Chương 11: Chapter 10

The cheap oil lamp had burned itself dry sometime during the night. By the time Ling Tian opened his eyes, the cramped interior of the shack had already begun filling with the cold, diluted gray of early morning. Thin light slipped through the gaps between the warped planks, catching dust suspended above the packed dirt floor and revealing the faint black residue left behind by several hours of rancid tallow smoke.

He was still sitting cross-legged in exactly the same spot where he had finished the previous night's experiment. For several seconds, he did not move. His first conscious thought was not about cultivation, Earth Qi, or the miraculous fact that he had successfully altered his own spiritual condition without dying. It was considerably more practical. His back was going to be unbearable.

Ling Tian knew enough about basic human anatomy to understand that spending an entire night upright on bare dirt in a rigid seated position should have consequences. His knees should be stiff. His hips should ache. His lower back should feel as though someone had compressed the vertebrae together using construction equipment. This body was already malnourished, bruised, overworked, and approximately one badly timed fall away from becoming medically interesting.

Remaining in the same position for hours should have made standing up a negotiation. He waited for the pain. Nothing happened. Ling Tian frowned and slowly unfolded his legs. The movement came easily enough that his suspicion immediately deepened. He extended one knee, expecting the familiar sharp pull of a cramped hamstring or at least the unpleasant pins-and-needles sensation produced by restricted circulation. Nothing. The second leg followed just as smoothly. His calves did not seize. His hips did not complain.

His knees did not crack loudly enough to qualify as structural warnings. He stared at them for a moment, then planted both hands against the ground and carefully pushed himself upright. He stood. Again, nothing hurt. That was worse. Ling Tian remained completely still in the center of the shack, waiting for his body to reveal some delayed penalty. When none arrived, he closed his eyes and immediately turned his awareness inward. The tiny Earth Qi deposit was still inside his Dantian.

Relief came before he could stop it. The previous night had contained too many unknowns for him to fully trust the apparent success. He had half expected to wake and discover the deposit gone, dispersed, lodged inside some organ, or otherwise converted into a medical emergency. Instead, it remained exactly where he had last observed it, resting near the bottom of the spiritual reservoir beneath his navel. It was still rotating. Slowly. Steadily.

Each revolution released a faint pulse through the surrounding meridians. Ling Tian focused harder. The effect was more noticeable now than it had been the previous night. The tiny drop was not simply sitting inside his Dantian as stored energy. It was interacting with the body continuously. Every rotation sent a subtle wave outward, first through the lower abdomen, then along the meridians extending into his torso and limbs. The sensation was cool rather than warm, but not cold. Grounding. Stable.

It carried none of the grinding roughness the Earth Qi had possessed while traveling through his unconditioned pathways. His body had integrated it. That alone would have been interesting. The physical consequences were considerably more concerning. Ling Tian opened his eyes and began a systematic self-assessment. The constant background exhaustion that had followed him since awakening in this body was gone. Not improved. Gone. For the last several days, physical weakness had been the baseline state of existence.

Every climb left his lungs burning. Every morning began with hunger and stiffness. Simply carrying herbs down to Hua City had demanded constant attention to pace, balance, and calorie expenditure. The body did not possess enough reserves to perform anything carelessly. Now he felt rested. Properly rested. The sensation was so unfamiliar that Ling Tian almost distrusted it more than pain. He rolled his shoulders, bent at the waist, touched his toes, straightened, then twisted gently from side to side.

His spine moved smoothly. He crouched, stood, then crouched again. Nothing protested. Ling Tian's expression grew increasingly blank. Then he noticed his stomach. The hunger was still present, technically. He had not somehow become full overnight. His abdomen remained narrow and hollow, and the body clearly still lacked proper nutrition. Yet the frantic, gnawing edge had disappeared.

Normally, prolonged hunger announced itself with cramping, dizziness, weakness, irritability, and the unmistakable message that every biological system was preparing to shut down production unless management acquired calories immediately. That urgency had been muted. Ling Tian placed one hand against his stomach.

"This is medically irresponsible." The shack offered no counterargument. He directed his attention toward the Earth Qi again. The explanation was difficult to avoid. Each pulse spreading from the Dantian seemed to reinforce the body's baseline functions. Not enough to create muscle from nothing or magically fill the stomach, but enough to reduce the immediate consequences of exhaustion, cold, and hunger. Ling Tian did not like the implications. He also liked them immensely. Both reactions could coexist.

He walked toward the crooked wooden door and pushed it open. Cold morning air rushed into the shack. Frost clung in pale patches to the grass near the ridge, and the higher slopes of Crimson Peak remained hidden beneath a layer of thin white mist. Wind moved down the mountain and struck his exposed arms. Yesterday, that would have triggered immediate shivering. Today, Ling Tian barely reacted. He stopped in the doorway. The Earth Qi within his Dantian pulsed, sending a faint wave outward.

The chill touching his skin seemed to lose its bite. His skin remained cold, but the body no longer reacted as though the temperature represented a serious drain on its resources. The constant muscular contractions required for shivering never began. His core temperature felt stable. Ling Tian slowly looked down at himself. The evidence was becoming annoyingly difficult to dismiss. One microscopic deposit of Earth Qi had apparently installed passive environmental regulation.

He had been cultivating for less than twelve hours. This world had no respect whatsoever for proportional reward. Ling Tian stepped outside. The ridge surrounding the shack was quiet beneath the pale morning sky. The ground was damp and dark from overnight condensation. Pine needles collected in shallow depressions between stones, and the wind carried the sharp smell of wet soil and resin. He walked several meters from the shack and stopped in the center of a roughly flat patch of dirt.

If something had changed his physical baseline, he needed measurements. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Not accurate measurements, unfortunately. He possessed no watch, no scale, no heart-rate monitor, no measuring tape, and none of the equipment a civilized person might reasonably use when testing whether magic had illegally rewritten his metabolism. He would improvise. Calisthenics. Simple movements. No equipment.

Easy to compare against prior experience. Ling Tian planted his feet shoulder-width apart and lowered into a squat. Then he stood. Again. He focused on the movement rather than speed. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. The body responded smoothly. At fifty repetitions, he was still breathing normally. Ling Tian's eyebrows drew together. He continued. Sixty. Seventy. Around the seventieth repetition, a familiar burn finally began forming in his thighs. There. Good. At least chemistry remained partially employed.

The sensation resembled the fatigue he remembered from exercise in his previous life: muscles heating, oxygen demand increasing, metabolic waste accumulating faster than the body could clear it. Then the Earth Qi pulsed. The burning disappeared. Ling Tian stopped halfway through another squat. He remained there for a second, knees bent, staring at the ground. Then he straightened. The muscles in his thighs felt fresh.

Not fully restored in the dramatic sense of an injury vanishing, but the accumulated fatigue had been dramatically reduced. The tightness eased. The burning faded. His breathing remained steady. Ling Tian waited. Another slow revolution of the Earth Qi. Another pulse. The last traces of fatigue receded farther. He looked toward the sky as though expecting someone to explain themselves. No explanation arrived.

"This is cheating." The mountain continued being a mountain. Ling Tian resumed the squats. Eighty. Ninety. One hundred. He stopped. No meaningful exhaustion. That was absurd enough. So naturally, he escalated the test. He lowered himself to the ground, planted both palms against the cold dirt, extended his legs behind him, and began doing push-ups. The body was still small. The arms were still thin. Visually, nothing had changed. Yet the muscles responded with surprising efficiency. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.

The first signs of strain arrived around forty. Earth Qi pulsed. The strain eased. Ling Tian continued until he reached one hundred, then pushed himself back onto his feet. His chest rose and fell only slightly faster than resting pace. There was no sweat, no shaking in his arms, and no desperate need to sit down. Ling Tian stared at the shack. Then at his hands. Then back at the shack. He felt personally insulted.

In his previous life, Aditya had made several sincere but inconsistent attempts at maintaining a gym routine. None had survived more than a few months. He remembered waking early before work, forcing himself through traffic, changing clothes in a cramped locker room, lifting increasingly unpleasant pieces of metal, drinking protein shakes that tasted like liquefied drywall, and then discovering several weeks later that the visible improvement to his body could best be described as statistically discouraging.

Leg day had been particularly offensive. He had voluntarily paid money to become unable to use stairs. Now, as a starving ten-year-old wearing clothing one strong breeze away from becoming rags, he had completed two hundred bodyweight repetitions and felt fine. Not strong in the dramatic cultivation sense. Not invincible. Fine. That somehow made it more offensive. Ling Tian placed both hands on his hips.

"Years of exercise science. Diet plans. Protein intake. Recovery schedules. Sleep optimization." The wind moved through the trees.

"Versus one piece of magical dirt." He stared at the ground.

"Excellent system." The bitterness lasted approximately five seconds. Then practicality took control. Fairness was irrelevant. The return on investment was extraordinary. He had spent several hours of concentration and accepted a carefully managed amount of risk. In exchange, he had apparently acquired substantially improved endurance, recovery, temperature tolerance, and resistance to hunger. That was not a minor benefit. For his current life, it was transformational. Herb gathering became easier.

Travel became easier. Cold nights became less dangerous. The risk of exhaustion-related injury decreased. He could cover greater distances and work longer. More work meant more herbs. More herbs meant more money. More money meant food. Food meant time. Time meant more cultivation. Ling Tian's corporate instincts immediately began constructing a positive feedback loop. He stopped them. One successful night did not justify assuming infinite growth.

The Earth Qi deposit was providing something, but he had no idea what fuel it consumed, whether its benefits diminished with use, whether repeated strain could damage the Dantian, or whether the body might be quietly paying for the improved performance through some resource he had not yet identified. There is no free lunch in this world. Especially not in magical economies. Still, he had enough evidence to justify a broader stress test. Stationary exercise revealed endurance.

It did not test speed, balance, coordination, or performance across uneven terrain. Ling Tian looked toward the mountain path leading down toward the waterfall. A slow smile appeared. Yesterday, that route had been a prolonged battle against gravity. Today, it could become a test track. He walked to the edge of the ridge. The trail fell sharply through the trees, winding between exposed roots and jagged rock. Moisture from the night had darkened the soil, making several sections visibly slick.

It was an excellent place to discover whether his improved body remained vulnerable to basic stupidity. Ling Tian lowered his center of gravity. Then he ran. Not jogged. Ran. His first several steps felt wrong. Too light. His foot struck the dirt and immediately pushed away with more force than expected, propelling him farther forward than his instincts had predicted. Ling Tian adjusted quickly. The next stride shortened, then another. Within several seconds, his movement stabilized.

The mountain began passing around him faster. Much faster. Ling Tian's eyes narrowed. A thick root crossed the trail ahead. Yesterday, he would have slowed. Today, his body responded before the conscious calculation finished. He planted one foot and jumped. The root passed beneath him. Ling Tian landed cleanly on the far side. No ankle pain. No awkward stumble. The Earth Qi pulsed faintly through his legs, and the impact seemed to disperse across his joints rather than concentrating painfully through the knees.

He accelerated. Trees blurred past. Cold wind struck his face hard enough to make his eyes water. The sensation pulled a short, involuntary laugh from him. He could run. Actually run. Not the desperate shuffle of a malnourished child attempting to cover distance before sunset. Not the exhausting mountain climb he had endured repeatedly since awakening. Run. Ling Tian followed the winding path downhill. His spiritual perception remained mostly suppressed.

He did not need another sensory overload while sprinting between trees. But he allowed one narrow channel to remain active. Earth. The element beneath his feet. Immediately, the terrain became easier to read. Dense rock announced itself before contact. Loose soil felt different. Roots carried a faint overlap between Earth and Verdant signatures. Ling Tian was not seeing the trail through Qi, but he was detecting enough additional information that his body could prepare slightly earlier. A fraction of a second.

Sometimes less. On flat ground, almost meaningless. On a steep mountain trail filled with ankle-breaking obstacles, extremely useful. Ling Tian adjusted his steps automatically. Left around the loose slate. Right foot on the stable stone. Shorter stride before the mud. Jump the root. Land. Turn. Push. The trail that had bullied him for days suddenly felt manageable. He ran faster. The small Earth Qi deposit continued rotating. Fatigue tried to accumulate. The next pulse washed part of it away.

His breathing deepened but never became desperate. His calves did not begin screaming. For several minutes, Ling Tian stopped thinking about individual steps and simply moved. The sensation was extraordinary. His previous life had contained almost no physical experiences that resembled this. Running had always come with consequences. Burning lungs. Heavy legs. Sweat soaking through clothing. The endless negotiation between ambition and cardiovascular conditioning. Here, his body seemed willing to keep going.

That willingness was dangerously addictive. Ling Tian forced himself to remain analytical. He had no precise method for measuring distance, but the original boy knew the mountain well enough for him to estimate routes. He chose a circuit across the lower ridges that should total several kilometers, continuing far beyond the waterfall trail before looping back. He maintained speed. One kilometer. Then another. The forest opened and narrowed in alternating stretches.

He bounded over fallen trunks, cut around rock formations, and climbed short embankments that should have destroyed his pace. They did not. By the time he estimated he had covered five kilometers, Ling Tian was still moving easily. He continued. Seven. Eight. Near ten, he finally reduced his pace. Not because he was exhausted. Because the experiment had already proven the point. Ling Tian slowed into a jog. His body objected to nothing. His breathing was faster, but controlled.

His heart rate was elevated, presumably, yet there was no chest pain, no dizziness, no weakness, and no burning in his legs. He came to a complete stop beneath a cluster of pines and stood there. The silence returned around him. Ling Tian looked back along the route he had just traveled. Approximately ten kilometers. Across mountain terrain. In the body of an underfed ten-year-old. Without meaningful fatigue. His excitement cooled. Something colder replaced it. Ling Tian looked down at his hands. One drop.

Not even a proper drop. One microscopic sample of low-risk Earth Qi. That was all. His mind began scaling the numbers whether he wanted it to or not. If this was what one minimal deposit could do to a body that had never cultivated before, what did a true cultivator possess? Not someone at the first stage. Not some teenager from Hua City. A real expert. An elder. A sect master. A creature capable of traveling through the sky.

Ling Tian remembered the pressure descending over the wet market when the Yan Clan carriage arrived. He remembered the scaled beast stepping on empty air and how its hooves cracked stone. He remembered the hidden passengers, cultivators who could silence an entire street simply by approaching. Then Huo Jin. The boy's necklace had been draining Qi continuously, yet even the energy being stolen from him had been substantial enough for Ling Tian's perception to identify. And higher still— The storm over Crimson Peak.

That enormous, impossible presence hidden inside the green-black cloud. Ling Tian's stomach tightened. His earlier excitement suddenly felt childish. If one microscopic piece of Earth Qi could produce this much improvement, then a cultivator carrying hundreds, thousands, or millions of times more refined energy was not simply a stronger human. The difference would be categorical.