Mage's Cultivation Journey 19

I continued to sit, cross-legged, focusing on my newly accumulated ball of internal energy, trying to figure out how to use it.

Using it to punch people was not an option. For one, calling me terrible at fighting would have counted as a compliment. Even when back in the streets, I hadn’t been a brawler, lacking the size for it. And, that didn’t change once I became a mage.

The ideal engagement distance for a mage was as far as possible, ideally, half a world away.

Lacking the experience in fighting wasn’t like learning how to read and write, which I could compensate for in merely days. None of my meditation techniques would allow me to rewrite my reflexes, meaning I would have actually worked for months, maybe even years to get a decent combat ability.

And, that assumed I could use the martial arts techniques as instinctively as the locals. My latest attempt confirmed what I already suspected. I didn’t have meridians in my body, which the martial artists relied on to channel their internal energy to their attacks.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t mobilize my internal energy, but it needed to be a deliberate choice rather than a reflexive reaction, which would inevitably take more time, and I needed to focus on the movement of the internal energy to prevent leakage, compensating for the lack of meridians to channels.

The delay wouldn’t be too much, maybe a breath or two, but that much of a delay would be enough to determine a melee fight.

“Luckily, I have other options,” I muttered, focusing inward as I clamped on the energy I gathered, moving it internally to get used to its movement. It resisted my will at first, its impurities reducing its reactiveness significantly.

I could see why a martial artist would be deadly afraid of overusing such pills. For martial artists, the Initiate Stage was to accumulate internal energy while developing awareness, but the further stages were all about using the energy to carefully sculpt the body through the internal energy — the exact process I was yet to determine.

Using such a muddy, tainted mess to transform the body would be … well, ill-advised was an apt statement. Once these impurities spread to the body and are absorbed by the flesh, they would taint the very existence of the user, ruining their health and potential at once.

I decided to find a way to purify it, moving the warm ball of disobedient energy back and forth in my belly. I let it rotate, cycle, split, rejoin … each move giving me more insights in my attempt to map its behavior.

I wasn’t afraid of the multiple observers around our camp, their numbers increasing after dawn. During all the attempts to play with my internal energy, I held it tightly, not even a bit leaking out. This meant none of the observers could sense anything other than me sitting in a meditative pose, with no difference despite the increase in the number of observers.

Ironically, an increased number of observers worked to our benefit. Some of them might belong to more reckless teams, but none of them dared to act while being observed by the other groups. Even if they somehow defeated us, they would only fall prey to someone else.

The only thing I would have been afraid of was if they sent a few disposable figures to test us, but that had been solved by the internal energy. I hadn’t figured out a proper way to use it, but I could still flood their meridians with my internal energy with merely a touch.

An ability other martial artists couldn’t replicate.

And, unlike before, I didn’t need to wait for them to act before blocking their pathways to trigger self-harm, giving that move more strategic flexibility.

As the sun rose, Su Mi woke up, followed soon by Yu Xing. Surprisingly, Su Mi noticed the number of watchers around our camp first, glancing at them tensely. She didn’t catch all of them, but she noticed most of them, while Yu Xing missed the most.

Interestingly, her attention didn’t differ between ordinary watchers and martial artists, meaning she was reading their body language, and not their internal energy like I was doing. Another skill that a merchant’s daughter wouldn’t have, but once again, I let it slide. I didn’t need to poke her secrets to make her useful.

“What are we going to do today, my l— steward,” Yu Xing said, correcting it at the last second, struggling with the subterfuge in his morning haze. I was glad that the subterfuge the situation required wasn’t particularly complicated.

A good question. A part of me wanted to return to the mountain. Now that we had the resources we required, all I needed was time to develop my own variant of internal energy techniques that would give me the ability to carve my own little domain in this new world.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t naive enough to believe that it was possible. The moment Yu Xing saved Su Mi, we had been noticed by critical figures around us; and our hefty purchases at the market raised the bar further. At this point, we had no chance of slipping away unnoticed. At least some of the groups watching us would take our retreat as a show of weakness, and send forces behind us.

Forces that we would lack the power to stand against. Ironically, only by staying here and maintaining the charade of me being some kind of mysterious expert testing my ’young master’ for some vague inheritance purpose, we would have the time to examine the situation.

“We will stay here. You will take some savage beast meat, purify your internal energy for an hour, then you’ll spend the rest of your day learning to read,” I declared, once again sharp enough that at least some of our observers heard. “I won’t let my master suffer the indignity of having an illiterate descendant.”

My loud tone was performative, but it could be explained by the slightly hostile attitude my character had toward the unsatisfying young master, resenting the mission of taking care of him.

It was all about creating a believable front.

Yu Xing nodded before turning to Su Mi, and together, they prepared breakfast. They didn’t talk much, but they moved together with a surprising smoothness. If I didn’t know better, I would have said they met a month ago, not just the day before.

There was not much chatter during the breakfast, the number of observers enough to blunt any desire for it. Moreover, I didn’t want to talk much, my attention split between managing the warm ball of internal energy tightly to prevent any leak, reframing the martial theory, and keeping an eye on the perimeter. I didn’t want to add a fourth complication, not when I needed to curate every word to maintain my outward martial master persona.

Speaking of my new persona, I realized that there was another way to leverage the identity, one that could remove one source of risk if we played it well.

After breakfast, Yu Xing raised his hand, ready to start going through his martial training, when I gestured to him to stop. “Not that technique,” I said. “You don’t deserve to use that yet.”

Su Mi looked annoyed at my sharp words, while Yu Xing nodded, realizing I had a reason for stopping him from using his Furious Wind Style.

“I don’t have any other technique,’ he replied, looking hesitant.

“I know. Come, I’ll show you a new technique. One that I took from an unfortunate fool who decided to attack me a few days ago,” I said. He approached me, looking surprised. I stood in front of him, and moved in the general approximation of the Furious Wind Style. He looked confused. “Unless your life is in danger, you’re forbidden from using anything but this one. It’s called Furious Wind Style.”

He looked confused for a second, then his eyes widened. “Is this an order, steward?” he asked, doing his best to look disgruntled.

His flash of understanding was welcome. I could have explained more in detail, but since we were on display, maintaining the role was the safer option.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s an order. Since you decided to act irresponsibly and drew attention to yourself, you have to deal with the consequences.”

Three weeks of watching him practice the same techniques was barely enough for me to deliver a weak imitation of the martial moves. Neither the balance nor the flow was right. It was a good thing I wasn’t actually trying to teach him that.

Manipulating internal energy might be trivial for me, but punching people's part… The less I thought about my own competence, the better.

“Are you trying to sabotage me, steward,” Yu Xing declared loudly, with a pointed gaze.

I found myself suppressing a blush of shame. To make him react like that, I must have acted even worse than I had first realized. “How can you expect to rise if you can’t catch that in such a trivial technique,” I replied. “It’s your job to deconstruct it and use it properly.”

“You’re forgetting your place, steward,” he responded, trying to act tough.

“Stop talking and start purifying your internal energy. You have one hour before your next reading class,” I said.

“Can I also teach Su Mi this technique?” he asked.

“If you think you can handle it alone,” I responded and sat down, like I didn’t care the slightest about what he would do.

It was time to learn the process of purification.