Live The Balance (Original cultivation)

2.4 - Body Path

The pills are strangely dense, for the size they are. All three sit comfortably in the palm of his hand, one red, one a blue so dark it's almost black, one green. The weight is appreciable, though, as he rolls them around and thinks about his plans. He's intending to spend the entire week focused on his body path, and he's bought the pills on offer that will help with that goal. He stifles a sigh, and tosses the pills into his mouth.

They sting, just a little, as they start to dissolve, and he swallows quickly, as the apothecary disciple advised. He can already feel a buzzing in his fingers, and the pulse in his neck is tangible. It's like he's had a full night's sleep and a good meal, and then followed it with a dunk in an ice-choked river and a sprint across the snow. He moves before he finishes thinking, falling into those familiar patterns needed to cultivate the body path as if by instinct. He pushes through to the Fourth Step immediately; he'd already been at the pinnacle, and he'd been holding off for just this reason.

Sweat runs down his back in thick rivulets as the pills take full effect. His muscles feel like they're right on the edge of slipping out of his control, and his veins stand out across his body, prominent and throbbing in time with his accelerated heartbeat. Each motion sends qi surging into his body, every step makes it settle and condense, every breath draws more of it from the air. He rides the wave of the first, nearly overwhelming, burst of energy, until he's soaked in sweat and he should feel like a wrung-out dishcloth. He feels fine, though, more energetic than normal, even.

His stomach, however, disagrees with the idle thought he has to keep going. Cultivating the body path is more strenuous exercise than anything he's ever done before, and he needs to eat to keep up with it. He takes a moment to wipe himself down and to change into a clean robe, and then rushes through a meal three times the size of what he'd normally eat.

He returns to his room and resumes his cultivation, and the next few days pass in the same way. He harnesses the power within him and pushes himself, breaking only to eat, to sleep, and to work in the gardens. He breaks through into the Fifth Step by the end of the second day, and then the Sixth Step by the fourth. He's eating his lunch when Jia sits across from him in a clatter of bowls and chopsticks; she's got almost as much food as he does.

"What?" she says, glowering up at him with cheeks stuffed full of rice. "It's mine, Farmboy. Not sharing."

He waves her off with his free hand. "No, no, just… that's a lot of food. Are you working on your body path, too?" he says.

"Nope." She swallows, loud enough he can hear her from the other side of the table, and then starts to crunch through a whole fish, starting with the head. "It's part of a technique."

"I can't think that's very practical," he says. "If you need all that food all the time."

"Just for now," she says. "Until it catches up. Stubborn Weed Persistence."

He taps his hand on the table and thinks back. "I think I saw that one. It restores the body to perfect health, right?"

"Mm."

He pauses, and looks at just how much she's devouring, then takes in all the things that are still wrong with her. He'd assumed she was perhaps a small eight-year-old, when he'd first met her. He knows now that she's closer to eleven, but he could still fit his hands around her ribcage and have his fingers overlap.

"It's got a lot of work to do, I suppose," he says, slowly. "I'm glad you found something that will help."

"Might end up taller than you," she says, a cheeky grin on her face. "Then you'd have to look up at me when I give you orders."

"Maybe. You'd have to get quite a way ahead of me before you can start giving orders, though," he says. "For now, you'll have to keep sitting on Shan Hong's shoulders."

"Still makes me tall," she says. "You talked to the Ladies recently?"

He shakes his head. "I considered it, but it seems like a bad idea until I can understand what they actually want from me. You?"

"Mm. Had a quiet word with Lady Xuan. Nothing concrete yet, but I think she's waiting to see how I do before she makes an offer," she says. "Good to see you're taking my advice, at least."

"I know when to listen, sometimes," he says. He smiles. "You may be a cheeky little brat, but you haven't steered me wrong so far."

She sniffs. "This Jia will permit your insolence. For now."

"Does anyone actually talk like that?" he says, half-laughing.

"Some jumped up merchants do," she says. "Most nobles don't, from what I've seen. Why bother being that snooty if you know you can have someone's head chopped off?"

"Well, oh mighty Jia," he says. "Please leave my head where it is. I need it to see."

She giggles, and they both turn back to their meals.

---

It takes him two more days of concentrated cultivation to reach the Seventh Step, and the breakthrough goes as smoothly as his previous three. The idea that he's had four breakthroughs in a single week is staggering, if he's honest with himself, and it makes him very certain that the pills are worth the price. If he can do the same with his mental path, he'll be nearly to Inner Human before they even leave port. It'll take a week spent working to get the points, but he could possibly even get pills and access to a cultivation chamber, if he applies himself. His body feels light and strong, supple and tough, and he can sense the qi woven through his muscles and tendons more clearly than ever, threads of water and wood intermingling and becoming more than the sum of their parts.

He goes to wash himself off, and then makes his way from the smaller bathing rooms to the large, central pool. It's big enough that you could probably fit half the sect in it, and it looks like nothing more than a rectangular hole in the bottom of the ship. If you look down, it seems as though the water goes forever. He knows, however, that, at least at the edges, it's actually some sort of illusion, or perhaps simply a transparent floor. The water's just deep enough for him to submerge himself to the neck if he sits, and it's comfortably cool, though perhaps it would be miserably cold for a mortal. The faint chilly mist that lays over the pool certainly indicates that. The sect provides special robes for use in the pool, so that it doesn't need to be segregated, and there are enough other disciples lounging in the water that he's thankful he's wearing them. He wouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed, but he knows that people from the city can be strange about nudity.

He sits down with a sigh, and lets the cool water wash over his muscles. They still aren't quite sore, but there's a strange tense energy in them that feels like it could develop into soreness if he lets it. He's careful not to get any water into his mouth, after the first time it happened; it's strangely salty, which is apparently a sign it's ocean water. Perhaps they pump it up from the harbour? It's much cleaner than he'd expect if they did, but then it could simply be created by some technique or formation.

He's not exactly surprised to see Zhang Shui in the pool. She's often there, though, unlike him, she tends to be fully submerged most of the time. He nods to her when she spots him, and she makes her way through the water towards him with an ease that makes him jealous.

"Hello, Zhi Gao," she says, once she's close enough she doesn't need to shout.

She looks even more shark-like, now. The slits along the side of her neck have lengthened, and now go from just either side of her chin to halfway to her nape. The pattern of her skin is more obvious, stark white from her chin down as far as he can see, to the neck of her robes, and a dark grey on the rest of her body. Her smile holds more rows of teeth than a human should, and her lips have thinned. It's unsettling, but if he can talk to Shan Hong, he can talk to Zhang Shui.

"Hello, Zhang Shui," he says. "How have you been? I haven't seen you around much, since we both became disciples."

She shrugs and resubmerges until only her head is above the water. "I have been well enough. I find my days are filled with work and training, as they always have been."

"It's strange, but you're right. I'm not doing any less work than I would be at home," he says, thoughtful. "I thought cultivators were supposed to lounge around on the clouds and drink wine made from rainbows. The stories never mentioned all the effort you needed to get there."

"They never do," Zhang Shui says. "Just as they never talk about how much work it takes to become skilled with a weapon. It would be a dull story, if the teller had to spend a year describing how the hero woke up at dawn every day for thirty years and practised with the sword for four hours."

"I can't say I hate it, though," he says, leaning back to rest against the wall of the pool. "I'd be lost if I didn't have something to do."

"I understand the feeling," she says. She sinks beneath the water for a moment and then pops back up. "I do like the pool. Would you believe I didn't know how to swim before I got here?"

"Really?" he says. "You didn't learn in the local pond?"

"I grew up in a city, Zhi Gao," she says, though she's smiling faintly. "The only water nearby was the river, and you wouldn't want to go into that."

"Ugh. I've seen the water around here," he says. "I can see why. Glad this stuff's nice and clean."

"It's pleasant, to float and forget my worries for a while," she says. "Can you miss something you've never done before? I think I missed not being near the water."

"That's a question I don't have an answer for," he says. He slides a little lower so that his chin is just below the water. "It sounds like an odd feeling."

"I suspect it's because of my ancestor," she says. "Water in the blood, so to speak. It's like coming home."

"Good job you ended up with this sect, then, hey?" he says, smiling. "It'd be terrible if you'd been sent west."

She makes a face, but laughs all the same. "Sounds awful."

They sit together until he feels his muscles start to relax again, chatting quietly about nothing in particular, and then he leaves her to continue her relaxation while he goes back to cultivating. He gets a little bit more out of the pills before they wear off, but not enough to get to the next Step. It's greedy of him to want more, really, but he can't help but feel like he's only just begun. It's the end of his second month with the sect; he's got one left before they leave port.

What's the week plan?

You may choose 2 people to spend time with this week:

[ ] Lady Zhu.
[ ] Ma Gang.
[ ] Jia.
[ ] Zhang Shui.
[ ] Leng Jin.
[ ] Liao He.
[ ] Shan Hong.
[ ] Lady Xuan
[ ] Other (you will go wandering and try to find someone interesting. Now that you are an outer disciple, new options will be available).


Pick a job to spend 7 blocks a week on.
[ ] The Garden Job. Now that you're an outer disciple, the job pays better, but has commensurate difficulties. +1 sect point per hour per Step increase. At your current level (Second Step Outer Human), offers 13 sect points per time block, plus the Degrees of Success on your Spirit Ken roll.
[ ] Other. See the Jobs Board post in the Informational threadmarks.

You have three (3) 4-hour blocks a day (21 blocks a week) free to spend as you wish. Cultivating takes 1 block, jobs take 1 block, various training will take up blocks as noted in the description in the Sect Points post in the Informational threadmarks.

An example plan would be:
[ ] Jia.
[ ] Liao He.
[ ] 1 block a day on mental cultivation lessons.
[ ] 1 block a day on physical cultivation lessons.
[ ] Search for a spirit to bind. (Spirit Ken)
- [ ] What kind? (Type of spirit, associated element)
- [ ] What powers would you like it to have? (Rough outline)


You have two technique slots available in the mental path. Discuss what you would like for them. You do not have to fill these slots immediately, and can choose to wait. Please feel free to ask me questions on this. Requires 5+ votes to lock in a technique.

[ ] Free technique.
- [ ] Physical or Mental
- [ ] Type: Attack, Defend, Support, Heal, Move.
- [ ] Element: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood.

[ ] Purchase Technique (50 sect points)
- [ ] Physical or Mental
- [ ] Type: Attack, Defend, Support, Heal, Move.
- [ ] Element: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, Wood.
—[ ] Specifics. What do you want the technique to do?


Vote closes on Sunday at 2200 BST. Chapter will be up Monday.