Upon awakening vigor charged through his body. His cultivation base had settled. With every second that ticked by his machinery cooled. It moved slowly wild qi poured into his body and ran through the refinery process. Unlike focused cultivation this was constant. Whether awake or asleep he’d recover his qi.

To hide his constant cultivation, he kept a hallow reed in his mouth. It looked like a home rolled cigarette with every breath black tar poured from his lung and flowed out from the reed. A pipe would be better, but he didn’t have one or the money to get one. With a single sect point to his name getting his hands on a pipe seemed like a dream. Wood carving wasn’t much of an option. His skill wasn’t at the level a good pipe was feasible. For now, the reed in his mouth would have to do.

Ian had passed into the third stage of the refinery realm. The inner machinery within worked tirelessly to draw in wild qi and refine it. His process was slow but steady like a heartbeat.

To reach the next stage, he needed to add another element to the process to further filter the qi. That’s what refinery was all about. He absorbed qi primitively at first and used his body as a filter. Most of that qi was wasted expelling the waste. Burning the waste and expelling it as smoke had increased the speed of his cultivation and decreased the strain slightly. He still wasted over 85% of the qi he absorbed to expel waste.

To that end he went back to the drawing board. More Meifeng yipped and chased after pink bat butterflies and the occasional white spirit mantis. The pests died swiftly to the scampering hunter. While she was busy, he began to draw a diagram in the sand and think.

Drawing pictures helped. The bigger he made the picture the easier it was to view. To reach the fourth stage he could either add another layer of machinery or wait until he built up enough qi over the next few weeks or months. Once the machinery solidified in his body the mental energy needed to maintain it drastically decreased. With that thought in mind, crafting another layer of machinery would weaken his battle potential.

This had to do with own limitations. His qi manipulation was determined by his understanding of the Dao and mental energy. He could build a new machine upon the old one but there were other options. Qi experts have been scrambling to reach higher stages faster for millennia. He had three sutras that he could pick apart.

After reading the sutra for Heaven Defying Aura Seeking Breath, he felt inspired. He read the sutra a second, third, and fourth time. Fortunately, he didn’t need a new Dao element to craft this new technique.

He cast multiple fishing lines using the larger reeds to construct rod holders. Whenever a fish bit one of his six lines he only had to yank the rod to pull the fish from the water. In a few hours he filled two of the slop buckets with fish.

While he pulled the skin off and slit open their bellies to rip out their organs, he thought about the technique he crafted. The more he thought about it the riskier it became. It would stretch his will thin upon its construction and potentially throw him off the cliff. Qi reinforced mental power while mental power enhanced qi control. A higher base mental power meant greater qi control. At the same time this could eliminate most of his waste issues.

The body of this new technique was a breathing technique. At the end of the day that couldn’t be avoided. What he planned to do with it would mark it as a breathing and a striking technique. In a sense he stole the idea that was inspired by a feature of the foundry state. If this worked then he’d repel qi that was naturally different from his own and filter out the wild qi before it entered his body. Because it was a striking and breathing technique, he’d only lose qi if it failed.

Ian began to process while the fish cooked. He sucked in a breath and exhaled a gentle almost unnoticeable breeze. Slowly, he altered the technique. It was like turning the dial of a radio to find the right station. So long as the station existed, he’d find it.

Time flew by and he ate the fish and his breathing technique slowly built up around his body. It was slow by design. Too much power and he feared his lungs would explode. Ian gently exhaled a steady stream of qi and rotated it around his body. It picked up slowly like a hurricane. Keeping a fast paced technique would have been a larger strain on his mental power.

What he lost in qi he regained and then some. The black smoke decreased to a tiny wisp that occasionally puffed out of the reed in his mouth. The theory behind the Heaven Defying Aura Seeking Technique had been sound. Instead of producing a mobile hurricane around the body it congealed a layer of qi to act as a second skin to filter wild qi. The technique was much stronger than Ian’s own and for that reason it was unusable. He didn’t have the mental power to use it at all. It was a technique for a fifth stage refinery realm cultivator. It also relied upon water or earth qi. Two of the primary elements that Ian didn’t possess. There was no example qi within the sutra of either of those.

Neither wind nor fire wanted to stay still. They were active elements so the best way to utilize them was through movement. The movement of his hurricane was no more formidable than his exhaled breath. Ian lost qi and gained qi at a constant rate. The qi he drew in was much more than what he lost. He no longer had to concentrate hard upon removing the biproduct of cultivation and didn’t have to waste qi to remove vast quantities of waste. Overall, it was a net positive. If he lost a unit of qi with every breath, then he gained 10 unites of qi in that same breath.

Best of all the purity to his qi was increasing. He felt more energy bond with his muscles, tendons, sinews, and bones, and flesh. With each breath he grew ever stronger and neared the fourth stage. From that point it would be a charge into the fifth.

He opened his storage ring and pulled out five spirit stones. Each held a large amount of purified wild qi. If he had more robust machinery consuming one would make sense. Even with a toe in the fourth stage his machinery had barely hardened. Time was needed to reach the next phase and that was time he didn’t have. The less work he put on his refinery the more it would harden. That made his new technique ideal. By the time he reached the fourth stage his machinery should have hardened enough to consume a single pill and charge into the fifth stage. That unfortunately wasn’t here or there.

More Meifeng knew that she was in the company of a monster. After just edging into the 3rd stage of qi refinery, he developed a technique from two trash ranked sutras and skipped right towards the 4th stage. She could sense his machinery hardening at a faster rate. Less waste passed out of the reed in his mouth than before.

He also fed her more of those tasty fish. In her true form the taste of entrails was sweeter than the meat of the fish itself. She consumed the guts, the hearts, livers, and eggs of the fish. The qi within the low ranked spirit fish bolstered her own cultivation base just a little. As a demon wolf dog, her only means to improve her cultivation was to consume. While the meat of the fish was nice. Her human benefactor didn’t know where the true qi within the fish lay.

It was a pity the young genius wouldn’t live long. She was here to lead him to his doom. That didn’t mean she couldn’t wait a little longer and prolong the free food and head pats. Mortals were no match for demons. She could slay her human with ease even in her current state. She was merely of the first level of demi imp and no match for a demon Fire Fur bear of the second stage of demi imp.

Each stage of a demon’s cultivation was progressively higher than a human. By the third stage of demi imp a demon was equal to a eighth stage refinery cultivator. By the fourth they were equal to a foundation stage 4. An imp rank was equal to a core stage 7 and the gap increased from there. No mortal could defeat a demon of the Lord rank. Once that bear Da Chao opens a rift the world of humans will belong to demon kind.

She pitied the young genius who gave her a name, fish, and a warm place to sleep. He was perhaps too kind to survive in the demon world. She debated giving him a chance. Surely, if she spoke with Da Chao on his behalf a place as a cultist could be found for him. She nodded slowly. A plan began to form in her mind.

He’d reach the ninth stage quickly and then with a bit of her blood he could ascend into demon hood. That would be the best for him. Leaving the human world behind to become a demon was the best thing for him. She wondered what he’d look like as a wolf dog like herself. She pictured a black furred wolf with glowing green eyes.

Just as he settled in for the night a knock resounded throughout the little cabin. “What are you doing in my cabin? If you don’t have a damn good reason for being here, I’ll have you whipped.” Ian blew out a faint puff of smoke from his reed.

“How do I know its yours?” Ian asked.

“Let me put this another way. I’m packing heat and I’m not afraid to put holes in my walls.” The man yelled.

“Gui Bolin maybe you should calm down. He sounds like a teenager. Nothings looks broken, did you leave the door unlocked?” Ian looked over to Meifeng. She stared at him with an indifference.

“I’d appreciate it if you barked to warn me next time.” She yipped at him before laying down next to the wood stove.

“I’ll let you in its dangerous out here with that demon bear on the loose.” Ian opened the door only for the man to barge in. He took one look at Meifeng before drawing his gun and pointing at her. Ian moved in a flash and pushed the gun up before it went off.

The man glared at him and his face went beat red. “Dear calm down. Now what did you mean by a demon bear. Demons don’t exist.” Meifeng snorted at the older woman’s words.

“I haven’t heard anything about a man-eating bear in the area. I think you’re just a homeless boy squatting.” The man accused. The looked up and down Ian’s sect robes.

“I’m a member of the Atlas Mountain Sect. They sent me here to kill the bear.” The man snorted.

“You hear that honey they sent a kid clothed in rags to hunt down a man-eating bear with a wood axe. You aren’t too bright are you kid. Did they promise to make you an immortal like them? Well I hate to break it to you, all the stories you heard growing up are lies.” The man shook his head.

“I’ll admit you look quick on your feet but look at this.” The man held up his side arm. “This is power, it has six bullets and their all faster than you. No amount of martial arts or wishful thinking is going to change that. My Anaconda 44mag is top of the line. If a bear comes close to me, I’ll blow its damn brains out.” The man said cockily.

Meifeng suddenly sprung up and started barking. Through the light of the still opened door Ian saw two large golden eyes. From it he sensed a mighty baleful qi that threatened to swallow him up in its rage and power.

Gui Bolin turned to the beast and froze. His finger couldn’t find the triger and the gun wouldn’t point straight. Ian cursed and yanked the gun away and pointed it at the beast. Only before he could pull the trigger it had already vanished in the darkness.