To put Ivor’s fury into perspective, it should be known that Ivor wasn’t more of a madman than most successful cultivators. He was furious at this soreness for one main reason: it practically grabbed his Dao heart and took a bite out of it. Back when Ivor was a wage slave, he worked hard, and when he was giving out, he worked harder. His motto was, “If I persevere, I’ll be rewarded. I’ll get a promotion, or win the lottery or something.”

Sadly, this opportunity never came; until December 31st, 2020, that is. 2020 was known as the year of the apocalypse. There was the COVID, but more importantly, ancient beasts came out of slumber in the world of cultivators, and on the last day of 2020, when the end was in sight, they were brought to another world. This is because an incomparably precious treasure spawned on Earth, and Earth was repaying its karmic debt.

Ivor was overjoyed at this, as he had finally stopped having to suffer. His work had paid off, working at his job, striving to do better, teaching himself to cook, and working out - but all of this improvement had a cost. It could be time, exhaustion or worst of all, soreness. When he came to the cultivation world, he thought he wouldn’t need to suffer soreness, a feeling he associated with his own weakness, a feeling he had learned to associate with failure. He was cultivating, and expected some kind of pain or exhaustion - the pain of hard work. The one thing he didn’t expect was soreness.

Soreness means that you’ve worked too hard and you’re being punished for it, at least that’s what it symbolized to Ivor. It symbolized his weakness, as he could push through pain, but soreness was disabling. Not normal soreness, mind you, a natural consequence of your muscles getting stronger, a symbol of growth, but total overdraw, at the level where trying to push through will make it worse; the antithesis of perseverance. To Ivor, this disabling soreness was unacceptable, its existence contradicting his very Dao heart, a heart of perseverance.

* * *

Hours later, Ivor had recovered after taking a short nap. “I think my lung meridian is a third full. God, not even half full after all that soreness? I mean, it’s probably way faster than average, considering I cultivated like my life depended on it. Wait… I’ll try this.”

Ivor popped an energy pill into his mouth before smashing it with his teeth, the qi spilling out. It was at this point that Ivor realized something: that the qi in this pill felt a little similar to his own. He inhaled the qi, but before going into his lung meridian, it collapsed into another type of qi, one familiar to Ivor. It was the qi he cultivated. It flew into his meridian and filled it up a whole sixth. Ivor was confused about his rapid growth. “That’s strange… couldn’t anyone cultivate super quickly if it goes this fast? I mean, I could fill my maximum capacity lung meridian with a sixth of these. Well, maybe it has to do with the breathing technique. It’s specifically for the lung meridian, so it probably boosts the efficiency of qi gathering. As for the pill… it felt similar to my qi. In fact, plenty of things I see feel like they could turn into that qi, although not nearly as much as the pill. Maybe it’s because they’re treasures. I guess I am following the Dao of Treasure, and pills are definitely a type of treasure. I mean, I had to assimilate the qi flowing into my lung meridian, which isn’t exactly efficient. Even with my breathing, I only kept maybe a percent of the qi I breathed in or so. But with this… I kept all of it. Of course, this qi is made to be assimilated, since it’s in a pill, which might make conversion easier. It felt like if a normal person processes it perfectly, they might be able to get 20% of the qi in it. I don’t really know why, maybe I have a sense for treasures because… I think I literally created the Dao of Treasures. Well, maybe I just rediscovered it.”

Ivor hopped up from his bed and walked outside with an excited swagger. The street was full of the scents of countless spices and the auras of myriad treasures, but Ivor resisted the temptation to check it out, going to collect his pill from the treasure hall. “Hello esteemed elder Moldvanna. May I have my pill?”

Moldvanna snorted before tossing the pill into Ivor’s hand. “Of course! To an elder such as I, what’s a mere energy pill? Are you insinuating that I wouldn’t give you one? Now go to the missions board.”

Ivor popped the pill into his mouth, feeling his cultivation jump upward to two-thirds of the way through his lung meridian. He sprinted out of the treasures hall after a few words. “Thank you, elder Moldvanna. I’ll hurry to the board as you say.”

Ivor was refreshed by his sprint, feeling energized as he unconsciously inhaled and exhaled qi, a refreshing experience even though it barely contributed to his cultivation.

Ivor opened the door to the outer city administration room, mostly ignored by the large number of above-average service disciples who had reached peak qi attunement at least, and walked over to a board with nearly a dozen people crowding around it: the service disciple merit board. There were three indicators on the top indicating what the merits under them involved. On the left there were sect management jobs, which went from guarding the outer wall to staffing the treasure hall. Ivor found it odd that the treasure hall was in the outer city before he realized that it was in a closed pavilion near the furthest west point of the city, in the commerce district. He thought that there might be other major buildings in the other four districts.

On the right, there were acquisition jobs: going from finding or growing natural treasures, the latter of which Ivor guessed might be what the farming scripture was for, to concocting pills. Finally, the center contained hunting jobs, ranging from bringing back beast corpses to bringing back other kinds of beast corpses. Ivor scanned the acquisitions list, which he thought might be appropriate for him, considering his treasure sense, and saw a job he liked: finding and retrieving a harmonic lily, a plant that calms down qi, assisting in concocting high level pills. The reward was high, a full five basic energy pills, because the qi of the harmonic lilies blends in with that of the environment, but Ivor was guessing that it couldn’t hide the mark of treasure qi.

This is because harmonic lilies don’t emit treasure qi, but their qi still carries a tinge of the concept of treasure, as it’s astoundingly difficult to change the abstract thing that is a concept, although Ivor had no way of knowing this.

Ivor reached out to grab the request, but instead of the request, he touched a hand. Ivor looked down the length of the arm to see a young, handsome man fully clad in silk, who started to scream. “ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE THIS JOB FROM ME?! DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!”

Ivor sighed in exasperation and began to drawl in a voice full of contempt. “I’m sorry, young master. I shouldn’t have tried to take your request.”

The man stopped screaming and burst out into a belly laugh while wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just a prank! You should see how the qi attunement juniors respond! I’ve seen them shit themself. Hi there, I’m the strongest service disciple Daoist Silkpants. I’m not called that because I’m a silkpants, but because I wear silk pants. I know it seems like a dumb reason to pick a Dao name, but these silk pants were an heirloom from my dead mother. Nice to meet you, junior. What’s your Dao name?”