12. With Friends Like These

Walking around the pill furnace, Hui nodded to himself. He crouched down and peered under it, lifted the lid and poked around inside. Massive and built of wrought iron, it bore no real decoration. Hui kicked it. The furnace didn’t budge.

Hui stood up again and nodded again, crossing his arms. “Yep. That’s a furnace.”

Master! Forget the pill manual. Your poor disciple doesn’t know how to turn the furnace on!

Hui turned. In the distance, smoke rose over Cauldron Peak.

I bet they have all sorts of instruction manuals over there. But… argh, I can’t leave the peak!

He shook his head. “Nothing for it. I guess my only option… is to mess around!”

Wandering along the mountain, Hui tucked his hands behind his head. Not having to do anything is so nice. I barely had any free time in my first life…

He paused. Wait, what should I do? I’ve never had any free time before. What do I do with it?

Until now, he’d been busily attending outer sect exercises every day, afraid of proving unable to cultivate. Now that he could cultivate… Hui paused. I guess I could cultivate more.

Mmm… I’ll do that tomorrow. Today, I want to explore.

He wandered down the mountain, taking it easy. Sunlight played over the path ahead of him. Leaves swayed overhead. Tiny creatures scuttled around in the branches and undergrowth. A sunny clearing opened to the right. Hui looped over and plopped down in the fluffy grass. Wildflowers bobbled over his head. Sun warmed his skin. He closed his eyes and knitted his fingers under his head.

Something wriggled in the grass near his head. He turned slightly to get a better look.

A strange snake stared back at him. Big round eyes, a silly upturned nose, brown-and-black-patterned scales on its back and a creamy underbelly. Their eyes met. Startled, Hui stiffened.

The snake rolled over belly-up and went still, tongue sticking out.

“Eh?” Hui sat up. He reached out and picked up the snake. Its body is cold. I don’t feel any qi. Did it just… die, right in front of me? He turned the snake over to get a better look at its pattern.

The snake twisted in his hands and went belly-up again.

“Playing dead, huh?” Hui asked, laughing. He flipped the snake over again. It twisted in his hands and turned over, as if insisting it was dead. This time, it flapped its mouth open and stuck its tongue out further.

“You can’t fool me! I know you aren’t dead!” Hui announced.

The snake stirred slightly in his hands, then went even limper, hiding its head over the edge of his hands. Hui got the vague impression it was embarrassed.

I know it’s playing dead because it keeps twisting, but… otherwise, its disguise is almost perfect. If it didn’t keep moving, I’d never have guessed it. He leaned in and sniffed, then pulled a face. It even smells dead.

Wait, it can kill its qi and still move? I can’t do that! Curious, Hui sent a strand of qi into the snake. The snake twitched, startled, and he felt its qi. It’s a low-level beast cultivator? Seems to only be a hundred years old. The equivalent of my stage.

He searched deeper, tracing the snake’s qi passages. His brow furrowed. Qi rested in its passageways. Unlike his attempt, the snake hadn’t killed its qi, but stagnated it. The stagnant qi blended in with the background qi.

Hui flipped the snake over again. Instantly, it squirmed and flipped back over. Under his probe, he felt its stagnant qi come back to life for the moment it took to move, then fall stagnant again.

His eyes widened. Oh! If the qi is stagnant, it’s… it’s like potential energy! Sitting there, ready to turn into kinetic energy in a moment if I need it. Instead of draining all my qi and stifling it, if I stagnate it, I won’t be frozen until I let it all back out again. Or, well, I will, but… but the letting-it-back-out will be quicker! And quicker to freeze it again, too.

“Isn’t stagnating your qi bad, though?” he asked the snake.

The snake laid lifeless in his hand.

“Alright, that’s it! I won’t be happy until I try.” Hui sat down cross-legged and slung the snake around his neck. “You stay with me now, alright, uh…” He licked his lips thoughtfully. “Zhubi?”

The snake hissed.

“We’ll workshop it, alright?” He shifted, adjusting his qi. It circulated freely around his body, happily swirling along his passageways. Hui reached out and grabbed a patch, forcing it to freeze. The patch froze, but the rest of his qi flowed around it. He turned his attention on a segment of passageway near his dantian. That one seems important. Hui clamped down on it, forcing it to freeze. He grinned. Success!

The rest of his qi rushed by, bypassing the frozen passageway. Smiling broke his concentration, and the frozen passageway, too, melted back to life. Hui took a deep breath, frustrated. It’s easy to move, but hard to stop.

I wonder if I could stifle it, now that it’s more than a spark? Was that a once-in-a-lifetime lucky occurrence?

Hui shook his head and quieted his thoughts. Focus!

Hours passed. The sun chased across the sky. Hui’s stomach grumbled, but he didn’t notice. Attention focused inward, he chased his qi around his body, trying to force it still. The lively energy fought back, resisting his every effort.

Something rustled in the underbrush nearby. Hui furrowed his brows, trying to ignore it, but the sound only grew louder. Louder, and heavier. The thing huffed loudly, then snorted.

Hui peeked an eyelid open.

A massive bear stood over him. It growled, white teeth glinting in the sunlight.

Hui fell backward and laid flat on the grass. His heart raced. It’s a spirit beast! Playing dead like you would against a mortal bear won’t work here! I have to convince it I’m not worth eating!

Around his neck, Zhubi went limp. Hui probed the snake with his qi, monitoring it as it ‘died.’ Qi rushed through Zhubi’s passageways, then slower, slower, slower. All the qi at once, not any one passage. Its passages widened, reducing the pressure on the qi to nothing, and it stagnated. At the same time, something released into its bloodstream.

Ah! What is that? I need it!

For now, he copied the snake’s circulation. Instead of clamping down, I need to widen my qi passages! It’s just like water pipes. If there’s no pressure to circulate the qi, it won’t move!

His qi slowed, then stagnated. So, too, did his heart and his breathing, both slowing to nearly a stop. His vision clouded, and his limbs grew leaden once more. An awful ache consumed his body. Hui resisted the urge to tense. Ugh, it feels awful!

Bear it! It hurts less than getting mauled to death!

The spirit bear nudged him with its nose. Despite his inability to move, he felt it snuffle, felt the heat and humidity of its breath. It put its nose under him and flipped him over. Hui flopped over, lifeless.

Again, his vision started to fade. Slower than the first time, but all the same. The ache in his passages grew stronger at the same time. His qi passages trembled, wanting to contract. The qi burned where it sat. I can’t maintain this technique forever. If the bear doesn’t leave soon…

The bear put its mouth around his arm and bit, lightly.

“That’s enough!” Hui bolted upright and punched the bear in the nose.

Startled, the bear jumped back. It looked at him, more surprised than anything.

“Ha! I’m back from the dead! Take that!” Hui jumped up. His qi rushed twice as fast as it had before, as if to make up for the stillness. Energy boiled through his veins. “Hey, hey! You were going to eat me, right? Eat me!”

The bear backed away, then turned tail and ran. Hui jumped after it, baring his teeth. “Yeah, you better run!”

Qi poured into him, filling the gap in his dantian and then some. Hui staggered and caught himself against a tree. He struggled to draw breath, fighting against his raging qi. A manic energy urged him to chase the bear down and cut it apart. Curling his fist into the tree, Hui tensed his body and held himself back. I can’t beat that bear. It’s just my qi running wild.

His qi passages began to break down, leaking qi into his body. Calm! Calm down! Stop absorbing! No use. Qi swirled wildly into his body, engorging his passages and pushing at the walls of his dantian. His whole system strained, on the verge of exploding. A vicious pain tore through him, a thousand claws biting into him from his passages, a million teeth chewing at his dantian.

Trembling, he turned to the snake around his neck. “Zhubi, this is a real problematic technique you have.”

Zhubi reared back and sunk its fangs into his neck.

“Oh… hey,” Hui managed. He sagged down the tree. “I thought we were friends…”