File 10 - Refiners

Sam, alone in his room had nothing to do while waiting for Dr.Mepan. He decided to visit the manor a little before his arrival.

When he came out of his room, he met with Stella who bowed, before walking into his room for cleaning.

He walked, keeping his left arm close to his body with his right hand. He looked for a time at the portraits on the walls which had common traits with Sasha and Brian’s face.

There was also drawings of beasts and wild animals but Sam did not know how to sort them. He saw fierce looking tigers with long teeth, or sinister looking spiders drawn aside a human as to show how big it was.

Sam thought that taking a two meter high as a standard would not be far off. And he estimated the spider size to be about 3 meters tall which greatly impressed him. “Is this size real? What kind of fire power would be needed to take down such a thing?”.

He heard Carla speak about beasts, but he was imagining big bears or pack of wolfs, not such frightening existences.

He had to find more informations about this.

“It seems that life in this world is not a simple one”. He was of course apprehensive to meet such a creature one day, but at the same time, he felt somewhat excited about it. "If I had a rocket launcher, I wonder how many shots it could take..."

He continued to look at the drawings for a time when he heard someone calling him:

“Sam!” He turned his head toward the sound. It was Denise.

Denise accompanied by Mepan who had just arrived was waving her hand with a smile on her face.

When Denise was five steps away from him, Sam turned around, and said: ”Good..morning Denise”.

Denise, surprised at first, showed a happy expression. Her cousin truly did not behave as expected.

She asked: “What are you doing out of your room, weren’t you supposed to stay inside and wait for Mepan’s arrival?”

Sam looked at her, and with a smirk said: ”Inside…boring”. “While….waiting wanted to…visit”.

Denise looked at him with an understanding look. "After being bedridden for so long, it is only natural to be a little restless and willing to explore." She thought.

Sighing, she already regretted her decision to set out today to Obour, it would have been fun looking at how after all these years, Sam reacted to his environment.

She said :"Don't worry, your two cousins are coming back today from an herb gathering mission, you'll have plenty of occasions to explore Amos, they know it as the back of their hands".

Sam who had heard about them through Carla explanations, asked : "Aaron and Feyd do they...live in the....manor?"

Sam was interested, surely he could get more informations about his surroundings from these cousins of his, Carla said they were around the same age as Sam.

Denise shaking her head answered :"They are not living in the manor, but at the outskirt of the village. Uncle Philip said that it was more effective this way, as this is where the herb storage house is located."

Sam had other questions he wanted to ask, especially about his own parents. He knew his mother was dead giving birth to him, and that his father went in search of a cure for his son five years ago, but Carla did not say much about his father, and had looked uncomfortable when speaking about his mother.

However, before they could continue to chat, Mepan who assisted to their exchange in a daze intervened and took Sam inside his room. Denise followed.

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In his room, Dr. Mepan was surprised to see Sam already able to coordinate his balance so quickly. But what troubled him the most was Sam’s ability to speak.

Mepan is the one who took care of Sam during his life. It was him who provided Sam with the needed nourishing talismans and checking up on him regularly all these years. Of course, when he checked Sam, he did not always use his soulprobe, in fact it has been many years since he did so. Only when Gerad asked him to, did he use his precious tool.

So, Mepan could not be sure as to when Sam started being conscious again.

Sam observed Mepan taking out his talismans and noticed a crystal he took out. For Sam it looked like a finely carved piece of crystal, but he could not relate the use of it with the talismans filling Mepan's bag. He never saw Carla using this kind of crystal before. Sam asked while pointing to the crystal: “This…what is…it?”

Looking at where Sam was pointing, Mepan answered: “This." "We will not need it today, in fact I took it out because it was in the way when taking out the talismans”. But Mepan was not unwilling to explain to Sam and he continued: ”The soulprobe is a mysterious formula embedded in a spirit crystal with high rank refined QI and runes. It is able to send Qi flows toward ones soul and display the fluctuations generated by an harmless soul probing.”

“Normally this is a tool used to determine the seriousness in a life and death's case.

Experts of the peak ninth rank spirit stage realm or higher does not need this, but for people under this level, this tool is without price”

Mepan was proud of this tool given to him by his master. Up until today, only on rare occasions did he use it.

However, now that he understood Sam had been suffering all this time, he felt a bit ashamed by his greediness.

When Mepan heard Gerad’s son was not only able to walk, but was talking, he felt guilty.

It was not out of ill will that Mepan was using his soulprobe parsimoniously, but replenishing the soulprobe’s QI required skills he did not have, and his master would not always refills it.

Mepan asked, “Do you have any headache or muscle pain?”

Sam looked at Mepan. He had thousands of questions popping in his head now. He answered by shaking his head and asked: “Talismans, what is….it?”

Mepan smiled and said: ”Well, talismans can be considered a medium for refiners to display effects on their environment.”

“…”

Seeing Sam tilting his head, Denise bursted into laughter while Mepan continued:

”Refiners use the Runes and refined plants essence to imbue effects on the infused QI. The stronger or the purer the QI, the better the effects displayed will be. Skills, and quality of the the extract are also, of course, a determining factor” Mepan continued after a pause: ”So talismans of the same kind may not have the same value or range of effects.”

Sam asked “RuneQI, What is…it?”

Mepan answered: ”RuneQI is how we name the imbedded QI runes that are written on the talismans like this one." He gave a talisman to Sam. "Refined plant essences and QI. The combination of the two written with the science of the runes which comes with painstacking efforts is called RuneQI”

The talisman was a brown papyrus five centimeter wide and fifteen centimeter long. On it, two cuneiform letters were written in green. But Sam saw other talismans written with different colors.

Seeing Sam so interested, Mepan continued with the tone of a teacher :

”The QI used can be one’s own, or come from other stronger source.” “The stronger or purer the external or internal source of QI one refines with, the harder and more dangerous it becomes for the refiner. If the external QI for example is not well enough filtered, harmful effects can be seen in case of long term use” “however, for most of the refiners, the effects obtained by using external QI source are far greater than the result they would obtain on their own because the purity is a determining factor but that is not all”. “So use of external source of QI although being harmful in the long run for the refiner if not properly handled is widely spread”.

Sam understood that refiners possess QI allowing them to carve special effects on talismans. However, Mepan spoke of external QI, what was the difference ?

Pondering, Sam asked: “External QI…where from?”

Denise looked at Sam with her eyes wide, how is Sam able to ask such questions? Wasn’t he unable to speak up until yesterday?

Mepan’s did not seem to mind Sam as he was immersed in his own speech.

“……so, external QI comes from the beasts or spirits beast core. By refining the core we extract the QI mix it with essence and infuse it in the talismans through the runes, the effects become more potent in most case than a regular refiner’s QI who is not a cultivator. Finally, according to which species the core comes from, some beneficial effects can be obtained.”

Listening up to this point Sam intended to ask further questions about the way refining work, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Turning around, Denise said :”It must be Sasha" "Come in!”.

It was indeed Sasha.

Sasha came in the room his face filled with arrogance. After looking at Sam for a few seconds, he turned toward Denise and said: ”Denise, are you ready yet? You told me you were still packing but when I went to your room, Mervena told me you were here.”

Denise answered annoyed :”Sorry, but I had to take Mepan to Sam’s room. I also wanted to check up on him”

Sasha glanced at Sam and said :”Hmph, what a loss of time." "Let us go, the carriage is ready. You said you had an appointment with your friend in Obour didn't you? You don’t want to be late.”

Reluctantly, Denise walked toward the exit, and before exiting, she turned around and said :”Sam, next time we meet will be in six months for the Lennart’s hunt” “Let us meet again at that time”

Sam nodded, and saw her leave the room. Sasha and Sam observed each other for a few seconds.

Sam did not know why Sasha acted like this, but he did not like this cousin’s attitude toward him.

Sasha snorted and left the room, letting Sam and Mepan alone.

Mepan continued examining Sam’s body for short while, and looking satisfied, he said: ”I have to get Carla, the next talismans will not be easy to apply if I don’t show her, wait here I’ll be back in a minute”.

Sam nodded, and when he found himself alone in his room again, he enjoyed the silence for a while.

The talisman was something that interested Sam greatly. With its magical powers, maybe his wish of getting his body healed completly was realizable.

After a few minutes of musing, he decided to inquire more about it when Mepan comes back.

He stood up and walked out of the room to look at the drawings of beasts he saw earlier.