Work, work and more work is my lot in life it seems. Lately, I have helped in the smithy since I find the heat to be nice on the skin and because I need some off time. It is also to build some muscles in my arms, not only my back.

All during planting season, I have been busy. I need to both help with the lighter work, but also run myself ragged with all the different new hurts popping up. When I fix one fault in someone it seems like two new pop up. I fix their back and their knees start hurting. I fix their knees and the upper back becomes a problem. The biggest problem is that people have begun having problems paying me.

Early in the spring when the foresters went home for summer and the wood was floated downstream. My father, village chief and the Priest went off to the lord's seat to get a license for my practice. The license was not too hard to get, the administrator in Mao issued it without even checking. He just asked for his customary bribe and all was good. I got a license to practice in the region as a “Hedge medic” the lowest order of licensed medic with no sect or school backing their skill. A license for the “charlatans and tricksters” as one bureaucrat put it. But as a licensed professional I needed to pay taxes, this meant actually charging my clients and collecting payments.

The combination of “need healing” and “can’t pay” was for some time causing constraint in the village only somewhat lessened by the wealthier from Bank village coming to me for help. After some time with increased tension, I found a solution. Charging enough in actual money to pay the set taxes and then giving the rest on credit. This would have just moved the problem, but for the next part of the plan. I set a quite high wage, about double anyone else at work and took paid in man hours. And not just projects for my family or myself, but also for the village.

Jumping and working in the smithy might not be explained by this, but I needed time off. The smithy is hot, smells and is loud so I don’t get disturbed. The repetitive work on the billows is also good for my brain. I can really relax when doing it, unlike meditation which is hard work. Especially since when I now meditate I both have an audience and students wishing to learn my secrets. The last part is that I always have been fascinated by the work smiths do and I get to learn quite a lot in the smithy.

Jump up, fall slowly down, up, down, up, down and repeat until I see I need to stop since the smith is working on the next part. I get to observe the men work and by this learn and after they are done I sometimes do a little work on my own projects. I have managed to make some nails, but not much more yet. One day a week after lunch I work the bellows at the smithy. The rest of the week I either work with patients, teach meditation or teach massage and therapy. There are mostly girls in the groups, but some boys also join when they have time.

“Done for the day?” I ask the smith when he finally put down his tools and quench the joint he has been working on the last days. It is a small project I have him working on to see if we can’t do something more with the rapids. I have been designing a new water-powered mill instead of the one we use now. “Done.” He says and smiles. “Fun to work on something this large as well.” He says and smiles. The thing is that I don’t know exactly how to build such a mill, but I do know it is possible and would be fun if we managed. The joint he has been working on is the first of two for the axel in the waterwheel. Then when that is built we need to build the internal mechanism out of wood. The project is full of small tinkering and local know how, but it is fun.

“Want to play with the forge for some time?” I smile at him and thank him for thinking of me, but turn him down. He nods and I help him clean up for the day. I am not yet ready to try again. I am working on a theory that metal in many ways is like our bodies with pathways for the heavenly energy to flow through. There are several tales of magical weapons and here there are people with actual magic I see no reason why I can’t find a way to produce magical metal products. It might just be hubris, but I have at least figured out one way to work the body with magic. The problem is that metal for all that it has the same building blocks as humans just aren’t the same. And I am stumped.

My cultivation work by tracing the pathways energy naturally takes through the body. What ostensibly could be called meridians in my old world. These meridians are really much more complex and mysterious than I thought when I began my cultivation. I began by breathing in the heavenly energy, but this is not the only way, just the easiest to grasp. Now I circle energy from all over my body through my whole body before I let it into my dantian where it is purified for the last time, compressed and distributed either as gas in the blood, liquid into the tissue or solid into my bones. It is a slow and labour intensive process, but I believe building a very solid foundation is the most important part of any building process.

This is the gathering and distribution of the energy, but the reason it is so labour intensive is not just this. It is that I refuse to absorb any of the impurities in the energy. Heavenly is made up of two elements. There is pure nature energy and then there are impurities in the form of tainted heavenly energy. I believe the impurities is just others heavenly energy since when I work with others to meditate I can sense these impurities leaking out of them when they try to use their powers. The purifying stage is me doing the same with the pure energy I absorb. Impurities in the energy from outside takes more energy to purify and even then they are just not possible to make entirely pure. The impurities thus dilute the power of the heavenly energy and since there is a theoretical limit to the energy a body can store they lower to potential. The upside to taking in and purifying everything is much more rapid growth. This is how I cultivate and try to make those around me do the same, not entirely with luck.

When it comes to metal this method seems to not work at all and I just can’t seem to find the reason. In the bar of iron I am working on there are particles of different density and characteristics. These do make paths, but nothing continuous. There is also much more tainted energy in the metal making it kind of saturated with energy already this makes moving my own energy through it difficult and hard work. When the energy I move through it just will not stick as well I am stumped at what to do. On the other hand, it seems to be good practice and helps me open more and more channels to absorb energy in my own body as well. Working with it even gave me a new idea for my own cultivation.

By concentrating the energy more in my dantian makes it even denser and becomes something like crystals. Much smaller and denser than any of the gas or liquid energy I move it and let it integrate it with my bones. In this manner, I build up even bigger reservoirs of energy. I also believe it makes my bone stronger, but only exactly where I place the crystals. So I slowly work my way up the spine and intend to strengthen my head next.

Working the metal does not work, meditating with the metal does not work and probing the metal does not work. So instead I play with it for fun and to get away from all the pressure in my daily life.