5 The First Rank?

However, before Devotion would start this new meditation breathing technique, he had one, more important thing to do. He pulled out the bag of money he had swindled from the man with the moustache in the alleyway. His eyes sparkled a bit as he carefully counted out each coin.

An hour passed.

"One hundred and twenty seven gold pieces!" Devotion exclaimed to himself. That was the most money he'd had in his hands in years! For comparison, Devotion was paying one silver piece a month for rent in his old shack. Each gold piece was worth ten silver pieces. He could pay rent for the rest of his life with this money alone! He'd never need to work again.

Devotion was about to be content going home and forgetting about Ghostwhisper entirely, when he thought of the bald man and how helpless he was. He strongly disliked being that powerless. Devotion resolved himself to become strong, so that would never happen again.

He spent some time, walking around and looking for a place to meditate. Eventually, he happened upon a small cave, sat right beside a waterfall and stream. It was then that he noticed how thirsty he was. Devotion quickly washed his face in the stream and drank what water he could, regaining some strength. Then, he evaluated the breathing technique.

Devotion sat on a flat rock, his legs crossed, just as the technique instructed. He rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, controlling his breathing just as the technique described.

Almost instantaneously, he felt more in touch with his surroundings. He could hear every fly buzz, every droplet of water touch the stream, each soft movement of the wind across his brown hair.

Despite his heightened senses, there were things Devotion could not sense. Like how far away from him, in the town he had just fled, a certain moustached man was seething with rage.

"I don't care if he's cultivator, and I don't care about the money! I want him dead! I want his head mounted on my wall! Do you understand!" The moustached man that Devotion had swindled earlier was currently in that same alleyway, ranting to everyone present. The bald man stood silent, his head bowed.

"In exchange for his head, I will offer one thousand gold pieces to whoever brings it to me! In addition, you'll be able to keep anything he has on him! I'll even accept you into my noble family, the Mystace Family!"

That proposal was enough to drive anyway crazy, especially the types of beggars that frequented a gambling alleyway. Sure, none of them were cultivators, but they'd take a shot. The bald man had even decided to change his mind. He came up with an idea on how to take on Devotion. As he planned, he began gathering up every gambler for his scheme. "Here's what we'll do..."

Meanwhile, unaware of the immense bounty just placed on his head, Devotion meditated. As he meditated, he slowly started to become aware of small, floating motes of energy present in everything around him. Every living thing, be it the smallest insect or the tallest tree, was emanating this energy. Devotion once more reviewed the meditation technique, learning that these motes were the purest form of Qi available.

The next step of meditation would be to take these motes into his body and refine them for personal use. Devotion started to circulate his breathing, following the air with his mind as it entered and exited his body in an endlessly repeating cycle. He watched this cycle repeat for a while, before he began the refinement.

Devotion slowly began to condense Qi. Each breathing cycle, he would keep a mote of Qi within his system, slowly but surely condensing it. Once he had condensed enough, he began to rotate the Qi within his core, refining impurities. While he Devotion was completely focused on his meditation, he failed to notice changes happening to his own body! With each mote of Qi he condensed, impurities within his own body were expelled in a thick, inky substance. He spent a total of four hours condensing Qi, until a ball the size of a fist existed in his core.

For the first time in hours, Devotion opened his eyes.

"What the fuck? Disgusting!" Devotion looked down at his body, finally noticing the thick impurities he had expelled. He quickly got up, diving into the stream to try and clean off. However, he noticed something different. He was able to run faster and jump higher than before as he dove into that stream. Just this little bit of meditation had improved his physical body this much already! Devotion's eyes shone as he thought of what would happen once he actually broke the barrier into the First Rank.

As he bathed in the stream, he thought of what that senior in the journal page had promised him. He would be able to easily cultivate all the way to the Ninth Rank with Ghostwhisper's help. Wouldn't he be unstoppable on the Phimux Continent? Devotion had never even heard of a Ninth Rank expert in recent times, besides Rydel Alabaster.

After bathing for an hour, Devotion was about to contact Ghostwhisper to figure out how to break the barrier and become a First Rank Immortal, when he heard a branch snap not too far from him.

You see, while Devotion was spending five hours meditating and bathing, his newfound enemies were hard at work. In particular, the bald man wanted that bounty placed on Devotion. He had gathered every lowly beggar in the alleyway to help him out and work together, in return for a cut of the pay. Of course, the bald man would not be paying them, but how could they know that?

Their plan was simple: while Devotion may have had some sort of magical art to use (that's how he chased off the bald man earlier. Too bad they didn't know that that was cast by Ghostwhisper!), it was a single target spell. He couldn't take all of them! In other words, the bald man was sending these lowly gamblers to overwhelm Devotion, then the bald man would finish him off and take the money himself! He'd barely even have to work.

After explaining the plan to the gamblers (of course, leaving out the fact that they wouldn't be paid...), the bald man found himself traversing the same path in the forest, this time leading ten gamblers with him. These gamblers were by no means trained fighters. They had armed themselves with broken bottles and sticks and branches found on the way. While they weren't much to look at, the bald man felt they would be enough. His hopes were somewhat shaken when the drunken gamblers were forming the planned perimeter around where Devotion was. Their plan was to surround him, then all jump out at once. This was quickly ruined when one of those drunks stepped on a particularly loud branch, instantly alerted Devotion of something nearby.

Devotion rose from the stream, quickly drying himself with his discarded clothing. The previously scrawny Devotion had seemed to put on a bit of muscle in the short time, thanks to the meditation technique. He slowly, cautiously made his way towards where he heard the branch snap. As Devotion made his way there, he took in all of his surroundings. he was currently in a clearing. Behind him was the stream he was bathing in, where his discarded clothes and the page resided. Behind that was a small cliff, within which a cave and waterfall resided. Surrounding the entire clearing were trees. What he didn't know, is that each of these trees hid a drunken gambler, wanting his head.

Just as Devotion stepped up to where he heard the branch, a figure lurched out from its cover, smashing a broken bottle over Devotion's head!

His first battle had begun!