That night I spent my time cycling qi between all of my 107 key points and flowing it into the healing technique. While the pills had dealt with the worst of the damage from the sparring session, they didn’t fix all of the minor issues. Similar to how the bone pills required that a rib be set into place before mending it if you wanted it to heal properly, there were minor places where the situation wasn’t ideal for healing, therefore resulting in scars and malformed tissue. None of the problems were large enough that they would be noticeable outside of a complete medical exam, but they would impair my ability to move qi throughout my body, and therefore would affect my cultivation.
While the damaged sections wouldn’t show up on X-rays, MRIs, or Cat scans, they might be detectable by the QRIs or the method this world preferred to use, called ‘Checking Pulse’. On Earth that would mean that they were checking for the strength, regularity, and speed at which the heart pumped blood, but here they had a way of sending their qi through your body using ‘divine sense’ thread and accessing your health. Few people on Earth had bothered learning it, though, as it was more difficult than using equipment with less solid results, as well as being hard to transfer the results of.
Every few hours I would use the Mental Rest technique to get some fake sleep, something which would hopefully work as well as actual sleep once I reached Foundation, and then return to healing. Sometime in the early morning I could no longer find any damaged areas, so I switched to the body tempering technique. My blood vessels appeared far stronger now, though I seemed a bit low on actual blood, though not low enough that it would impair my ability to function. I knew that what controlled the recovery rate of blood was actually the bone marrow, so I turned my attention to my bones.
Infusing some qi with my mental fire to enhance its performance and the ease of controlling it, a technique I picked up from many Fire cultivation manuals, I sent the active qi into the bones and had it start purging impurities, pushing out waste products, and fixing flaws. A few hours later I heard the Ambassador start to move around and ended the process, taking around fifteen seconds to do so.
When I opened my eyes the Ambassador was sitting on the edge of the bed stretching. “Meditate all night?” he asked, looking at me.
“Yes, sir. This is a very safe location, and I was injured, so I decided to try and fix all of my damage before we set out.” Feeling a bit low on qi, as I was used to it automatically refilling and therefore forgetting to manually recharge my qi reserves, I closed my eyes and started sucking in qi, cycling it well enough that my dantian would hold onto it, but not as well as I could. Just by sitting inside of me it would be adjusted to my qi signature, and I had other things to do at the moment. I was a bit surprised at how quickly it went until I realized that I was drawing in twelve times as much as I was used to. “Sorry about that, sir. I just realized that my qi reserves were low.”
“It’s fine.” he said, waving a hand in dismissal, “Like you said, this is a very safe location.” He got up and grabbed his things for the bath house, so I grabbed mine and followed. We would be meeting with someone important once we went through the teleportation array, so we both needed to be clean and wearing our nice outfits. So, while I wasn’t the most comfortable with bathing with other men, the bathing area was large and there were enough men there that it paradoxically felt less weird. That might be because it felt less private, though.
Once we were out and both wearing fine silk robes, I strapped my sword to my side and ready to be drawn, like was expected of a bodyguard. We made sure all of our things were stored in our new storage bags, nice silk ones from spirit moths that were given to us by the base, placing our old bags inside of them, and went to the array location. The items inside the inner bag wouldn’t shrink further, but such a method was often used to sort your items in order to prevent clutter. The Ambassador muttered something about rings being more convenient. “Don’t worry.” I said. “I know Adams makes it look easy, but bags aren’t that bad. I’m sure you’ll get one when you reach Nascent.” While we were the first ones to reach the array, other groups soon started to show up, including the mercenaries from yesterday.
Around 7:00 the soldiers started to leave for the outer city, where most of them eventually climbed the outer wall and brought out their guns. An equal of larger number of civilians came into the inner city form the outer city and went to the shelters, in case the enemy made it into the outer city. While outsiders could earn spirit stones by working as mercenaries during the battle, most of them would avoid the risk and help with the cleanup after the battle instead, earning far less but being guaranteed to survive uninjured.
As everything was scheduled to start at 8:00, five minutes before 8:00 we stepped up to the array and asked when we could enter it. The man that was standing there to run it, definitely not a soldier, said that we could do so. After waiting for everyone to get inside the formation, he flipped a switch, creating a level one barrier around it. While this wouldn’t prevent anyone except the few rank one cultivators and the one non cultivator from leaving, it was mostly there to prevent us from accidentally leaving the area.
Two minutes later, at exactly 8:00, I saw the outer barrier start to dissolve and formation started to glow. I heard people start to yell and guns start to fire just as the array got as bright as a flashlight shining directly into your eyes, and felt a strange shift inside of me. The array quickly got dimmer and, when I cycled my qi through my eyes to recover, I saw that we were in the courtyard of a moderate sized town.
All of the people around us wore identical styles robes of three different shades of green. The darkest green robes, similar to forest green, seemed to be worn by level zero and level one cultivators, though the level zeros also had a black ribbon tied around their upper arm. None of them seemed to pay attention to us, apparently having more important things to do. Those in medium green were level two, and around twenty of them seemed to be standing here, intending to act as tour guides and show those that arrived to a waiting area. Most of the people here would be escorted to a village twelve li from here by these level two cultivators, though any cultivator who wished to stay could do so along with their family, this last bit being because the sect wished to recruit itinerant cultivators if possible. While it was possible the mercenary group we met yesterday would decide to do some work for the sect, they had told us that they intended to go to High River to look for caravan work, and that we could look for them there if we went there.
There was also one woman at level 3, wearing lime green robes. Seeing the Ambassador she came over to the two of us and bowed. “Greetings, Ambassador. My name is Green Butterfly.” she said, and the two of us returned the bow. “I am a sect elder. I was sent to await your arrival and to be your guide while you are here at the sect.” She motioned to me. “I can assure you that you won’t be needing a body guard while you are here. We are quite civil and harming a guest, especially one as prestigious as yourself, would be unthinkable.”
“I understand.” said the Ambassador, “But at the moment I would like to keep him around. If nothing else, he can act as my assistant for this meeting.”
Green Butterfly nodded and bowed slightly. “As you wish.” she said. “In that case, if you will follow me, we can proceed to the meeting.”
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She led us to what I presumed was some sort of throne room, the front of it having massive columns of spirit trees, carved with ornate designs. I was pretty sure that I recognized formations in some of the scroll work, but, as I didn’t study formations, I had no idea what they did.
Inside the floor was paved in white jade with streaks of green in it, with a carpet embroidered with pictures of dragons and other mythical animals. I knew that dragons existed in their culture due to reading so many of their books, but was surprised to see both Eastern and Western variations in the design.
The three of us walked fifty meters down the carpet until Green Butterfly stopped us. In front of us was a boy that appeared to be thirteen or fourteen sitting on a throne made of Green Jade. This reminded me of the green outfits that all of the disciples wore, with all three colors being represented in the throne. I wasn’t sure what that had to do with the sect, but it seemed to be a theme. The boy was talking to several elderly men so we stood there waiting for him to finish.
About a minute later, he finished and motioned for the men to leave, then pointed at Green Butterfly. The men stepped to the side and she took a step forward. “Master, I wish to introduce the Merchant Ambassador, Yu Fei.” The sect master tapped a few spots on the arm of his chair and I saw a cloudy barrier rapidly form around us, blocking all sight and sound from the outside.
“Good, now we can speak honestly.” he said, leaning forward, “You are an Ambassador from the United States named Frank Johnson. You have been sent here to try and convince us to join your people in your war against the combined forces of the Eternal Flames, the Azure Cloud, and the Chartreuse Peacock, as well as the smaller factions which they have allied with.” The Elders looked surprised at this statement. Apparently they didn’t know such a person would be coming, likely because the master didn’t want to risk a security leak.
“Yes, sir.” the Ambassador said, taking a step forward.
The boy nodded. “Then I must restate my position on this matter. While we don’t mind trading with you or allowing your people to travel between our two bases, as both of those benefit us with relatively low amounts of risk, I cannot risk going to war with such a powerful enemy.”
“But you would gain a much more powerful ally.” the Ambassador said. “And receive significant financial benefits as well.”
“Perhaps, but would you be able to support us, should we come under attack? From what I understand, you a tortoise that can only come out of your shell once a month. I doubt that when the others retaliate against us for siding with you it will be during that brief window.”
The debate continued for almost three hours, with neither side willing to concede. It basically boiled down to the master not wanting to take a risk without a reward, and Ambassador being unwilling to give them the thing that they wanted, the thing that would allow them to defend themselves if the others came to attack. Guns.
Eventually the Master grew tired of the conversation and motioned for us to leave. “Enough.” have said with a sigh. “It is obvious that neither of us is able to convince the other. I believe it would be best if we ended the discussion for today. Return some time tomorrow evening and we can continue, after thinking over the other person’s points.”
The Ambassador nodded and bowed slightly. “As you wish.” Green Butterfly and I also bowed, and he lowered the barrier, after which she lead us out of the building.
“So, I assume you have questions.” Green Butterfly said once we were outside.
“Yes.” said the Ambassador, though he looked a bit like he didn’t want to ask it.
“I’m going to guess it is about the Young Master’s age?” The Ambassador nodded. “He is thirty five years old. His father just started teaching him cultivation when he was six years old, so he appears to not yet be an adult. He is, however, as mentally as mature as I was at thirty five, if not more so, at least if you don’t consider romantic interests to be part of maturity.”
The Ambassador nodded but didn’t seem to have another question. “Um, Sir.” I said. “I have a question if you don’t mind, though it’s more about the sect than the negotiations.” He nodded and motioned for me to continue. “I noticed that the color of the robes matches the color of the throne and some of the floor tiles. I was wondering if that was a stylistic choice or if it had some other significance.”
Green Butterfly shrugged. “We are the Eastern Gate sect.” she said, as if that answered the question. When she noticed that both of us looked as if we were still confused she also seemed a bit confused. “Have you never heard the story of the Heavenly Court?” Both of us shook our heads and she seemed to realize something. “Of course you haven’t.” she said, then motioned for us to follow. “Well, it’s a long story, so please allow me to show you to your room and make us some tea before continuing.”
The Ambassador agreed, so she lead us to a place a few hundred meters away where a building similar to the palace was built against a hill side. She took us to the front counter and spoke with the man there, and he gave both me and the Ambassador a bracelet to wear temporarily while we were in the sect. After receiving them she lead us down a series of hallways to one of the rooms with an identical number on it as on our bracelets. She asked the Ambassador to touch his bracelet to the door and when he did it slid to the side.
When it did so a wave of qi flowed over me and I felt a bit like I was being suppressed. “Cultivation Cave?” I asked, and she nodded. “Yes. We rent them to our disciples, and all of the elders and core disciples are given one to live in. I would have arranged for a better one, but as you are at level three I wasn’t sure you would be comfortable in one of the ones for High elders.”
“This will be fine.” said the Ambassador, entering the room. In the center of the room was a small pool with a formation at the bottom, but only a few inches of water. I moved to test the water, but Butterfly grabbed my hand.
“I don’t think that would be wise for you to do.” she said. “That isn’t water. Take a closer look.”
I focused on it and noticed that it seemed to be evaporating, increasing the density of qi in the air to its limit. “It’s liquid qi?” I asked.
Butterfly nodded. “Pure liquid qi. Until you do at least the initial body conditioning step of level three it is a deadly poison to you, though until your skin is fully adjusted it will still harm you with prolonged exposure.”
I nodded. The liquid qi that was currently in my dantian was impure, and as such it was like a dilute acid, something my body could withstand. That which was in the pool, and which would be in my dantian once I broke through to level three was Pure Liquid Qi, or at least high purity qi. It wasn’t diluted by anything and therefore was too strong for my cells. If I touched it, every cell that came into contact with it would die in milliseconds, usually from a ruptured cell membrane due to over-pressure. If a person was in contact with it for too long and their body wasn’t strong enough, it could completely dissolve them. There were no doubt cases of mortals and level one cultivators falling into such pools and melting.
“How do you make the liquid qi?” asked the Ambassador. “I assume it had something to do with the formation at the bottom?”
Green Butterfly nodded. “Yes. It is able to condense the qi to thirty times the normal background levels, which is a bit more than is needed to liquify it. Of course, even for someone like the Ambassador we only recommend brief exposure.”
She went to a cabinet and got out a box of tea. After boiling some water that came in through a faucet she poured all three of us a cup of tea and we sat down. The background level had risen to about twenty times the background level, the point at which it normally stabilized, so I was getting good qi training just from resisting it. “So, you were asking about the Heavenly Court, and the Jade Palace?” she said, as she began her story.
The Heavens were ruled by the Jade Emperor. His palace, the Jade Palace, which was several li to the side, had four gates leading out of it, made of Blue Jade in the North, Black Jade in the South, Green Jade in the East, and White Jade in the West. Each of the wings of the palace, which housed the gates, held a division of the government. The Military was in the south, the Alchemy division in the West, the Education division in the North, and the Formation division in the East.
The founder of this sect claimed to be a descendant of the master of the Eastern Gate, and after coming to this realm built a sect dedicated the study of formations and the traditions of the palace. That was around six thousand years ago, and since then the sect has grown and shrunk, from being one of the largest sects on the continent to now only a medium sect. Though they may have lost most of their knowledge of formations, they are one of the oldest sects on the world, and the oldest in the Black Dragon Mountain Region by far.
