Heavenly Shae

Chapter 18: "Try, Try Again."

Shae woke a few hours later at dawn. The sun had risen just enough to pierce her eyelids as early as possible. She discovered that she was not weighed down by a large canine; the Wolf was gone. She was quite glad, as it would have been awkward to try to chase it off, and she really was more of a cat person.

Her first step was to find the stream and wash herself a bit. It was still quite small, so she really only managed to clean her face and hands a bit. She cursed the wolf when she found her waterskin, there was a hole in it, and enough slobber to make the cause abundantly clear.

Everything else she had was still in one piece, though not pristine. Her hairbrush was whole, just a couple bent bristles, probably from the fall of the cliff, she noted. The letters were all miraculously free of wolf drool, but one had a bent corner.

The ginseng was still there, unharmed. The rest of her food stores were gone after she ate the last two bitter roots that morning. She set out to cover ground and forage for more food. She could likely go without it for the rest of her trip, but she'd rather not.

She pushed hard all morning, not as fast as the first day, making sure to have room to stop ahead of her. She followed the stream, staying close to the source of water.

As she progressed down the mountain she was reminded of a few things. First the oppressive weight of the mountain's qi was distinctly lower, the difference was like throwing off a heavy sweater. Not incredible, but noticeable in contrast. Then there was the wildlife, the sudden appearance of birds and squirrels and so many more insects was a drastic change. With it came many more fruit trees, berry bushes, and mushrooms. Most of which she didn't recognise. Like the days before, she avoided what she couldn't identify.

Because of the late season much of the fruit was on the ground rotting, the berries overripe with sour smells of vinegar and alcohol. The mushrooms were still generally suspicious. She had noticed the same higher up the mountain, but hoped the warmer air from the lower altitude would have delayed the seasonal change. If it had, the additional animals clearly preferred fruit that wasn't rotting.

She slowed near noon and found a single untouched plum high up in a tree. A bit of climbing got it down safely. It was juicy and flavorful and just the best plum she had ever had. It wasn't bursting with qi, and didn't give her any special enlightenment. She wondered how long a tree would have to nurture such a fruit for it to accumulate qi, years? Decades?

As she ate and walked she found another recognisable sight. A red bean tree, shells open and picked clean of its namesake beans. Empty pods littered the ground around it. She finished the plum and discarded the pit under the tree. Looking up into the branches, she lamented not being able to travel the mountain earlier in the year. She only briefly considered if she should scour the upper branches for unfallen beans, or rake the earth for overlooked whole pods. She shook her head and left; unwilling to rescue other's leftovers.

The afternoon was more eventful, a clearing with a large walnut tree caught her eye. What looked like several seasons of nuts scattered the ground, seemingly untouched. As she approached she felt a slight qi pressure. Not the mountain but something else. Carefully checking the area over she couldn't find the source.

She didn't hesitate to pilfer the abundance of food. Being picky and only taking the tops of the piles, those that had fallen recently, hadn't soaked in the rain, and those untouched by the grass and dirt. She bowed to the tree as she left, just out of paranoia and as thanks for the meal.

She only got one open to try, her knife wasn't the right tool for the job, and she wasn't keen on stabbing herself in the hand. She decided they could wait until she reached the village, and the excess should fetch some coin as well.

As the afternoon transitioned into evening she found her next stop. The small stream she was following had joined others and eventually pooled into a rocky crevasse. It wasn't the most ideal bathing location. Yet, Shae felt quite dirty and so were her clothes. So, she took her time cleaning everything in the cool water.

Just before setting off again, she realized she hadn't cultivated today. More importantly, if she did and cleansed herself more, she would be covered in impurities again. Thus, she decided to stop for the night.

Now with a path forwards through cleansing, and one that didn't require her to suffer extremely painful lightning. She planned out her evening. She would cleanse the muscles in her other leg first, with the long term goal of balancing her leg strength out. Even if her method was unlikely to be as good as the divine lightning, she still wanted a bit more use from her other leg.

She wanted to move her clothes away from the cleansing location so she didn't need to wash them again. However, it was autumn, with an evening chill in the air. She left her robes on, but moved what she could away from her left leg. She stuck her hairpins in the ground so that they would be very close to the skin being cleansed, and pull the excess sparks of lightning away. Then she sliced a thin piece of ginseng and placed it under her tongue.

Her session began about as smoothly as it could. Knowing what she wanted to do she got started much faster. The real slow down was that with only a vague impression of her body she wasn't able to target specific muscles. Without moving slowly to allow her qi to soak in and give her feedback about where it was, her selection would be only slightly better than blind guesswork. It would be in the correct general area, but her channels didn't seem to map to her body in a way that made sense to her.

She soaked her qi across her lower back, choosing comfort over a shorter path. To further reduce the discomfort, she thinned the demigod qi out more, about half of what she used yesterday. She guessed it would require multiple passes, but it was quite painful yesterday.

She started the process by telling her demigod qi to copy the divine cleansing. With less pain she was able to maintain her meditation and she watched the qi flow out of her and build up lightning qi outside and arc into the hairpins. So, in a surge of efficiency or frugality, she attempted to recall the excess lightning qi back into her channels.

This was a painful decision. The qi readily surged back into her from the hairpins. It felt like it was burning through her flesh in some places, even though it never hurt her right arm yesterday.

Shae panicked and threw it at her Dantian, letting it absorb into the formations. Surprisingly, she found that it didn't follow the same lines as the divine lightning qi. It arced around for a breath or two and then found its own home, like the other elements, lighting up an area with new partial symbols and some thin formation lines.

She considered this a partial success. Technically the formation wasn't a waste, but without knowing its purpose, she had a hard time justifying filling it with qi.

She decided to try again, but with more of a plan. She thought she could group the lightning with the demigod qi, possibly blending them together and strengthening her qi creation.

With only a little prep she was ready, the cleansing started and the qi flowed out of her. She tried to only pull from one of the lightning pins, but got all three anyway. Fortunately, with less time passed, there was less lightning stored in the pins.

It still hurt, but she got it to the demigod qi cluster. It cut through, not seeming to join, but with a mental nudge it started blending in. Then the neutral qi around it started converting to demigod qi. Previously that had needed a push to keep going. It had needed one of her cat's-eye marbles nearby to provide the lightning and some divine qi to add a purifying aspect to the neutral qi.

Now the process seemed to be catalyzing on its own. Pride and excitement soared within Shae, then a pinch of fear and doubt. What if I can't stop it? She applied mental pressure, and it slowed down. Then moving the neutral qi away seemed to help more. Yet, the charged up demigod qi still acted a bit strange, it was moving faster, almost more aggressive, angry.

She knew that it still wasn't proper divine lightning qi, but it might be close. She held onto the small cluster for now. She was unsure if she could let it wander on its own like the nice balance the qi had found yesterday. She briefly contemplated ratios of qi, what the nice balance meant and if she had "given the qi ideas" again.

That and more while she continued to cleanse more of her lower body.

Eventually she pulled some of the calm divine qi from her Dantian, and added it to the angry demigod qi. Carefully, to see if it could add balance or change it more. She found it had little effect, if any. At some point the lightning seemed to overwhelm it and the divine qi mixed into the rest.

She wondered if this qi could directly cleanse, like the tribulation qi did. She moved it into her left leg, a fresh spot that was separate from the other areas she was working on. Then kind of suggesting it cleanse her flesh. It moved a bit, straining at her qi channel walls, which was painful. However there was no immediate lightning-cleanse like she had hoped.

In the end she let it soak into that same spot, using only half at once, and gave it the same cleansing instructions as the other qi. Though, because it wasn't near other already cleansed flesh, it reacted erratically. It sparked and thrashed a little in a way that was more painful than the other demigod qi. It did seem to be working, it was grabbing the impurities.

Then it stopped cleansing and thrashed wildly. The lightning started separating out of the combined qi. It arced into the other half of the angry demigod qi waiting nearby. Is it looking for something? She asked, then that half swelled with lightning and raced through her channels. It caused excruciating pain, only dwarfed by her previous attempts to channel divine lightning qi.

Her meditation broken by the pain, she screamed.

The lightning finally found the nearby divine flesh, only needing to move to her other leg, an arc formed between them, and the cleansing started again. Yet, it wasn't content to simply arc once. It sustained itself by absorbing the nearby neutral and demigod qi.

With an instinctual panic, Shae lashed out at it mentally, grabbing and severing its connection across her body. Then she forced the arc to her Dantian, to ground out into the formation lines and symbols for lightning qi.

Not all the qi was absorbed, but it did take the excess lightning out of her demigod qi. That was enough to break the chain reaction and disrupt the angry qi.

The qi in her flesh wasn't done, though, it still hurt and sparked the same as her other cleansing project. Painfully, it forced out the impurities in her flesh.

As she recovered. She took stock of what she learned. If I could handle the pain, this would be faster. She made a plan to examine her skin in the light to see if it matched her right limbs. She cursed that she didn't have a better way to test the efficacy of her cleansing. Maybe at the sect they would have something. An elder's divine sense might be able to tell right away, she guessed.

This lightning charged qi is dangerous, she decided. Then, she realized that she had controlled her qi while not meditating. Not a lot, just forced the lightning to break, but perhaps that was more impressive. That was possibly her first step towards some kind of technique, she would need to use her qi freely outside of meditation to use techniques.

She whimpered quietly, her clenched eyes tearing up, and she only nearly started sobbing. She desperately wanted to talk to someone about all of this, someone knowledgeable. She even considered going back up the mountain to talk with the old monster and Elder Ngoc. Between tears she choked out a sigh and shook away the idea.

With her body now drained of most of her neutral and demigod qi, she slept.