The Baracuush Hotel was owned by an immigrant from overseas, and was stationed right next to the River Ander. For the past two years, it had been operating as a major hotel for visitors to Melano and the Barony. Its services were varied and immaculate, including breakfast service for those willing to pay more, hot water powered by a personally owned water wheel, and even a well-maintained courtyard on one side of the T-shaped building.
Despite the beautiful interior design of the hotel, Seth didn't waste a second in getting himself a room. He paid the receptionist the due fee for a premium suite, and was handed a key and given directions. Seth thanked the lovely woman and speed-walked his way to his suite. His patience was out.
Having stayed in a premium suite before, Seth didn't bother marvelling the ornate wooden furniture or enjoying the cosy bed. Instead, he dashed straight into the living room, hanging his coat on the coat rack across the marble-tiled bathroom on the way, and pushed aside the coffee table and plopped his bum down on the fur rug.
Seth laid out his two cultivation manuals on the floor. He was already decently familiar with the basic functions of each of the body tempering methods, so he cracked open the manual for the Yin-Yang Cell Matrix method first. The initial pages featured a short biography of the method's inventor: some cultivator named Alejandra Salvadora from a couple hundred years ago who fought against invading forces from beyond the archiepirus[1]. Huh, thought Seth dismissively as he skipped past the biography. Pretty sure I read about her somewhere in a history book.
Soon, he arrived at the description of the body tempering method: A method exclusive to the Body Tempering Realm, the Yin-Yang Cell Matrix method is made specially for the fortunate few cultivators attuned to both the Yin and Yang elements.
By imbuing each cell with Yin or Yang Qi in an alternating pattern, the cultivator can exploit the opposing elements' attractive forces to significantly increase organ density (excluding bodily fluids and nerves), improving vitality and longevity. Due to the attractive forces cancelling out, the body's cells can accept an additional effect stemming from one other body tempering method at the cost of discarding any extra Qi absorbed from that method.
Seth grinned. Lucky me. He continued reading:
While this method is powerful, the time needed to cultivate it is double the usual due to cell mitosis and apoptosis dispersing the imbued Qi. One must circulate Yin or Yang Qi through designated pathways within the body for at least two hours, and alternate between each element every 24 hours. Consistent failure to upkeep this schedule will result in a complete dispersion of Qi.
More complex pathways are required and provided for each stage of the Body Tempering Realm. Upon advancing to the next realm, the practitioner's body should be permanently enhanced and purified to a substantial degree.
By the time Seth was done reading through the manual's texts and the several diagrams of the circulation pathways, he was ecstatic, but quickly a small frown appeared on his face as a daunting realisation dawned upon him.
It seemed that whoever had written this manual had forgotten that most people at the Body Tempering Realm had little to no experience with detecting and manipulating Qi. Then again, that's usually the case with methods specific to an element, he thought, laying down the manual. His eyes drifted to the other manual, but he decided to leave it for another day. He already had enough on his hands.
Seth set the manuals down on one of the couches surrounding the rug he was sitting on and settled down to meditate. Sensing and manipulating Qi was something every noble descendant was taught before they turned nineteen, but Seth was three whole years away from that, so his father had forbidden him from cultivating before then. Of course, his father's disapproval never stopped him, but that meant that he had to learn everything on his own. He tried bribing one of his father's knights a few months back, but the knight feared the Baron more than Seth, so he never got a chance to gain any proficiency with the basics. The most he ever managed was detecting the tiniest whiff of Qi.
Now, though, things were different. The power the manual promised made him more restless than ever; he was very eager to get going. So, he closed his eyes to enter a meditative state.
Seth woke up to find the Sun was rising.
Damn it, he thought as he wiped the drool off his cheek. This is infuriating. As much as he didn't like to admit it, many of the times he tried meditating, he would go on to snore his way through the night.
He went to the bathroom to take a quick, cold shower to invigorate himself. He then went to his bedroom to access a machine whose form resembled a typewriter. He pressed the button that called for breakfast service and returned to the living room to take another shot at meditating.
Again, he laid down on the ground and closed his eyes. He started with relaxing his facial muscles, then his shoulders and arms, taking long, deep breaths in between. He moved on to his torso and down his legs all the way to his toes. Slowly, Seth felt them becoming limp, like heavy weights. He felt drowsiness wash over him as he continued breathing. Five seconds in, hold for seven, eight seconds out. Rinse and repeat. In, hold, out. In, hold, out.
Soon, his whole body slackened, and the drowsiness became overwhelming. Still, he held out, and began to sleepily picture the Qi around him.
Unlike sounds or chemicals, Qi in its gaseous form was invisible and intangible, so detecting it relied solely on the practitioner's ability to visualise it in their minds. Seth's senses faded away to black, and all that was left was his mind.
He imagined the Qi as a faintly golden cloud, a cloud that enveloped everything he could reproduce in his mind. Every human breathed it like the air, and had been breathing it the same way for millenia. Seth felt his chest expand, and imagined the Qi pouring into his lungs and into each blood cell to be carried throughout his body. In, and hold, and out.
Slowly but surely, Seth's image of his own body improved. He visualised his organs better, and the Qi flowing through them. Then, as if something clicked, his consciousness grasped ahold of something new. Instantly, Seth tried tightening his leash on it, but the moment he diverted his attention, his connection to the Qi was broken.
Seth's eyes snapped open, and sensation returned to his body.
Damn it, he thought, slumping down on his couch. I was so close!
He was not, in fact, close. The hold Seth had on the Qi in his body was far from enough to control it, let alone isolate a single element. Nonetheless, a sense of accomplishment filled him. He glanced at the manuals, and out the window whose curtains he had pulled back. The morning's light was pouring in.
He bathed in the Sun's warmth for a while before standing up, and, as if by clockwork, a knock came on the door. 'Breakfast service for Lord Avillo!'
'That's me!' He called. Waiting for him behind the door was a simply dressed maid holding a serving tray covered with a cloche. 'I'll take that off your hands,' he said, grabbing hold of the tray and gently tugging it from the maid's hands.
'Will that be all, My Lord?' said the maid. If she was nervous, she didn't show it.
'That will be all. Thank you.' With a deep bow, the maid left, and he nudged the door closed with his foot. He went to the dining room to set the tray down.
Removing the metal cloche revealed a delectable scent: yak sausages, baked cherry tomatoes and mushrooms, two blueberry pancakes with a cup of maple syrup on the side, and a few freshly roasted sardines. While he did get to enjoy far more luxurious breakfast foods back in the manor, he never disliked the town's food either.
He ate in silence, slowly enjoying every bite of food as the Sun rose ever higher till it illuminated every nook and cranny of his living and dining room.
Once he was done, he put his utensils at the centre of his plate and left the cloche beside it. He would be checking out later in the evening, so room service would be there to clean it up.
For now, I'll keep practising. It was still early in the morning, so he had plenty of time to train his Qi sense before he had to meet up with his friends.
And so, the hours passed by. The only sound in the suite was the tick-tock of the clock and a noble boy's occasional cursing. Yet, the gaps between his curses turned longer and longer as he learnt to maintain his meditative state.
Then, as noontime neared, his senses clicked, and another faint connection with the Qi formed. After more than a dozen failures over the hours, Seth decided to take his time. He let the link rest for a while, only tightening his grip on it whenever he felt it was about to slip away.
Across twenty minutes, the link ceased its wavering, and eventually, it turned still. Determined not to let his success go to waste, he turned a tiny bit of his focus onto the connection, applying a bit more strength to his connection with the Qi. The link fluctuated, but didn't break. Another ten minutes went by until he felt confident in diverting more focus onto the link. Again, it fluctuated.
Seth kept any anxiety or giddiness he had in the recesses of his mind to prevent them from affecting his meditative state. Soon, the connection stabilised, and more pressure was added.
The clarity of his senses grew as his link with the Qi in his body intensified, and eventually, it became clear enough that he could just about feel where the Qi in his body was.
Squeezed somewhere between his stomach and liver was a small, spherical organ whose walls were composed of thin, but dense sheets of muscle: the dantian. Inside the dantian was the cloud of Qi Seth had been working so hard to sense. It was a sparse cloud, yes, but the contents of the dantian were not of concern to cultivators in the Body Tempering Realm. What was important was that he was finally sensing Qi, true and proper.
Joy flooded his mind, destroying Seth's connection with the Qi in his dantian, but he didn't mind. That was a definite step in the right direction. For now, he would focus on expanding and strengthening his sixth sense, then would he even bother to think about cultivating the body tempering method.
Seth smiled, but a thought popped into his mind. He shot up and looked at the clock. It was past noon. He was late for their outing!
[1] A cluster of continents.