All I wanted to do with my free time was to lie down and revel in doing absolutely fucking nothing.
However, the timer was ticking, and having 20 Qi stones on one's person was too risky.
While others went from breakfast to their chores, I returned to the barracks—and stopped at the entrance in surprise.
"Little Zhou, what are you doing here? This isn't your barracks."
She looked up at me with seriousness and awe that was comical on an 8-year-old.
"Big Brother Yujin, I want to meditate with you. Please. I will be very quiet."
I raised my eyebrows in surprise, but then realized that Fu Zhou was showing her smarts again. Fen Chun also had a leave from work, so if Fu Zhou stayed on her own, he could easily rob her, or beat her up from sheer pettiness. This must've been her way of seeking protection.
Well, fuck that asshole Fen Chun. I grinned at Fu Zhou.
"Sure, Little Zhou, why not?"
Her eyes widened, and an uncertain smile appeared on Fu Zhou's face. With a skip in her step, the girl followed me inside the barracks.
She meditated in a perfect lotus position, as Fen Kuang and others showed us. I just flopped on my mattress, taking the most comfortable position, and put my Qi stones on my chest.
In a couple of hours, all the Qi stones turned into ordinary pebbles. I was almost ready for the transition to the Qi Foundation stage.
I opened my eyes to check up on Fu Zhou and saw that she copied my lying down meditation position. Like myself, she used all her Qi stones by now.
With a silent chuckle, I closed my eyes again and kept gathering ambient Qi until the noon gong. Fu Zhou kept following me like a dog's tail for the rest of the day.
At today's Fen Chun was throwing dirty looks at me, and many other disciples followed his example.
Envious much?
The next day, my dantians grew to their maximum size, and couldn't be made bigger before I advanced in cultivation. Same went for Fu Zhou—we were ready to transition to the Qi Foundation stage.
Now we simply needed to circulate Qi through meridians and dantians, fully merging them together. When I only began cultivating, I didn't have dantians at all—the entire point of the Qi Shaping stage was to make them.
At later stages, a cultivator's dantian becomes a Proto-Cores and then a Golden Core. Each of these structures is many times more powerful than the previous one, and many times more complex.
A basic dantian was just an orb of rotating Qi.
As usual, the next morning I retreated to my barracks. Since all my neighbors were working, they were empty and I and Fu Zhou could meditate in peace.
Or so I thought until the barracks door opened.
I quickly stood up and looked at the group that walked inside: six disciples and Fen Chun himself, all wearing expressions of bullies about to stomp on some ants.
Fu Zhou squeaked and scrambled to her feet to hide behind me.
I narrowed my eyes.
"Hey, guys. Aren't you supposed to be busy? You know how Master Lin Tan looks at people who avoid work."
Fen Chun sneered.
"They have a special permission today to kick your ass, long-legs! Cousin told me that if we do that, we will prove Master Lin my worth!"
So that was Lin Tan's plan? More strife between disciples?
I sneered back, mentally calculating my options. Fen Chun picked some of the strongest disciples of our class: each of them was at the middle of Qi Shaping at least.
That meant they were five times as strong as a normal person their age. This was true for me, too. However, even if I counted Fu Zhou, it was two versus seven. The math wasn't working out.
But letting these guys break their knuckles on me without even resisting wasn't an option, either. If I went down, I wanted to go down fighting.
Not because of pride, but because maybe while I fought, a teacher or a supervisor came to investigate the noise and saved me. Or a shooting star fell on Fen Chun's head… Who knew? Maybe this was my lucky day!
Call me shameless, but pride was nothing compared to health and survival! I'd kowtow to Fen Chun if I believed even for a moment that it would make him leave me in peace!
"Or maybe it will be the other way around, and Master Lin will praise me and Fu Zhou," I said with false but very realistic bravado. "Do any of you know what will happen if a Water Flower smashes their face?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Who wants to find out?"
"It's just a flower! It's harmless!"
My eyes snapped to the disciple who said this.
"Let's test it, then!"
I dashed at him, creating a Water Flower in my right palm, and the disciple raised his arms to protect himself.
Then I suddenly changed directions and slammed the flower in the face of a disciple nearby, who didn't expect that at all.
He screamed and fell to the ground, convulsing. I scoffed.
What a drama queen. Water Flower technique had the damage potential of a snowball! It had very little Water energy in it.
I never saw a snowball in my life, but I just knew they were harmless. At most, the boy's eyes will hurt for a while.
The screams worked out for me—other disciples stepped away from me on reflex, even Fen Kuang. When I glanced back, I saw that Fu Zhou was still almost glued to my back.
"After me, Little Zhou!"
Going down fighting was good, but even better was escaping entirely and staying unscathed!