Mage's Cultivation Journey 41

Once she declared her readiness, I gestured to her to sit down in front of me. She did so, looking tense. “Are you sure you want to do it right now?” I asked.

“Earlier, I was nothing more than a burden. A burden that almost killed him. It was just like —” she started, only to cut herself short. She shook her head. “I refuse to be a helpless bystander anymore.”

“I can’t argue with it,” I responded. “The world is a dangerous place. Without personal power, you’re nothing but a leaf in the wind, living and dying at the whims of others. But, you still have to make a choice?”

“To give up my secrets,” she responded, like I had just threatened her with death.

I sighed. Teenagers, always thinking that the world revolves around them. “No, kid. Not your secrets. As I have made abundantly clear, I don’t care about them a bit.” Why should I, when every indicator implied that she came from somewhere at least within the range of the Liao family; one that she escaped after some kind of violent coup or something similar.

Maybe once I got strong enough to poke around recklessly without any personal risk, but not before then.

“What is the choice, then?” she asked.

“It’s about the martial style you choose, or whether to choose a style at all,” I responded. She seemed panicked at the mention.

“I want to learn martial arts,” she declared immediately. “I can’t even fight against a Muscle Reinforcement thug. I have to be stronger.”

“I didn’t say martial arts. I said a style,” I said. “I have developed a theory that punches and kicks that the martial artists start with might not be as fundamental to developing internal energy as they think.” Or, meridians, even, as evidenced by my own tricks, but I didn’t mention it. I doubted trying to develop a seasoned mage’s energy control was the best idea.

To her credit, she paused enough to think about what I had declared rather than laughing at me for challenging what the others treated as a fundamental truth. At this point, she should have realized the extraordinary aspect of my origins — though she probably had no idea about the true extent — but even that wasn’t enough to justify my radical declaration on its own.

“What exactly does it mean?” she asked.

“It means you have two options. First, we go the traditional path, and you try every technique we have, and we pick the one that fits you the most. From there, you continue with the traditional path, but, that way, I can only guarantee you will reach Bone Forging even with my help. Organ Refinement and Connate Realm, not so much.”

“Why?” she asked.

“It’s all about the resonance with the true nature of the internal energy transformation,” I replied. “The further you go, the more you need to align with the transformed essence. Switching styles is possible, but not in a way that conflicts with the first style. We have only two styles that can reliably achieve that. Yu Xing’s style and the newly acquired shadow one. Unless you somehow resonate with the shadow style, I can’t guarantee progress. Honestly, I think we can go to other cities and find a proper martial school to register —”

“No, impossible,” she cut in, her hastiness enough for me to further adjust my estimation about the strength of the people that was behind her family’s destruction. They were strong. Strong enough that I would have considered ditching her despite how much it would hurt Yu Xing … if I wasn’t getting stronger every day.

I liked her; she was a good kid. I didn’t like her enough to put myself in a desperate last stand against an unknown enemy.

I could always revisit the situation if the situation got more urgent.

“If getting into a high-profile martial arts school is out of question, your options are between the substandard style, and the other method,” I said. “My experimental method relies on exploring the nature of your internal energy through meditation, and see if we can trigger a transformation without the martial style to channel it.”

“How? And what are the risks?”

“Good questions,” I said. “The method is simple. You’re going to meditate while constantly circling your internal energy based on my directions, and try to impose your will on it. The risks … well. The most likely case is that it simply might not work. Also, it might trigger a dangerous transformed energy build-up in the wrong direction, but I should be able to intervene. It will be painful, but the risk of permanent injury is low.”

“Low, but not nonexistent,” she said. I nodded. The last thing I wanted to do was to lie about the risks. “Why are you offering that to me?” she said. “Even with the risks, it’s valuable. Too valuable. Do you expect me to…”

“A part of it is curiosity. I want to see if it will work, and it’s not something that any person could achieve. You have proven yourself to be observant and disciplined. That alone is a rare combination. Your education helps as well, as it relies on mental comprehension rather than kinetic replication. Even if Yu Xing hadn’t had his own style, I wouldn’t have tried to teach him this method, for example.”

She blinked, caught off guard by my admission. She was clearly expecting something different, a grand declaration, like paying me back once she returned to her family.

For me, testing my theory was more valuable than anything she could offer.

“What do I need to do?” she asked.

“You have already learned how to meditate to move your internal energy,” I stated. It was one of the first things I had taught her while we tried to teach her the basics before our second trip to Dongxi. She nodded. “I want you to close your eyes, start circulating the internal energy between your belly and your lungs. Take deep breaths, and think of nothing. Do that for fifteen minutes.”

She followed my direction, and the energy started circling. It was just a simple exercise, one with no direct impact. A warmup exercise to give me a baseline of many critical variables, from her proficiency of control, to the general strength of her meridians.

What I saw surprised me. The fluidity of her control was impressive. I had worked with Yu Xing far longer, yet she was able to control her internal energy with a smooth flow that Yu Xing didn’t come close to attaining.

Then, as I watched, I noticed something interesting. The flow of her internal energy was even smoother than mine. I could still control my energy far better, but the way her energy moved had a cadence that mine lacked.

Curious, I replicated the flow, trying to replicate it. I wasn’t able to, no matter how much I focused.

“Tell me, exactly what are you thinking while you channel your internal energy?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Isn’t that the whole purpose?”

“True,” I replied. My initial aim was to just keep that as a practical exercise. But, only an amateur mage would blindly turn his nose when opportunity struck. And, understanding if there was anything exceptional with her essence was worth the effort.

I fed her one of the pills to increase her internal energy, then helped her to process it. She repeated the exercise. Interestingly, that flowing quality when it came to her essence had disappeared. “Continue cycling your internal energy,” I asked.

She did so. The increased internal energy amount strained her meridians, but she plowed through the pain. It took half a minute of constant movement, but her internal energy once again gained that gentle flow. Nowhere as apparent.

It wasn’t a transformation, at least not the way it happened with the others. For one, I didn’t notice any spike to match her breathing. “Change the direction, cycle the energy directly in your stomach. Create a full circle.”

She followed that direction.

Asking that was a simple observation. Based on every single observation I had, either the transformation of her internal energy would stop, showing that it had something to do with breath-based transformation; or it would continue to gain that flow sensation, showing it was an inherent quality of her.

Every single observation I had suggested it would be either of two. My own experiments had included softening and hardening my internal energy, but it was similar to changing the state of matter, like freezing or boiling water. What was happening in her internal energy was different.

I just couldn’t identify what.

To my surprise, the transformation neither stopped, nor continued the same pattern. Instead, it spiked, every short cycle transforming her internal energy. More importantly, unlike the others, where the transformation happened in spikes before getting released, her internal energy obediently stayed in her body despite transforming.

Something was different. Radically so. “Release the internal energy you have collected without stopping the cycling,” I asked. I wanted to explore it more. But first, I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t die in an accident.

As she released the energy, I was struck with a subtle sensation, like I was at the riverside, listening to the water; just like how I felt the hint of a gust of wind whenever the kid punched after his latest breakthrough.

The good thing was that I strongly believed that I had identified the nature of her future martial style.

The bad thing, I had no idea why it was different from anyone else.