Cultivation Fever

In this region, the great mountain ranges were a bountiful source of earth qi. I knew that it was best to cultivate somewhere deep in the mountains.

However, I had to consider the balance of qi in my body. The elements were organised in a wheel with seven points, with unique qi at its centre.

If I wanted to keep my soul neutral, the wheel showed that I needed to take in poison or thunder qi. My thoughts instantly went to Crow.

I knew that Crow had poison qi, and his study was within a mountain range. Tomorrow I would go talk to Crow, but for now, I had to meet the scholars.

Walking into College, I was greeted by Dong.

"Ah, Oscar! You"re finally here. I was getting a tad worried! The other scholars are in the communal room, let me show you the way."

Dong led me up the stairs and down my corridor, before opening a door at the end of the corridor.

"Go on," he motioned through the door, "they won"t bite!"

Somewhat reluctantly, I pa.s.sed through into the communal room. Fifteen male scholars sat around, some slouched deep into couches, others perched on desks.

Tai sat on his own chair near the centre of the room. He stood up at my sight, smoothed his robes and pointed at a couch to his left.

"Oscar, have a seat."

Davide had already arrived and was curled up on the edge of the couch, nervously biting his nails. I walked over and sat next to him but before I had a chance to talk, Tai started up again.

"Now that we"re all here, let"s get on with this." His tone was authoritative, much stronger than when I first met him. It was strange, being commanded by a 13-year-old boy.

"Davide, Oscar, now you"ve got mentors, you"re officially scholars." Tai began steadily pacing through the room.

"By now, you"ve probably noticed that scholars have a special position here. And that," he stopped and turned towards us, "is a position of power."

"We"re not just gifted students. We are symbols of power that inspire the school. And we have a duty to maintain that power."

His cheesy delivery almost made me laugh, but I composed myself. He obviously took this very seriously, and it wasn"t wise to p.i.s.s him off for no reason.

"The Chairman"s already mentioned Hunting Season. On the outside, it looks like amazing chance for the rest of the school. But that"s not how it really is."

"Do you know how many regular students have won a fight in the last ten years?"

I shook my head, playing along.

"Just one. Me."

His answer surprised me. With his position, I had a.s.sumed that he was just a very talented scholar.

"Tai, do you not have a special const.i.tution?" I asked.

"No. There was a scholar so useless," he paused for dramatic effect, "that he lost to a regular student."

One of the other scholars perked up.

"But Tai, you"re a monster." All eyes in the room turned to this boy. "I mean, I don"t think there"s anyone here that can beat you…"

"And that"s the problem! None of you work hard enough! It"s a disgrace to the name "Emperor"s Scholar!""

"So, who did you beat?" I asked.

The room turned silent, and melancholy hung in the air.

"Fan Li. He"s not with us anymore."

Tai"s ominous response made something click in my head. This wasn"t earth. This wasn"t your regular school. These kids weren"t sheltered like me. They had fought to get where they were.

I realised that I had been far too relaxed and dismissive. I was in a top position in a military school, and there were responsibilities that came with it, regardless of my age.

"We cannot let another scholar be beaten ever again. Davide, Oscar, you"ve got to be strong. Never betray our name."

I felt Davide nodding beside me and turned to see his face steeled with determination.

"Now, Davide, I have no doubt that you"re going to push yourself. I heard what happened in the meeting, and Miss Bjorndottir won"t let you rest."

"But Oscar, I"m worried about you. Apparently, you held back at the testing stone?"

Murmurs spread throughout the scholars, and I spoke up to silence them.

"Word spreads fast I guess."

"Hm. And your mentor is the librarian?"

"Yeah."

"I hope you know that talent is nothing without hard work. Especially with a useless mentor."

His words angered me, but I didn"t want to cause a scene, so I kept my words short.

"I guess we"ll have to see about that."

"Ha, I could beat him in seconds."

I held my tongue, not letting Tai drag me into a childish argument.

"Well, suit yourself. All you have to do is not let us down," Tai clapped his hands in conclusion, "well then, ire licet! Get back to work!"

The scholars filed out of the room, making their way down the corridor. I followed on with Davide, pa.s.sing Dong in the corridor.

"Ah! Davide, Oscar, how was it?"

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Tai"s voice behind me.

"It was great Dong! I"m sure these two are going to be fantastic scholars!"

"I"m glad to hear that you two are fitting in! It"s dinner time, so I"ll let you boys go."

Tai pushed us forward, then whispered when we were out of Dong"s earshot,

"I"m sure you know what"ll happen if you make a scene. Remember your responsibilities."

With a final shove, he sent me stumbling down the stairs.

"Big bro!" Davide called out, running down to me.

"I"m alright," I sighed, standing up and dusting off my robes.

Was Tai trying to bully me? It was quite a novel experience – I hadn"t really been bullied in my past life.

"Tai"s super mean… I don"t like him," Davide mumbled.

"He"s a bit two-faced for sure. But he"s becoming strong in his own way, so I can"t hate him. Plus," I smiled at Davide, "it won"t be long before he can"t touch me."

Davide and I chatted about our days on the way to dinner.

"So, how was Freja?"

"She"s really weird… all she did was show me her techniques and hug me a lot."

"Did you learn anything from her techniques?"

"Kind of… one was a bit like this," Davide stopped in his tracks, planted a foot on the flagstones, then jumped.

He twisted his body mid-air and whipped his arms around, spinning three times in an instant. It happened so fast, he went out of control, and tumbled down onto the floor.

"Ow!"

"Are you alright?" I offered him a hand to stand up, and he took it, wincing.

"Yeah, I"m okay. I think I did it too fast… Miss Freja had a really heavy hammer when she did that."

"Did Freja teach you that?"

"Not really… I"m just trying to show big bro what Miss Freja was doing."

Davide seemed unsure of himself, but I knew what had happened. He had instantly understood the movements of a difficult technique.

Master had mentioned that Davide would be a natural at any martial art, and this showed it. There was no way I could move my body like that without plenty of practice.

I had spent my day learning, but I needed to put it into practice, or Davide would far outshine me.

I absent-mindedly chatted to Davide about my experiences for the rest of dinner. He was mesmerised by my stories of the strange characters I"d met.

"Big bro, your master seems really weird…"

"Not as weird as yours! I thought she was gonna crush you when you guys ran out of the meeting."

"Yeah, she"s really strong. But what about your master? Is what Tai said true?"

I paused to think about that for a second.

"Well in a straight fight he"s right, master seems weak. But he"s a librarian, fighting isn"t his strong point."

"Big bro, are you gonna be okay?"

"Hm, don"t worry about me. I"ve got plans. Just focus on yourself."

It was evening by the time we got back to College, and I spent a few more hours chatting with Davide. Not long after, he pa.s.sed out, exhausted from the long day.

Sitting in bed under the pale moonlight, I started meditating. Usually I explored my qi channels at night, but that didn"t seem so important right now.

Studying my qi was my focus now. I saw how it acted outside of my body, but it was equally as important to study its internal behaviour.

The individual droplets trickling through my qi channels didn"t give me much insight. But I noticed that they gradually moved in a cyclical pattern.

Qi seemed more concentrated in three regions: my head, my solar plexus and my lower abdomen. I remembered that these areas were called the upper, middle and lower dantians.

I had explored the middle dantian a lot, so I shifted my focus to the lower dantian. I channelled all my body"s qi there and observed.

Unlike channelling qi into my eyes, keeping my qi here was comfortable, and I felt strength flow into my body. Opening my eyes, I wanted to test this feeling of power.

I tried to perform a simple punch, but my qi scattered. After a few seconds of meditation, I gathered it again, but it dispersed the instant I tried to punch.

For an exhausting few hours, I repeated this process, trying to keep my qi centred in the lower dantian. I found that relaxing my core helped, but it was extremely easy to lose control.

Instead of punching, I tried making slow movements. After an hour, I finally managed to make a punching motion over a minute long. On reaching the end, I felt a ripple of pressure on my fist.

It was easy to dismiss as a gust of wind, but after repeating it a few times, I knew I had caught onto something. Each time my qi was depleted, and I felt the same pressure on my fist.

By now, my body was burning, my arms were aching, and my qi was low. For what was left of the night, I performed some light meditation, and thought about what I had discovered.