“As your father-in-law, let me wash your back,” the old man said to Ander.

Ander had yet to remove his robe before entering the open-air bath.

“Why?”

“As you are doing me a favor, I am going to do you one as well.”

“Is that normal here or are you treating me like a child who can’t wash his own back?”

“Practicality, I wash yours then you wash mine.”

“I see. Go ahead then.” Ander lowered his robes, revealing a tattoo he hadn’t had until recently nor seen himself. A tiger with fur of white and stripes of black was climbing up a starry night sky toward the moon. A constellation resembling an arrowhead could be seen among those stars. A swirl pattern full of stars covered his upper arms and spread to his chest, ending there. While his back ended at a layer of clouds.

“Um…Ander…You wouldn’t happen to be a Yakuza, would you?”

“The hell is that? Not hell. Hell! [Redacted」. No I am not a Yakusa. Is that some type of demon?”

“No… This inkwork is just…” The old man stopped gawking and started watching.”

“Inkwork? I don’t have a tattoo.”

“Must be a new thing then. Did your friend also have a tattoo?”

“Yeah, but it was circular, it looked kind of like a moon or something.”

“Heaven and Earth, or some such nonsense I guess. Is this satisfactory?”

“It is? Now it’s your turn.”

The two traded places and the old man removed his robe, revealing a large, apparent gaping hole that covered most of his torso and passed through clearly. The sides of the hole resembled a spreading void.

“Not much back left to wash I imagine.” The old man laughed.

“What is this?”

“When one uses up most of their own life force their body begins to degrade internally. My enhanced lifeforce has a limit, eight hundred years of power. The hole showed up over a hundred years ago and there’s no way to negate the degradation, only delay it. I’ll be honest and say I produced Chiyo at my age, ate up alot of my own life force, and as of late I’ve been aging rapidly. If you can take care of my daughter or at least make her strong enough to survive on her own, I will be able to live in peace on the other side.”

Ander carefully washed what reminded him of the old man’s back, having planned to put some power into it prior to the reveal.

“Fine then, but you better not use any Qi until after the Ceremony. Can’t have you dying on Chiyo tonight. At least survive so that I can annoyingly call you father in law.”

“I won’t make any promises.” The old man laughed.

The following day, Ander ate breakfast with his fiance, and the two moved on to morning training exercises, which led to the current predicament.

“I need to lay on your stomach for this to work. The female acupuncturist is here to document this as well. You will be in safe hands. Also, according to your grandfather the wedding is in two weeks.”

“Two weeks? That’s way too fast, we hardly know each other.”

“I know right? I think he wants me to do this before you do something strange and scare me off.”

Chiyo did not dignify that with a response; that was precisely what had happened with her previous fiance. The man got scared away when he saw her practicing her sword strikes. She may have cleaved a boulder in half with a wooden sword and no qi, but it was training. Ander wasn’t anything like that; if anything, the girly side of things may put him off. Although, given how he looked, a bit of vanity shouldn’t be a bother.

Chiyo lay on the acupuncture bed and waited for them to begin.

“Should she remove her clothes for this?”

“Nah, the needles are markers. So long as they are stable it doesn’t actually matter. If you weren’t here I wouldn’t be using them.”

“She’s pretty long.”

“Is she now?” Ander looked at the old man.

“Reasonably tall by our standards but no giant.”

“Hey I’m right here.” Chiyo protested.

“No moving, the needles are being prepared.”

Chiyo froze in her position.

Ander pointed to four positions on her upper back, one on the nape of her neck. Ander then pointed to three places on her middle back, four on her lower, one on each upper calf, then one on each lower calf. The last two went into each of her upper arms.

“Focus Qi into your fingers like so.” Ander’s fingers began to glow with a blue aura. “Then hold it in this position over the needle right above her heart for three seconds or until you feel their life energy connect with yours. Next you bring it to the left to the needle here, then move onto the arm, then you trace it back to the left marker then up to the nape of her neck and back down to her heart.” Ander followed the pattern and let the Qi began to flow into the new pathways.

“Your turn, do the exact same with the right side of her body, I’ll make any corrections.”

The person they sent had even better control, and the pathways were much smoother than Anders’s, not that smoothness matters…It did matter initially, but they’d soon fix themselves regardless. It would just cause less pain if done cleanly.

“Ok you will take over from here, just follow my instructions, Connect the nape, with the spine, then cononcet the one on the left and go down to the left most needle then go to the upper thigh then lower calf, back up to the upper thigh and then the needle to second needle from the left. Connect it with both the spine and the one to the left of the spine.”

The doctor did it perfectly again.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Then do the same with the other side.”

It was completed perfectly as well.

“If you’re so good at this, why haven’t you figured this out before I got here?” Ander stomped petulantly.

“Because we didn’t have the perspective that Master Ander brought to our world.”

Ander calmed down and looked professional. “The way I did it was good for her, others may require a different configuration. Some may need more nodes in some places and less in others.”

Ander removed the needles via magnetism, causing them to rise and collect in their case. Ander started at Chiyo for a long moment.

“Uh Ander why are you staring–”

“Oh, that? I was observing the changes. It looks as though your body is converting excess into muscle and removing various chemicals.”

Ander felt an urge to leave. Trusting his instincts, he turned and ran out of the room.

The doctor decided to stay with her longer, only for her eyes to water.

The next hour was spent cleaning up the mess and preparing some new clothes for Chiyo as she’d gained four more inches in height. Putting her at a solid 5” 10 or 178cm. finding clothes was going to be a pain now. Her hair had gained a bluish tint, as her body appeared as though it were two years younger and not fully matured. Leaving her to appear nineteen instead of twenty one a distinction few who weren’t paying attention would notice as the first thing that changed.”

“My brothers and I are all of the shorter variety. When I was about five, my older brother said he had the tallest wife and ruled the clan. His wife is about 5” 2 or 157cm. I need to get taller.”

“Don’t worry Ander you’re still growing.” The old man patted Ander on the shoulder.

“Yeah—” Ander was too distracted and short to see the jab, so it went over his head.

“Ander if you keep staring at her legs they’ll fall off.”

“Right. I need to go for a run. Be back soon.”

After procuring a new wardrobe, Chiyo Ander began teaching Qi reinforcement, which enhanced her pathways with the life energy in her body. It was similar to mana enchantment but much more precise.

Due to training with it for an extended period before meeting Ander and having inherited a large amount from her father due to the mermaid’s gift, she proved to be quite destructive in power—so destructive in fact that she could match the level Ander was at before his training at the island with Maldain.

While Ander would praise her for this if she were just a student, he was the ambitious sort. Her training wouldn’t be done until she could at least match him physically in hand-to-hand combat.

“Two weeks won’t be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough for you to reach my level of power. To be fair, the gap has been closed quite a bit. In fact you’re already near the level, that the one who calls herself my girlfriend is.”

“Right…The one that was trying to make the other guy jealous?”

“Yup. To be fair, I’m not even sure if that timeline still exists. Hopefully I can get to my past self before he says. Do whatever just let me train in peace.”

“...That was enough to constitute dating in your world?”

“I didn’t deny it when it was brought up. As I was in a hurry to get back to training. Now, then, show me that sword form of yours one more time.”

Ander picked up a wooden sword from a stand and returned. He watched every motion, from the placement of her feet to the contortion of her face as she exhaled during a strike, every detail he could pick up on, and the glaring holes created when she grew.

“Alright. There are a few inconsistencies in your form.You aren’t committing enough in some strikes and you’re overcompensating in your defensive form. I’m going to show you what you did. Then you repeat and try to remove any mistakes that you notice. From there I will inform you of any mistakes that were missed.”

“Sheesh, can’t I enjoy having more Qi for a day?”

“I’m the ambitious type. I don’t want to stop training until you can s–strike me down. Us Spriggin are a proud warrior race after all.”

“Is it me? Or am I starting to feel like I’m not the weird one here?”

“It’s probably your imagination.” Ander pressed a finger to his head, sending a jolt into his system.

“Right,” Chiyo repeated the form thrice, hitting everything except for the final foot placement on the last attempt.

“Did you make a mistake?” Ander asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, one of my last maneuvers missed the mark.”

“Was that truly a mistake?”

“Yes, in a battle that would have exposed my midsection.”

“Unless you were fighting in close quarters and someone tried to catch you off guard by pinning you to a position.” Ander walked forward and pointed to a scorch mark on the floor.

“I sent a spark at you to interrupt your maneuver, it wouldn’t have hurt but it would have stunned. Had you gotten hit, you’d be more open from that than you would if you dodged. You could also counter from a dodging position. Form is important for learning and mastery, but true masters can adapt to changes in circumstances.”

“That was tricky.”

“You’re the one who got it tight the second time and tried to do it again on the third time. Battle trances are dangerous if you can’t adapt. You can, which puts you above a few I know.” Ander left the training hall. Making his way to the old man’s office.

“Ah Ander, how may I help you?”

“I need you to send my captain an invitation to the wedding as well as a request for special training weights. A set to get a lithe girl that stands around five ten at the recommended level of strength for a swordswoman with talent with wind, water, and battle rage.”

“Wind and water?”

“She’s what I would call a storm berserker. Cuts like the wind and moves gracefully like water with the force of a wave. My captain has more experience with water than I.”

“I was told all he had was healing and brute strength…”

“Listen, assume that my captain can do everything reasonably well, he just has some focusing issues. Wind, Water, Earth, Life, Fire, those are his five base tallents. All save fire were trained to dangerous levels when he was younger, fire is something he picked up recently. He chose to spend his time focusing on his capabilities as a healer, while pushing his body past the limit. If you think he can do something then he probably could, and if you saw him do something bizarre and impossible, chances are he mixed techniques together and got an odd result.”

“I see, so he had the ability to make training equipment?”

“Just basic strength training stuff. Chances are he’ll adjust it as it arrives. Also, there will be food. You’re going to need a lot. Imagine feeding a starving dragon.”

“Price for power seems to be a large food requirement.”

“Most people would have exploded in his position. Infact, he could probably get you a new body if you asked for one.”

“New body?”

“Yeah, I imagine that he doesn’t have that restriction anymore.”

“Ander, let me go in peace. I don’t need a new body.”

“Not even to see your actual grandkids?”

“Please. Aren’t kids, years in the future? I don’t have years.”

“Fine, can I draw a symbol so that he notices that it was me?”

Ander did something he wouldn’t regret, but he certainly would feel bad about it. Ander hadn’t known his own father, so seeing his first parental figure on death’s door and ready to die despite having various chances to survive made him want to push it. Death by losing all of one’s lifeforce ended with the destruction of the soul. Ander would at least ensure the man could enter the multiplanner cycle of reincarnation.

Ander drew a tube shape with a symbol of the Soul Catcher in the runic tongue. It had no meaning to the people here, however.

“What is that?”

“A good luck charm given to the parents of the betrothed. As I don’t have any, on my side, I must give it to you.”

Ander hadn’t lied. It was a practice on Imala to bring family to the world above so that they could be reborn into new bodies. He just didn’t have a reason to have one on hand.”

“With that I’ll get back to training.” Ander bowed before making his exit.

“Does he really think I’d fall for something like that? Not that I know what it is…” The old man drew a copy of the item and symbol Ander added to the letter and would send it to be examined by someone from that universe.