Chapter 98: Somewhere We Need to Be

It took him some time; each knot was painstaking and frustrating, but he pushed on.

This could just be a huge waste of time, but he was certain he would learn something if he finished.

When he did, he opened his eyes and looked around the cultivation chamber. Nothing was different. Standing up, he stretched. It wasn't stiff from sitting for such a long time, but his body didn't get stiff like that anymore anyway.

Paike summoned a transient shield in front of him and held it in place. Without hesitation, he punched it as hard as he could. The scaled tiles under his knuckles blunted any pain, but he was pleased to see that the cracking of the shield was less than he expected.

Diving deep, he examined his cultivation. After a brief glance at it, he confirmed that he was, in fact, now in Middle Topaz. Paike let himself smile as he left the chamber. Progress, finally progress.

Paike nodded to Guan Li as he dug through their pantry for some food. His housemate was sitting in one of their chairs with a book open in his lap.

"What do you have there?" Paike asked as he pulled out an apple.

"This is the art I'm planning on learning." Guan Li said as he closed the book around his finger, keeping his place. "It has the right meridians for our plans. I think it will work great."

"You picked one already?" Paike asked.

"I had plenty of time," Guan Li said. "You kinda just vanished for a few days."

"A few days?" Paike asked; he didn't think he had been cultivating for that long. "How long was I in there for? I did come out once; when was that?"

"That was the day before yesterday." Guan Li said.

"Really?" Paike was surprised; he hadn't thought that the tying of the knots had taken him that long. Sure, he had gotten lost in the rhythm of the work, but it hadn't felt long at all.

"Not that you missed much. The physical cultivation class is interesting, but really it has just been skirmishes as the established factions are trying to consolidate power." Guan Li explained. "Liming's friends are holding for now, but they are getting pressed. I would say about half of our class has joined one of the factions at this point. The rest have either rallied behind Liming or are holdouts on their own."

"Even the boys?" Paike asked.

"Yes, they tried to look at Li Feng, but he told them he didn't care and sent them to her." Guan Li said, "There weren't many other options. Xai Jun is still recovering, Wu Chen won't talk to anyone, and Han Saiyan and Ren Shu joined factions that had some members of their family in or running them."

"Well, that's certainly a bleak picture," Paike said as he ran through the rest of the top contenders in his head. Either they were non-combatants, aligned, or disgraced. He wondered how the daughter of the shadow empress was doing; he hadn't even caught sight of her for quite a while.

"With you being gone, I had a few people ask about you. I told them you would support your sister, and that seemed to help her cause a bit, but I think everyone already knew that." Guan Li said.

"That's good, thank you." Paike couldn't have done better himself.

"Did you make any progress?" Guan Li asked. "I think I feel something different."

"I did," Paike said with a smile. "You are looking at the fifth Middle Topaz cultivator in the outer sect."

Guan Li gaped for a second. "I didn't know you were close to advancing like that. Based on all the others, I would have thought it would have been months more. I figured you were working on physical cultivation of something."

"No, I'm pretty sure I pushed a stage forward, but I don't actually know if the method I used for advancement is the standard. Most people still follow standard methods, but I didn't acquire one of the manuals, so I'm not sure what they teach." Paike said.

"It certainly feels like you did even if I can’t believe you did it so fast. Why didn't you get a manual?" Guan Li asked. "I'm sure you could have afforded one, either through your family or with sect points."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Why hadn't he? Paike was pretty certain that it wouldn't have worked for him, but it probably would have been a good idea to learn something; he just hadn't.

"I suppose I wanted to figure it out myself. From everything we have discovered, it is clear that many of the materials for new cultivators are simplified explanations intended to help more cultivators reach the next stage. Just because it's a way that more people can use doesn't make it the best way. In fact, I'm sure it is not the best way." Paike said it was post-rationalization, but he thought it was sound reasoning even if he hadn't been consciously thinking about it at the time.

"And I suppose you thought you could do better?" Guan Li asked with a teasing smile. Paike chucked the core of his apple at him, and Guan Li leaned to the side, laughing.

As if Guan Li was going to judge Paike for trying something new. It was patently ridiculous.

"This is going to change things, you know," Guan Li stated.

"I know," Paike said. It would, really; he wasn't just a rising star anymore. He was a power in the outer sect. If he wasn't as old as he was... Paike pushed that thought to the side; he couldn't dwell on what might be.

"Come on, let's get you carving those meridians," Paike said as he sat down. They started going over the preparations, and he offered some advice. In seething jealousy, he watched Guan Li carve each meridian out in about the time it had taken him to eat the apple.

They came so easily that Paike thought that Guan Li might even have a hundred by the time he was done. Truly, some people were just born gifted.

***

After Guan Li finished his work, they had dove right into testing them out. They made charts categorizing how each of the nine archetypes affected the working of the qi. Luckily, it seemed to be rather independent of the instrument, but the location where the meridian was extruded did seem to have some effect.

That said, while there were the nine archetypes, there were lots of variations in the meridians that made things slightly different.

Paike's theory was that they biased the qi passing through them, but with enough qi tricks, he could get the working to do anything that a different meridian in that archetype could do. It would take a lot to prove that.

Guan Li wasn't convinced. He thought that the archetypes were really just families, and if they learned more about the nature of qi, they could do anything with any meridian, making only the destination of the meridian and attainment really important, except for shortcuts.

They were still debating as they left the house to go restock their supplies and food.

"I'll bet you cooking duties for a month that I'm right," Guan Li eventually offered.

"There is no way we are going to find out that fast." Paike countered.

"Sure we will, if I make a counterexample and make two meridians have the same effect, then I'm right." Guan Li said.

"No, that would just show that there is a bit of overlap, not that they could do anything," Paike argued.

"Hmmm," Guan Li said, "I kinda backed myself into a corner with that, didn't I? How about I soften my claim? I think there is a lot of overlap between what the meridians can do; with enough work, we can get overlap not just within each archetype but across them."

"No," Paike shot back. "I think that's probably the case; I'm not betting on that. I also don't think it would be practicable; the workings would be too slow. There is a reason they're as optimized as they are already."

They could have kept talking forever like that, but they were interrupted. There was a commotion on the street as it appeared a confrontation was escalating. There was a girl that Paike didn't recognize standing over her friend, who was on the ground. In front of her were several cultivators who didn't appear to have the best intentions.

Paike struggled to decide if he should get involved. Typically, he would want to help those in need. If the ones in trouble had been mortals, he would have stepped up without hesitation.

However, he knew that cultivators needed strife. They needed the struggle, and he didn't want to rob them of the opportunity to overcome odds from someone here with no reason.

"Hey, that's one of Liming's friends." Guan Li said.

"Part of her faction?" Paike asked as he stepped forward. That was just the excuse he needed. If they were under his sister's protection, then they weren't looking for a challenge. They could go elsewhere for that. The sect was supposed to be a challenge for those who wanted it. If they didn't, they needed to either go elsewhere or find someone to protect them here.

Paike heard that there were disciples who didn't stay in the compound longer than they had to, instead pushing out into the outer sect grounds as they grew stronger, living off the land as they fought ever stronger beasts and spirits. Others never tried to join the grad sect or couldn't get scholarships to travel there and instead served their term in the military.

"Yes, I don't know their names, though. I think they are talisman makers in training?" Guan Li said, and Paike picked up the pace. That would explain a lot, while alchemists were usually more effective in combat. Talismans weren't particularly effective in the early realms until the maker had learned better formations.

As he got close, Paike called out. "If you would pardon the interruption."

He tried to be polite; it almost always got a better outcome.

This certainly got the aggressive group's attention. Their leader turned to him with an angry expression. After he scanned Paike, the color drained from his face, and he bowed low.

"Excuse me. I just remembered this is somewhere we need to be!" The boy said, and, without fully straightening up, he and his friends scurried away. The girl helped her friend up, and they stood awkwardly looking at Paike with apparent nervousness.

Paike looked over at Guan Li. "Well, that was strange"