Unintended Cultivator

Sen found that the water-stepping technique came easier to him than ever as he dashed from the side of the ship toward the beach. He didn’t think he’d broken through in any meaningful way, but it was still easier. Maybe he’d just reached an accommodation with water qi after that using that technique to save the ship. The explanation sounded weak, even inside his own head, but it was the best he could come up with in the moment. He supposed he’d have plenty of time to think about it on the next leg of their journey. It wasn’t like the ship moved fast, even in the best conditions. Once he stepped off the water and onto the sand of the beach, he felt a little surge of relief. The qi balance on the beach still heavily favored water, but he could feel that the other four qi types were readily available. He let his passive qi-gathering technique get started while he went to work.

The first order of business was to gather some new ingredients. He’d never gotten a chance to bolster his stock of medicinal plants and alchemical agents back on the beach at Emperor’s Bay, so this was the next best thing. He let his spiritual sense sweep around him in the nearby forest. He found a few spiritual beasts nearby, but none that felt strong enough to pose a serious threat. More importantly, he could feel the presence of several qi-laden components out there. Smiling a little to himself, Sen set off into the trees. Gathering ingredients there was similar enough to gathering them on the mountain that Sen found himself smiling. Some of the things he found, he recognized. While others were a bit mysterious to him. Yet, he was experienced enough to identify the uses of some of the ones he didn’t recognize by the feel of the plants or their similarity to ones he did know. Others he could recognize as poisonous on sight. He gathered a few of those as well. They were mostly curiosities to study later but might prove helpful someday.

While he hadn’t fully restored what he’d used up from his rings by any stretch of the imagination, he’d made a strong start. He made a mental note to be more proactive about gathering medicinal plants and reagents as he went. Although, even he was willing to recognize that he’d had a lot on his plate just recently. Satisfied with his efforts, Sen made his way back down to the beach. He was a little surprised that Lo Meifeng wasn’t waiting for him there. He glanced out over the water to make sure that the ship hadn’t spontaneously burst into flame or sailed off without him. A little part of him was disappointed to see the ship there. It would have solved a lot of his problems if they’d just left, but Sen didn’t think that the captain would actually do that except under dire threat. Sen spent a little time walking up and down the beach gathering driftwood for the fire he would need.

It also gave him a little time to do some active cultivation, rather than depending on his passive cultivation technique to do all of the work. While the passive technique was adequate to draw in balanced amounts of the qi types, it was slower. Sen could gather more in an hour of active cultivation than he could normally get from three hours of passive cultivation. There was also something that was just satisfying about active cultivation in a place where, compared to the ship, all the qi types were readily available. He was even able to get some shadow qi from the nearby forest. Not that he planned to rely entirely on what he got from his own efforts. Once he had his small fire up and burning and got some water heating over it, he built a small qi gathering formation. The sharp increase in the available qi around him almost made Sen feel a bit giddy. He’d tried something similar on the ship, but water qi simply overwhelmed everything else.

With everything prepared, Sen spent some time really examining his own condition. There really was less damage to his qi channels than he’d initially feared. He supposed that he might chalk that up to having done some healing already while he slept. Still, it seemed less than it ought to be given how desperately he’d shoved as much qi as he could into that water shell. There was plenty of minor damage all over his body, though. The strain of the technique had burst blood vessels in more than just his nose and eyes. There was deep tissue damage in almost every part of his body. He even noticed nearly invisible fractures in most of his bones. He couldn’t be certain about the source, but he had the feeling that some part of the force of that wave crashing down on them, or the unspeakable pressure on the ship while it was under the water, had been transferred directly onto him. If not for his body cultivation, Sen wondered if that stunt might have killed him.

He did take a moment to study his dantian and the odd ribbon of new qi but left off almost immediately. There was no obvious damage to the dantian. Figuring out that new qi was important. He knew it. He also knew that it was something that he wasn’t going to understand with five minutes of casual study. Even so, it was an effort to turn his attention away from it. Any change in his dantian that he hadn’t initiated was a cause for concern. Changes could mean unexpected results, which he’d learned was almost always problematic. Still, he had pressing medical needs that required much more immediate attention. Turning to the problem at hand, he let his mind slip into that hazy place of unfocused focus that let him pick the right ingredients for the problem at hand. He started with the base ingredients, wood-aligned ginseng for general-purpose healing, wind-aligned five-flavor fruit for the blood, and sunflower root as a general reagent for the other ingredients.

After that, the ingredients became more specific to his needs. He used earth-aligned crown flower to help repair and reinforce his bones. Metal-aligned serpent weed would help balance the elixir. Ingredient after ingredient went into the pot until it felt right. Sen had been so consumed by the process that it took him completely off-guard when a deep voice addressed him from a few feet away.

“What are you doing?”

Sen tried to spin, jump up, and raise his hands into a defensive gesture all at the same time. All he accomplished was falling onto his backside. He did, however, manage to bring the source of the voice into view. Standing just outside the formation was the biggest turtle Sen had ever seen. The turtle was nearly as large as a horse. How in the hells did it get so close without making any noise, Sen wondered. Yet, for all of its size, it didn’t seem threatening. It simply regarded him with liquid black eyes that conveyed, if anything, some amusement. Trying to regain some dignity, Sen stood, brushed himself off, and offered the spirit beast a formal bow. Now that the turtle had come to his attention, he could feel its strength, its great age, radiating from the beast.

“Hello, Elder. I am merely making a healing elixir. If this is your beach, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

The turtle looked from Sen to the pot and back again. Sen felt the turtle’s spiritual sense crash down on him. It was all he could do to stay on his feet beneath its weight. A moment of alarm shot through Sen as he realized that this might be one of the mythical, ancient, divine turtles. Encounters with them were exceedingly rare. While the divine turtles were generally benevolent, it was unwise to test their patience.

“Oh, I see,” said the turtle, the weight vanishing. “Hmmmm. It seems a wasted opportunity to me.”

“A wasted opportunity, elder? I’m, that is-,” Sen hesitated, not entirely sure about the protocol in that situation. “I’m not sure that I understand. What opportunity?”

“Call me Bo,” said the turtle.

“Of course, Elder Bo.”

“Your body is already injured and many steps into body refinement. Why not take the opportunity to push your body cultivation forward again?”

Sen thought hard for a moment about how to answer. “I lack the expertise.”

“Nonsense. You’re most of the way there with your elixir already. You need but two or three more ingredients.”

“What ingredients, if I might beg the Elder’s indulgence?”

The turtle’s gaze fell on Sen’s hand and its immense spiritual sense bore down on his storage rings. There was a brief pause before Elder Bo nodded his head in seeming understanding.

“Ah, you do not have what you need.”

A moment of disappointment flooded through Sen, but he suppressed it. While he might not turn down the opportunity to improve his body cultivation, it wasn’t actually what he’d come to the beach to do. If all he managed to do was heal himself, though, then he’d accomplished his goals. Sen was about to say as much when the divine turtle’s gaze moved off of him and onto the forest. Sen felt a surge of qi and then a root he didn’t recognize floated out of the forest and landed near him on the sand. A few moments and another surge of qi later, Sen watched as a flower floated out of the water of the cove and landed next to the root. Both root and flower radiated so much qi that they were very nearly divine treasures in their own right. Elder Bo nodded at the root and still dripping flower.

“Place a single petal from the flower in the pot. Shred some of the root into the mixture as well.”

“How much of the root?”

“Oh, about as much as one of your thumb claws,” said the turtle, before he muttered to himself, “such odd things, thumbs.”

Sen did as he was instructed because one did not decline gifts or advice from divine turtles. Sen felt the very nature of the elixir change as soon as the new ingredients began to incorporate themselves into the mixture. Up until that moment, Sen had thought that he was making something fairly potent. Now, the elixir radiated qi and transformative power like a mystical bonfire. Sen glanced down at the remainder of the root and the sea flower and tried to resist the surge of greed that he felt deep in his soul. Suppressing that greed with a supreme effort of will, he gathered the plants up and held them out to the divine turtle. The turtle gave the plants a curious look.

“I do not require those,” said the turtle, before it turned its gaze back on the pot.

Sen didn’t need another invitation. He immediately put the unspeakably valuable plants in his storage ring. Then, he turned his own attention back to the pot, mixing it occasionally to ensure full distribution of the new ingredients.

“Elder Bo, if I might ask,” said Sen, curiosity getting the best of him, “why are helping me?”

The divine turtle was quiet for a time, as befitted its nature, before answering. “I was curious about you.”

“About me?”

“After you saved that boat out there. I’d never seen a technique quite like the one you used. So, I followed you. Then, you came here and started making something interesting. I decided to indulge my curiosity.”

“I am humbled by your interest.”

“It’s ready,” said Elder Bo, nodding at the pot.

Sen removed the pot from the fire and let it cool for a time. There were so many questions he wanted to ask the elder spirit beast, but respect and fear kept his lips closed. If the turtle wanted to talk, Sen expected it would be talking. Once the elixir cooled enough, Sen filtered the liquid through a cheesecloth and into a bottle. He studied the bottle and everything he felt radiating from it. He felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

“Should I drink all of it?” Sen asked.

“I would,” answered the turtle, sounding amused.

So, Sen tipped the bottle into his mouth and swallowed the still-warm elixir.

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