Cultivation Fever

"Wait a minute!"

I turned around to see Mouse bolt upright, gla.s.ses halfway down her nose.

"Oh! It"s you," she pushed up her gla.s.ses, "You need to register that book."

Her tone was much more authoritative now she knew I wasn"t a n.o.ble. I handed her the book, and she looked it over in confusion.

"This… um… did Mr Yin give this to you?"

I gave her a little nod, and she sighed and sat back down behind her desk.

"Ok, this time is an exception, but please remember to check out any other book that you take."

"Thank you, Mouse."

"Young man, do not call me that!" she slammed her hands down, furrowing her brows in anger, "My name is Miss Xiao! Even if Mr Yin"s your mentor, you don"t need to pick up his bad habits!"

"I"m sorry Miss Xiao, I thought your name was like Crow"s…"

"Oh!" she relaxed a bit and blushed slightly, "You know Sir Crow! Now, that"s a real gentleman. I hope you grow up like him, not Mr Yin."

Her sudden change in demeanour surprised me. Perhaps Crow was a bit of a womaniser. After all, he acted very differently when mother was around.

"Thank you, Miss Xiao."

"No problem! Bye bye!"

I walked back and opened the door to an empty College. I hurried up the stairs to my room, eager to cultivate.

No sooner had I sat down on my bed, than the door swung open again. Dong walked through, a concerned expression on his face.

"Ah, I thought I heard someone come in. Why are you back so early?"

"Um… master said I should cultivate here."

"Oh dear. He"s really not going to give you any help. Look, Oscar," Dong walked over and perched at the end of my bed, "I"m really sorry about what happened in the committee."

"I know you"re not the kind of kid Mr Wu said you are, but there are lots of teachers that just don"t trust n.o.bility. To be saddled with Mr Yin… I"m so sorry."

His words were comforting, but easily said. Dong didn"t seem malicious, but I didn"t trust him to stick his neck out for me yet. For now, I wanted to know a bit more about master.

"What"s master like?"

"I guess you only just met him. He has a bit of a reputation in this school as an anti-social hermit," he placed his hand by his mouth, lowering his voice, "there are even rumours that his best friend is a server construct!"

A server construct? Was that Xiaogui? Xiaogui seemed very real to me… but he did mysteriously disappear in a pretty open room.

"He spends all his time in the vault. Speaking of which, did you see it? What was it like? No-one"s allowed in there but him!"

"It was super cool, there were books and blinking lights everywhere…"

"Is it true that Mr Yin lives there? Does he have a room in there?"

Dong leaned in, eagerly awaiting my answer. I thought about sharing with him, but… he seemed quite gossipy. I didn"t want to besmirch master"s name on a whim.

"I dunno. It was just a vault."

Dong seemed disappointed with that answer.

"Did you get a cultivation technique at least?"

"Yeah, master helped me find a cool one."

"How strong is it?" Dong"s excitement picked up again, "If it"s in that vault it must be Rare, maybe even Epic grade!"

"Um… I dunno. It just sounded cool."

"Ah, sure," he peaked behind my back, catching sight of the book, "it"s quite plain isn"t it. Is that really the strongest…"

The blank look on my face stopped him.

"Don"t worry about it. I"m sure it"s plenty strong. And Oscar," he put his hands on my shoulders, "come talk to me if you don"t want to talk to your master. I"m here to help."

I made a mental note to ask him for help if I got stuck cultivating.

"Thank you Dong."

"Don"t worry about it, Oscar." Dong stood up with a smile and smoothed out his robes, "The other scholars will be back in the evening, so take your time cultivating until then."

He left towards the door with a few last words.

"Cultivate safely. You don"t have your master by your side, so don"t push yourself. If anything goes wrong, just shout and I"ll come help."

Perhaps my initial impression of Dong was wrong. Behind the gossip and odd friendly banter, he seemed genuinely concerned for me. Hopefully I could open up to him in time.

Now, I could finally cultivate. I pulled the chair out from my desk and started reading.

Master"s scrawl was difficult to read, complicated further by incomplete sentences and missing pages. I didn"t let that stop me and ploughed ahead.

Ten pages in, I encountered a problem. I didn"t understand any of terminology being used, yet alone the concepts that were being evoked.

It was like reading a research paper in a topic I didn"t understand. In my past life, I could google the terms to understand them better, but I had no such help here.

It simply didn"t make sense to me. Reading any further was useless, I wasn"t learning anything. For the next hour, I concentrated on interpreting the early pages of the book.

With some deciphering, aided by master"s footnotes, I got the gist of the first five pages. It wasn"t written like the Soul Becoming World technique was at all.

Instead, it read more like an essay, progressing deeper and deeper into a detailed understanding of qi. It also loosely tracked the author"s first-hand research accounts.

In these first few pages, the author described how his research began. He had an experience similar to mine and had suspected that his qi had a will of its own.

In deep seclusion, he had reached out and tried to study the true nature of his qi. It was difficult to know how to practice a technique this strangely written, but I had some ideas.

Studying my qi was the most important first step. I had some background in psychological research, so I decided to take the structured observation approach.

I would let my qi out into the air and watch how it reacted. I only wanted to use the qi in my body, so that I could let my soul recover and expand.

Channelling qi to my eyes, I let a single drop leak from my finger. A golden teardrop dripped down onto the floor.

For a few minutes, my qi trickled down one drop at a time. It acted exactly like water, simply falling to the wooden floor.

It seemed strange that something that was so full of life inside of my body would act so lifeless outside it. I needed to find some water to compare it to.

I went into the hallway and called for Dong. After about a minute, he came down the stairs.

"What is it, Oscar?"

"Sorry I bothered you Dong, but where can I get water?"

"Don"t be sorry, I"m here to help. The bathroom is at the end of the hallway, and there should be some cups in one of your cupboards."

He walked off, and I fetched a cup of water. Sitting down on my bed, I dipped a finger into the water, then tried to time my qi with the dripping water.

It took some time to get the drops to fall at the same time, but I eventually managed it. I coalesced some qi at the end of one finger, then gently flicked both my fingers to send the two drops falling.

I thought I had made a mistake, because they didn"t hit the wood floor at the same time. After a few attempts, I realised that my qi consistently fell faster than the water.

I moved my hands over my desk, sending droplets from high up and focusing on where they landed. Sure enough, the qi hit before the water.

Looking closer, I noticed that while the water formed little raised patches, the qi soaked into the wood.

By now, I had nearly run out of qi in my body, so I did some light meditation to boost my qi recovery. My thoughts wandered while meditating.

This qi definitely wasn"t lifeless. Two lifeless materials would accelerate at the same rate when falling. There had to be another force involved.

Dong knocked on the door, interrupting my meditation.

"Oscar! It"s midday! Let me show you to the lunch hall."

My stomach growled at the thought of food, so I followed him through the hallway. My mind raced with thoughts of cultivation. What was this mysterious force?