Chương 21: Chapter 20

Seventy-two hours passed before Ling Tian attempted cultivation again. That delay was deliberate. After returning from Hua City, he imposed a complete freeze on anything that could reasonably be classified as unnecessary physical expenditure. No sprinting. No climbing cliffs because a glowing plant looked profitable. No experimental swings with the tar-covered bronze club. He barely used spiritual perception beyond the narrowest possible range needed to monitor himself and the immediate area around the shack.

For two days, Ling Tian focused on one task. Eating. The first proper meal nearly became an emotional event. He built a small fire inside the crude hearth at the rear of the shack and placed his clay cooking pot over it. Thick pieces of pork went in first. The fatty cuts hissed as they heated, gradually rendering into a pool of rich golden grease that filled the drafty room with a smell so intensely savory that Ling Tian stood over the pot in complete silence for several seconds.

He had forgotten food could smell like this. Not bitter roots. Not dry millet. Not salted meat tough enough to double as construction material. Actual food. Ling Tian added chopped onions and spices next, watching them darken in the rendered fat. Rice followed, then chunks of starchy root vegetable and enough water to turn the whole thing into something between porridge and stew. It was not elegant. It was magnificent. He ate until his stomach hurt. Then he waited. Then ate again.

The body seemed almost alarmingly enthusiastic about the new supply. Hunger returned regularly, but the sensation no longer carried the desperate, hollow edge that had defined the plateau collapse. Ling Tian made no attempt to restrict portions beyond avoiding the obvious mistake of making himself sick. For once, rationing was not the highest priority. Rebuilding reserves was. The Earth Qi inside his Dantian continued rotating throughout the recovery period.

Its passive pulses remained steady, assisting whatever restorative processes were occurring without demanding anything obvious in return. Ling Tian monitored the deposit carefully after every meal, half expecting its behavior to change once the body had access to proper nutrition. Nothing dramatic happened. That was encouraging. His muscles stopped feeling hollow by the end of the first day. The trembling disappeared completely.

By the second morning, his body felt stronger than it had before the plateau experiment. Not magically transformed, but properly supplied. The difference between malnourished performance and fed performance was almost insulting. Ling Tian spent most of the second day doing nothing. This proved surprisingly difficult. Crimson Peak contained resources now. He knew that. Rare herbs waited in cliffs and ravines. Money waited in Hua City. His body could train. His cultivation could advance.

And Ling Tian deliberately ignored all of it. Rest was part of the system. He reminded himself of that repeatedly. His previous life had taught him that people loved treating recovery as wasted time until the accumulated damage eventually submitted an invoice. Ling Tian had already received one such invoice on the plateau. He did not require a duplicate. So he ate. Slept. Checked the shack. Rewrapped the remaining food. Reorganized the small pile of copper.

Confirmed the two silver coins remained hidden safely inside his clothes. And repeatedly looked toward The Way of Natural Harmony without opening it. That final behavior bothered him. The cultivation manual lay on the splintered table where he had left it, leather cover dark beneath the weak lamplight. Nothing about the book had changed. Ling Tian had. Three days ago, he had opened his first meridian gate and allowed foreign Qi into his body. It worked. More than worked.

The deposit had transformed his physical capabilities. That should have made the second attempt easier. It did not. By the third evening, Ling Tian had exhausted every reasonable argument for postponement. His food reserves were stable. His body had recovered. His meridians showed no lingering pain. The first Earth Qi deposit remained intact. No delayed side effects had appeared. The experimental conditions were better than they had been during the first attempt. Ling Tian still did not want to do it.

That mattered. Fear was not automatically irrational. The original Ling Tian had died from cultivation. Not metaphorically. Not according to some old story. This body had already experienced internal rupture caused by uncontrolled Qi intake. Ling Tian could still access the phantom memory if he searched for it too directly. Heat. Pressure. Tearing. The sensation of something inside the abdomen giving way. He had survived once by being careful. That did not guarantee repetition.

Ling Tian sat cross-legged on the woven mat and stared at his right palm. The shack was quiet except for the wind scraping against the outer walls. His tar-covered bronze sword leaned beside the door, now so ugly that it appeared to have been retrieved from the bottom of a polluted river. Several bundles of food occupied the corner nearby. For once, the room contained enough supplies to feel almost inhabited. Ling Tian breathed slowly. Remaining stagnant was also a choice. And choices had costs.

One microscopic Earth Qi deposit had already produced enough physical improvement to fundamentally change his survival prospects. It allowed him to gather better herbs, earn more money, travel farther, tolerate cold, and defend himself at least marginally. Stopping now because the first success frightened him would preserve short-term safety. It would also leave him permanently beneath everyone who continued advancing. That was not safe. It was simply avoiding risk.

Ling Tian placed his right hand against the packed dirt floor.

"Again." The word sounded quieter than expected. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. He straightened his spine. Not rigidly. Naturally. The first experiment had already taught him that forcing the body into some dramatic meditation posture accomplished nothing except discomfort. Alignment mattered. Stability mattered. Excess theatrical suffering did not. Ling Tian settled into the same breathing rhythm he had used before. Four seconds in. Brief hold.

Four seconds out. Again. His heartbeat remained elevated. He allowed it. Trying to force himself into artificial calm would only add another task. The objective was control, not emotional perfection. Ling Tian closed his eyes. The ordinary world receded. He opened spiritual perception by the smallest amount necessary. Immediately, the familiar layers appeared. Earth beneath him. Wind slipping through the shack walls. Faint Fire Qi surrounding the lamp flame. Moisture deeper in the soil.

Ling Tian ignored everything except Earth. The signal had become easier to understand since the first experiment. Not stronger. Clearer. Where once he perceived the mountain as an enormous, almost continuous mass of dense elemental presence, he could now distinguish small concentrations embedded throughout the dirt and stone with far less effort. Experience mattered. That was reassuring. Ling Tian narrowed the field further. Three feet. One foot. Several inches.

Eventually, the world outside his right palm vanished from spiritual attention. Only Earth remained. He searched for a sample. Small. Smaller. The first deposit had proven that his body could accept an amount at the threshold of what his senses reliably detected. There was no reason to increase the dosage. Ling Tian rejected several nearby concentrations because they felt too large. Finally, he found one nearly identical to the amount used during the first attempt. A microscopic fragment.

Barely enough to deserve classification. Perfect. He separated it from the surrounding Earth Qi. The process remained slow, though considerably easier than before. Ling Tian traced the boundaries of the fragment, isolated it gradually, and drew it toward the surface. The Earth Qi resisted movement through indifference rather than opposition. Same behavior. Good. He brought the tiny concentration directly beneath the meridian gate in his palm. Then stopped. This was the moment.

Everything before this remained reversible. Open the gate and the experiment becomes real. Ling Tian's body knew that. His fingers tightened involuntarily against the dirt. The predecessor's memory rose again. Not the full death. Only enough. A flood of Water. Wind behind it. Fire. Pain. Ling Tian opened his eyes. He almost stopped. There would have been no shame in it. That was important too. He had enough food. Enough money. Enough strength to survive tomorrow. Nothing required him to continue tonight.

But fear could become its own habit. Ling Tian recognized that. Avoid one controlled attempt because it felt frightening, and the next would become easier to avoid. Then the next. Eventually, caution stopped being risk management and became paralysis. Ling Tian closed his eyes again. He returned to the isolated sample. One element. One port. One route. One microscopic deposit. The parameters had not changed. Only the operator had more data. Ling Tian loosened the meridian gate in his palm.

The response was immediate. Ambient Qi shifted toward the opening. Ling Tian expected it this time. He kept the aperture narrow and the selected Earth sample directly against the boundary. The fragment crossed. His palm filled with the familiar sensation of impossible density. A microscopic bead of heavy, almost metallic pressure settled beneath the skin. Ling Tian shut the port instantly. No hesitation. The attraction vanished. No Wind entered. No Fire. No second fragment. Containment Successful.

Ling Tian remained still. He waited for panic. It came. Not as strongly as before, but it came. His heartbeat accelerated. His shoulders tightened. The phantom memory of the predecessor's death attempted to overlay itself across the current sensation. Ling Tian did not fight the fear. He compared it against evidence. No heat. No swelling. No uncontrolled motion. No pressure increase. No tearing sensation. Only the same heavy discomfort he remembered from the first deposit. Good. He began transport.

The Earth Qi moved from the palm toward the wrist. Resistance immediately appeared. Ling Tian frowned. The pathway had improved slightly. Not much. He had wondered whether one successful transit would dramatically widen the meridian. Apparently not. The route felt marginally less hostile than before, but still narrow enough that forcing the deposit would have been reckless. Ling Tian moved slowly. The familiar dull ache tracked the fragment through his palm. He stopped after several centimeters. Waited. No change.

Continued. The sample reached the wrist. This time Ling Tian adjusted the angle of the joint before encountering serious resistance. The pathway aligned more naturally, allowing the Qi to pass through without repeating the sharp warning pain from the first experiment. That saved time. More importantly, it confirmed something useful. The first attempt had not merely succeeded. It had produced transferable knowledge. Ling Tian continued through the forearm. The transit remained uncomfortable.

He did not expect otherwise. There was still something profoundly unnatural about consciously dragging a bead of supernatural energy through an internal pathway he could not physically see. But the fear changed. Last time, every centimeter had been unknown. This time, Ling Tian possessed a map. Not a perfect one. Enough. The Qi moved toward the elbow. Ling Tian slowed before reaching the joint. He remembered exactly where the previous bottleneck occurred. Rather than increasing pressure, he adjusted the arm first.

The pathway opened slightly. The Earth Qi passed. Ling Tian almost smiled. That was progress. Not more power. Better procedure. He preferred it. The deposit continued through the upper arm. Ling Tian monitored his body continuously, checking sensation in the fingers, skin temperature, breathing, and any indication that the meridian itself had become damaged. Everything remained stable. The shoulder approached. Ling Tian stopped. The next section remained the most dangerous.

His limb could survive mistakes better than his torso. The path from shoulder to Dantian brought the Qi close enough to important organs that even knowing the route did little to make the sensation pleasant. Ling Tian took several breaths. The deposit remained motionless. That was another reason he liked Earth. It did not rush him. He checked the route. Shoulder inward. Then downward along the same primary pathway used before. No reason to improvise. Ling Tian resumed. The Earth Qi entered his torso.

His body immediately reacted with instinctive fear. The sensation of having something dense traveling near the lungs remained horrifying. Ling Tian's breathing became shallow. He noticed. Stopped. Corrected it. Deep inhale. No chest pain. Exhale. No pressure spike. The discomfort belonged to the meridian. Not the organs. Proceed. The sample moved downward. Past the upper chest. Past the sternum. The dull internal ache followed. Ling Tian did not hurry. Knowing the route reduced uncertainty.

It did not reduce consequence. He paused whenever anything changed. Measured. Compared. Continued. By the time the Earth Qi moved beneath the lower ribs, sweat had gathered across his forehead. The shack remained cold. His body did not care. Ling Tian wiped nothing away. The distraction was not worth it. The Dantian became easier to sense as the sample approached. The first Earth Qi deposit still rotated there. Slow. Steady. Integrated. Ling Tian focused on it briefly.

The tiny drop felt almost absurdly small inside the empty reservoir. Yet it had changed his life. The second sample moved closer. Then the Dantian responded. The same faint attraction appeared. Ling Tian relaxed some of the forward pressure. The Earth Qi drifted downward on its own. Same mechanism. Repeatable. His heartbeat accelerated again. This was the first genuinely new part. The initial experiment had introduced Qi into an empty Dantian. Now the reservoir already contained refined Earth Qi.

What happened when the second deposit arrived? Would they remain separate? Merge? Repel each other? Would the existing drop somehow destabilize the new sample? The manual said very little that Ling Tian trusted on the subject. Mostly rivers entering oceans. Again. Dead poet. Ling Tian kept a slight restraint on the incoming sample until it reached the Dantian threshold. He stopped it there. Then inspected both energies. Inside the core, the original drop continued its rotation. Outside, the second sample waited.

Same element. Similar density. No visible reaction across the boundary. Good. Ling Tian reviewed the final step. Open threshold. Allow entry. Observe. Abort options after entry were, admittedly, limited. He opened the Dantian. The second Earth Qi deposit slipped inside. The grinding friction vanished instantly. Ling Tian's entire body relaxed. The new sample changed almost immediately. The rough, foreign quality it possessed during transit began smoothing away just as the first had.

Its shape rounded under spiritual perception until it resembled another microscopic bead of dense liquid. Then it moved. Toward the first. Ling Tian tensed. The original deposit rotated slowly at the bottom of the reservoir. The second approached. No collision. No repulsion. It entered the same rotational pattern. Ling Tian watched. The two drops circled together. For several moments, they remained distinguishable. Then the separation became harder to perceive. Their movements synchronized.

The rotational rhythm stabilized. What had felt like two independent deposits gradually began behaving as one slightly larger body of refined Earth Qi. Ling Tian held perfectly still. A deeper pulse spread outward. Stronger than before. Not twice as strong. But clearly stronger. The sensation traveled from the Dantian through his torso and into his limbs. His muscles responded first. The faint residual heaviness left from several days of recovery seemed to loosen. His bones carried a denser, more settled sensation.

The entire body felt anchored. Ling Tian continued observing. No heat. No pressure spike. No meridian instability. No foreign reaction. The two deposits had integrated. Successfully. He stayed seated. Five minutes. Then ten. Nothing changed except the slow rhythm inside his core. Ling Tian finally opened his eyes. The shack looked identical. The oil lamp still sputtered weakly beside the table. Wind still slipped through the walls.

The bronze sword still leaned beside the door beneath enough tar and dirt to constitute vandalism. His body was soaked in cold sweat. His right arm ached with the familiar bruised sensation of Qi transit. But nothing was broken. Ling Tian looked down at his palm. Then at his abdomen. A smile appeared. Not the wild excitement that followed the first successful deposit. Something quieter and more dangerous. Confidence. The first attempt could have been luck. One success proved a possibility.

Two successes using the same procedure suggested repeatability. That distinction mattered enormously. Ling Tian leaned backward until his shoulders touched the wooden wall. He closed his eyes again and examined the expanded Earth Qi inside his Dantian. The reserve was still microscopic. Laughably microscopic. If a true cultivator inspected him, they might not consider the amount worth acknowledging. Ling Tian did not care. He had doubled it.

More importantly, he had reproduced the process without introducing new variables. Same element. Same approximate quantity. Same access point. Same route. Same safety checks. Same successful result. The ledger had expanded. His smile widened slightly.

"Compounding interest." The phrase sounded ridiculous in the dark shack. Ling Tian approved. He had spent most of his life on Earth watching people obsess over rapid returns. Fast growth. Fast profit. Fast promotion. Fast everything. This world appeared even worse. Cultivation stories worshiped breakthroughs. Realm jumps. Heavenly opportunities. Ancient treasures. Ling Tian wanted none of them. Not yet. One drop. Observe. Recover. Second drop. Observe. If the procedure continued working, he would repeat it. Slowly.

Boringly. With enough caution to make every heroic cultivator in existence lose patience. That was fine. They could lose patience. Ling Tian preferred not losing organs. He opened his eyes again. Outside, Crimson Peak remained dark and enormous. The world beyond the shack had not become safer. The Yan Clan still existed. Huo Jin still carried his suspicious necklace.

The storm-hidden creature somewhere above the mountain remained so far beyond Ling Tian's comprehension that comparing himself against it served no practical purpose. But his own position had changed again. Three days ago, the first deposit proved he could cultivate without dying. Tonight, the second proved the result could be repeated. That was more important. Luck could not be scaled. A process could.

Ling Tian let his head rest against the wooden wall and felt the larger Earth Qi reserve rotate beneath his navel. Slow. Stable. Predictable. Exactly how he liked his growth. The ledger was open again. And for the first time, Ling Tian had begun to believe it might remain that way.