with that body part. Special conceptual parts like True Meridians and the Soul Sea could also be cultivated if one had the method to cultivate them. The second half of the technique was the ‘Latent Potential’ technique, which caused the changes to wait until enough qi could be channeled into the first half, while amplifying the effect of the first half by several times. ‘Latent Potential’ was said to be developed by studying how spirit beasts, especially those with legendary bloodlines, cultivated. Someone had discovered that the materials within the body of a spirit beast could be improved in quality with a large enough injection of qi, even after death, as long as it wasn’t separated or dead for too long and the part hadn’t been preserved. While most cultivators used this knowledge to improve the quality of beast parts with the help of a gathering array, the Heavenly Tribulation sect which wrote “Chasing Tribulation” studied this latent potential and learn to incorporate it into the human body. Furthermore, while beasts tended to develop this potential instinctively, humans could manipulate it intelligently.
After an hour I had finished incorporating all of the sparring sessions, and checked the density of qi around me. It was still around ten times as dense as outside. Apparently, while blocking it from leaking outside had allowed it to grow more dense, the amount I used to construct seeds wasn’t enough to outpace the array. Maybe I should try constructing seeds using my known methods for refining the body instead?
First was the Soul Sea. While it was now the size of a bath tub, holding slightly more qi than my dantian, the book said that its size could almost expand to any arbitrary size, only expanding more slowly the larger the cultivator made it. I wasn’t sure exactly why, but I believed it had something to do with how one stored qi after level five, when even a golden core wasn’t enough to store all of the qi you had at your disposal. Maybe once I advanced to level three I would work on my layered reading skills and see if I could read another layer of those chapters.
As only Chasing Tribulation mentioned the Soul Sea I didn’t have to choose which method I would use to construct the seed. I quickly constructed a seed based on the first layer understanding, then started modifying it one layer at a time with the next five layers. With every extra layer I added the latent capacity greatly improved. I took my time double checking every detail, and after four hours I had done the best job I could. Now, should I feed qi into the seed, I should be able to eventually develop more than five times as much as if I just used the cultivation technique normally for that long, plus I wouldn’t need to multitask, concentrating on the refinement technique and the flow of qi at the same time, thus being able to dedicate more concentration to drawing in qi and therefore drawing in far more qi.
Once this seed was fully grown I could construct another, but the quality of each seed would alter the performance of the sea to various degrees. Repeating the same step too many times could even cause issues, so I wanted to make sure I did the best I could rather than only do the minimum amount ten times as much.
If that seemed confusing, one could think of it like improving the false meridians of your blood vessels. If one kept increasing the number of red blood cells, each cell could carry the same amount of qi and the increased number of cells would increase both your qi capacity and the speed at which it flowed to new locations. If one took this too far, however, the blood could become so thick that the heart wouldn’t be able to properly pump it, and blood clots might start forming as your blood grew stagnant. Therefore, you would make other improvements to the blood, such as improving the amount of qi the plasma could carry, thus helping to prevent that issue.
All of that put a soft limit on how far one could expand the sea based on their understanding of how the sea worked, preventing actual infinite expansion. I was still at least half a dozen refinement sessions away from developing issues from overuse of the technique, however.
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After I was done I started doing the same with my true meridians. While it didn’t take quite as long as with the soul sea, even though I gave them just as much attention to detail, the sun was starting to rise by the time I realized that I had done all that I could.
Deciding to continue constructing a seed for every mental and physical system tonight instead of continuing, I stood up. The background level in the room was only seven times higher than the outside, showing that I had been able to draw in qi faster than the array could feed it to me, though barely. I would need to find a better location with a stronger array if I wanted to cultivate at my maximum speed. Either that or just stay in my room and use whatever qi the array would feed me.
I turned down the second option, as I couldn’t afford to use what little time I had in this world just cultivating. The Ambassador was here to look for new resources for Earth and hopefully new allies, and I needed to locate the people from Earth that were stuck here and figure out a way to at least let them send letters home, if not call or come home.
I noticed that I didn’t smell very good, to put it mildly, so I removed my robes and put on a different set, one which was a bit flashier, as the robe had embroidery and was made from spirit silk, in this case from a California company that started selectively breeding them from their normal silk worms around twenty years ago, when spirit animals first started to appear. Its strength was comparable to thick leather, even though it was a very thin material, so I didn’t need to worry about it getting worn, just being dirty. My other clothes were an even more durable spirit cotton, almost as durable as thin kevlar, so it technically qualified as a bullet resistant material. Those were meant for traveling, while the silk ones were meant for socializing.
I was about to go look for a bath when I heard a knock on the door. I altered the barrier to allow sound to leave. “Please give me a moment.” I said, then cut off the qi injecting formation. I blocked the sound once more, then rapidly drew in any excess qi that was in the air, causing several loud popping sounds as the small bolts discharged across my bare forearms. All of this qi was sent into the Soul Sea’s seed and in slightly expanded.
Once the qi was back to normal levels I turned off the seal plate and opened the door. In front of it was a young girl of maybe ten years of age, though cultivation might skew that fact. From the fact that she didn’t seem to be able to control her qi leakage currently, I could tell that she was a cultivator in the early part of level one. “Can I help you?” I asked.
“I was sent to notify you that the servant breakfast will be served shortly.” she said quietly, as if she was afraid of something.
“Thank you for informing me, but I think I’ll go get something in town after bathing.” She nodded while keeping her head down. “I’m Li Kev. What’s your name.”
“I’m Qin Five.” she said quietly.
At least now I understood why she was so timid. She was born a slave. “One and Two’s little sister? I met them yesterday, taking care of a mama goat.” She looked up, slightly surprised that I knew them. “They mentioned that their mom and little sister were cultivators, but said that you both worked the herb fields.”
“I was assigned to look after yours and master Johnson’s needs while you are staying here. Mommy is handling the garden on her own for now.” That made sense. You would want to assign a maid to the new guests, and the mother probably did far more work in the fields.
I nodded. “In that case, can you show me where the baths are? I need to wash up before heading into town.” She quickly lead me there, then offered to wash my clothes while I was in the bath. “Oh, I removed my dirty clothes and left them in my room.” After I told here where I left them, she nodded, bowed, and left to get my clothes.
Half an hour later I returned to my room clean. The clean clothes were laying folded on my bed, and Five was sweeping the floor. I nodded. “Thank you for washing my clothes so quickly. Though I wonder how you managed to dry them so quickly.” A clothes line couldn’t have worked so quickly, and according to her brother she had Earth and Wood roots, not water ones.
“I took them to the kitchen.” she said. “I’m a good cook, so I used an old skillet and was able to get them just hot enough to steam but not hot enough to be damaged.”
“That’s some pretty good fire control.” I said. I knew if I tried that I would likely burn them, at least in spots.
“Mom taught me. She used to work in the kitchen before they had the family tested two years ago and we found out she had a fire root. Now if she wants to control a fire she can just make it smaller or bigger with her qi.”
I nodded. “I’m curious about something, if you don’t mind me asking.” She seemed much less nervous around me now that she knew I wasn’t a bad person, and nodded. “What cultivation techniques do you and your mother use?” As slaves it likely wasn’t anything impressive, but I was curious if they would provide them with Average techniques, or just the petty or lesser techniques most independent cultivators started with.
“I think mom’s is called ‘the Chef Path’, and mine is ‘the Gardener Path’.” While I wasn’t familiar with either of them, I did know several techniques which were meant for common people to incorporate their skills into their cultivation. If the person had a talent for the skill they could cultivate relatively quickly, but if they didn’t, their cultivation would stagnate. While they often contained techniques which would be useful in those fields, which was likely where Five’s mother had learned to control the size of a cook fire with her qi and Fire root, they were usually only available as low or petty quality, as the widespread nature meant that they were copied extensively, and with each time they were copied there would be a chance of erasing some of the layers. The person who copied it might not even know that the layers were there, as many independent cultivators didn’t know how to read the different layers. Only occasionally did you find books like ‘Human Slag’ which were based on an occupation but which hadn’t been stripped of most or all of its layers.
“Interesting. I’ll have to look into such techniques. I like to study different techniques, both cultivation and spell techniques, make new ones, and improve them, so I may have to see if I can find those books.”
“I would offer to show you my book, but it’s in the family library I can only have mama read it to me when we aren’t working.”
“You can’t read?” I asked, forgetting that many people in society couldn’t do so, as it wasn’t needed by their job. She shook her head. “Well then, in that case, I might have to find a ‘learn to read’ book for you. Every cultivator needs to be able to read.”
“I don’t wish to trouble you, master.” she said, looking a bit worried that I had offered. “I’m sure mama will teach me one day.”
“Ok, then. I’ll have to come up with something else to give you, then.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that, master. You are already nice to me and don’t yell at me like the field master. That is enough to make Five happy.”
“In that case, I’ll think about it.” She nodded and, after notifying the Ambassador, I left for the shopping district.
While I was here in the city I had a few things I wanted to purchase. First was advanced books. I had sent money with Randy to purchase such things, but as he hadn’t returned I would need to find my own copies. Second were rare spirit plants, things that the Ambassador would overlook but which could be useful on Earth. I didn’t know much about alchemy, though, so I would need to do some research before I could do so. I would probably need to just buy rare things and hope I got lucky. Either that or ask Maria what I should try to get and hope I could make a return trip. Third was to look for new materials. I knew a bit more about this topic than I did about the alchemical ingredients, mostly because I had worked with Liza and Dave on some of their projects. There were two main properties that I should look for, qi conductivity and qi storage. Earth lacked cheap materials that could be used in devices, so items beyond level two remained too expensive for the average person. If, however, I could find a material which could perform as well as a level three or four material but which had a cost comparable to a level two material I would create a massive new market on Earth.
I would also want to purchase gifts for everyone back home, and I was only given five thousand stones to buy all of this with. In terms of the local economy that would make me rich, but it still wasn’t enough to pay for everything I wanted. I had already spent two thousand at the sect, after all, so it was unlikely I could get even a large percentage of what I wanted from the shops.
