Untitled Space Xianxia - Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Stronger

I arrived to breakfast ten minutes late, my brow sweaty and my uniform creased from the vac suit. I received a few more of the curious stares than usual as I crossed the mess to fetch a tray and made for my usual table, but none of the louder attention I’d feared. Nobody confronted me. Nobody appeared frightened or hostile or interested in blaming me for the incursion.

As the sect’s resident weirdo outsider, that last was a real concern.

“I didn’t know you two were friends,” I greeted Xavier and Charlotte as I joined them at their table.

Xavier slapped her on the back. “Charlotte here has offered to show me the Veleraeu family style!”

Well, she certainly knew how to make Xavier happy. The question was why she wanted to. I raised an eyebrow at her.

She shrugged. “If we’re going to be in a cohort together, I figured it’d be better if we liked each other.”

I stared at her for a moment before deciding I was just hungry enough to take her word for it. I’d slept through dinner last night, so the tray of eggs and sausage in front of me was the first thing I’d had to eat since yesterday’s ice cream bar.

Here’s a life tip. Given the choice between eating breakfast and being suspicious of your friends, choose breakfast every time.

Charlotte looked me up and down as I shoveled omelette into my mouth. “You certainly don’t look like someone who missed the morning workout.”

I paused to finish chewing and swallowed. “I spent the morning outside, helping with the repairs.”

Her eyes shot open. “You missed dinner immediately after a void horde attack, without messaging anyone to let us know you were okay, so you could vac-weld? Cal, you’re not a mortal any more. That’s not your job.”

“I told Lucy I was… you’re not in contact with Lucy. Right. You’re right. I should’ve messaged you. I had other things on my mind, and I thought I’d be back for dinner. I didn’t expect to fall asleep like that.”

Xavier scowled at me. “You fell asleep? What happened?”

I sighed and leaned in, lowering my voice to stave off any eavesdroppers. “How much do you guys know about yesterday’s attack?”

“A void horde came out of nowhere at around three o’clock,” Charlotte rattled off. “Our orbital defenses handled most of it, but a few stragglers made it planet side. Reports show some eighty dead, double that injured, mostly mortals, but a few cultivators from Family Housing B and the classroo—” She froze. “You were in the attack.”

“I killed one,” I confirmed. “Immediately after watching it stab a ten-year-old boy through the stomach.”

Xavier clapped me on the back hard enough I had to catch myself against the table. “A glorious victory!”

I blinked at him. “Did you miss the part about the stabbed ten-year-old?”

“Did you do everything you could to protect him?”

“Of course I did.”

“And is he alive?”

I nodded.

He clapped me on the back again. “Then it was a glorious victory!”

“He’s right,” Charlotte told me. “You may be bigger and stronger, but you fight and cultivate at a preteen level. The fact you even looked at a type-six void beast and lived is incredible. That you killed one? It’s almost unbelievable.”

I faltered under the praise. “It wasn’t that impressive. I just rammed it with the ice cream cart a few times then stomped its head in.”

Xavier beamed. “You have a warrior’s spirit!”

Charlotte squinted. “Ice cream cart? Why did you have an ice cream cart?”

I started from the beginning, my instructors’ efforts to turn the class against me and my own to win them over. I told of asking Arthur for help, carefully leaving out any mention of Mindy. She had enough to deal with without unleashing Xavier and Charlotte on her.

I explained my panic as Lucy’s voice had crackled its warning and the comms went dead, relived our mad dash down the hall and its abrupt and violent end. They listened in silence as I told of smashing through jagged chitin, of frantically grabbing Vihaan off the floor, of our desperate race to shelter. Curiously enough, it wasn’t the blood that caught their attention.

“You smelled his injury?” Xavier asked loudly enough to draw eyes from other tables.

I glared the onlookers into giving up and lowered my voice. “Gut wound one-oh-one: if it smells like shit, that means shit’s leaking. Shit in the blood means sepsis. It’s not an exact test, but once you stop the bleeding, a good sniff is step two.”

“Unless the patient is a cultivator,” Charlotte said, “and thus perfectly capable of fighting off infection on their own.”

“Yeah, well, mortals get injured too. Children get injured too. This shit’s worth knowing.”

Neither of them laughed at my admittedly stupid pun, but that’s showbiz, baby. You win some, you lose some. They were, luckily enough, so stunned by the bad joke that they stopped talking. I took the opportunity to continue with my story.

“Anyway, I knew I had to get him medical attention, and I knew there were void beasts between us and it. Comms were down, so I couldn’t call for help, and even if I could’ve, gods knew how long it would take them to clear out the beasts. I was unarmed, and a shit fighter besides, so fighting our way through was out. That just left sneaking past. I was easy. With the way my qi cools my body and is damn near impossible to sense, I figured I could slip right by.”

Charlotte blinked rapidly in surprise. “And that worked?”

“I’m still breathing, aren’t I?”

She shook her head. “That’s insane. Some type-sixes can sense motion. Others can feel footsteps through the floor. Threads, just because humans can’t detect your qi doesn’t mean void beasts can’t!”

“What was I supposed to do, just let him die? I took a calculated risk, and it paid off.”

Xavier nodded along. “Makes sense to me. I’ve never known a blackblood to chase after a corpse, and you make a pretty convincing corpse. So after your heroic escape, you returned with reinforcements to clear the way to the children?”

“Not quite. I told you, I had no idea how long Vihaan would last, nor how long it would take to muster up enough firepower to fight a medic back to him.”

Charlotte furrowed her brow. “So what did you—”

I grinned. “I brought him with me.”

Charlotte went silent. Xavier figured it out.

He snapped his fingers. “The ice cream cart! They’d have trouble sensing his qi through that much steel, and there’s no way any body heat leached out.”

I winked. “Waltzed right past three void beasts. Could’ve reached out and touched one if I’d wanted.”

Charlotte groaned. “You’re insane.” She glared up at Xavier. “You’re both insane. Threads, you probably saved that child’s life, but still…” She trailed off, staring into space for a few seconds before gazing intently at me. “You’re either going to change the universe as we know it, or die from making some dumb decision before you make gem.”

“That’s the plan.” I smiled. “The changing the universe part, not the dying part.”

“You deserve a medal!” Xavier chimed in. “Accolades! Extra focus room hours!”

“If nothing else, Vihaan’s parents owe you a debt,” Charlotte added. “I’m sure they’d give you anything you asked for.”

“I’ll pass on all of that, thanks,” I said. “Don’t need to draw any more attention to myself. As it was I scared the crap out some poor woman. I will track down Vihaan’s parents, though. I want to see how he’s doing.”

“And after all that you went and worked as a vac-welder?” Charlotte asked.

“After all that, I passed out leaning against a couch in the lobby. Slept through dinner. Slept through Vihaan’s parents taking him upstairs. Slept through the cleaning crew covering every inch of the place except where I was lying. I managed to roughly approximate a full night’s sleep by four in the morning. I actually ran into Nick on my way up.”

“I’m not surprised he didn’t sleep,” Charlotte said. “His little sister lost her left hand in the attack. Apparently the limb is so torn up it’ll take years of cell treatment to regrow it.”

“Yeesh.” I grimaced. “No wonder he seemed so out of it.” I didn’t go into detail. Nick’s early morning musings weren’t their business, especially if he’d shared them in confidence. I wasn’t too keen on sharing my thoughts either. “Hold up. Why are they regrowing it when a neural prosthetic would work just as well without the painful recovery time?”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow at me. “Because she wants functional blood and tendon meridians?”

“Oh. Right. Those run through the hands, don’t they.” I clapped my hands together to turn the conversation away from my dumb question. “Anyway, I’ve got the day off while they repair and clean up all the classrooms, so once we’re done here…” I looked over at Xavier. “I’m going to need your help.”

“Ooh, sparring or a meridian?”

“Meridians,” I clarified, emphasizing the plural. “I figure I can get my stomach, tendons, and senses all in one go.”

Charlotte gaped. “You what?”

“I don’t know, Cal,” Xavier said. “That’s ambitious, even for me.”

“I know it was a freak attack, but I felt so helpless yesterday. I don’t like feeling helpless. I want to get my meridians open and my core formed so I can be fighting with qi as soon as possible. I’ve cleared three at a time before. Three harder ones, even. Muscles, spine, and brain will all take way more training, but the other three are simple enough. It’s not like I’m low on qi.”

Charlotte collected herself. “If you have the qi, I say do it.”

I glanced at her askance. “That was a quick leap from ‘you’re going to get yourself killed’ to ‘open three meridians at once.’”

Charlotte sighed. “People put a lot of stock in the power of epiphany, but they forget that overcoming adversity is just as important. I’d wager that whatever happened to get you started was worth more than enough adversity to help with those first three meridians. After yesterday’s adventure, your body’s probably more ready to advance than it’s been since. Normally people use this kind of thing to push their core to the next level, but normally cultivators don’t see real adversity before they’ve cleared all their meridians. Some never do. If you can handle three meridians at once, now is the time to do it. Threads, you’d be wasting the opportunity if you didn’t.”

I looked to Xavier, but he just shrugged. “She’s the smart one. If she says go for it, I won’t cower away.”

“Great,” I said, shoving the last of my breakfast into my mouth. Still chewing, I stood and grabbed my tray. “Let’s go.”

Xavier followed me as I left, his long strides more than enough to catch up and keep by my side as we bussed our trays and headed back to housing D.

“I still can’t believe you slayed a void beast and saved a child’s life,” he gushed as we walked. “You’re a real, honest to goodness hero.”

Just to be clear, no, I’m not fucking with you. A man in his twenties actually used the phrase ‘honest to goodness.’ I know. I was shocked too.

“The ice cream cart did all the real work. I just drove it.”

Xavier laughed. “Still on the first steps of your Way and already your legend begins. They’ll write books about you. They’ll make holos!”

“We’ll deal with my growing legend after I get to wielding my own magic.”

Xavier scowled. “It’s not magic. It’s careful manipulation of the fundamental qi within all things.”

“Yeah. That’s magic.”

“Don’t let any elders hear you say that.”

“Eh, they already think I’m an uncultured mortal.”

Xavier let out a breath. “Let’s focus on today’s task before we start with next year’s. Even if you succeed today, it takes months of preparation for the brain meridian alone, not to mention the others, and that’s not even considering the monumental task of forming your seed core.”

“Yeah, yeah, magic’s a distant pipe dream.” I waved him off as we crested the third floor stairs. We made straight for the showers. “Let’s make it a bit less distant.”

Xavier flashed a nervous grin. “Good luck.”

I undressed and sat crosslegged in my usual stall, letting the warm water wash over me as I evened out my breathing and focused inward.

I had no idea if Charlotte’s speech about overcoming adversity held any water, but my reserve of qi seemed to jump into action, springing about my center in tune with my surface thoughts. I didn’t hesitate, sharpening it into the needle and thread I’d grown so accustomed to visualizing and directing its tip to the entrance of my stomach meridian.

My belly convulsed. Nausea washed through me. I fought back the urge to gag, to retch, to bid farewell to my breakfast. Now, before you go chiding me for trying this immediately after downing a plate of eggs and sausage and whatever else they put in those omelets, give me a bit of credit. I had done some research. Conventional wisdom suggested a full stomach to dilute the impurities I was about to vent into my digestive system. See? I’m learning.

I was about ready to tell conventional wisdom to fuck off and send my breakfast on its merry way when my qi completed its first loop. A second wave of nausea echoed the first, this one lower and nastier.

I should mention, everyone calls it the stomach meridian, but really it governs the entire digestive tract. My stomach wasn’t the only thing suffering; several yards of intestine joined the pain party.

I pushed on. You know the drill by now. Faster and faster I cycled the qi, thickening the strand into a cord into a true flow as more and more of the blockage seeped out of me. This being the meridian that it was, my pores remained mostly unscathed as the toxins took a… different route. That’s all the detail you’re getting.

The meridian popped open all of a sudden, the pain and nausea giving way to the familiar sense of cool comfort. I hadn’t the faintest idea what cycling my stomach meridian did, but given the way my others had acted, I guessed it slowed digestion and stretched the nutrients further. Rather than metabolizing and reenergizing quickly like most cultivators, I’d survive longer without a meal. It kinda felt like a shit deal.

Sorry, I’ll stop with the shitty puns.

I stopped cycling for a moment to push my senses outward, squinting past the obnoxious background qi and Xavier’s blinding core to reach for the back wall and the vacuum beyond. The infinite sea stretched out before me. I drank my fill.

Fully loaded and raring to go, I set my spiritual sights on my next target.

The tendon meridian was remarkably simple, enough so that I wondered why the sect waited until cycling two to open it. Sure, my entire body locked itself in place as my various bits of sinew tightened and held, but that didn’t stop me. Sure, the competing forces yanking at my mortal muscles hurt more than any meridian I’d opened yet, but after the shit I’d been through, that didn’t stop me either.

Actually, maybe that was why they didn’t teach it first. Kids didn’t exactly have a reputation for handling pain well.

I did.

Okay, maybe not well, and maybe not exactly a reputation, but I’d been through worse. Once you’ve crawled down a gangway with a dozen puncture wounds and as many broken bones, you see pain with a bit of a different perspective. It hurt like three hells and half, but my tendon meridian posed no problems.

Two down, one to go.

I took a moment to cycle, quickly cataloging the body wide chill and otherwise lack of noticeable effect it had on my tendons. As it turns out, most people don’t really perceive their tendons until they fail. Presumably my newly opened meridian would stop that from happening. I knew at the very least the tendon meridian was considered a prerequisite to opening the muscle meridian. Empowering one without the other held obvious dangers.

My pool of qi still more than sufficient, I didn’t bother taking in more before directing my focus to the entrance of my sense meridian just behind the bridge of my nose. My reading on the sense meridian had left me somewhat perturbed.

The process of opening it seemed simple enough, yet most cultivators reported a painful recovery period as their bodies acclimated to the explosion of information. Some opted to open their brain meridians first to help process it all, but I didn’t want to wait. Besides, when had my qi ever behaved the same as everyone else’s?

The moment I pressed my needle of dark qi into blocked channel, my visualization blurred. I saw two, three, four copies of my construct piercing through four identical meridians. I pushed them all forward.

Bright light flared beneath my eyelids. My ears rang with a thousand sirens. My nostrils burned with dryness and the oppressive scent of the toxins I’d purged thus far. My tongue exploded with heat and cold and overwhelming mishmash of vile flavor. I edged on.

My spiritual senses flickered in and out, my qi and the meridian through which it struggled vanishing and reappearing blurrier and messier than before. Black gunk flowed from my tear ducts, down my ears, out my nose.

The image in my mind’s eye blinked out entirely.

And then it came back, crisp, clear, and sharper than ever. Qi flowed freely through the open meridian. Tension drained my body. I’d done it.

My eyes flicked open and I took in the world around me, unbothered by the flood of sensory data. It all seemed muted, grayer and softer yet more detailed than I could’ve imagined. My unempowered brain failed entirely to process it all, leaving me to frantically pore over it consciously to pick out the details that mattered compared to the ones that didn’t.

Nothing leapt out. Nothing overwhelmed. I looked at the world as if through a machine’s eyes, taking in the hot water rushing down my back with the same intensity as the muffled conversations two floors below us. It was all just… information.

I cut the flow of qi and the world returned to life. My nose burned and my stomach roiled from the fetid grime that covered me. The warmth and pressure of the shower relaxed my muscles. Xavier looked down on me with both concern and uncertain pride.

I smiled up at him.

Xavier smiled back. “Charlotte’s right,” he said. “You’re going to change everything.”

I looked down at myself and back up at him. “Not before showering I’m not.”

He laughed. “Clean yourself up, get some rest, then meet me in the lobby. Drinks are on me.”

I nodded and smiled again as Xavier left and I shut the shower door. I checked the time. Five hours had passed, five hours for which I felt I owed Xavier some recompense. He’d been remarkably patient and a huge comfort given the risk I’d taken. If nothing else, I knew Lucy appreciated his presence.

Another ninety minutes had passed before I finally shut the water off and reached for my towel. I walked away with my head held high, my heart swelling with pride at my accomplishments over the past two days. Now would come the time for cycling, for acclimating to the changes my body had undergone and fortifying my newly-opened meridians.

I had a long way to go, a lot to learn, and an ungodly amount of practice ahead of me, but for today, if only for today, I was satisfied. I’d done it.

Only as I returned to my room and donned a clean uniform did I open my holopad to find two new messages had come in, one from Elder Lopez, and one from an Ananya Basu. I recognized the last name if not the first.

It was Vihaan’s.

I fell back exhausted onto my bed as I scrolled through the missives. Both requested meetings. I exhaled as I drafted my replies.

Hopefully, at least one of them would have good news for me.

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