Chapter 40

Qi Absorbed

System Sync in Progress…

Stat Increase:
Strength: 22 → 26
Agility: 22 → 26
Constitution: 32 → 36
Spirit: 36 → 40

Progression Achieved:
Qi Refinement 1/10 → Qi Refinement 2/10

I smiled, it had taken a long time. Or what felt like a long time but was actually only a couple days, since my last level up. And it didn’t disappoint. I had gained plus four in every stat and despite the pain still clinging to me like a wet blanket, I could feel my body changing slightly as it was infused with more Qi.

There were no more notifications so I took a quick Look at my status.

Status

Name: Ethan Ward
Cultivation: Qi Refinement – 2/10
Titles:
• Diligence’s Chosen
• Otherworlder
• Initiate of the Emberstorm
Skills:
• Last Stand
Manual:
• Emberstorm Foundation Scroll – 1/10
Stats:
Strength: 26
Agility: 26
Constitution: 36
Spirit: 40

I dismissed the system display with a satisfied nod. Sure, I’d nearly died, but I’d gained something from it. And I made a promise to myself, that I would no longer shy away from danger. If that meant my path ended then so be it.

I let out a long, ragged breath and braced myself against the tree as I pushed to my feet. Pain rippled through my shoulder, raw and sluggish now that Last Stand had faded. The soothing numbness had retreated like a tide, leaving the wreckage behind exposed to the cold air.

My meridians were intact. More than that—they were stronger. Reinforced by the brush with death and the surge of Qi I’d absorbed in the aftermath. But my body? That was another story.

The rot was gone, thank the heavens. The worst of the poison had been purged by the root and held back long enough for Last Stand to work. Most of the smaller cuts and gashes from the fight had closed entirely, leaving behind faint white lines like brushstrokes on skin. But the area around my collarbone… I winced as I glanced down.

A wide patch of ruined flesh marred the left side of my chest. The skin was warped and grey, edges singed and puckered like melted wax. The muscles underneath twitched sporadically, spasming without command. It hurt just to look at it. So I didn’t.

I pulled my robe back over my shoulder and turned away from the sight, stuffing the pain back into the box I’d been carrying it in. No point dwelling on it.

I limped over to where Lucien lay sprawled. Or what was left of him. The poison had kept eating even after his death. His legs were gone—dissolved into a mess of bones and oozing tissue. His ribcage had collapsed in on itself, bubbling with rot, each breath I took tinged with the smell of death and bile. It took everything I had not to retch.

I stared down at him, a tight knot forming in my gut. I’d done this. And even though every rational part of me screamed that it had been necessary—that this thing had tried to kill me, that it would’ve tortured me if the roles were reversed—I still felt the nausea rise. I’d crossed a line, I’d stepped over it with both feet. And I knew I would have to keep crossing it.

I didn’t regret it, not exactly. It just felt muted. After everything that had happened in the last month, I was different. Like a part of me had changed in a way I couldn’t quite grasp. And I wasn’t sure if I liked it but knew I needed to embrace it if I wanted to stay alive.

I stepped away from the corpse, trying to shake the thoughts from my head, but they stuck like resin. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment—when I’d looked into his eyes and felt that deep, primal urge to unmake him. And it hadn’t felt human. That was what unsettled me.

It wasn’t just rage or fear or vengeance. It was something instinctual. Like I’d been hardwired to remove them. To wipe them from this plane entirely. I hadn’t even felt that way toward the demon back in the rift. That had been terrifying, yes—but something about these Sundered were different.

I needed time to think on it. But not now. Not while I was tired and standing in a graveyard made of twisted flesh.

I turned and made my way over to the other body—the archer. Malachi. He was in better shape than Lucien, though that wasn’t saying much. His stomach had been split wide open in the final blow, intestines steaming in the cool morning air, blood pooling thick beneath him. His face was frozen in a slack expression, somewhere between disbelief and hatred.

I crouched beside him and checked the robes. Nothing. No tools, no rations. Just the bow and the quiver of bone-white arrows. I picked them up. The grip was cold, the leather worn. I wasn’t much of an archer — hadn’t touched a bow since survival training back on Earth — but I took it anyway. Better to have it than not. And I was after the liquid on the arrows anyway.

I slung it over my back and glanced around the clearing once more. It was time to go. I didn’t want to be here when something else came sniffing around.

I turned to the fox, who had been quietly watching the entire time from the roots of a nearby tree. Its tail flicked once. I gestured toward it with my chin.

“Can you show me where you got that root from?”

The fox stared at me for a moment. Then, without a sound, it spun in a quick circle and bolted into the forest, darting between the trees like a shadow come to life.

I let out a sigh and started walking after it, one hand pressed gingerly to my injured shoulder. I couldn’t run. The skin around the wound was still tight and brittle, and I didn’t want to jolt it and reopen something.

The forest swallowed us quickly, the canopy above casting long shadows as the sun began to climb higher. The fox darted ahead with a flick of its tail, weaving through the underbrush, only to pause several steps later and glance back at me, eyes wide and head tilted.

I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.”

It gave what I could only interpret as a disapproving huff before turning and bounding off again.

We moved like that for the better part of twenty minutes. Me slowly moving through the forest, my shoulder burning with every step, while the fox surged forward, circled back, and gave me looks that somehow managed to be both judgmental and impatient. If it could’ve tapped its paw like a disapproving parent, I’m pretty sure it would have.

The forest shifted around us as we walked. The oppressive tension from earlier began to lift, replaced by something… quieter. More still. The further we went, the less the trees felt like they were pressing in around me, life slowly came back to the forest. Even if it was just barely.

Eventually, the trees parted, and we stepped into a clearing. At the center stood a massive tree, easily twice the width of any I’d seen before. Its bark was pale and cracked like dry bone, but its canopy stretched high and full overhead, casting dappled light in soft waves across the ground. Moss blanketed the roots in thick layers, and from the base of the tree spread dozens — maybe hundreds — of thin white strands. Roots, but not normal ones. They crisscrossed the grove in intricate patterns, snaking through the dirt like veins beneath skin. Glowing faintly.

I knelt at the edge of the tree and ran a hand across the soft moss. There, nestled between the gnarled base and the shallow soil, were several of the small, knotted roots just like the one the fox had shoved into my face.

I turned to look at it. “This it?”

The fox tilted its head, blinked once, and gave a little chirp.

“Alright then.”

I carefully pulled a few of the roots free, making sure not to damage the larger network they extended from. Their texture was rough, almost papery, and they oozed a faint, herbal scent that curled around my senses like smoke. I didn’t know how to preserve them — hell, I didn’t even know what they were — but I tucked them into a pouch inside my duffle bag anyway.

Still, they could prove useful. Especially given what I now had in my possession. And I had a feeling if one of the Sundered had that poison then there would be more and it wouldn’t be the last time I’d be attacked with it.

I pulled the quiver off my back and turned it over in my hands. The arrows rattled softly inside, each tipped with that same eerie green sheen I’d seen melt through bone.

It made me feel a little sick, thinking of what I might have to use them on. But the cave was still there. Still waiting. And I needed every advantage I could get.

I let out a breath and eased myself down at the base of the tree, settling with my back to the bark. The opening was still, quiet. The fox curled up beside me, tail wrapping around its body like a perfect ring of shadow.

I closed my eyes, it was time to cultivate. I followed the patterns laid out in the Emberstorm Foundation Scroll, the breathing technique was as familiar as the beat of my own heart. Inhale, draw the Qi inward. Exhale, let it flow through the channels. Circle it through my pathways, guide it through the limbs, circulate, circulate, circulate. Every loop pushed it deeper. Stronger.

Golden light shimmered faintly behind my eyelids. I could feel my Qi. It was no longer a foreign thing. No longer something I didn’t understand. It was placid like a flat lake. At least until I cycled it, then it turned sharp and aggressive, just like the scroll had promised. It flared when I called, answered when I pushed. And it filled me with fire and the power of a storm.

Cycling still hurt. My muscles twitched from the strain of channeling such volatile energy. But it was a familiar hurt. Like stretching sore muscles, pushing the limits of my body. That was what the path demanded. That was what I’d been made for.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much of a cheat my system really was.

From what little I knew about cultivators, it sounded like they needed to spend years meditating in special zones to slowly gather ambient Qi into their bodies. And that was only to gather their Qi, they still needed to cycle it into their respective paths after that, if they wanted to progress and not just refill their dantian. They had to cultivate constantly. I could do that too, like I was now but I didn’t have to.

My system let me gain Qi through combat. Through killing. Sure, it wasn’t much now—the jump between levels had clearly scaled since I reached Qi Refinement but every little bit helped. Every fight brought me closer. Every drop of Qi I absorbed could be fed back into my cultivation method. I didn’t need to waste hours gathering it. I could just use it. It made things a lot more efficient.

I sank deeper into meditation, feeling the energy flow stronger now. The grove helped. The atmosphere here was thick with presence. The tree, the roots—it was like sitting on top of pure energy. Maybe the fox had known. Maybe that’s why it brought me here in the first place. But the Qi seemed thick here. And I was ready to use that to my advantage. My dantian was fill, everything I was gathering now was cycling straight into my technique.

The hours slipped by as I meditated under the large bone-like tree, completely absorbed in my task. It helped as I came to terms with what I needed to do.