“So, you’re not going to teach me how to use your wand?”

Eric peered thoughtfully at the young man gazing so intently at him from the other side of the crackling fire, gnawing anxiously on a well-cooked rib. Sam looked surprisingly comfortable wearing perhaps crudely made but at least functional rawhide armor, thanks to Eric’s ability to shape and preserve remains in his storage. The boy’s own increasingly tattered attire was drying on twine serving as a clothes line, after the pair of them finally finished the depressingly mundane chores that still needed to be performed, even in the heart of a miniature pocket realm that was so like a storybook cultivation paradise that Eric was still blown away by the sense of Spiritual Energy he could now feel caressing his form all the time.

And best of all, it was aligned to Fire, just like him.

Eric flashed his young friend a regretful smile. “I’m afraid not, Sam. At least not for now.”

“Because you actually broke through. Those days you were lost in trance, you weren’t just zoning out, you were really doing it. You were actually Cultivating.”

Eric dipped his head, even now cycling that tiny trickle of spiritual energy through his clogged meridian channels that now meant absolutely everything to him, refusing to stop after a terrifying handful of moments upon first waking up when he feared it had all been a dream.

Yet miraculously it wasn’t, and after countless hours of practice, maintaining the gentle flow of spiritual energy was becoming as natural and effortless to him as weaving an intricate pattern of necromantic sigils in the air with his hand. It did take concentration and focus, but he could increasingly do other things while maintaining the flow of Qi through his body and soul.

“It seems that using magic, especially blood magic and necromancy, but yeah, even the magic I managed to unlock by some miracle the other day, helps to clog your meridian channels. And once they’re fully clogged? You’re done. As a cultivator, I mean.” He smirked. “Oddly enough, it seems that the System actually prefers adventurers to have fully clogged channels and gates.”

Samuel’s eyes widened. “Really? Shit. Is grabbing a class and becoming a cultivator mutually exclusive then?”

Eric shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m a level 9 Basic Conscript and a Rank 1 Basic Fire Cultivator, after all. I think it’s more like… no, I’m certain, that the powers we gain as adventurers are tied to our nodes… and if the node is completely clogged up, I don’t know, maybe it’s easier for the System to plant it, like planting a tree in soil?”

Sam’s gaze tightened. “Shit, Eric, if that’s the case, then what’s the point of becoming a cultivator? If we can’t gain any of the super cool powers and abilities adventurers with exotic classes get?”

Eric shrugged. “That’s a good question. All I can say is that the feeling of spiritual energy flowing through me… it’s like I was locked in a stuffy room all my life, and didn’t even realize it. Not until I got my first breath of crisp mountain air with the sharp clean scents of pine and countless blooming wildflowers perfuming the breeze,” he explained. “And that’s just with the tiniest trickle of energy now flowing through me. It’s still mostly clogged. Like 99%, or something ridiculous. I can only imagine how good it will feel to truly clean my channels and completely break down the gunk clogging all my meridian gateways… or nodes, as the System calls them.”

“Yeah, but Eric, worst case, you won’t be able to lock any System powers if all your nodes are...”

“Clean? Free of gunk and waste? Maybe.” He flashed a cheeky smile. “Or maybe the System’s playing games with us noob savages, and the most elite powers are gifted to those with crystal clear nodes filled with spiritual energy. We really have no idea. For all we know, it’s the difference between plants that flourish in the soil and those that live for the water.”

Sam frowned. “So you’re saying we’re better off as seaweed as opposed to ferns?”

Eric shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. But the rush of Vitality and well-being I now feel goes far beyond a 37 Vitality.”

Sam’s eyes bulged. “What the fuck! 37 Vitality, Eric? How the hell did you get that, as a 9th level anything?”

Eric grinned. “And each Rank of Basic Fire Cultivation grants me +1 to Strength, Vitality, Quickness, and Spiritual Reserves. Because even the System acknowledges it’s a boon. But that’s not even the point! The point is that it feels good. It feels right! And on the off chance that I’m being an idiot, again, it’s not like I can’t clog up my channels later, if I’m really determined to do so.”

Samuel gazed at him for long moments. “Can you teach me?”

Eric grinned. “You know that’s my goal,” he said, rubbing his younger companion’s loose curls. “But right now I’m just barely cultivating myself. My plan is to do some experiments. If my hunch is right, with the help of this tome, which is basically as good as any magic cultivation manual, I’ll be able to do in a handful of weeks what might take most cultivators months or, let’s be honest, years to do.”

Sam tilted his head. “What exactly do you plan on doing?”

Eric winked. “If everything works out, you’ll see the results in just a couple of weeks.”

His friend frowned. “Alright, just be careful, Eric. In pretty much every wuxia I ever read, students who push themselves too hard too fast risk straining their cultivation bases.”

Eric nodded. “I know. They’re always pounding through each meridian gate like it’s a door they have to smash completely open. It seems that real cultivation works a tiny bit differently than the stories I read online. Because even the blockages aren’t completely blocked.”

“Yeah, just 99% blocked,” Sam said with a snort.

Eric grinned and nodded, denying nothing. “Exactly. They are. But all my gateways are still connected. There’s still a current, or at least a trickle, of spiritual energy between all of them. My plan isn’t to strain my gateways by pounding through all the blockages, but to slowly, or quickly, wear them away, like a river eating away at the massive block of ice at its center when the season’s turn.”

Sam frowned, looking thoughtful. “Is that why you smell so bad?”

Eric smirked. “Yeah, I guess my body is getting rid of a lot of the impurities. But if my hunch is right, I won’t need to clear each channel separately to go up ranks. It will happen naturally, as I improve my Qi flow between my channels.”

“Sure, but won’t that take years to dissolve all the blockages? I read the book too, remember. Probably more times than you,” the boy added with a smile.

Eric dipped his head. “You probably did. Let’s just say that I’m hoping that a certain affinity that I have will give me the edge I need to do it a bit faster than a couple of years. And hey, if it actually works out, and I get far enough with this cultivation thing, who knows? We might just be leaving with a crateful of magic peaches.”

Samuel’s eyes widened with delight at those words. “Really? That would be fucking Epic, Eric! You have no idea what that would mean to me, or to my grandfather!”

Eric grinned. “I can imagine.”

Sam frowned thoughtfully. “Do you still want me to show you how to inscribe the sigils on the pig? Because if cultivation and necromancy don’t mix...”

Eric nodded. “I still want you to teach me everything you can. Eventually. At least, if my experiments bear fruit. Ha ha. But yeah...maybe we’d best hold off on that, at least for a few weeks, until I know I’m 100% stable.”

“Okay, if you’re sure it won’t hurt your cultivation base.”

Eric laughed. “I’m not sure of anything right now, which is why I’m going to get practicing and see if any of my ideas work. You do your thing, and if I actually make any progress… I’ll teach you whatever I can.”

Samuel positively beamed. “Awesome! Are we still doing saberwork today?”

Eric nodded. “Saber and spear. Useful skills for any adventurer, and the disciplined training is supposedly very good for aspiring cultivators like us.”

“And it won’t strain our channels, like our other arts.”

“Exactly,” Eric said. “See you in a couple hours, and you’d better be ready.”

Eric left a smiling Samuel to do his thing, knowing the boy would probably be perfecting his sigils and wards without concern about blockages, having already given up on his own dreams of cultivation. Still, Eric wasn’t going to write him off just yet.

But first, he needed to be sure.

Sure that his own hunch would work.

Because despite the techniques for slowly removing blockages with a steady stream of circling spiritual energy that the cultivation manual had gone to great lengths to describe in exacting detail, Eric was increasingly certain that that wasn’t the only way forward.

But he refused to play the fool.

It was only after losing himself in a meditative cultivation state for a good hour, feeling the incremental erosion of his blockages that might be miniscule, but at least was occurring, that let him feel comfortable enough with his mastery of the basics, comfortable enough with himself, to take the next step.

A step where he visualized doing far more than splashing cold water against hardened clumps of clay.

Instead, he did his best to visualize ice-cold water slowly beginning to heat up, easing away stubborn blockages like a groaning man taking his ease in a hot steamy sauna, as spasming muscles slowly began to loosen and unwind.

Yet even that gentle warmth wasn’t enough to coax the blockages to loosen and slip free of his channels, Eric already knowing that far more than a gentle steam bath was called for as he transformed gentle currents into a seething mass of white-hot flame.

You have successfully infused your Spiritual Energy with the Essence of Flame!

You have successfully eroded 10% of all meridian channel blockages!

Saving throw successful.

You have successfully avoided rupturing your Meridian Configuration!

The words sent a jolt of alarm through Eric’s cultivation trance, lost in the fiery hot rapture of setting the gunk in the sewers of his soul ablaze, leaving clean, freshly scored tunnels behind.

Before realizing that the scorched rock was, in fact, the walls of his channels, and that scoring them too fiercely might not be such a good idea.

Once more he found himself visualizing a smiling elder gazing down at him while raising an admonishing finger. “You have managed a feat that surprises even me, Disciple. Daring to embrace an elemental path so early in your cultivation journey. It would be a shame if the very tool that allowed your initial breakthrough and ascension became your downfall, such a short time later.”

The man’s gentle gaze hardened. “Too short a time later.”

Eric winced. “So basically I’m pushing too fast, too hard?”

The white-haired man radiating such Vitality that Eric had no doubt he was as physically fit as any warrior in his prime gave a bemused shrug. “That depends. Is your goal to ascend, or to destroy yourself in as spectacular a fashion as possible?”

Eric sighed, bowing his head. “Understood.” He swallowed, suddenly feeling humbled and small, as if he were the tiniest of spring shoots daring to speak to an ancient elk in a shrouded woodland glade. “May this novice ask how long he should rest between… sessions?”

The elder snorted, eyes twinkling. “Sessions where unlike other students embracing a calm stream of Spiritual Energy to gently wear away at mortality’s banks, you would instead flood your soul with fire?” The man shook his head and sighed. “As many days as it takes for strained channels to tingle with Vitality. For any disciple who isn’t a complete blasphemy of System-infused Strength and double-edged blessings… weeks.”

The elder quirked a bemused eyebrow as Eric suppressed a wince. “But for one such as yourself… at least a handful of days.”

The ancient cultivator, for Eric sensed he was indeed ancient, flashed a humorless smile. “But I would look in the mirror of my soul and make absolutely certain that impatience and desperation weren’t hastening my steps, that my channels truly felt whole. For the difference between genius and absolute idiocy in Questors like yourself can be measured in hours. Do you understand… Disciple?”

Eric swallowed, bowing his head. “Yes, elder. I must wait until my channels tingle with Vitality, and pray that my boosted stats, and the Potency I’ve earned, can allow me to restore in days what should take weeks to recover normally.”

The elder nodded. “Much like young cultivators whose parents have more ambition and wealth than common sense will gift their children node-breaking pills, even they know to proceed with care, lest cracking open a node and flushing out the impurities within becomes rupturing the node in truth.”

Eric winced at those words, struck with a sudden stream of flickering images of once serene-faced boys and girls screaming in ungodly pain, blood streaming from all their pours as all their hopes and dreams were shattered by a clan elder’s foolish impulse, their dreams transformed to bitter ash, cultivation bases crippled. assuming the injuries didn’t kill them outright.

He felt an odd shiver as the cultivator’s memories receded as fast as they came, finding it harder than ever to convince himself that his present vision was a simple flight of fancy.

But all he said was, “Thank you, revered elder. I will exercise patience over folly, as best as I can.”

The elder snorted. “Yet another wise fool challenging the galaxy with the path he dares. Good luck, Disciple. May you make best use of the tools fate has left in your hands.”

And before Eric could bow and give his thanks once more, he found himself lurching out of his now much-abused bedding, reeking of sour sweat and so much worse, Eric hissing as he gazed upon a powerful frame covered in blood.

For a heartbeat, terror flooded his veins, wondering if he was already too late, if had already doomed himself, before exhaling a shuddering sigh of relief, realizing it wasn’t blood he was looking at, but the stench of expelled waste. Waste that he sensed would smell far worse, did it not crumble away like superheated ash with a brush of his hand.

Still, there was no denying that he stunk, and it was some moments he spent meditating quietly and struggling to regain his center, overwhelmed by an odd feeling of dizzying weakness and unbridled strength, as if his body was both flooded with newfound power… yet every muscle a single wrench away from being strained or seriously injured, so intensely had he pushed himself.

With that in mind, he took a cue from every cultivation novel he had ever read, hydrating himself before making his way out of his corner room and heading to the bathtub-sized depression beside the tunnel entrance, a depression he had cut with his favorite seized shortsword into the stone, allowing the trickle of water that Infravision had helped him detect and divert the other day to form a nice little trough. Not only was it convenient, it also had the sterling benefit of being within the area warded by the cavern entrance. So it was perfectly safe to soak in and massage sore muscles as he freed himself of the thick black residue painting his skin while Samuel made mock retching noises behind him.

“God, Eric. About time you took a bath! You were in your room for another two days. You stink!”

Eric winced at that, smiling even as eagle eyes carefully scanned the clearing all about the cavern entrance, happy to see that no hoof print had made its way past the crimson blood ward guarding their territory. Best of all, he saw no signs of tuskers any closer than at the very edge of the forest, rooting around the trunks of the distant peach trees, now seeming content to ignore Eric and a smirking Samuel completely.

Eric laughed at his friend. “Yeah, you got me there. Well, better late than never on the bath thing, hey?”

His friend favored Eric with a measuring stare. “You sure you’re okay?”

Eric nodded. “I earned another cultivation rank, and I think I’m pretty close to Rank 3. But I’m also pushing myself pretty hard. I’m going to spend the next few days just resting up, going through basic martial katas to get my blood flowing, and maybe doing some gentle cultivation, free of any Flame essence. Massaging my channels, so to speak, as opposed to cracking them open as fast and hard as I can.”

Samuel whistled. “You’re near Rank 3 already?” He flashed a hopeful smile. “So, you’re a gifted young master, just like in the story books. Any chance you can teach your favorite disciple all your secrets?”

Eric chuckled at that, though he wasn’t blind, sensing all too well both his young friend’s eagerness, and worry. “Damn right I will.” He locked gazes with Sam then, his voice turning serious. “But that means you pause in necromancy and all System-magic usage, just like I am. Hopefully, it’s not too late, since you’ll have a guide to help you move the sludge blocking your meridians, and you won’t be forced to do it alone. I’m hoping that once we party up, maybe I can coax your channels to follow my lead.”