Wang Liu, former Ilaryan native turned US mercenary, stepped out of the cave door and into the sunlight. The cultivation cave he had been supplied with was in the edge of a desert known as Mohave, but he had long stopped caring about high temperatures. The cave was built into an abandoned mine in the southwest corner of the region his portal had opened into, Utah.
He greeted the man who was assigned to keep watch on him, who was currently acting as his servant. For the last two weeks he had been learning about this world and its culture, and had recently taken an interest in its technology. This world was quite unusual, as everyone here used devices constructed of complex formations, but everything was so cheap that even the weakest of them could afford to purchase these devices, if only used versions. The air had less than a tenth of the qi he was use to in it, but they had built the infrastructure needed for everyone to have access to all of the qi they wished to use, again at costs that even the poorest people could afford. When he had went into town with his handler, a Peak Level Four man named Joseph Brown, Liu had even seen a homeless man that had both a qi gathering bracelet and a ‘cell phone’, which allowed communications with anyone on the world, the retrieval of information from a vast information exchange network known as ‘the internet’, and even let him play games, though they weren’t as high quality as the ones Liu had assess to.
One of the companies in this country had discovered how to use jade to project illusions into the minds of a willing person, and would soon be releasing a device onto the market which would allow people to experience imaginary realms, what the locals called Virtual Reality. His game console wasn’t as complicated, but it did contain a device which one could place on their head to see and hear things in an imaginary world while controlling their movement and actions with another device. While it wouldn’t be confused with reality the way a good illusion could be, it was suitable as a form of interactive storytelling, and Liu often challenged Joseph in war games on the device.
An hour later Adams landed beside him. He had been checking in on Wang Liu every few days, and coming for a visit once a week, likely to remind Wang Liu that he was under surveillance, as if Joseph Brown’s presence wasn’t enough of a reminder. “Hello, Jacob.” Liu said, lifting the pistol off of the table and loading another magazine into it. He had developed a fascination with the weapons that had slaughtered his men, and Joseph had a drill range installed for him so that he could learn to properly use them.
“Hello, Liu. I take it you like the gift I sent you?”
Liu nodded. “This ‘Nineteen Eleven’ is an interesting weapon. It can take ammunition that can do any amount of damage from mortal level to initial level four, and all one needs to do to change the amount of damage is push a single button and slide in a new magazine with the new ammunition. I have seen devices which have an option for adjusting the damage before, so that one can save qi when killing weak opponents or when the full effect isn’t needed, but they all cost thousands of stones at a minimum. I looked up the price of this one, and it appears to cost just a bit more than a stone. Maybe two. On Ilarya, though, it would sell for thousands.”
Adams nodded. “I’m glad you like it. You understand why we can’t sell it to your world, though, right?”
Liu nodded. “Because you would lose your main advantage in this war, and any future one?” Liu asked with a smile, and Adams shrugged.
“Mostly.” he said.
“Understandable. Most people on my world keep the best techniques and cultivation resources for themselves for similar reasons.”
“We have no problem selling those techniques.” Adams argued, “We just can’t do so when we have enemies, as they might use them against us.”
Liu shook his head. “Even before the war you kept your cultivation techniques secret from everyone, and only allowed us to purchase the worst devices and techniques, those you saw as too inferior to worry about us having. I suspect you only allowed us to buy those so that you could improve your economy while spreading your influence.”
Adams nodded. “That was one of the reasons we wanted to do so, yes.” he said. “But now that you have access to the good techniques, what do you think of them?”
Liu sighed, spun the gun on his finger, then tossed it into the air before effortlessly twisting so that the gun landed in the holster. At his level, such an act was virtually effortless. “They are efficient trash.” he said honestly. “Your people have an energy abundance, while at the same time you strive to make techniques which are extremely efficient. This allows many techniques to be usable by simple devices and artifacts, often at lower levels than comparable techniques from my own world.” He started walking to the nearby house as he talked. “Flight, for example, is usually something no one below level two can do, and even then it requires a flying sword. Even the mortals in your society can learn to use it to some degree, however, and those that can’t can spend the cost of a few meals to buy a device to do it for them. But from my point of view, the techniques were designed to work with formations, not people. The designers look at the human body as some sort of puppet, a complex device that can be easily understood. But the body is too complex for such a simple thought process to hold much value.”
Adams looked confused. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Liu entered the back door of the house and picked up a binder on the table before tossing it to Adams. “This is all of the techniques I’ve studied since arriving.” Though the folder contained hundreds of techniques, none of them took up more than a page as he had drastically reduced the print size, as reading small print was effortless at his level. “Take the ‘107 Stars Technique’ on page 17. I have a Fire root, so I downloaded it, as it is the most popular fire cultivation technique on one of the websites which sell techniques. It does a good job of adapting the qi that enters ones body to the body and its meridians. But once the qi is adapted, it does nothing with the qi. Yes, it asks you to just send the qi into the dantian, which does cause it to develop well, but what about the rest of the body? They simply have you send the qi into the effected areas and organs. You don’t direct the changes. You don’t target specific areas. You just flood the entire area with high quality qi and let your body do what it wants with the qi.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Adams asked, confused. “Isn’t that a valid way to refine the body?”
“Sure, but only in the same way throwing a handful of seeds into a field and returning a few months later is a valid way to farm. Some of your techniques will tell you proper planting depths, or spacing, or how to water them after planting, and the best will do all three, but on its own that is still far from what you would call being a good farming technique.”
Adams nodded. “Well, I admit that we haven’t been developing the techniques for very long, but it’s worked so far. We even managed to get five people up to level five, so it can’t be that bad of a refinement method.”
“You got four melee fighting soldiers and a Buddhist monk, all of whom practice martial arts, up to level five. Later you and the Monk’s apprentice joined that group, but even the originals starting to hit their limits. The flaws in your techniques leave your people with too many problems in their cultivation. You seven only managed to advance that high because your practice of martial arts helped to fix many of those flaws, at least well enough to allow another breakthrough or two.”
“Can you give an example of these flaws?” Adams asked. While having this man reform the military training of Earth’s, and more importantly America’s, troops wasn’t his goal, it could be a good project for the man to work on. They wouldn’t take the techniques at face value, as he might sabotage them, and would extensively test everything before deploying it to the field, but if he could help even a fraction of the troops reach even one level higher, it would be worth it.
Liu nodded. “Lets say that you want to refine the muscles of the body. That’s a standard step in most body refinement techniques. So you send a stream of qi through all of the muscles in the body and back into the dantian. This causes all of them to slightly improve by, just to give it an exaggerated number, maybe a thousandth of a percent or so, right? Though in reality it is more like a millionth, depending on the level of the body.” Adams nodded. “The problem is that that percentage is only for the largest muscles. The smaller muscles receive exponentially less refinement. While your biceps might get a millionth of a percent improvement in their quality, the muscles in the back of your hand or wrist might get only a billionth of a percent, or less. This means that when you are ready to advance, only the large muscles will be where they need to be. That’s one reason you are sore after an advancement. After you advance your body will try to improve these flawed areas up to some minimum standard, but as you advance even further, that difference in refinement becomes even more pronounced. Eventually the difference is so large that the qi can’t flow properly through the flawed areas, blocking your qi from improving its pressure.”
“Like a plug in a water hose?” Adams asked, but Liu didn’t understand the question. “Like a plug in a mortal’s artery, the blood can’t flow well, so the heart malfunctions?”
Liu did get this reference, as he had heard of mortals having heart attacks. “Exactly.”
“And how exactly does martial arts help the situation?” Adams asked, confused.
“Martial arts causes one to exercise those minor muscles, and they are refined somewhat when they recover. Furthermore, with any exercise, the weakest muscles get the most out of it, so they get the most refinement when one recovers from the workout. This can at least partially offset the different refinement rates.”
Adams nodded. “Do you think you could fix our techniques for us, then?” he asked.
Liu shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ll need far more information about the theory behind these techniques and even more cultivation techniques. If you want better level four advancement techniques, I need to know the limits of your current level four techniques.”
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The Dancing Dragon Technique was split into two parts. The first was just a sword training manual that had somewhat fancy but mostly practical movements in it, which merged with one or more of the attack techniques you were meant to teach the artificial dragon spirit. The second half was the steps for actually creating a dragon spirit. The first step of such creation was basically creating another personality in your head. You needed to create a character with its own personality and motivations, then imbue it with the ability to act on its own. While this seemed like a bad idea on the surface, and a good way to develop mental disorders, it would allow the spirit to cast techniques it learned on its own. After the spirit was complete, you needed to construct a body for it out of Fire qi, using a variation of the Manifestation technique.
Manifestation, one of the two key skills of illusion users, along with perception distortion, allowed one to create semi-physical objects out of qi, much like the holograms in that nineteen eighties sci fi show I watched as a kid. This can create independent copies of weapons in something like the Many Weapons Technique, larger versions of oneself or parts of oneself in the Buddhist Dharma Body Technique, or even artificial people and objects. The form in the book was greatly simplified, however, so I couldn’t make a very stable manifestation. If, however, I bonded it to the artificial mind in my brain, it could take over the manifestation and fix the flaws in the design in accordance with its own desires.
Once those two steps were finished, you then only needed to train it with the techniques in the book, storing it in your dantian when it got too exhausted and needed to recover, its nature as your own qi and mind allowing it to reside there. Once it knew the moves, it only needed to learn to coordinate with your movements and obey your commands, and it would become a powerful ally on the battlefield.
I could learn the sword techniques once I was out of the carriage, but for now I would concentrate on making the spirit. I had done enough creative writing that I could easily make a character that had its own thoughts, personality, and motivations. I made a fiercely loyal but proud being that wanted to protect me at all costs, but was as obedient as a puppy, taking pride in its role as my protector. I imagined that I had found a dragon egg and hatched it, and Ryu had hatched from it. I imagined spending time playing with my baby dragon in the park, playing catch like it was a dog, and having so much fun we were exhausted, curling up in a recliner to take a nap with the lovable scaled flying noodle laying on my chest.
Once I was done with that I was about to start the process of making it independent when someone shook me. I opened my eyes to see that the sun was starting to set. “Sorry.” I said. “I must have meditated thorough the whole day. I was working on a new technique and must have skipped lunch.”
“It’s fine,” said Ji Wan, “Jiang is about to cook for us, as she wanted to do something and is a good chef, and I thought that you might want to set up camp before it grows dark.” I could see in the dark using various techniques, including the light talismans that I had handed out, but it would be easiest to set up my tent while I still had light.
I nodded and got out of the carriage, stretching more out of habit than because I was actually stiff. With a level three body I would need to sit for more than three days without movement to grow stiff from doing so. I looked for a spot near the Ambassador that was flat enough and quickly found one about ten meters away. I then pulled out my tent, a simple canvas one with a bipod on each end and ropes with tent spikes to hold the ends up.
It took me less than five minutes to set up the tent, as I could just push the tent pegs into the ground without even needing the hammer or to expend qi. My physical strength was roughly eight to ten times what it would be with a level zero mortal body, and I had refined it to the level of a professional athlete, so even without the use of qi I could lift and carry the one ton spirit horse that pulled our cart almost indefinitely. Pushing in these spikes wasn’t an issue even in the hard ground of the designated roadside camping spot. Once I was finished I laid my sleeping skins down inside of it, deer and moose hides I had bought on Earth. They weren’t from spirit beasts, but to the people here that wasn’t unusual, as only around twenty percent of animals in the wild were spirit beasts, with most of those being level one weak bloods.
When I finished I went to where Jiang was. She had three large pots going at once, but seemed to be handling the situation well. The first two were just big pots of spirit rice, but the last was some sort of stew or maybe curry made with level one goat meat. Ji Bo was impressed with last night’s flood dragon meat, and had made sure that he brought some fresh spirit beast meat for her to cook. Unfortunately, it was all level one weak blood meat, so it might not do much for most of us, but it should still have some minor effects on all of us.
When she was finished everyone got a bowl of rice with some of the other stuff poured on top of it. The taste was somewhat similar to a spicy curry, as she used several strong spirit peppers in the mix. I took the balance seed from the meat and distributed it around my body, while absorbing the rest of the stew’s medicinal effects, including increased blood flow and respiration of the peppers. I then got up and returned my bowl before going to an empty area nearby and drawing my sword, starting on the first of the sword moves. I wanted to get through at least three sets of ten for the first eight forms before returning to my tent and cultivating. I wanted to concentrate on incorporating all of the strain from the techniques into my body before going to bed so that I could embed the muscle memory more fully and advance in the technique as quickly as possible.
I managed to get through the ten sets from the first three moves easily, but the fourth proved more difficult. The individual components of the moves were all simple enough, but whenever I combined them I always started to shake, which caused the me fail to position the sword properly. I knew that if I was attacking a target with this move my blade wouldn’t penetrate, so the move itself was a failure.
The moves were all based on the moves of a dragon, resulting in the style’s name. The first was called Strike, as was similar to a snake shooting out to rapidly strike a nearby threat. The second was Pounce, similar to a snake jumping at its prey. The third was Claw, where you stepped beside the target and cut them as you moved into position. All three of these were fairly similar to moves I had already learned, so I easily learned them. The fourth however was a bit strange. It was called Rear Claw, and required one to hold their sword beside them, almost as if it were sheathed, pass the enemy, then swing the blade around just after passing, so that the blade hit the enemy’s side and back.
Every time I tried it, though, my wrists would twitch, throwing off my edge alignment. Furthermore, after only a few attempts my wrists felt like they were burning. I was certain I didn’t have carpel tunnel syndrome, so I had no idea why it was doing that. Maybe the unusual wrist positioning of the move had pulled tendons in both wrists? If that was the case, then a simple level one tendon pill could fix it. I took one and a minute later most of the pain had gone away. I did the move once more, however, and the pain returned, this time even worse. It had also spread to my ankles and hands.
Unsure what could be causing this, I went to Jiang, as she was the camp physician. She was starting to clean the dishes when I arrived, so I stood there until she was finished and had stored everything. “Hello, Kev.” she said when she was finished. “Do you need me?”
“Yes, doctor.” I said. “I was trying to learn a new sword move, but when I did the move my wrists started hurting. I took a level one tendon pill, thinking I had pulled something, but when I tried again it spread to my hands and ankles. I doubt I hurt them as well, so do you think I you can look at them?”
She nodded. “Sure,” she said. “Let me take your pulse.” She touched my wrist and sent her qi into me and it felt like running water over a bad burn. It didn’t feel good, but it helped with the pain. “Strange,” she said. “Your meridians, both the blood and nerve ones, are slightly damaged, like you strained them. You didn’t try to use any large spells during your practice, did you? I can sense the remnants of Fire qi.”
I shook my head. “Just sword moves. No spells.”
She thought for a few seconds. “Well, I have heard that certain martial arts techniques can alter the flow of qi within your body. Maybe this sword technique is one of those.”
Just then Xiao left the beast bag and landed on my shoulder before chirping. “Talk to an expert? I’m already talking to the best doctor we have. Or do you mean a sword expert? There might be one in the camp. I can go look.” Xiao shook his head and chirped again. “Dragon expert? Sure, the move is based on a dragon, but where will I find…”
Jiang cleared her throat and, when I looked up, held up her wrist. The flood dragon had lifted its head and was looking at me. Xiao chirped. “Show him the move?” I asked, and Xiao nodded his head. “Well, I guess he is part dragon, so he would be an expert. I guess I can try.”
I took a few steps away from them. “Okay, this first move is called Strike.” I did the move without aggravating my injuries. The flood dragon seemed interested. “The second is called Pounce.” I did this one as well, and my injuries didn’t seem to react. The flood dragon seemed even more interested. “The third is called Claw.” I executed the move, and the pain flared up for a few seconds before subsiding. The flood dragon seemed like he was enjoying the show. “And this is the fourth one, that caused all of the problems.” I took a deep breath and settled my mind before beginning the move. Just as my sword started to move, however, the pain flared up again, this time several times worse than it was before.
I fell to the ground in pain and gritted my teeth, every nerve and blood vessel feeling like it was on fire. Jiang quickly took my pulse again and, while it didn’t make things worse, I could barely feel any soothing effects. “Somehow fire qi has flooded every meridian in your body and scorched all of them.” she said, pulling out a level two Blood and a level two Nerve pill. She put both of them in my mouth, then poured some water in behind them so that I would swallow. After about thirty seconds I could feel the pain start to go away and could concentrate again. I checked my true meridians, fearing that they were also damaged and that Jiang couldn’t treat them, but to my surprise they were completely undamaged.
The flood dragon looked disappointed, and crawled off of Liang’s wrist and onto mine instead. Once there I felt a tiny strand of qi flow into me, carrying a cultivation seed. I took me a few minutes to realize that this one reinforced meridians. While it would help my nerves and blood vessels, the most unusual part was that it would also effect my true meridians, and even contained some minor improvements for my soul sea.
I quickly used the taking pulse technique on the flood dragon. Its meridians seemed to have a much stronger version of this seed. Playing a hunch, I searched for the points where true meridians touched its blood and nerve meridians. While I couldn’t use the technique to enter another being’s true meridians, as the weren’t part of the physical body, I could look for those points to see if they had true meridians. Just as I suspected, the young flood dragon also had these points. I checked Xiao for these points, and, while he seemed to have them as well, they were much weaker. Either his legendary bloodline was weaker or, as I suspected, Dragons had much stronger true meridians than Rocs.
I now knew what had happened during my sword practice. I hadn’t just mimicked the movements of a dragon. I had somehow mimicked how their qi moved as well, possibly because of the partially constructed fire dragon spirit or my interactions with it. My meridians weren’t able to handle this effect, though, so they were damaged by it. This wasn’t mentioned in the manual, but I suspected that was because none of the others who used the form had true meridians. Even if they tried to mimic the internal qi movement of a dragon they couldn’t do so.
As I waited for the pills to finish repairing my damaged meridians I studied the seed the flood dragon had sent me so that I could reproduce it later. I sent the flood dragon a feeling of intense thankfulness and it returned one of friendship before leaving my wrist and returning to Jiang’s. Once the damage was mostly repaired I sat up. “I’m going to my tent to meditate and get the most out of those pills and my sword practice.” I said, and thanked Jiang, then went to the tent to do just that.
