Exploring a Familiar Battleground

Kantan felt the energy coursing through his channels, following his will in the Astaire cultivation pattern. Resistance weighed down on a part of him he had never experienced before, both his mind and body reacting to the effort. Veri had asked to observe his current cultivation technique once their body had recovered enough to handle moving the energy safely. "Why do you need to see the technique?"

"Can you think of a reason why I shouldn't know what is going on with our chi?" the sarcasm could be felt as well as heard, the foreign emotion present in his mind. "When it comes down to it, my only job has always been manipulating chi. Speaking of that, either your clan is awful at this or you are. I have never seen a pattern that was so inefficient for growth, even the erthi on the first floor use a better weave formation."

Kantan halted in his practice, stunned by her words. "What do you mean? Some of our best warriors have reached the sapphire rank using this technique." He had a hard time believing that it was so ineffective when the Astaire clan had earned measurable success with it.

"Here, let me show you a better way." Her words carried with it a moment of effort before his chi began to cultivate again on its own. "Follow the pattern in your mind's eye." As she said that he also felt an image begin to form through his connection with her, a view inside his body where the black essence began to shift and weave throughout. "See how this doesn't cross over between so many of your meridians, yet also purifies the chi the same amount?" He traced the chi as it wound its way through his channels in a fluid motion, instead of the jagged path that his cultivation technique required. "This should increase our cultivation speed, as well as how much we can store. By moving our chi the other way, we would have weaved a formless blob of energy that would be extremely inefficient."

The more he watched the flow of their chi, the more sense the cultivation pattern made. Even now he could see how the chi filled in the gaps in his channels, his grandfather's explanation suddenly making much more sense. Kantan could see how weaving the pattern with his chi was binding strands of it tightly in his core, forming a solid ball of twisted and layered chi. The Astaire clan techniques had him simply move the essence as fast as possible through his channels and bombard his core with the energy.

It was like trying to force a bucket to contain a river, with the goal of the bucket growing to accommodate the river. Obviously all it would do is deform the bucket, without really expanding it much. With the new method of weaving his chi, it was like he was compressing the chi tightly so more of it would fit in the core.

"How much effort does it take for you to maintain this cultivation pattern?" An idea had begun to form in his mind, the possibility creating a surge of excitement to race through him.

Veri's presence seemed slightly lethargic to respond, and suddenly he felt something in her influence shift. "That should do it, as long as you don't pull on your chi it should keep going. I assume you intended for me to cultivate for you as much as I could, right?" Her intuition caught him off guard, almost as if she had read his thoughts. "Well that is because I can, to an extent." Panic surged through him at her words, but she immediately responded. "Its not like you think, I am sure you have already felt what I am referring to. The barrier between our minds." Kantan nodded slightly, his heart rate calming as he came to understand.

"I had noticed but hadn't thought too deeply on it." He instinctually pulled away from her presence in his mind, the concept of his inner thoughts being read unsettled him. Her other words finally settled in his conscious thoughts though, making him curious. "You said that our chi would keep cycling as long as I don't utilize too much of our reserves. How are you maintaining it so easily?" To his mental eye Veri seemed to be doing two things at once, which confused him.

"That is simple, though also complex at the same time. I am simply splitting my consciousness into multiple fragments, and having one of the fragments focusing on actively cultivating our chi." The implications of this ability left Kantan reeling, being able to focus on two things at once would give him an incredible leg up against other cultivators. "With that said, the bulk of me is needed to maintain that at the moment. Our physical body sucks at transmitting and containing chi. Until we hit the stone rank its going to be a real slog."

Kantan pulled on his memories of the benefits that stone rank would provide, increased passive strength and speed being the first to the forefront. Reaching the stone rank meant being remade by one's inner chi, each facet of the body remaking itself. Any wounds or imperfections would be restored or corrected, then the chi would enhance the body. A person's skin would become more durable, their thoughts faster, their muscles stronger. Aside from the physical changes, spiritual ones would occur as well. A person's channels would form more fully, becoming stronger and more efficient. Instead of simply allowing chi to flow through them, they would actively aid in its transportation.

"So if we can reach the stone rank, it should reduce the amount of effort it takes to maintain our cultivation technique?" He felt her mental affirmation, almost as if she seemed distracted. "That seems doable enough if you were right about how close we are to ranking up." It seemed that a good goal would be to rank up to a stone soul before leaving to give himself the best chance at surviving outside of the dungeon.

"We definitely have the energy reserves to reach stone soul, but there is just one problem. I don't know how humans are supposed to do that with a fleshy body, power affected me in different ways when I was just a dungeon core." Her words rang true to his mind, and his hope of reaching the stone rank quickly began to diminish. "Don't worry, we'll figure it out eventually. Once we do, we can finally go explore outside! That said, my instructors always said that quantity was what mattered when it came to hitting stone rank."

"If that were the case, then we would simply rank up right away because you currently have a similar amount of chi to most of the stone souls that enter my dungeon. Since you are definitely NOT a stone warrior, then we are definitely missing something." Kantan could feel her thoughts chugging along, though impaired by maintaining the cultivation technique.

��Well, lets look at things logically and try to figure it out. As far as my knowledge goes, chi quantity is all that is required for someone to fuel the transformation to a stone soul. The challenge that most people face within the clan is expanding their cores enough to store the required energy, as well as having access to the essence of their given aspect." A mental nod confirmed his thoughts from Veri's perspective so he continued.

"If we are completely sure that we possess the right quantity, than there are two options that I see before us. The first is what I am hoping for, since my grandfather can fix it, and that is that I need to figure out how to trigger the transformation to rank up." Kantan paused slightly, not liking what he felt might be the case. "The second option is that I need to rank up and evolve my physique like a demonic creature would."

Veri seemed to ponder the second option for a minute before he got a response he neither hated nor loved. "Well, given that you have a bit of both human and demon, it might very well be possible that you have to do both? If that is the case, than I really lucked out on picking you as my vessel of exploration!" The mental image of celebration passed through their connection as she spoke which made him pout slightly, but the words she said held merit.

Kantan deliberated a bit more, but eventually he found himself running around the topic in circles while accomplishing nothing. "Until we figure out for sure through testing, all we have is hearsay. As soon as we can figure out how to get in touch with my grandfather, we can figure out how to get out of the mess we are in. Maybe he has a way to disguise us or something, which could work."

Veri seemed to jump at his words, "You mean we can go undercover?! That sounds like so much fun, I have seen plenty of assassins try to make their way to my core room under the guise of a simple adventurer. Each time I figured them out though. I bet we will make much better assassins, isn't demonic chi the best?" The bubbly tone completely betrayed the content of her impassioned speech, the contrast leading to Kantan shaking his head in defeat.

"How will I ever get used to this" He slightly whispered those words to himself, but Veri was as sharp as a whipcrack.

"Hey, I heard that!" The mock hurt in her voice brought a faint smile to his face.