Walking the Path

{S-sorry, I should've warned you when you first got them...} Bestie wailed as she fret over Ryker.

[He would've forgotten anyways,] Mini C said, starting a new analysis on the current changes in Ryker's body.

[Nothing much we can do for it, now.]

"Gh- uh, didn't we- ugh- have some spells for pain relief...?"

[Sending mana through your body now would interfere with the qi currently flowing through your meridians. The risk isn't worth it.]

"Urk... Y-yeah, super," Ryker said through a strained grin.

{U-uhm, y-you should focus on expanding your meridians while the qi is flowing through them,} Bestie explained with a bit of panic creeping into her voice.

{T-the "Cosmic Unity Scripture" relies on unity between the energies within your body. Ideally this means that all of your meridians, together, can hold the same amount of qi as your dantian.}

"Yeah, I don't know what any of that means!"

[Focus, Ryker,] Mini C said, still running his analysis work, [This qi is similar to mana, just inside of you. Remember the feeling you have when using mana, and bring it into yourself.]

Ryker shook his head and pulled himself up into a cross-legged position, body shaking from the effort. He took some deep breaths, trying to find that feeling of mana within.

It was hard to concentrate from the pain, but eventually he found that familiar sensation, the same but slightly different feeling of qi in his body.

He utilized his mana manipulation technique, though instead of moving the surrounding mana, he tried to reach the qi inside of him, willing it to move.

[Good, your control over it is rising,] Mini C encouraged him.

[I'll send some haptic pings where your meridians should be, try to stop the flow at these points for a few moments, each.]

Ryker did as he asked, struggling to keep his control over the flow steady. He felt a painful sensation each time he stopped the flow of qi, like a balloon was being filled.

[The sensation you should be feeling is your meridians expanding, get a good feel for where these points are as your qi circulates.]

Ryker steadied his breathing and felt out his meridians, focusing on the feeling of expansion.

By the time he had gone through a few circulations of qi, he had a good idea on where the meridians were in his body, and he could move his qi as effortlessly as he could the surrounding mana.

"Phew," he breathed out, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The energy from the pills was still gushing forth, but after a few rounds of expansion for each of his meridians, there was no more pain.

The Body Tempering Pill was still going about reforging his body, but the pain from that was comparatively mild.

{Good job, Ryker!} Bestie cheered, clapping her hands together.

"Thanks'" Ryker said, breathing steadily.

{If you hadn't gotten it under control in time, your meridians probably would've exploded!}

"Uh, I see."

He didn't know what exploding meridians would entail, but it definitely didn't sound good. He decided to not think about it as he continued his qi controlling exercise.

The expansion of his meridians was starting to slow down, now, easily accommodating the current flow of qi.

"By the way, how'd you know so much about this 'qi' and stuff, Mini C?" Ryker asked.

{Er, well, the system is supposed to provide you with basic cultivation knowledge when it starts up, but since Mini C intercepted it, it got uploaded to his database, instead,} Bestie answered sheepishly.

[Indeed. I was able to set up some monitoring that will let us study these concepts with the information the system provided, which is how I'm keeping track of their effects on your body.]

Mini C finished his analysis, stowing the data away into his databases.

At the same time, he pulled up a diagram detailing the meridians in Ryker's body as well as the current qi levels and maximum capacities of each.

[In any case, according to the levels of qi in your body, you're now at the peak of Qi Gathering, ready to take the next step into Foundation Establishment,] he said.

A breakthrough from third level of Qi Gathering to the peak in four days! If anyone else in the Zhou Empire heard about this, he would be considered the top young genius in the empire!

...Though the breakthrough had come with considerable risk, of course.

[You'll need to even out the capacities of these meridians, but that can be done pretty easily before your next breakthrough,] Mini C continued, highlighting several spots on the diagram.

If Ryker was being honest, though, the numbers being displayed were too small and numerous to understand anything going on.

{Wow, peak of Qi Gathering after less than a week!} Bestie said, smiling, {That's fast, even for those with a system. Taking all those pills at once was worth it!}

"Haha, guess you're right," Ryker said with a grin, "It definitely hurt like hell, though."

[Maybe next time, don't swallow multiple pills of uncertain effect, simultaneously.]

"Uh, y-yeah..."

--

"What's the report for today?"

Long Meiling addressed the kneeling captain as she sat in a courtyard, practicing her calligraphy.

She enjoyed the feeling of putting ink to paper, and the gentle breeze and falling petals of the courtyard relaxed and soothed her body and mind.

"Not much has changed since Vice-Captain Wang's last report," Cheng Hui answered.

"He has agreed to help search for a Firespike Root, and even seemed eager to do so."

"Good. Try and find out what you can on this expedition. Though, of course, be subtle about it."

Meiling paused her brush strokes for a moment, as if to ponder.

"...But I wonder if he'd suspect anything even if you asked him outright," she mused, "In any case, this should present good opportunities to gain insight into his strength. I trust you won't let me down, captain."

"Yes, young miss!"

Captain Cheng bowed, leaving to prepare for tomorrow's trip with Ryker. The courtyard was quiet again, no sounds other than the stroke of a brush and the grinding of ink.

Long Meiling turned to look at Wang Yuhan, who was grinding the inkstone, beside her.

"Sister Yuhan, what do you think of him?" she asked, laying her brush down for the moment.

"E-eh? W-well, if you ask so suddenly... The captain is a very admirable man, so it's hard to capture all of his good points..." Yuhan said, thinking hard to answer the sudden question.

"...Not Captain Cheng. I was talking about Ryker."

"Oh! R-right," Yuhan stuttered again, putting a hand to her face in embarrassment.

"Um, I think I covered everything in my previous reports, though...?"

"Yes, but I want to hear about what *you* think of him, personally."

"Hm... Ah, could it be that Little Meiling is starting to develop feelings for Sir Ryker?"

Wang Yuhan covered her mouth in surprise. Long Meiling was equally shocked, swatting Wang Yuhan's shoulder reproachfully.

"D-don't be ridiculous!" she stuttered, blushing slightly at the thought of it. Her, having feelings for that buffoon? Dream on!

"I just wanted to know what you thought about this situation!"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop teasing the young miss," Wang Yuhan said, sticking her tongue out playfully.

"Hm, let me think..."

Long Meiling crossed her arms and pouted in indignation as she watched Wang Yuhan gather her thoughts.

Truthfully, the vice-captain was one of her only friends, despite the difference in their age. They'd been together since Long Meiling was little, back when Wang Yuhan was just a regular warrior of the Long family.

She was assigned to guard the youngest daughter since she was relatively close to her in age, and, growing up, Long Meiling considered her to be like an older sister.

Once she was old enough to command her own personal guard, she immediately included Wang Yuhan as part of it.

Of course, she couldn't show more favoritism than that, but Wang Yuhan was thankfully able to climb the ranks to vice-captain on her own merits.

"I'm always surprised by how different his culture seems to be," Yuhan started.

"He told me he's only nineteen, but he's already so strong. But then he says he was only a helper at his family's restaurant!"

"If he's so strong without even being a warrior, I wonder how strong the people of his world are..."

Over the days that Wang Yuhan had gone to visit Ryker, they talked about many things, like his hometown of Greyson Shores and what his life there was like.

She had even met Mini C, who was something like an item spirit that his friend had created for him.

There were other things they talked about, like the kind of technology they had and what they did for fun.

It was honestly hard to believe, but Ryker's eccentric behaviour and the strange way he arrived here made it somewhat more believable.

For her part, Wang Yuhan tried to explain as much about the Nine Martial Heavens as she could, but there was a lot to cover for the three or so days they'd met up for.

She was only able to give him a brief rundown of the local geography and some common etiquette, for the time being.

"Indeed, though I'm starting to think that item spirit will be the key to most of his secrets," Long Meiling said, picking up her brush, once more.

An item spirit was extremely rare, even in a grand empire like theirs. Only divine artifacts nurtured with sufficient spiritual energy for centuries would develop an item spirit, and they usually went for small fortunes when they appeared in auction houses

And apparently, Mini C was created by Ryker's friend. One could only wonder what kind of expert they were.

Since Ryker wasn't hiding Mini C's existence from them, it could mean he was either too naive to think they might take it, or confident enough to feel that they couldn't.

Meiling leaned towards the latter explanation, despite her doubts in regards to Ryker's common sense.

She couldn't deny that he was more than strong enough to protect himself from them, and an item spirit would be hard enough to bend to their will, anyways.

More importantly, she suspected they still hadn't seen the full range of what the two of them were capable of.

It would be more beneficial for them to maintain a good relationship with him, than to covet an item spirit whose function they didn't even know.

But she couldn't say that was the case for everyone. There were many forces more powerful than their Long family, even just in the Zhou empire, not to mention the entire Nine Heavens.

"We'll have to wait for news from the good captain, I suppose."

She began to focus on her sharp brushwork, once again.