Once more the sun had set beyond the horizon blanketing Greengate Village in a muddy darkness, all over light of candles could be seen flickering through the windows of the houses and the occasional lamp lit the well-trodden roads, the Shu family house was no exception, two lights were leaking out from inside the house, one from the living room where Shu He's parents resided and a smaller flickering light peeking out of Shu He's room.
When he had got home he had immediately brought out samples of the medicine he had left to show Gang Bo who tested them himself, he was quickly convinced and the two worked out a deal, eventually leading him to leave with a smile on his face and Shu He with some extra coins in his coffer.
Other than that, there was a large sized crate sitting in the yard that he quickly opened and unpacked, it contained all the pieces of equipment and resources he couldn't carry himself so he had the delivered to his house at an extra cost, but he felt it was worth it, he brought everything in to his room that began feeling cluttered yet Shu He didn't mind it, everything here was valuable to him and he didn't like empty spaces anyway; He looked incredibly proud as he stared at his newfound equipment set feeling like he'd taken a few steps forward.
Of course, new equipment wouldn't immediately make his concoctions better, it was all practice and getting used to it in the end!
After he tidied up some more he went and ate dinner with his parents as he spoke about everything he saw today and showed off some of what he bought, his mother did scold him for over-spending but after showing her how much he had left she relented, his father just watched without saying much.
Soon after, when night fully fell, he returned to his room and even used the wooden bolt on the door that he never usually did unless he was concentrating on something, after all what he was about to do was far more serious.
'I wonder, what is it?' He went to a cabinet by his bed side and opened the draw, inside was a carefully placed folded piece of parchment, the same one given to him by Bo Lin earlier in the day, he hadn't looked at it yet since he wanted to have plenty of time and quiet to do so.
He went over to the desk he'd use for study that was cluttered with notes he had taken and some other dried samples in jars and cleared a large space, carefully he placed the parchment down and sat down himself, taking deep breaks-
In
And out
In
And out
He unfolded the page and locked his eyes on the content.
'…Hmm?'
He was a bit surprised, the page featured a simple diagram, that of a human's anatomy with a few labels, off to the side was a list and as he read them out one by one he quickly realised what it was.
"A recipe?" He was a little confused, he had asked Bo Lin about cultivators and yet he had been given a recipe.
Of course he wouldn't shrug it off as worthless so he kept reading, eventually he reached the bottom of the page and there was a simple label.
"Qi gathering paste concoction formula!" Shu He recited it out loud and as he did his heart began to thump heavily.
What was Qi? He didn't really know in the context of this world, but he sure knew about it's use in plenty of stories!
The core of power fantasies everywhere, the foundational resource many worlds are built upon!
He kept on reading since there was subtext.
"Apply thinly to the areas pointed out above, do not use more than once a day".
'Simple enough' He thought to himself.
"Once memorised, burn this parchment".
'…What?'
Shu He was quite dumbfounded, why does he need to burn it?
'I mean, I'm quite proud of my memory so that isn't a problem…'
He had memorised basically all the plants in 'Basics of Herbology and Medicine' save for the extraneous details and such so he could say he had a good memory, remembering this wasn't a problem.
'Is this a rare recipe? No, I guess it is, but is there a need to hide it? If so why give it to me in the first place?' His thoughts spun but he couldn't find an answer, he just chalked it up to Bo Lin's whim and decided he would follow along and make sure to burn it when he was done memorising it.
Maybe there was a reason it was hard to start cultivation, and he had just touched it, but he didn't think any more of that right now.
The list of ingredients was read through again and again along with the concoction process, luckily it wasn't too advanced and he could use some of the newer equipment he got today to make it go much more smoothly.
Soon enough the entire page stuck to his memory like glue, and he held it over the candle setting the corner alight, as it burned he dropped it in the bucket he had in the corner of his room to let it finish smouldering, it was gone.
"Right, let's get to it!" He spoke to himself, luckily he had everything he needed here already, a lot of it already resided in his small herb garden, the others he had picked up at the market today, both live and dry samples; There was one that came as a surprise to him though, he hadn't bought it himself yet it was in the delivery, there was no label or note or anything.
'It must be Bo Lin; I have to thank him a lot the next time I see him!'
It was a long, teal coloured vine that seemed to glow ever so slightly, after learning the recipe and putting two and two together he assumed this was the one thing he still needed.
It's name was "World Rising Serpent", a rather long winded name but he assumed it was because it was the key ingredient here, with all the ingredients listed before he could make out what effects they would have on the body but the 'Qi' part of it must come from this plant.
For each portion he only needed to cut off a small clipping to grind up, so it should last him a while.
Soon enough he was at work, a stack of ingredients soon grew on his desk as did the different pieces of equipment, fires were started and many things were ground in to all sorts of portions, he even quickly snuck out to get more water in the middle of the night, the chill didn't bother him as his head was full of concocting.
This went on for hours, and soon enough midnight past yet Shu He continued to work well in to the night.
…
It was 3 hours past midnight, Shu He was sat at his desk once more staring in front of him, placed there were three portions placed in small dishes, inside was a silver coloured paste bordering the consistency of liquid, as the candle light flickered it caused the paste to change colours between blue and a pure silver.
"I did it!" He breathed with relief, it wasn't a 100% success rate as he had made mistakes when processing different ingredients and the tolerance for mixing was quite tight and he had made failures multiple times, eventually he had come out with these three portions.
Shu He stared at them with bright eyes before sighing and looking outside the small gap that he left open on his window.
'Pitch black, everyone else is probably asleep… maybe I should go down as well' He though to himself, he had finished concocting, maybe it was best to call it a night.
"…"
'No, no way, I won't be able to sleep!'
His head was filled with the idea of cultivation, if he didn't try it right now he'd go insane trying to settle himself to sleep.
He quickly stripped off leaving the simple underwear he was wearing, then paused for a second and took that off as well.
'I have no idea what's going to happen, so I better go all the way'
He took one of the portions resting on his desk and lidded the other two, he walked over the centre of his room where there was the most space and stood, remembering the instructions.
There were 12 areas that he needed to be covered, they were heart, lung, pericardium, liver, kidney, spleen, small intestine, large intestine, sanjiao, urinary bladder, gall bladder, and stomach.
'These should line up with the twelve extraordinary meridians in the human body, I could just paste my entire body with it but it's more efficient to be accurate'
And so he did, the paste covered his body in lines resembling a weird tattoo, the silvery blue paste reflecting the light stood out on his white skin.
'It's warm' He noticed it soon after he began but he felt like he was placing some sort of anti-inflammatory gel on his body – that kind of sensation was what the paste reminded him of, it had a fairly strong floral scent to it that filled the room, it was even stronger that it normally would be since it was freshly made.
"And that's… done" He had finished applying the paste, it only took a couple minutes to be done, unfortunately he didn't have a mirror but he was sure he'd resemble a 1 to 1 recreation of the diagram he memorised.
"…"
'I don't feel much… But I'm just standing here, maybe I need to do more… Meditation is probably best? I've never really done it myself, but I should try'.
He sat down on the hard wood floor and crossed his legs, he let his hands lay on his lap as he steadily but surely relaxed his body.
He could feel the warmth stronger than before, but it still wasn't enough.
"Stop thinking" He whispered to himself.
His managed to grind his mind to a halt, he breathed in and out slowly, regulating his breathing and soon his thoughts faded away, the only thing in his mind was the warmth wrapping around his body.
5 minutes, 10 minutes, half an hour.
Time went on, but Shu He didn't budge an inch, he had almost fallen in to a sleep like state from the tiredness yet his conscious hung on with a thread, clinging to the warmth.
'I can feel… something, beyond the warmth… it's like a gentle wind, gathering to towards me… but I can't grab it, why?' He was fully focused, he felt like a sprout basking in a storm.
'No… there's something more… bright, large, ever so vast' He felt like a spec of dust in front of the sun, he felt insignificant.
'All-encompassing… yet close, why is it? I feel I can touch it' It was almost as if he was in a different world, he had entered a state detached from his body almost in delusion.
He reached out in his ethereal form, his hand of indeterminate size intertwined with the bright light and then-
'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH' He screamed from the bottom of his soul.
A thousand nails puncturing his body, scorching hot lava coursing through his veins, a hundred insects eating his flesh inside out and nesting in his bones, many pictures flashed through his mind to describe the pain coursing through him.
Yet his physical body made no sound, his eyes remained closed yet the veins all over his body protruded like worms, drool mixed with blood dripped from the corner of his mouth and his nose dribbled with even more blood.
Through the pain he could feel it, slowly but surely, something entering him; It was an incredibly slow process to the point that he felt it could take 1000 years under all the stress, yet before anything else could proceed further.
Everything went blank.
He fainted.