I walked into my room, to the sight of an orange cat lying on its back as a tiny rat sat on top of its belly, licking its paws.

Labby froze for a second, as she saw me come, before she jumped from her table and rushed towards me.

Labby had protected the spirit herb haven from the evil cat, Great Master! Labby has also made the cat its loyal minion!

She sent me the words, accompanied by a series of excited squeaks, as my eyes went to the cat squirming on my desk as if extremely high on catnip. The slightly ajar drawer to the spirit pills and the open window to the room gave me sufficient hints what may have happened, and I walked to the shelf to check how bad the damage was.

“Huh, only a couple of pills. I’m actually impressed,” I said out loud, sending a sense of pride to Labby, who stormed in with a series of squeaks as she jumped about among the spirit herbs.

I shook my head, almost jumping in surprise when the cat had walked over to my feet, and began to aggressively rub itself against my feet. I shook my head, giving a couple of pets to the feline, threatening to tear through my clothes with its claws if I stopped.

“I’m turning into some kind of circus. The strangest one around, with an electric rat with a pill addiction, with an orange cat as a minion,” I said out loud, snorting.

After a couple more minutes of petting, the effects of the pills seem to have worn out, as the Qi was slowly absorbed by the cat’s body. Most of it being expelled in its breath.

With a couple of meows, the little feline promptly showed me its fuzzy butt as it jumped right onto my notes, leaving the print of its paws as it jumped outside the window it entered from.

“Cats never change no matter the world, huh?” I muttered, before I turned my gaze towards Labby, happily squeaking in the midst of tall spirit grass.

Staring at my little rat-child, I decided that it was time I taught Labby a few things. The first step would probably be basic maths. I did wonder how quickly Labby would learn these things. It might work as a good way to estimate her mental age as well, because physically, I was pretty sure Labby would be an adult female.

Walking towards my little patch of spirit herbs and making a note to trip off the random spots of spirit grass and properly containing and sectioning the area so that they don't take over the room, I called out to Labby.

“Labby, I think it’s about time I taught you a few things.”

Great Master is going to teach Labby how to make pills?!

Labby exclaimed, with a loud squeak and I rubbed my nose, when an idea struck me. “Not quite. I will be teaching you something just as valuable. And if you manage to successfully do it, then you’ll get an extra Qi pill today,” I said, feeling like I was feeding a child drugs to get them to do maths. Good god, what had my life come to.

Labby will do it! Labby is eager to learn from her Great Master!

Labby squeaked happily, and I could almost see her drooling at the prospect of more Qi gathering pills. My spirit rat was a glutton among gluttons.

“Alright, well. Hmm, you can’t exactly hold a brush to write. Well, let’s start with learning how to count then.”

Labby already knows how to count! she exclaimed and I paused.

“You can count? Well, what’s this then?” I asked Labby, drawing a one, on a piece of paper and holding it out in front of Labby. I saw her stare at the symbol as she tilted her head before her ears drooped.

Labby doesn’t know…

I heard her speak, almost as if afraid of disappointing me. I smiled, as I put the paper in front of her.

“It's one. It means one of something. Like there’s one of me, and one of you,” I told Labby and I saw her stare at the page.

But, Labby doesn’t think this is one? One is not up to down, standing straight up. It’s left to right, flowing along the earth.

I stared at Labby, confused about what she meant, when I realised. I’d written one like ‘1’ where the one she was mentioning was the character for one.

I drew out the symbol for one, and showed it to her, and Labby nodded her head. I drew out two and three and so on, and showed them to Labby.

“You can read these?” I asked Labby, and got another affirmative from our bond. I just realised that I’d completely taken a rat knowing how to speak for granted. How did she know the words, who taught her? What about these numbers? Could she read as well?

“Okay, Labby, I’m gonna write something. Tell me if you can read it,” I asked Labby, as I began to write down the characters in the language from here, before holding it out in front of Labby.

The laws of cultivation, and the origin of Qi.

Labby sent back to me and I stared at her silently. “Who taught you to read Labby? Or to count?” I asked Labby.

Labby doesn’t know. Labby knew how to do it when Labby became Labby. Labby thinks the Qi told her, when it asked for her name.

“The Qi… told you? When it asked for your name?” I said out loud, unsure of what that even meant, as I simply got another affirmative from Labby.

“Do you mean, the Qi actually talked to you?” I asked, and got a negation. Huh, something else then.

The Qi only spoke once. To ask for Labby’s name. The rest, Labby knew as surely as she knew what the sun and the moon were, and what the heavens meant.

I stared in wonder, trying to understand what that meant. Was the Qi capable of storing information? Was it some kind of intelligence? Were there actual deities involved? I mean, the fact that I was here would suggest that souls were a thing. And that I somehow died while preparing for my physics test and was sent here.

“Can you ask the Qi questions?” I asked Labby once more.

Labby doesn’t know. The Qi doesn’t talk. It doesn’t like Labby much either. It says Labby’s name is not from here. It wanted to call Labby, La Bi.

And of course the Qi had a preference in names as well. La Bi, so it was following the language from here. And not from here… was pretty clear in what it was referring to.

I sat in silence for a while, thinking over things, before I shoved the thoughts for a later point. I’d think over the possibility of the intelligence of what I’d thought was a fundamental force of nature at a later point.

“Let’s resume your lesson,” I told Labby, drawing the English equivalent of numbers, and then the structure of decimals and arranging numbers around, alongside addition and subtraction and more.

Hours flew by in a blink as the day began to set. I sensed a shift in the Qi, as the lunar Qi in the air began to increase. There was to be a full moon soon.

I could sense Labby’s eagerness as she greedily absorbed this knowledge, and I could sense her Qi churning as her understanding began to grow.

It was a strange experience, to be able to sense the problems Labby faced from my link to her, and be able to guide her, and I could feel her Qi trembling, as it began to swirl around her.

Labby… think's Labby understands. The “zero” master refers to is absence. The absence of something can be used to add value by ten, which is what master calls a “decimal” and it forms a cycle that goes on forever and ever.

A cycle born from nothingness.

I nodded at Labby’s reply, as I felt a swirling motion of Qi grow in her dantian. Lightning Qi churned, as her Qi began to grow. I felt the essence around me trembling, and watched in muted surprise as Labby fur began to glisten. The mark on her forehead grew to form a crescent moon as Qi churned before settling down.

I think I just made Labby breakthrough into the middle of the first realm, by the power of maths.