When I returned to the room it was unlocked, so I scanned myself in. Green Butterfly was nowhere to be seen, but the Ambassador was meditating naked in the ten centimeter deep pool in the middle of the room.
Not wanting to bother him, I placed the seal plate on the door. Due to the density of the chi in the room, it was able to recharge at more than thirty times the rate it normally could, allowing it to put up a peak Foundation level barrier. I also sealed the door against others entering. While this was a safe location, I still wanted to take precautions, just in case someone in the sect had issues with us.
I went over to the table and sat down, pulling out ‘Chasing Tribulation’. I read over the first chapter three times, using every trick I knew to search for hidden layers. This appeared to be the foundational text for the ancient ‘Heavenly Tribulation’ sect. Furthermore, while it couldn’t be an original copy due to how well the pages were holding up, it was a well produced copy. I found four different layers to the text, corresponding to the normal, invisible, cross eye, and one of the mind alteration types. That was just in chapter one. I flipped to the last chapter and, while I hadn’t learned the fundamentals of the method enough to understand anything written there, I was able to distinguish far more layers. I was, however, forced to stop searching for them when my eyes starting to burn, joining the migraine I was already trying my best to ignore.
I took a pill for Brain and Nerves and one for Sensory Organs, then sat down beside the central pool. While the pool itself was dangerous due to the existence of high purity liquid qi, condensing it out of the air like rain, beside the pool the qi was more comparable to air with a humidity around 95%. My body had fully adapted to the impure liquid qi within my dantian long ago, so it could withstand that density of qi, merely acting as a minor irritant due to the fact that it wasn’t adapted to my body. I merely needed to avoid condensing it any further, as doing so would risk it condensing on my skin and causing my skin cells to rupture.
Normally, when one drew qi towards them it would condense slightly when it started to face resistance at the surface of the skin, so I would need to be further away to avoid that possibility. But chapter one of the book had a different way to draw in qi, one which tended to lower the density of qi at the surface of the skin slightly. Once I focused my mind, I focused on the simplest of the techniques, the one meant for mortals to gather qi so that they could attempt to form meridians.
The sect had a unique take on meridians. Unlike the orthodox path of this world and the vast majority of people on Earth, they didn’t convert their blood vessels or nervous system into meridians. In fact, they disdained such methods, calling them ‘false meridians’ and claiming that they were inferior to the ‘true meridians’ the sect awakened. They also praised a specific branch of Buddhism for teaching their people to awaken True Meridians, instead of taken the easy but inferior path. That was the second difference between their method and the standard one. They didn’t grow meridians. They believed that when the soul connected to the body, usually before birth but sometimes after a Level Five or above cultivator seized a new body, the soul naturally formed connections to the various parts of the body, called meridians. When first formed these meridians would be like tiny threads and inactive. When awakened, though, these meridians could allow qi to flow through the body with little resistance, far less than would exist within either of the False Meridian types.
They taught that in order to cultivate, instead of the method of the other sects, one needed to awaken those meridians, then at level two grow something called a Soul Sea, something that was similar in function to a dantian, storing vast amounts of qi. This Soul Sea would, in fact, strengthen the meridians to the three dantians within the body, as dantians were the physical and the soul sea the spiritual way to store qi. The third level was similar in both methods, though in order to upgrade the body one merely needed to fully awaken all meridian connections to the body, which would naturally temper the body to withstand and use the purer qi of the spirit. The fourth level was the crystalization of the two pools together, in a way which caused the dantian and the Soul Sea to become intertwined together. After that the advancement to fifth level, which awakened the soul, was easily accomplished, as one had already awakened the rest of their spiritual abilities, therefore already bringing the soul close to consciousness.
It seemed that I had found a technique for advancement to the fifth level, one of the things I had asked Randy to look for, but I would have to read the rest of the book to be sure. And to do that I would need to master their earlier levels. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to understand the topic well enough to use the technique. While I didn’t intend to start awakening my True Meridians right now, the gathering method was still useful. While even a single layer reading would allow one to gather qi well enough to advance to level one, I had read the four layer version of this technique, and so should be able to do better.
I focused on all of the qi from the surface of my skin flowing into my brain. At first I didn’t feel much, then the surface of my skin started to twitch. It felt like that time I had accidentally touched the electric fence at Uncle John’s, Randy’s father’s farm. I tried to concentrate harder but every time I did so the shock would grow stronger, disrupting my concentration. Still, even this small amount of qi was more than what my bracelet could provide. I continued to sit there for the next fifteen minutes until the headache disappeared and my eyes felt better, then got up. I found that the method used so little concentration that I could maintain it without meditation with about as much concentration as I would need to read a light novel while walking. With only a bit of practice I would be able to use it while working, much like listening to music while you work.
I returned to reading the book, this time starting with chapter two. While I was occasionally twitched or lost concentration on my reading, reading the layered text was much easier and I only needed to go over the text three times before I was certain I could understand all of it. This chapter included the method for awakening true meridians, which I made sure to memorize. Once I had the chance I would try the technique out, but from what I had read it was a slow process, taking weeks or months to do if you were a mortal. The text warned that having false meridians would cause most of the qi to be wasted, as they would absorb most of it, and recommended breaking them before trying this method. At that point, the fact that your body was already primed would allow you to awaken them in days to weeks, though it suggested that even at that point you might want to keep them broken.
Furthermore, the advancement through the first level wasn’t about conditioning the body, at least not directly. One was meant to use a True Meridian conditioning meditation to improve the connection to the body, which would allow one to more rapidly improve the physical condition of the body, as well as push the conditioning closer to the limit. While I wasn’t certain, it seemed like the technique was meant to push the body and spirit to the limit before each advancement. The cultivator would then advance almost automatically once their body neared the limit. This took decades to do properly, however.
I was midway through my fourth pass through chapter 3, this chapter having six layers in some places and therefore being much more difficult to read and understand, when I noticed that the Ambassador was getting out of the pool. I turned around to look at him, and noticed his cultivation. “Early level three? You seem to have advanced rather quickly.”
“Thanks to Green Butterfly. I love my wife, but she is absolutely terrible at duel cultivation compared to that woman. Even when we were both level two I didn’t get that much experience from such an interaction, and now that I’m a higher level I get nothing.” He motioned at a robe on a nearby chest and it flew towards him.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Since qi arrived on Earth and human labido had drastically increased, monogamy had been slowly becoming less popular. Twenty years ago I would assume that he was cheating on his wife, but now I wasn’t sure. They may have some sort of arrangement for when he was on trips, or not even be exclusive when they were both at home. There was also a social phenomenon happening on Earth at the moment where some people didn’t consider dual cultivation to be a type of sex, instead classifying it as a type of training, and therefore making an exception for it in relationships. While Liza and I had an unofficial agreement to not have other partners, even just for dual cultivation, I didn’t know about anyone else’s agreements. Since I didn’t know anything about his relationship, how could I say anything about it to him?
“Thankfully I don’t have to deal with that, as my girlfriend is quite skilled. We both advanced through level two at several times the normal rate because of it.”
The man smiled. “Lucky man. Maybe I’ll get lucky and reach Level four before we return to our home land.” I knew he couldn’t actually say Earth as we couldn’t be sure the elders not privy to the secret didn’t have a way to spy on us here, but I got the message.
“Maybe. I had hoped to advance to level 3 within the next week, but I might have to delay that.”
“Hit a bottleneck? Maybe I can give you some pointers.”
I shook my head. “Not really. I could probably do it, but I found this book last night, and I think I might want to try and supplement the new cultivation method.” I showed him the book and explained to him the basic premise behind it, how this sect taught about something called ‘true meridians’ that were supposed to be superior to ‘false meridians’ like blood vessels and nerves.
“I have actually heard about something similar in our homeland.” said the Ambassador, looking interested. “Certain tribal and aboriginal groups, as well as some minor religious orders say that our version of meridians is unnatural, and teach their own methods for creating meridians. I never looked into them, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they actually awakened these True Meridians instead of growing them. What I’m wondering is, if the members of the sect were so powerful, why would they die out and be replaced by the Orthodox Path, which later lead to the Unorthodox ones.”
I shook my head. “Not sure. The book doesn’t say. If I had to guess though, this method does seem to have two flaws. For one, it’s slow. While, using Orthodox or non-orthodox methods, any competent group can get a mortal to the beginning of the second level in a matter of months, assuming they have enough resources and are willing to spend them. According to this book, even the most gifted mortals took half a year or more to break through to level one, with the time to break through to level two being measured in decades. That meant that the other sects could use far fewer resources to produce first and second level fighters to suppress them. Sure, this sects level two fighters were superior, but it’s hard to beat sheer numbers in a war. Superior quality can often be countered by superior numbers. Of course, after that, level three generally went as fast as on the Orthodox path, and level four and five were even faster, but it was hard to get someone to that point before they were killed.”
“Wait, are you saying that this book includes a method for cultivating to level five?” the Ambassador asked, surprised.
“It hints at one.” I answered, shrugging. “If it does contain the actual technique, that will be in chapter six or later. I’m only on chapter three, the one for level two, so it will be a while before I get there. It’s pretty confusing. Couldn’t you get the government to give you a technique for that once you reach peak level four, though? You should have enough influence.”
He nodded. “I have the influence, sure, but that’s not the issue. We haven’t been able to get our hands on a better technique yet, so we are still trying to develop them. If we could get one from here not only would we have a complete technique, but we could use the knowledge we gained to improve the ones that are in development. Even though this isn’t an Orthodox method, if it has the path in it, it is extremely valuable to us. Sure, none of us want to take the next two decades building up to the point where we can use this method, but I’m sure we can figure out a different method from how the technique works. If you don’t mind, can I read chapter six and see if the technique is there?”
I shrugged and handed the book to him. “Sure, but you probably won’t be able to get much out of it. It’s pretty confusing, and that’s without digging into the different layers in the writing.”
“Layers?” He asked, taking the book.
“Sure.” I said. “they have a way for stacking text that hides different alternative ways of looking at things. At first it was just meant to compress texts so that they required fewer pages to print them, but now it’s developed into a way to hide deeper meaning in the text. I found at least thirteen different layers in the last chapter, and I got a migraine from doing so, so I probably missed some. And that’s with not being able to alter my soul to read some of the layers, as I’m not at level five yet, and not being that skilled at the mind alteration methods.”
He looked surprised that they had such a means. “Can you teach me?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “But I’m still learning myself. You should probably ask Elder Butterfly. She has a lot more experience with it than I do.”
He nodded, then looked over Chapter six. “Well, there is a little bit of information here, but not enough to actually advance. I suspect that one needs to understand their cultivation method as well as look at all of the layers to get a proper advancement method.” He handed me the book, and I returned it to my bag. “Make sure you keep that safe, okay? We’ll need it when we get back.”
I nodded. “So any idea what time it is?” I asked. As we were under ground I had no idea, nor could I check a clock which we didn’t have.
“Forty seven minutes after sunrise.” the Ambassador said, walking over to the closet to get some clothes. I gave him a confused look. “Just because we are underground doesn’t mean my internal clock doesn’t work. It’s probably accurate within a minute. Had to be in the military.”
I was a bit surprised at that. “You were in the military?” I asked, and he nodded. “Seen any real combat?”
“I fought in several wars. The first was number two.”
I was slightly confused at what he meant then I realized he meant the second great war. “Then you must be as old Level Five.” Lindstrom wasn’t a local name, so I had to use a nickname he would recognize.
He smiled. “Just about.” He grabbed his things for the bath, so I grabbed mine as well and we set off. Hopefully we would make some gains in today’s negotiations. But first we wanted to both be clean when we arrived.
The negotiations didn’t go as well as we had hoped. The problem was that the ambassador didn’t seem to want to give them weapons. When the master ended the day’s negotiations after only three hours, Green Butterfly escorted us back to our cultivation cave. Once inside I set up the barrier again, then spoke. “If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I don’t understand your reluctance to provide an ally with superior weaponry. The government has done so several times in our homeland, including funding minor sects in order to fight a proxy war.”
He nodded. “The issue is that we can’t risk the technology spreading. Unlike the other groups we have provided them to, this land doesn’t have the technology at all, instead of just not having the weapons. Providing them here would greatly alter the balance of power and technology in this region and possibly beyond. That is much more of a change than we are willing to cause, as we can’t be sure what the end results will be.”
“So you are trying to avoid unintended consequences?” He nodded. “Understandable. It wouldn’t be the first time that yesterday’s allies became tomorrow’s enemy.” I could think of a series of times that happened in the middle east.
“Do you think we will betray you?” asked Butterfly, looking shocked that we would think such a thing.
“I don’t think that you would, but your sect master will do what is best for the sect, and many elders would gladly betray us if the personal benefits were large enough. We have been careful to control access to our weapons so far, but if our weapons got into the hands of our enemies, it could destroy our major advantage in our war.” I winced a bit at the way he said that. Hopefully anyone that was listening would assume we were making high grade qi weapons or bulk producing high quality talismans or something similar. If they realized that ‘our war’ referred to the war between the USA and the sects our cover would be blown.
