Four days had passed since Shawn’s fight with Chen. His wounds had healed, mostly thanks to the healing pill Lin had given him. Not a single scratch remained on his body to remind him of the past. However, his body wasn’t the only thing that had been injured that day.

He had been shaken deeply by his dream-like encounter with Dorian. The first thing he did upon seeing Chule in the morning, was ask him if it was possible to invade someone's dreams. It turned out it was possible and the array protecting the building had been breached that night, leading him to believe that Dorian had actually haunted his dream. It gave him a strange sort of comfort to know that he hadn’t gone insane.

After that first night, Chule updated the array protecting the building. Since the update, Dorian had not entered his dreams. Whether he was actually unable to or just biding his time, he was unsure, but it didn’t matter, he appreciated being able to sleep undisturbed. Slowly, his frayed nerves recovered. He was still on edge, but he was no longer at his breaking point.

However, while Shawn had been healing, the Scorpion’s Den had been slowly deteriorating. At first, it expressed itself more subtly: a slight limp or a grimace of pain when moving. Now, the proof was blatant, half the members in the tavern had some sort of bandage on them and their mood had been subdued. They were tired, getting slowly ground down by the alliance of gangs they were fighting.

He wasn’t sure if they were going to win.

This fear in the back of his mind had motivated him for the past couple of days to continue cultivating with all his effort. He trained [Qi Enhancement] in the kitchen while working and cultivated till the early hours of the morning.

On one hand, his body felt great, the increased stats had completely transformed him. He was smarter than before, able to remember disparate details from his time on Earth. His body tingled with barely contained power while he worked, honestly, he sometimes struggled to control his newfound power. He had almost broken another one of Chule’s beloved plates while he was cleaning.

Shawn’s head ached, feeling like someone had slammed an ice pick into his brain. The power had not come without a cost. Cultivating through the night, only sleeping one or two hours a day, had impacted him. His head was cloudy and he had developed dark bags under his eyes.

He didn’t regret his actions, they had been worth it. He opened his status screen.

Name: Shawn Jones Cultivation: Qi Gathering 5 133/200 Hp: 31/31 Qi: 47/47 Strength: 6 Dexterity: 13 Perception: 10 Endurance: 6 Resilience: 9 Agility: 16 Intelligence: 6

Although his progress from cultivation had been great, gaining a cumulative total of 28 stat points from it, it wasn’t what set him apart. No, [Devourer] is what really gave him an edge. Despite almost dying, he continued to set out in the middle of the night to hunt small creatures.

At first, he focused on just increasing his raw speed, but he soon found that he was unable to control his movements due to his low dexterity and perception.

In the next nights, he assimilated two rats and a fly. The elusive animals that had taken him so long to catch in the past now looked like they moved in slow motion. Which funnily enough, is how others must have viewed him when he first got here.

He wished everyone would forget about his awkward arrival to Najian not only because it was embarrassing, but also people were growing suspicious about his sudden jump in strength. He hadn’t been trying to show off, but even a blind man could tell how much his Qi capacity had increased. For now, no one had confronted him about it, but the concern grated on his nerves.

He felt he could have advanced even faster if he absorbed advanced stats such as cultivation speed or luck. However, almost losing his mind was a sour experience that he wasn’t eager to repeat. Instead, he focused on absorbing basic stats that would help him survive in the immediate future.

Doing this he made a discovery. The intensity of the vision he was shown after absorbing a wisp was based upon the difference in power between him and what he was absorbing. Now that he wasn’t a total weakling, he could forcibly stop the visions from occurring. Which he did at every opportunity, experiencing life from an animal's point of view wasn’t fun. However, he knew that if he tried to absorb a more powerful concept such as luck, he would likely lose himself again.

Which wasn’t to say he would be stuck absorbing weaker wisps his whole life, the potential gain was too large to pass up on, no matter the risk. If he continued to progress at the same rate, he would feel confident attempting to absorb an advanced stat from a fly in a week or so.

He had termed all the stats that did not appear on his [Status Screen] advanced stats. While working in the kitchen, he had a lot of time to think about what advanced stat he should absorb next. In his musings, he pondered whether stealing a creature's red blood cells would increase his endurance more than simply taking their endurance stat. Red blood cells were responsible for transporting oxygen after all.

He didn’t know the answer, but he was eager to find out. An almost supernatural passion burned through him whenever he thought of using the skill.

Speaking of things he didn’t know, he had made a discovery about his [Devourer] skill on his nightly excursions. If he absorbed multiple of the same creature, a completion tracker appeared. He wasn’t sure what would happen once he reached the end of it. It may lock him out from absorbing more of the same thing or it may give him some sort of stat bonus. He didn’t know, he had nothing to go off of. He opened the skills description from his [Skill List].

Devourer Lvl N/A: Steal an aspect of a defeated enemies power once a day. Charges: 0/1

Aspects Stolen:

Shell of the Lesser Scorpion. +3 Resilance

Mortal Cultivation of the Fly. +2 Cultivation Speed

Many Eyes of the Lesser Fly. +3 Perception

Greedy Paws of the Lesser Rat 2/5. +6 Dexterity

Nimble Legs of the Lesser Rat 2/5. +10 Agility

He had used [Devourer] on an assortment of small animals, netting him a total of 22 basic stat points. These stat points made him deceptively strong for his cultivation stage. On a pure stat basis, he would be able to match someone twice his level. If he used his newly improved [Qi Enhancement] he figured he could at least escape from someone in the early stages of the Flesh Tempering Realm. However, he had no illusions that he would win, his fighting skills were almost non-existent.

However, he had a plan in mind to fix that deficiency. He meandered through the tavern searching for Lin. He wanted to know if she would teach him how to fight. Shawn meandered his way through tables, dodging the occasional thrown food item, and eventually found Lin.

She sat in the corner of the room, her foot bouncing nervously at speeds he previously would not have been able to perceive. Unlike most of the others in the room, she did not have a scratch on her.

Shawn pulled a chair up to her table and sat down. “Hey Lin, how’s it going?”

“I'm fine.” she took a large sip of her fruity drink. “I don't like how worn down everyone is getting. I wish I could be doing more, but I can't be everywhere at once. The second I solve a problem, two more appear." Shawn nodded along politely.

"It feels like more gangs are joining the alliance every day, all our old enemies are popping out of the woodworks. It feels like everyone is out to get us.”

Shawn briefly wondered why everyone seemed so determined to eradicate the Scorpion’s Den, before pushing his curiosity to the side, they were just opportunistic criminals looking to expand their territory, nothing more to it. “Ya, it’s rough out there,” Shawn said remembering how he was attacked a few nights ago. “On that note, I was wondering if you could teach me how to fight. I don’t feel safe walking around not knowing how to fight.”

Lin tapped the lip of her glass as she intently stared at his blood-encrusted scorpion medallion. “Fine, but you’ll owe me a favor.” She placed a few coins on the table then motioned for Shawn to follow her.

Shawn pumped his arm in excitement.

“Don’t make me regret it.” The pair exited the building and made their way down the dark streets of the outer sections of Najian. With his newly enhanced perception, he could see faint explosions of color hidden behind the dark layer of smoke that laid over the city.

“You won’t regret it, I’m a quick learner.” He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The bursts of color remained in the sky, the only plausible explanation he could come up with was that he was seeing the headlights of flying cars. However, that didn’t seem very likely to him, he had never seen a car with green headlights before.

“After listening to you talk about how your family was eaten by scorpions I don’t think I’ll ever think of you as quick.”

Shawn’s eyebrow twitched as he brought his gaze back down to the street just in time to move out of the way of a lamp post. “Well.” Shawn struggled for a moment before continuing. “Have you heard me say something like that again?”

“No, but you did just almost walk into a lamp post.”

“I did not almost walk into a lamp post, I had the situation under control.”. Shawn froze as he heard a cry of pain in the distance. He whipped his head around and found the source. In an alley a couple hundred feet away, a man with a familiar purple headband was being brutally beaten as he laid on the ground curled up in a ball.

The aggressors of the situation were also familiar. They had worked with him in the kitchen in the Scorpion’s Den. Their normally happy and jovial faces were distorted into ugly sneers. He had never seen this side of them before. They had always been kind to him, doing their best to help him fit in and make friends.

Lin grabbed his hand and pulled him away. “Come on we’re close.”

Shawn let out a long sigh and let himself be dragged along. After Chen had attacked him, he had no sympathy left for the Crimson Lotus Gang. Even if he wasn’t willing to kill them himself, he wouldn’t stop someone else from doing the deed. They could all burn in hell for all he cared. The man had brought this fate upon himself, he knew what he was getting into when he joined a violent gang.

Shawn clenched his fist, if he lost his fight against Chen he would have suffered a similar fate. He couldn’t afford to lose. Not now, not ever, he refused to die in some trash-infested alley over some petty squabble.

"We’re here.” Lin stopped in front of a tall brick building adorned with metal fixtures, it was easily the fanciest building in the area. Painted onto the side of the building was a familiar scorpion emblem.

A rush of cold air hit him as they stepped into the building. The interior was nice if rustic, a simple waiting room with an empty counter with no one behind it. He wondered why she brought him to an empty lobby, it didn’t seem like the optimal place to learn how to fight.

“Lao, get out here you lazy hag.”

An old man with a diminutive stature popped up from behind the counter. “Watch your mouth Lin, just because I’m short now doesn’t mean I can’t still kick your ass,” he said as he waved a cane around.

She smiled. “Unfortunately, I’m not here to fight you today. I’m here to teach him how to fight.”

He gracefully jumped over the counter, revealing his full height. By Shawn’s best estimation the man was only four feet tall, which was shocking, he didn’t think it was possible for a man to be that short.

“Stand still,” Lao said as he poked Shawn in the stomach with his cane. He stroked his mustache in thought. “I have never sensed something like this before, you have great talent within you, but it is disparate, broken off into many different parts. Did one of your ancestors marry a spirit beast?”

“Not that I know of.” He didn’t think spirit beasts existed on Earth, so one being his ancestor wasn’t a possibility. The most likely explanation was that using [Devourer] on those animals had affected him in a way others could sense. This revelation concerned him, but it wasn’t like he could stop using the ability, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and vowed to think about it more deeply when he had more information.

“No matter, we’ll discover if you have a hidden bloodline shortly enough. These things present themselves quickly with training. Even if you don’t, with a couple training sessions you’ll be able to keep up with the average person.”

“Thank you,” Shawn said.

With a snap of Lao’s fingers, a hole appeared in the wall, revealing a stairway. “The fourth floor is free, don’t break anything. Now get out of my hair, I have sleep to catch up on.” The old man shooed them away with his cane.