Perched on a decrepit crate, my seat of honor, I observed the rats lurking in the corners, their eyes fixated on the spreading pool of concentrated malevolent Chi. Despite being failures, the cups continued to produce the potent liquid, a result of waves of pressure originating from an unimaginable distance. The cup in my hand held a golden liquid with speckles of blue, a single drop poised above the rim before plunging into the cup. The rats remained transfixed, their beady eyes hungry not for the rations but the black liquid pooling on the ground.
Without the seals I placed on the door under my latest spell of paranoia, the monsters would have stopped clashing to feed. A leech had already done so. It bathed in the liquid, growing fat. When the others peeled off of my soul to join in the feast, it ate them. The parasite had grown two appendages and a second eye. It stared at me with two hungry yellow eyes.
Seizing the opportunity, I raised the cup to my lips, my gaze never leaving my adversaries. I drank deeply, feeling the power surge through me.
Spirit, Chi, mana, or whatever was mostly the same in theory. They were all forms of power that were enhanced in some way. The creatures of this world didn't act like spirit beasts. Even the leech wasn't following a set path; it absorbed the concentrated malevolent Chi. It hadn't entered body refinement to prepare to use Chi; it was like a pattern slowly extending through the Chi.
I didn't know what it was and didn't have time to experiment. The creature had a repeated pattern that changed the black sludge into itself. I didn't know how it did it, which terrified me.
For humans like me, stepping on the path of body refinement was a necessary preparation for the next realm, Chi Gathering. The subsequent realms, Density Forging, Element Foundry, and Build Core, were distant but attainable. However, I had failed to reach the core realm before 30, a goal I had set. The Advent Soul realm was the realm after, and I was clueless about how to achieve it. So, I resolved to take things one step at a time, determined to overcome the obstacles ahead.
The bloated parasite manipulated the black ooze.
I watched black ooze surround the parasite and form a hard cocoon. I clutched my chest as power exploded in my body. It was only a spark, but it had to be enough. Standing up from the crate, I gripped the handle and pulled. My muscles protested as I struggled with 400 lbs of wet wood and old nails. As the handle cut into my hand, and my body protested as I strained, I grinned as a trickle of the Chi I drank empowered me.
The crate shifted an inch, and I let go and collapsed bonelessly. My body groaned from the effort, but it was a good pain. Cultivating Body Tempering was about slowly pushing Chi into my muscles, bones, skin, and organs to prepare them to deal with Chi. There was nothing glamorous about it; only repetition would see me through.
I slipped to the floor and began a set of pushups as I watched the rats move closer to the cocoon. Leaving my room before the morning was a bad idea, and it would be a few hours before my cup had more Chi. All I could realistically do was train to put more Chi into my muscles in the early stages. Some believed Body Tempering to be the most painful stage in a cultivator's life. Those people never made it far.
Body tempering aimed to replace as much of the body as possible with a blend of spiritual and physical matter. From what I understood, humans were 75% water, so water was used as a medium to house the Chi. I wasn't sure if that was right or if it worked that way because it made some intuitive sense. For all I knew, it was more than we irradiated our bodies slowly by consuming pills and elixirs containing various types of Chi.
With consistent use of elixirs and pills, a human could naturally reach the peak of the body tempering realm in seven years. This was with no training. People who went down this path rarely went much further than Chi Gathering. Those who rely on others to get them through it were weak like me.
No, Diary, I won't tell you about Instructor Yang Da, the bastard that tortured me through Body Tempering. May the Sect Head keep his soul.
Ok, I had next to no resources or healing pills, so if I wanted to advance, my choices for techniques were Regeneration, death, or death.
Getting through replacing my entire body with new Chi-rich cells, including my brain, demanded I specialize in Regeneration. I was about to devote 9 stages to upgrading Regeneration. My absolute insanity had a point. In the Chi Gathering realm, I had to learn techniques that merged well with Regeneration. Spirit arts were the hallmark of the realm, and I needed one to get to the Density Forging, or Forging as most called it.
I closed my eyes and used the energy left over from advancement to view the tiny stars within the Chi. Each was a fragment of something Dao; I could take one of them into myself. This fragment of a Dao would become my first technique. At every stage, I could take another or upgrade an existing technique. In 9 stages, I could get 9 upgrades, which should regenerate brain cells.
Body Tempering should be called body replacement. I would destroy my mortal self and replace it ship of Theseus style.
The light burned its way into my very being. A burning sensation swept through my body, and I wanted to scream. It was so much worse than I remembered.
When the pain subsided, I was on the floor with rats tugging at my fingers with their teeth. I sucked in a breath, and one dove into my mouth. My teeth slammed down, and the little bastard bit my throat. I quickly grabbed its tail and yanked, feeling flesh come away with it. Other rats dove at the rat on the ground as I stomped on them. More rats were coming, and I could hear them.
Blood poured down my throat and out my mouth, as I took my cup with me and stumbled out of the closet. Rats scurried after me. The beings pressed down on me, and I ran, kicking rats out of my way before slamming my door shut.
With the door shut, I upturned my cup and swallowed a few drops of delicious Chi.
That Diary was the most pleasant first step in body tempering I experienced. No, I won't talk about my first time. Maybe later, I can get really drunk.
…
The rats bit at me, and I stomped them to death. I used their blood to draw my seals, empowering them with death, pain, and hunger. Emotions fueled the spiritual, and blood held those emotions in.
Was something making them more aggressive, or were rats more vicious in this world? I could have made corpse puppets out of some of them. I shook my head at my ludicrous thought. My hands shook from a bit of stone carving, and my muscles ached from a light workout. What I needed was room and protein that wasn't rat meat.
A man who could eat a rat without batting an eye was a man to be feared. I ate the dried meat and stale bread. I carved a few small connection seals on the bottom of my boot. They were important, so I made a seal library from a block of wood and connected it. It saved space but wouldn't last. That was ok. I was doing ok.
I made my way outside and ran into a crewman. "Senior you look like death warmed over. What happened to you, and where did you come from?"
"The rats carried me away in my sleep while the storm raged. I barely escaped."
The man nodded like what I said wasn't wholly insane. "Rats are dangerous. Don't harm one, or the nest will swarm you. See the medic. He'll put some fat on your wounds and wrap them. You don't want to get an infection."
I smiled and thanked the man before heading to shovel Buttercup's manure. The ornery mare gave me a look but didn't try to kick me. She ate her oats and looked far better than she had before. I would call it a miracle if she didn't kick as Captain Pedro De Alvarado.
The captain ducked under the deadly metal shod hooves just in time. "You look terrible. Did the rats almost get you too? We had cats, but they disappeared. If I find the lazy felines sunning, I'll throw them in the ocean. As for you, get back to work. Don't let a few bites slow you down. Buttercup better be healthy when we reach landfall in 6 days; god be good."
A wave smashed into the ship, turning it as one of the predators descended. I sensed it too late as a rat left the isolation of my seals. More rats fled all over the ship, and the predators made them vanish one by one. Their souls were gone and I made the predators stronger.
I had isolation seals on my boots to keep the predators from sensing my Chi. No diary, and I can't control it even if I can make seals. Chi control was a trait of the Chi Gathering realm. Buttercup slipped off her hooves and rolled over on the floor. I fell back and slammed against a wall, waiting for Buttercup to slam into me and snap my spine.
She inched my way only for the ship to lean again, saving my third life. Lucky me, I felt a hand grip my shirt before the captain shook me. "What are you waiting for? Check on her?"
I didn't know what happened. One moment, I was cowering in fear of the abominations in the sky, depths of the ocean, and space, and the next, Pedro de Alvarado's throat was in my hand.
My blood soaked the man's shirt from his attempts to free himself. So, let's talk about corpse puppets. Suddenly, there was a need to get my thoughts in order.
…
Diary: I know if someone read this book, they would be curious about the nature of my Sect or wonder what a sect was. Was this the ramblings of a madman or something legit? For all my readers knew, I was insane.
Of course, to open my Diary, the reader would have to be a cultivator descended from my blood. So, let Padre Atom provide some much-needed context on the subject.
Sects were like corporations with 1 terminal goal. Acquire resources for the Sect's creator to climb higher and become more powerful. Any goals outside the 1 terminal goal were ancillary at best and disingenuous at worst.
Like with corporations, there were good and bad companies. Good companies profited with fair deals and lobbied the government but accepted no bailouts. A lousy company exploited sweatshop workers in foreign countries. It lobbied the government to ensure the bailouts were on their way.
We didn't have good or bad; we had Righteous and Demonic sects. Demonic sects like the one I was a part of practiced unorthodox techniques, ruled empires from the shadows, and preyed upon mortals. Righteous Sects secretly practiced unorthodox techniques to overtly control empires. Often, the emperor was a part of a sect, and mortal taxes were paid to them.
In my Sect's case, we were right on the line between Righteous and demonic. Sure, we openly practiced unorthodox techniques but overtly ruled an empire. We even collected taxes, and the people loved us because of our corpse puppets. Who wouldn't love not having to farm, fight in wars, or battle spirit beasts?
The Thunder Eagle Sect was shaped by our sect heads and the dangers of our continent.
When I incarnated and joined the Sect. Like all the initiates not yet a part of the Sect, I practiced corpse puppetry maintenance before moving on to two specialized fields. Those fields sparked my love for seals and eventually moved me away from playing with corpses.
It was ironic that, starting in a new world, I would return to my childhood lessons. After all, those were some of the most important ones.
…
Blood was an important medium. Diary note that rat blood held emotions well when mixed with what I decided to call chemical X. I stacked the discarded cups in a pile and mixed rat blood with the pooling soup. It had a spiritual charge, and that's what mattered.
I scratched at a wound on my hip; the rats really bit me well while I was stomping them. Most were too busy cowering after getting a taste of the spiritual.
Captain Pedro De Alvarado was on a crate pale with rigor mortus. I wished he was fresher, but dragging a body past all the men to a closet on the other side of the ship proved difficult. Most of the rules I learned didn't quite fit. Also, his brain might be completely unsalvageable.
I planned to give him the basic captain package. After carving him up like a turkey and covering him in blood, rat feces, and chemical X, he was primed. Eight hours in, covered in sweat and shaking from my efforts, I checked the time. I was almost done.
I popped the lid on my cup and drank a full cup of refreshing, concentrated spirit water. My parched throat thanked me.
One of the closet walls that wasn't covered in isolating seals worked as my array library for a very rigged corpse puppet. We were expected to be able to raise a loyal corpse in minutes and give them enough prompts to pass the Turing test.
"Get away from his eye," I yelled, throwing a piece of wood at a rat.
The creature scurried away without its prize this time. Preservation seals should hold, and once the arrays remain imprinted for a long enough time, Pedro should be able to act offline. Chi's waves shouldn't be detectable, so I checked again.
I was bothered by those things. In the Body Tempering realm, I couldn't even touch them. If they found me out, that was it. They would devour my soul.
My hands shook, and I checked again before dumping another bucket of blood on the wall to charge the arrays. I sucked in a shaky breath and released it. It was not my best work, but I could have done better at 8. A talented corpse puppeteer could have done better by 5. My algorithm would ensure Pedro De Alvarado was a captain and would act as a captain and nothing more.
I could only hope no one realized what happened. Arrays that deflect attention to specific details should help keep the captain's cover, but the isolation field might not hold. I ensured all my command prompts could be used before sending the corpse puppet into the wild.
…
For the next 3 days, I stressed training myself to the ground. Diego, a fellow volunteer for this expedition, told stories of other expeditions and ate with me. "We should enjoy good food because it will be scarce soon."
In the hold, I punched a steel breastplate fitted over a wooden post and felt it bend, causing the wood to crack. Two of my knuckles broke. Pain ran up my arm, but I was all smiles. With my left hand, I threw lighter jabs, smashing into the plate and helmet.
Chi Gathering was the realm of cultivation when I could harm spirits, so I must break myself down and rebuild.