Qing Shen breathed heavily as she dipped her body low to the ground. Her back was parallel to the floor as she went as slow as possible, trying to savor the burn of every muscle that twitched and ached. Sweat dripped around her brow, licking annoyingly into her eyes whenever the wind kicked up. When she finally pressed her body to the ground, and felt the gritty, cool dirt below, she exhaled, trying to force herself back up.
Luckily, she hadn't been forced to wear that awful dress again, and had instead been given a pair of pants and a shirt to train in. The clothes themselves were miles ahead of what she was used to compared to the maid dress, but the shirt had been rather loose around her chest. It wasn't as if she was angry that her small bosom was hardly getting in the way; though, she was rather depressed that even after nineteen years her chest had barely blossomed at all.
Just reminding herself of said fact caused her to jump to her feet in renewed vigor and proceed to send a few rightfully vicious kicks at the wooden dummy before her. Her speed and stamina only holding out for a little longer before her muscles failed her, sending her headfirst into the loose dirt below. Her impact was pronounced with a audible thump that echoed throughout the small courtyard she was in.
"Honestly, why are you training so hard? That's completely unnecessary, and would probably do more harm than good." Qing Shen turned from her spot on the ground to find her young master near the training grounds she was assigned, lounging on a reclined wooden chair. Next to him was a desk that he had dragged out whenever she told him that she was going to train.
"I am sorry for not having the resources, or aptitude for cultivation that Young Master was blessed with. This is the only way I know how to train." Qing Shen replied with maybe a hint of spite. Whether the lounging boy noticed or didn't care did really matter at the moment. She was too tired to care.
Instead, the newest maidservant watched as he assumed a familiar posture with his left arm draped across his body to support his right elbow and palm to his chin. As he drummed away at his lips, Qing Shen realized that he was thinking, and slowly her mind tried to wonder as fast as possible. Last time he started thinking, he had talked so much nonsense that she felt like he could weaponize the boredom the action generated.
Still, she couldn't completely block out his inane ramblings, and was forced to bare with torturous learning, "...which is most likely because Spiritual Essence helps rejuvenate the muscles, and reduce the time it takes for the boy's natural healing abilities. Somehow this doesn't cause the recipeint to experience a severe drop in nutrients either... perhaps the energy contains some type of artifical organelle that helps extend and suppliment the lives of regular cell cycles? It would explain longevity to some degree, but..."
Qing Shen looked up when she realized he had paused. The calm and analytic young master had suddenly turned into a red tomato of embarrassment. "Um, I'm sorry, I was rambling."
"Do not worry, Young Master." Despite the oddness of yesterday, and the frustrations that came with dealing with an irate head maid Li, Qing Shen found the situation enjoyable.
Here she was, in a noble's villa, with her only job being to infuse an ink bottle and train. There were complications and misunderstandings from yesterday still fresh in her mind, but she felt as if she had been saved from the hell her mind had concocted on her way there. Her mind was finally beginning to adjust to the idea that maybe this was probably for the best.
"Oh! I just remembered that you agreed to help me test some things!" And just like that, Qing Shen's wonderful fantasy crumbled as her imagination drew up wild scenarios of how he had tricked her and was now going to begin his reign of terror.
However, Qing Shen had no say in the matter. She knew she was prone to overreacting sometimes, and only hoped she was completely wrong this time. Sighing, she took the time to obtain the closest thing to sitting upright from where she lay before answering, "Yes, what is it that you need from me, Young Master?"
"Nothing much really, I can't really begin studying anything until you reach the Cycling Essence stage, but hopefully, if everything goes right, then you should reach that stage by tonight. Oh, and stop calling me 'Young Master' or 'Young Master Zhang' from now on, or at least when we're alone."
Qing Shen had many things to say to her young master's words. Some of them included the expletives from yesterday, yet somehow she endured and calmly asked, "Young Master, I might only have just finished the Body Strengthening stage, but I know that it just isn't possible to jump one whole stage from the Meridians Opening stage to the Cycling Essence stage. Rushing in the basics will only cause severe damage to oneself and, in some cases, death."
"Ah, but what if my method is completely safe, and almost certainly not an experiment." Qing Shen found that her arguments wavered in front of his pure smile. "And call me Zhang Yong, too."
"I will trust that you are confident in this, Young Mast-" She paused in the middle of her sentence as she felt a shiver travel down her spine, and found her young master's pointed glare aimed at her. Hiding the fact that she was terrified of his pressure filled glare, she finished in a whisper, "Zhang Yong."
Her devious young master smiled, nodded, and proceed to pull out several stacks of paper from the desk next to him. Qing Shen, ever curious, craned her neck from her position on the floor to find that the stacks of paper were innumerble strips of paper talimans. Even with her rather poor foreknowledge in the other fields of cultivation, she knew of talismans. They were powerful techniques sealed into strips of spirit paper. The most dangerous part about them was that they could be used by anyone who had even a bit knowledge in Spiritual Essence maipulation once they were complete.
However, as she stared at the young master pulling out stack after stack of marked spirit paper her head felt a little faint. Why did he have so many? Was he getting ready to fight some massive calamity or wage war with half the continent. She only hoped that it was merely a ruse, and that it was only the top piece of spirit paper being a talisman.
"Found them!" To her relief, her young master had only pulled out twelve pieces of marked spirit paper. The designs themselves made no sense to her as they only seemed like random lines thrown together.
"Here, if you could come sit down in the middle of my Gathering Talismans then we can begin." Qing Shen looked at the twelve sided shape her young master had laid out with the talismans in the middle of the dirt training ground. After a moment of hesitation, she stepped insied them.
Then nothing happened. She blinked, feeling fooled for a second before going along with it. Her young master was already a cultivation genius; adding in all those supposed talimans would have made him a monster that she wasn't sure her menatlity could understand. Closing her eyes, she supposed that this was probably a good time to being cultivating instead.
"Right, they take so little Spiritual Essence that I keep forgetting to activate them." Her young master's words were all the warning Qing Shen had before her senses were engulfed. If she had to explain it she really only had one thing to say: blue.
A light so bright that it stung her eyes to even open then for a second. All she could see from the small glimse she had unluckily stole was a translucent blue that drowned out everything around her. It was eeire too. Barely making any noise as it only manifested in a constant low hum which somehow found a way to make her teeth vibrate.
Then the blue wreathed maid felt something touch her forehead before a little bit of warm trickled into the back of her head. It felt warm, safe. Somehow she felt as if the bright blue aurora was dimmer than before.
"That should cut down on that glare. Could you open your eyes now, Miss Qing?" Hearing the calming voice near her, Qing Shen tentatively opened her eyes to find that everything was now a light shade of grey. Beside her, a familiar grey silhouette of a boy smiled happily with a large strip of spirit paper stuck across his eyes. She reached up and realized she had received the same treatment.
"Thank you, Young M- I mean, thank you, Zhang Yong. I'm sorry for doubting you."
The little monster decided to laugh before speaking through smiles, "Well, I'm just glad nothing blew up this time! Oh! I have a good idea! Stay here and just cultivate. I'll be back real quick."
Qing Shen debated on whether to be worried or terrified. There was so much wrong with what her young master had said. She could have blown up? How? She thought he said it was safe! Qing Shen wanted nothing more than the cute and innocent boy from yesterday to be back.
Hopefully he came back with less volatile substances.
Finding that nothing looked like it was about to spontaneously combust, the newly minted servant slowly sank into her cultivation. As she regained her initial calm, Qing Shen had truly begun to feel the wonders that her monster of a master had somehow concocted.
Spiritual Essence, a primordial energy that that been around and used from the time before even the four kingdoms rose. The energy existed in every living being no matter how small, old, oddly shaped, or untalented, but only those who truly could sense and manipulate the energy could ever attain the lauded position of a Cultivator. Qing Shen, one of those lucky few, was currently feeling something that has never happened to anyone below a certain level of cultivation: a complete overflow of Spiritual Essence.
Normally, when one sits down to cultivate they must then rouse the surrounding Spiritual Essence that exists in the world around them with their own, and then carefully try to goad the troublesome energy into themselves. For Qing Shen, she had to manipulate the energy into small, flexible needles and accurately pierce through, and open up, the natural Meridians that existed within everyone. The problem that most people have is that they lack the Spiritual Essence required to break through their specific chains that shackled them from immortality.
Right now, Qing Shen was having trouble holding back the Spiritual Essence that currently engulfed her. She felt as if she was holding back a tidal wave that only wanted to drown her. Every once in a while her concentration lapsed for a second, and the energy of the world, seeing an opening, rushed into her system and rampage violently in the surrounding tissue, causing extensive black bruises to appear on her.
Pain wracked her body with every breath, but her determination only grew. For every time that the energy invaded she would takae the time to rule over the energy after most of it had dissipated into her flesh. Qing Shen was going by instinct by this point. Her Spiritual Essence reserves ballooned with each successful bit of repurposed rampaging energy. Instead of the needles most people manifested to open their Meridians, she used sharpened spears to tear past her problems, and rose to the middle stage of the Meridians Opening stage.
Not knowing how long it took before she finally regained some semblance of balance, Qing Shen finally relaxed her tired and bruised body. Her blue eyes fluttered open as she heavily exhaled. Then she tensed when she found someone who wasn't there when she closed her eyes.
She too was dressed in that awfully frily maid dress that all of them seemed enamored with. Qing Shen had no idea what color any of the girl was as the protective talisman still on her eyes was still in place, and it certainly wasn't going to be taken off while she still saw traces of that horribly bright blue light. The girl in front of her also had the foreknowledge to wear a similar talisman, so Qing shen reasoned that the girl was probably sent by the young master. However, she never remebered meeting a maid with short hair cut above her shoulders when she was being introduced yesterday.
"Hey, you ok in there?" The odd maid happily chirped as she noticed Qing Shen was finally reacting to her.
"I'm fine, just a little bruised, but I'll live. If you don't mind me asking, who are you? I never saw you yesterday when I was being introduced."
The cheerful girl smiled before removing one of the talismans that outlined the shape she sat in. Qing Shen watched as a film seemed to slowly disolve from her vison, and she felt that a brief moemnt before her vision cleared. Feeling her face, she realized that she the talisman had gently crumbled off.
"My mom told me about you. She said you're a real annoying, biased, self-centered pain in the ass, but I don't see it. You don't look like someone who would yell at little Yong. So why does my mom say all those bad things about you?"
Qing Shen flinched at the rather harsh criticism from the girl's supposed mother. And now that shes had the talisman off, she finally was able to see the girl looked to around her age. However, more intruigingly, the happy girl looked like a younger and happier version of head maid Li. Her hair was a smooth silky black, eyes like two pieces of innocent coal and a dimpled smile permanently fixed to her face.
Slowly, Qing Shen sighed, feeling much more comfortable around the girl now, then spoke, "I think its because miss Li had overheard when I lost myself for a second. I don't think it'll happen again, but I guess I was just mad that I was taken from my home for something that our Young Master could easily preform."
"What are you talking about? Oh, I'm Li Ling! You can call me Sister Li or Sister Ling!" Li Ling happily added while skipping over to Qing Shen's less bruised side.
"Um, Li Ling..." She paused as the girl sent a vicious glare at her. The blonde internally sighed at how everyone in this villa wanted to addressed differently. "Sister Ling... I'm just wondering why Young Master Zhang would want a Cultivator to preform a task that could easily he could easily complete. I mean, he is a strong Cultivator, so I don't know why I'm needed."
For the first time since Qing Shen saw her Li Ling frowned. "What are you talking about? Little Yong is not a Cultivator."
"What?"
"I don't like telling other people's secrets, but little Yong can't cultivate." Li Ling explained, her face still set into a frown. She then pointed over to a small, red jade box sitting on a the desk that was still outside even after the sun had set, and began to speak again, "Little Yong came by a little while when he heard you in pain, and left those out for you. Um, I got to go see if my mom might need me, but please try to be nice to little Yong, okay? He's family to me."
Qing Shen watched in silence as the girl retrieved the smile that she had hid so suddenly, and hurried out there with a small wave. The newest servant had no idea why she felt that that smile seemed more fragile than it looked. Pulling that somber thought out of her head, Qing Shen then set to wondering what was wrong with her young master. He seemed to strong and composed all the time that there didn't look like anything was wrong.
However, Qing Shen was getting better at enduring. She accepted this new piece of information, and firmly decided to figure out what was going on. For now, she stumbled over to the jade box set out for her. It was pretty large, probably needing more than one servant to bring it out to this spot, and had a rather simple sliding lid that was currently covered by the note.
She had luckily learned letters back in her village, but found that her young master had put in words that she couldn't ever hope to pronounce. It took her a couple of attempts before she could finally read it aloud, "Miss Qing, I'm sorry you had to be dragged through my unsafe experiment. There are some Healing pills and Essence Refining pills in here; use them as you see fit. You might want to get some food from the kitchen since the healing pills only increase cell division, and promote healthly proteins. Be sure to get enough nutrients if you're going to be training as hard tomorrow as well."
Qing Shen held the note carefully before opening the jade box. As it was said earlier, she found a series of small, spherical pills of green and blue. She had recognized the blue pills as Essence Refining pills as she had gotten lucky to have two back home, but now she couldn't even count how many were in there now. The same could be said for the green pills, and she carefully took one into her palm, feeling how squishy and supple it felt, before popping it into her mouth and let it melt.
The effect wasn't exactly immediate. Still, Qing Shen took a few more into her mouth and did the same. She then looked over to the talismans still laying down on the floor.
"The first step to anything is to have confidence, right?" Qing Shen whispered, gathered the box of pills into her hands and set it down next to her inside the incomplete circle of talismans. Then she carefully took the last talisman from the floor and closed her eyes.
Qing Shen wasn't the smartest in her village, nor was she the strongest. However, she felt like if she ever had to be described in one word it would be 'persistent', or as her friend called her 'stubborn'. As such, she had decided that the first thing she needed to do to find her way through this confusing situation was to gain strength.
Without any hesitation, Qing Shen grabbed a handful of pills and swallowed them all. She felt a pit of warmth settle into her stomach as her entire body began to itch, and then she placed the last talisman down before activating it again. The blue light burned through her eyelids as she felt familiar pain settle around her.
By the time the sun rose again, she had broken through to the peak of the Opening Meridians stage.