“Thank you for your insights little human. Barring unforeseen consequences I will meditate upon them for a few weeks. Feel free to come visit me again in the future after that. And try to learn a way how to retrain your strange qi spiral, it’s a signal torch for any immortal within dozens of miles. Being loved by the heavens is no boon for one such as you.”

Well, I wouldn't visit the forest for a little while then, no need to tempt fate, and annoy the powerful beast.

And seeing that my crabs were apparently a delicacy for all animals near them made making one survive long enough to matter for my experiments highly unlikely. Which meant, for now, I could just focus on breaking into the second realm.

And perhaps telling mom I reached the first realm sometime in the next few weeks too. Just perceiving qi didn't do much after all. Except giving me the right to choose a name. Something I’d need to think about, after all what better way to announce my breakthrough than to tell mom the first part of my name? There was none.

Two weeks later I had nearly reached the required concentration for my qi to reach liquid state in my entire head. It really only needed a small push to reach liquid state. Naturally I gathered the required extra qi in my skull, and pushed it into my brain. As always when I created liquid qi it lit up my senses, but this time more happened.

A wave of cold spread through my whole body, originating from everywhere in my brain. The world seemed to slow down a little, and my thoughts got clearer.

My qi sense expanded significantly, nearly quadrupling, finally reaching about five metres.

The cold continued to spread through my body, and I could feel it changing me, making my body more receptive to qi, especially liquid qi.

Interesting, now that the changes occurred to me, and not someone else, I was able to perceive the change itself a lot better than before. I even knew what all these changes did this time!

If my qi didn't hide something from me at least. Which it had never done as far as I knew. Anyways, it seemed there would be no negative consequences at all. Perfect. Taking that risk was definitely worth it.

Well, if I discounted being visible on any qi sense that came within five metres of me from now on. Breaking through really strengthened the whirlwind of qi to ridiculously obvious levels. I'd have to make it far more inconspicuous for sure! Especially as I practically felt the concentration of the qi within it increasing every second I waited.

I once again concentrated on my qi, noting the interesting was liquid qi spread through my brain. It really looked a little more like a liquid than gas, with thin lines of qi spreading through my whole brain instead of the spread out, more gas like look from before.

It looked great.

Still, I returned to my previous task almost immediately, I had no need or interest to be found by a cultivator and be forced to join their sect. No sir.

Could I create additional liquid qi?

I tried in my heart, as quite some qi was still stored there for transport. I could, but without the wave of cold appearing again. Perfect.

Perhaps I could now use something else out of the cultivation manual. Crystals. I had tried cultivating using a crystal matrix, but crystals were slower than my usual method, and didn't add to it, so I had discarded it until now.

Before doing anything though, could I move liquid qi?

I created another speck of liquid qi in my pinky finger, and tried moving it like before. Nothing. No reaction to my void. I tried moving some gaseous qi through it, but the liquid qi only absorbed the weaker energy, and grew a little.

Damn, I'd need a new method then. What did liquids react to best? Reaching a state of lower potential energy. And what gave potential energy? Gravity. Perfect.

I imagined the liquid qi falling in the direction I wanted it to go, but nothing happened. I got a feeling though, I could move my qi that way, but that would do something permanent.

Probably those meridians the manual spoke about. So I couldn't freely move my liquid qi through my body like I could my gaseous qi until now?

That required planning. And would require a lot of precision now. I carefully, very, very carefully, returned all liquid qi not in my head back towards its previous form - I didn't need clumps of qi stopping my cultivation normal. It would take years until all qi in my body reached liquid state after all. And liquid qi in my heart would be bad, completely stopping my cultivation.

Now where to put my newest idea though? Somewhere out of the way, near my skin probably.

Perhaps the back of my head? I had quite some space there, though not a lot of depth. Wait.

What was I doing?

I stopped experimenting with myself once I got access to crabs! And I didn't lose that, even if they were useless for long term experiments for now.

"Bye mom, I'll return later." I yelled, running out of the house.

"You know the rules.” She called back, never looking up from her work.

She really didn't have to, I had shown her I never broke the rules she set. Barring some really extreme conditions. Conditions that never took place until now. I decided it would be easier for both of us that way. She didn't need to worry about me, and I didn't need to sneak out of the window to leave the house whenever I wanted.

Her rules were restricting to be sure, but I was free to do what I wished while outside. Without any adult oversight. Something like hunting crabs for example. Or visiting the forest, though that was technically forbidden.

I should really look to visit the fox again some time. Though I doubted he’d notice if I only came back in a few years. I couldn't imagine seeing the world like him, couldn't imagine seeing something happening once a decade as happening all the time. Immortality really seemed to warp your perception of time. Or perhaps just age? Or power? Ah well, one less reason to try and reach immortality really. Though, at least he didn't looked aged.

I arrived at the beach in record time, forgetting to slow down while lost in thoughts, and started searching for a volunteer. Crabs were ever easy to find, so I didn't take long to have my victim … ehh, volunteer in hand, its qi suppressed even easier than ever before.

So, could I change the crab’s aura? Probably not, but that shouldn't pose all that big a problem. I cast my senses out, and started pulling in and depositing qi in the crab. More qi than I had ever put into any one crab.

It was the first time I really cultivated since breaking through, and it felt great. The rush of new power flooding through my aura, even if not into me was simply invigorating, refreshing my still tired brain. I could understand spending a lot of time like that. Years even.

Soon enough the crab was brimming with qi, qi nearly dense enough to naturally form liquid qi. Damn, that went really fast. Faster than ever thanks to my larger aura.

Instead of forming the qi into a simple sphere, or in my case a brain, I instead started forming a thin, intricate crystal lattice of void inside of the crab. The qi moved, quickly, spreading just like I wanted it to. Perfect.

As the crab broke through I set it down, using the short moment it didn't try to escape to pin it down with a heavy stone. I took a few steps back, allowing the crab to assimilate my qi, before picking it up again. A short jog up and down the beach to refill the spiral around me with qi and I was ready to resume my tests.

If this worked I’d need to modify the orbit qi took around me, but that’d be fine. If my plans succeeded my qi would just cultivate for me, whether I slept, or moved, or worked. Or just whenever I did not actively cultivate really. I’d be a great help for the future. After all I felt pretty secure in the knowledge that my childhood wouldn't last all that much longer, and I’d have much less time to cultivate while learning how to sew.

I send a steady stream of my qi into the crab, watching what happened like a hawk. This crab wouldn't get to try and escape for quite some time, crystals needed time to purify qi, so I’d sit here until I had to return home, watching if the liquid qi would do what I hoped it would.

My plan worked. But wasn't workable for me. The crystalline matrix did indeed purify any qi moving within, but all that qi would be transformed into liquid qi too, and clump up around the strands of liquid qi. That in turn stopped that part of the matrix from working. Great.

I’’d need some way to transport my liquid qi, and somewhere to store it afterwards.

So I’d need to advance my cultivation, map out a good plan for my meridians and open my dantian. That last point was something I couldn't test on crabs if I remembered what it was correctly, but meridians shouldn't be too hard. At least seeing how they were formed, if I had to do so at once - probably not - and some more things. Like if I had to expect pain.

Still, tomorrow I’d look if the fox was ready for another visit, and if it wasn't I’d prepare the plan, see about ‘forging’ my first meridian.

If that last point made any problems I’d just fill my body up with liquid qi bottom to top, handling it just like filling a vessel with water. I’d see what would happen in time anyways. Now I had to return home, mom was waiting for me and I’d need my freedom more than ever.

---

The crab squirmed in my hands as a drop of liquid qi wormed its way through its body. Pathetic. I was feeling pretty sure of it as of now, the crab shouldn't be feeling any pain at the moment! I had already killed and dissected several crabs after this procedure, and not a single one had a physical channel for qi running through them.

None of them were off worse until I killed them, regardless of where I created that channel too, be it brain, chitin, muscles or organs.

Creating meridians was quite easy actually, you just had to move liquid qi through a body. The qi would then get used up, slowly forming a meridian liquid qi could use to move through the body.

My plan or map for my own meridian pathways was coming along well. The origin of all my meridians would obviously be my brain. I planned to start right in the middle of my skull, with dozens of hair thin meridians spreading through my brain like a spiderweb.

Four small meridians, with one each going into my eyes and ears. Eventually I planned to let them end in a bigger bubble, about as large as each eye or ear. But I’d wait for that until I was fully grown up, and had my whole meridian network planned out.

A slightly bigger meridian, a medium one, which started just where the four small ones would, was going straight into my skull, and finally winding through it. I planned to eventually have all of my skull full of liquid qi, but those thin lines would have to do at first.

A big meridian went right to the back of my head, forming a spiral that spread all through the back of my head. That meridian would allow me to siphon off all liquid qi that'd otherwise clog my crystalline threads, allowing me to auto cultivate.

The biggest meridian would start in the same spot as the others, right where I wanted to open my dantian in the future, and go connect to my spine. It’d then follow my spine down until its end. All other meridians in my body would split off that single big one, or others splitting off from it.

Three other major meridians split off from my main one, one into each arm, and a third one into my heart. At the end of my spine the main meridian split into two, with two decently big meridians going into my legs, splitting in five before reaching my feet.

Generally I had a meridian following each bone in my body, and at least one going into each of my organs. As my qi needed a way to exit my body, I had about half a dozen decently big meridians ending just under my skin, allowing my liquid qi to enter and leave my body at my leisure, should I ever need or want to do that.

Lastly, I added several dozen branching meridians to wind through muscles, tendons and my skin. Over time I planned to extend my network of meridians through my whole body, just like my bloodstream.

But those were plans for the future, and those plans would need qi. Lots and lots of qi, even my current plan would take several time the qi I had in my body. The first thing to do was forging the meridian to the back of my head though everything else could come later.

Investments were best done as early as possible after all.

As it was I would use all new qi to forge my meridians, and leave any liquid qi in my head where it was. I wouldn't start all meridians at the final thickness at first, but only spread hairline thin paths everywhere, expanding them as time went on.

Actually expanding meridians was harder than creating them, but still well within my abilities, as tested on several crabs.

I felt confident in my plan, even though it was quite ambitious. It was the best I thought I could do right now, and I accepted nothing but my best for anything I did. Especially for something that would obviously influence me for the rest of my life.