Time passed, and my nervousness regarding the situation only began to grow more and more. A part of me was worried whether my plan for the duel would even work or not. I had felt fairly confident before, it was unprecedented for a duel to be refused, the amount of face it would lose a sect would be too enormous. But uncertainty had slowly but surely crept into my thoughts, doubts and what-ifs filling my mind.
But today, at last the Lord had sent a message to me. Apparently the Alchemy Hall Elder had already arrived and had agreed to the terms, with a date set as well in a week’s time. It felt like barely enough, even a month would’ve felt short, but it was what I had, so I’d just have to make do with it.
The second good news came a little later, as Granny Lang told me she may have found a way. The “may” part was a bit worrisome, but at this point I was ready to take whatever I got.
“There’s a way to effectively hold the poison within you for a small time without any harmful effects,” Granny Lang said.
“What is it?” I asked, curious.
She pulled out what looked to be a really old and tattered book and showed it to me. There was a diagram of a fairly ordinary-looking plant on it.
“You see that? That’s an ingredient in a Spirit cleansing pill. It’s also used to make poisons that eat at your Qi. Obviously nothing as potent as what you have, which eats your entire cultivation base, but it’s similar.”
“So, can that be made into an antidote?” I asked.
“Don’t be stupid. That’ll take weeks of study if I knew what the poison was and had some on hand. No, the idea is to put this poison inside you as well.”
I looked up at the granny in confusion. “Are you trying to kill me or something?”
“Bah, listen. Normally the poison would eat at your Qi for a while, maybe make you sick. But right now you’re already sick, so the poison will instead interfere with the flow of your Chi, and make it harder to break down. It won’t be perfect but I can make it capable of holding back the poison for a short while, but the effect won’t last forever. Eventually your body and the poison will adapt and start to work again.”
I scratched my head, not sure I understood how the concept worked, but then a lot of the alchemical texts had very unclear explanations on how they worked. As long as it worked, I would be happy.
“Do you have the herb then?”
"I can get it, but I’ll need that scholar boy of yours."
“Qiao Ying? Sure, tell me what it is and I’ll tell him to bring it as quickly as I can.”
“Good, there’s also one more thing,” Granny Lang said, as she put away the textbook. “To make sure things work properly I have made a special herb bath that I need you to take twice a day, but for it to work properly, you need to be exhausted physically and at your limits. That’s when your body is the most receptive to absorbing what it needs.”
“I grimaced at her words, but then I had already been planning to train. Just, physical exercise had not been at the top of that list, since Chi often made up for the need for any physical exercise I would need.
Maybe that was why Zhang kept clicking his tongue at me during spars.
“Alright, I’ll ask Zhang to do that as well,” I said.
“Good, get to it then,” Granny Lang said.
I nodded, thanking her, before I made my way out. After sending Qiao Ying her way, I was making my way over to Zhang, when I found an interesting sight.
Labby was standing with a group of children, her hands set in front of her as she was guiding them through the different stances. The children seemed to be following quite intently as well, with her new pet rat doing the same nearby on the ground.
“What’re you doing Labby?” I asked, walking closer.
“Oh, Master! Labby is training,” she said, smiling happily. “She wants to be as strong as possible for the duels!”
“We’re helping!”
“Yeah, we’re training with her!”
The kids chimed along with her, their eyes looking at me with expectant and excited looks, and I found it harder and harder to let them down.
I gave a head pat to the children one by one, lastly giving one to Labby. “That’s great, but I have a more important job for you Labby. I need you to stay here so that you can protect the village while I’m gone.”
Labby looked like she wanted to protest, but she simply gave me a nod with a pout on her face, and I patted her head again.
I left Labby to her stances, moving on to my own training. Zhang was waiting, though some of the others had also joined. They looked at me and Zhang with eyes filled with reverence and I felt extremely awkward for the starting while.
But eventually the rhythms began to settle in. The moved through the stances easily as Zhang and I sparred, and slowly but surely I began gaining the ability to react more and more to his moves. Physically, I was both faster and stronger, but Zhang had substantially more skill. But now that I was finally training, I was quickly starting to fill that lacking element.
A part of me also felt a little satisfied with my progress. It was validating to think that all those painful years spent in the sect had not been a waste. All the memories of painful, grueling spars and hours training now seemed to be paying off, and I was seeing rapid, visible improvements.
Eventually, I was sparring with Zhang at his full strength, and doing a bunch of physical exercises afterwards as well. I’d decided to mix the standard training exercises with the exercises I’d done in my past life as well.
It was surprising to see just how different the physique of a cultivator was. I was far from muscular; I had a decent build, but I didn’t have particularly large or impressive muscles, yet I was far stronger than even the strongest people back on earth. For example, I had found out that with a little practice, I was able to do pushups on a single finger.
Not that it was practical to do that, but god dammit did it look cool.
My training exercises also seemed to have caught on with the trainees as now slowly but surely they’d begun joining me in my post sparring exercise sessions. Now I ran with an entire squadron of people, most of whom stopped way before me, but still, having people around me somehow felt like it was actually giving me a lot of energy to get the exercises done.
I had reason to suspect this was not just a mental thing either. The more I meditated, the more I realized just what was going on here. I didn’t know why exactly I didn’t have a core, but my source of Chi in this place was not me, but the world around me. The people, the animals, everything that had accepted the order of Chi was now the source I drew from. And it was not just energy that came with that.
I was literally connected to these people from within my soul, and it showed. When there was a certain emotion being wide-spread, I felt it within myself. When others were pushing themselves, I felt their determination almost flowing into me, and bolstering my own strength.
That connection only seemed to be growing stronger over time, growing from a faint background presence to something I could notice during my daily routine if I paid attention.
In the blink of an eye, the week I had been given had already passed. As my final day’s routine came to an end, I made my way over to the bath prepared for me, and I sank into the green herbal water with an audible sigh. The grueling training had helped take the edge off of my nerves, even if a week wasn’t enough time to see any real effects. Just letting myself get lost in tasks felt almost meditative, as the act of performing an action with my entire focus and presence of mind felt… strangely addicting.
Slowly, I sank into the bath around me, as my thoughts began to scatter. I would worry about what would happen tomorrow, but at this point there was no meaning in pointless worrying. All I had to do was be prepared.
After some time passed and I felt the essence from the herbs had seeped into me, I rose from the bath, my hair flowing down behind me. I decided to look at my reflection in the water below.
The face looking back almost seemed unfamiliar somehow. Like I’d changed so much, that I could no longer recognise myself. What had changed? I wasn’t sure. Nothing substantial, nothing that hadn’t changed before. But somehow this moment felt significant.
There were still gaps within my self, who I was and who my past self was. And who I was with both of those selves combined together. All three felt like separate identities of myself. Versions of myself that I could not truly separate from myself, but also could not truly call myself either.
I stepped out of the bathtub, feeling the cool wind on my skin. I remembered Zhou Fang’s words from a long time ago.
“The Path of knowledge is also the Path of strength.”
That felt a lot more true now.
I turned around, and picked up my robes, dressing myself in my usual robes. After a moment, I saw Granny Lang waiting outside. She held a pouch in her hands.
“Here it is. There’s two, but don’t eat more than one, it’ll make the problem worse. The effect should last long enough,” she said, handing the pouch over.
“Thanks granny, I’ll try not to poison myself” I replied.
“More than I can expect from you,” the granny said with a snort.
I chuckled in reply.
A moment later, our conversation died. “May the Heavens favor you, my boy,” she said, patting my back as she walked ahead.
I smiled at the irony of the words, yet the intent remained the same. I gave a nod, as I walked to my own chamber. I needed to get some sleep.