by Charles Dean
You can’t stop it. Your friend is dead. Run, or it’ll go for you next. That beast is a Stage 4 monster. It would take a Stage 5 Qi-Gathering Cultivator to be on even grounds against it in a fight.
I don’t care. I have to get it to switch . . . Lars was having trouble collecting his thoughts, but he managed to push himself up once again. When he looked back, however, there wasn’t much left of Ramon. He could barely hear muffled screams, and only Ramon’s lower legs and feet dangled out of the beast’s wide maw. The snake had already managed to swallow over half of his friend whole, and watching Ramon’s legs trying to kick but not being able to was painful. He hadn’t really known Ramon before today, only occasionally passing him in town, but he felt like he was watching a close friend being eaten alive.
“If you don’t give me a way to kill it, I’m going to die trying,” Lars threatened the voice in his head as he tightened his grip on the knife. He knew now that it would only be a matter of time before Ramon was completely dead if he didn’t act soon, and he was hoping the voice had a plan since he didn’t.
Ice Qi. You don’t have a lot, but with the girl’s Water Qi, you should be able to chill the beast. The stamina and energy of the snake are dependent on the temperature outside. Have her generate water and cover the snake with it, and then use your Ice Qi to freeze the water.
“I can’t use Ice Qi,” Lars said, looking over at the young woman. “Whatever cultivation moves you have, use them. Cover that thing in water until I say stop or until you can’t do it anymore!” He instantly regretted his choice of words since it meant that, if he died, she might very well still keep at it until she died too. But he didn’t have time to waste correcting himself and figuring out the best, most logical way to boss her around without sending her to her grave.
“Yes.” She practically snarled the word through gritted teeth, but she did as instructed. Her Qi-based spell took longer than most. She raised her hands up above her head and stretched toward the sky before dropping them to her sides and gracefully pushing out toward the snake while stepping forward and dropping down onto a single bent knee at the same time. Water shot out from her hands and onto the snake almost the moment the motion was finished, but the snake was apparently too occupied with finishing its meal to pay her much attention.
Now, start adding that Ice Qi. To use it, you need to simply focus on your heart. Imagine your heart freezing over as the ice inside you erupts out into your veins and spreads through your blood vessels until it exits your fingers. You only have a very tiny amount of Ice Qi. If you pull this off, it will be draining, and it will likely hurt you in the process. You’ll be sacrificing your health to create this effect, and every second will be one hit point drained from your total of 19. Please don’t kill yourself trying to save him.
Focusing on any part of his emotions or his heart or his blood vessels was tough because most of his focus was on the giant snake that was now pushing its head past Ramon’s feet. Crap, just get it already. Come on! Lars struggled to find his focus and complete the move. He couldn’t even find his heart, much less focus on it freezing over and sending ice shooting through his veins.
The snake slowly began uncurling and straightening itself out after devouring Ramon. The giant, bulky heap of flesh that used to be the porcupine cultivator was painfully obvious.
IF YOU DON’T FOCUS, YOU’RE DEAD!
The all-caps message popped up in front of him as the accompanying scream echoed in his head, and Lars took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. This time, he didn’t aim. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the very real threat in front of him. He pushed out every bit of Ice Qi he could from his heart and only opened his eyes when a winterish grip seized his hands. Much to his surprise, he saw a very strong, chilling wind flow out of his hands. The water on the ground slowly began to turn to ice, but it was splattering and running off of the snake far too fast for it to freeze. Still, despite that, the cold was clearly affecting the creature. The snake recoiled a little, its movements slowed, and it turned away from Lars as if it were going to flee, but the mass of Ramon’s body created a large protruding bump in the snake’s stomach that seemed to make it difficult for the thing to move.
While using his Ice Qi wasn’t painful, more numbing than agonizing, Lars could feel his health dropping as he continued to channel the cold. He glanced over at the girl and saw that she didn’t look so good either. Her face was strained, and beads of sweat were streaming down her face. He then turned his attention back to the snake and pressed to freeze it. It took eight total hit points, but the monster finally stopped moving altogether.
“Stop!” Lars called out to the girl.
Whoa! Did not expect THAT to work! Quick! Finish it off! Cut your friend free!
Lars didn’t have to be told twice. He brandished his dagger and rushed toward the snake with it in hand. Fearing the beast might only be playing dead and not wanting to risk the thing turning on him, he used his free right hand to activate the skill Knife Hand and aimed at the snake’s eye the moment he got close. The skill exploded forward into the serpent’s skull, and a moment later, the numbing, worn-out sensation from having fought the creature at the expense of his own life force was gone. It was replaced by an odd, slightly painful feeling as a cloud of black and purple Qi lines exploded from the snake’s body and rushed into him. The lines pulsed to some unknown rhythm as they entered him, and it was nauseating.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed a baem. You have gained 53 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Toxin Qi has increased by 32.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill Unyielding Ice Veins. This allows one to sacrifice hit points per second to create a powerful, single-target Ice Qi attack. The more hit points sacrificed, the greater the damage of this attack.
What in the hell? Toxin Qi is a thing? Lars was surprised, but he didn’t let his thoughts stop his actions, and he instantly went to work with the knife, cutting at the monster’s flesh. It was hard to get the dagger through the skin, so he took 27 of the 53 new stat points and put them all into Power, hoping it would give him the strength to actually handle the snake’s corpse. While this point dump didn’t make it easy to tear at the creature’s flesh, it did significantly speed up the process. He drew his blade back and forth in a line, trying to open up the thing’s belly.
“Come on! Help out!” he called to the slave, only to discover that she was already next to him. He had no way of knowing if she wanted to be helpful or if she anticipated his order before he even made it, but she already had a knife of her own out and was ready to go to work. She started hacking away at the creature with him, and a few moments later, they finally managed to dig through the scaly exterior and reach Ramon’s body. After that, it was only a dozen seconds until they pulled his body out of the snake. The force needed to yank him through the sloppy and uneven cut combined with the exertion from the fight left them both gasping and out of breath, and as the porcupine cultivator’s body came free, they both collapsed back onto the ground.
“There we go,” Lars said, leaning forward to see the fruit of his labor. “Got you free, buddy.” Ramon’s skin looked like a layer had been stripped off, and he was a solid red color with tiny blotches of white here and there. And he wasn’t moving. His body was twisted around so that his torso was at an unnatural angle to the rest of his body, his chest cavity had been caved in, and his bones were shattered, several even jutting through the mangled flesh. There was no doubt about it. Now that he could see Ramon clearly, he knew Ramon was dead.
“What the hell?” Lars muttered, swallowing down the revulsion he felt. Even though he had watched people die all day, he hadn’t expected to lose Ramon so randomly or so soon after having survived so much with him that day.
“Hell?” the girl asked, looking over at him.
“It’s . . . Don’t worry about it. It’s just an expression that . . .” Lars paused. That the voice inside my head says to me often? That was th
e truth, but he couldn’t think of a good lie to tell just now while confronted with Ramon’s lifeless corpse.
“He’s really dead, isn’t he?” Lars asked, both to the voice in his head and the girl next to him.
The voice didn’t respond, but the girl did. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m . . . I’m really sorry for your loss. You two seemed close.”
“We weren’t, but I wish I’d gotten to know him better,” he sighed, leaning back.
“But this happens a lot. You should try not to take it so hard.”
“This happens a lot?” Lars asked in disbelief, his eyes still fixed on Ramon’s body. “People getting eaten by baems? Are you telling me that death to monsters in the woods is just commonplace and that I should be totally fine with it? No big deal; someone died. It’s barely an inconvenience?”
“Not this way, but death does happen a lot, especially in large cities where breathing the wrong way around some people can get you killed. Most mothers will have ten kids and consider themselves fortunate if four live long enough to start families of their own. Life is cruel and heartless. From what I saw, it didn’t seem like your village was reflective of this. It seemed peaceful when we arrived. But death is a staple of life in most places in this world.”
“I don’t need your damn lecture on life right now!” he snapped. “Life wasn’t cruel. Life wasn’t harsh. It’s your stupid, freaking people who made it that way. Life was easy, filled with berry-flavored ice cream, roasted nuts, and beautifully grilled meat. This”—he pointed at Ramon’s body—“is what your god-awful sect caused. This isn’t how life is normally supposed to be!”
Lars continued venting his anger, but she just watched him silently, although he could feel her studying every micro-expression on his face.
“How in the hell can you just be so calm after he died?” Lars demanded. “You were talking to him a few minutes ago. He was helping collect berries for you. He was making blankets for us. He was a good guy. HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM ABOUT IT?!”
She still didn’t answer. He hadn’t phrased it as a command, and so she just continued to stare at him.
Feeling defeated, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, he asked, “How can you be okay with enslaving people?”
“Time, hopelessness, and cruelty wash away all morals. You’ll learn that in time,” she replied stoically. Then, without another word, she turned away from him and began tending the fire as if Ramon’s death had never happened.
As she busied herself, Lars felt an odd pain strike his chest, and his health pool went from 11 out of 19 to 10.
What in the . . .? Lars wondered, clutching his chest.
It’s the Toxin Qi. You are now producing a toxin your body can’t handle. You need to take an antidote and put some points into Fortitude, or you’re going to die soon.
“How do I do that?” he asked in a panic as he looked at the snake in front of him.
“Do what?” the girl responded, looking up at him strangely.
The freezing might have preserved the parts you need. Quick, cut the snake open farther down its tail and remove the gallbladder. I’ll direct you as you go. You’ll need to harvest the liver next and then mix those with both the berries and the leaves from the joowangberries. There are a few more ingredients, and you’re going to need to use your Fire Qi, but this won’t be impossible. Other than the leaves, berries, the gallbladder, and the liver, the last main poisonous ingredient you will need is a pink jumping spider. You can find them ten or twelve feet up on the bottoms of the trees’ leaves. It may take you a bit to grab one, but don’t worry about their bite. You already have much deadlier toxin in your system. Theirs won’t affect you.
“That’s comforting,” Lars said sarcastically. He began working his knife back into the snake, carefully following the directions as she guided him to the parts he needed and told him how to harvest them without damaging them. Apparently, if he accidentally punctured the gallbladder, the bile would ruin the parts he needed.
After that, the other ingredients were relatively easy to harvest, and he was able to dig a hole to mix the ingredients in without a problem. Lastly, he used Fire Qi, a stone on a stick for mashing, and the voice’s guidance to finish creating the concoction. It smelled absolutely rancid, but even after sinking 10 points into Fortitude, Lars was down to four out of 29 total hit points, so he couldn’t afford to wait. With his stomach churning in revulsion, he reached a hand in the little pit and slurped up the antidote. It took three handfuls, but a box finally appeared in front of him that let him know that his character sheet had been updated.
[20] Toxin Immunity Level 4: You are immune to toxins up to Level 4 and may withstand up to 128 Toxin Qi internally at any given time before taking damage.
Skill Specific Quest: Ingest 10 different types of Toxins of Level 4 or lower in order to raise Toxin Immunity by one level.
“That’s handy,” Lars muttered as he wiped the foul-smelling sludge off the sides of his mouth. The joowangberry’s leaves had a sharp and crisp bite that nevertheless failed to cover up the foul flavor of the gallbladder and venom, leaving Lars with an aftertaste in his mouth that could only be described as that of rancid meat that had been eaten and then thrown back up, the trail of vomit still fresh across the tongue.
“What did you make?” the woman asked Lars. She had been watching his every movement since he began cutting into the snake again, but she hadn’t voiced a question until now.
“It’s an antidote,” Lars answered. “I was poisoned by the snake, but drinking this . . . It cures the poison, and . . . Well, it makes me immune to this poison in the future.”
“What?! Even my . . . Even the head of our herbalism department couldn’t make such a thing.” Her eyes grew round in astonishment as she looked down at the mixture. “Is it . . . Is it safe?”
“I wouldn’t drink it if it weren’t,” he replied with a sigh, looking around for some water. Maybe I could use some Qi to make some clean water. Since she could, and I have Water Qi, I should be able to too, right? he thought, wanting to wash the foul stuff’s taste out of his mouth desperately.
“That’s . . . How do you know how to make that?” she pressed, a hint of suspicion in her voice. “No one mentioned finding pills or even salves when we were . . .” She froze, but her eyebrows twitched back and forth with a little consternation for a moment. “I mean, I’m sorry. I just . . . Where did you learn how to make that?”
“No person taught me,” he said, carefully choosing his words. He realized that he was doing it out of habit more than actually caring if she knew he was a little crazy or if she knew he talked to himself, and after considering it for a moment, the idea of letting someone else know of his condition was tempting. He had gone his whole life with the voice warning him not to even tell his mother, but now it was different. Because of the girl’s bond with him, he could just tell her not to ever share his secret, and she wouldn’t. She wouldn't be able to even if she wanted to.
“If you didn’t have a person teaching you, how did you know how? You were . . . You were talking to yourself earlier. Is that—”
“Yeah,” Lars interjected, anticipating her question. “It is related. I have the greatest master in the world living within me”—he tapped his finger against his head for emphasis—“but don’t tell anyone about it. Ever. Don’t hint or even try to clue in another person to this fact.” This was his first time deliberately bossing her around, but it felt good to finally tell someone. After two decades of hiding it, he was finally able to be honest.
Aww, shucks. The greatest master in the world? You insult me by placing me as only the best of such a small, tiny backwater, but I like that you meant it as a compliment. However, I don’t remember ever telling you it was okay to talk about me.
“Well, you knew what I was going to say, and you didn’t stop me,” Lars argued, “so I figured that was consent.”
Fair enough.
“So, your master taught you how to make that. Wh
at an amazing master,” the girl said. She seemed honestly astounded by the abilities of the voice. “I heard once that Jeju’s head alchemist struggled just to cure a chittering scorpion’s venom, even using priceless ingredients and toiling nonstop for days, and yet you just produced a cure for a giant snake’s bite on the spot?”
That “master” was a con artist. The chittering scorpion’s stinger doesn’t have a deadly venom in it. It just has an agent that causes incredible pain so strong the victim wishes that they were dead. The effect lasts for a few days and then flushes itself out of the body, leaving the victim in perfect condition—minus the scar from the stinger, of course.
Lars couldn't help but chuckle as he listened to this explanation. More than once, a medicine man had come to his town claiming to be a great alchemist, and every single time, the voice had told him that the guy was full of it in some way. Lars was really used to her mocking anyone who claimed to have knowledge of the world.
“Well, my master is just that much better of an alchemist than that charlatan,” Lars said, imagining this was the compliment that the voice was after when she gave him that information.
“That’s amazing,” the girl in front of him responded. “I . . . I had always wanted to be an alchemist. It’s why I signed up for herb gathering instead of construction or one of the other trades when I failed my inner-sect tests at the Falling Flowers. I never thought that I’d meet someone who could . . .” She looked at him expectantly, but her face fell and slowly morphed into a dejected frown. “Never mind. Just forget it.”