Fei Rui wasn't there. From inside the dreamscape, Yu Han couldn't sense what was happening outside. Had his flesh melted off his bones? Did his feet turn to cinders? Did all his fat dissolve into the soup?

Wouldn't that be nice.

His inner image, the 'dreamscape body' so to speak, was naked. He echoed a set of robes.

The dreamscape was more organised now. There was a bed and a couch. The modern varieties. A nightstand beside the bed held a glowstone lamp. All memorycast.

The edges of the dreamscape were lined up with labelled cabinets filled with memorycast lime green pearls. Each cabinet drawer was roughly hand sized, with a piece of paper stuck on the surface that had a written details of the contents. A few drawers were filled with empty pearls, just in case Fei Rui wasn't there to create them.

The mirror-like floor that led to the other earth was underneath the umbo of the clamshell.

Yu Han had it surrounded with a shrubbery fence, like an enclosure. He would use yellow tape, but that felt like a prophecy. There was a signboard too with the words 'Mirror Portal,' the type that was held upright with a weight base rather than being stuck into the ground.

He sat down and closed his eyes. Soon, all his senses but touch fell away.

Huh?

There was an instant feedback. He felt… lines. Liquid? No. Gas. Something light and airy coming from somewhere outside, into his body.

Not just the dreamscape body but his whole being.

The airy lines didn't come alone. In fact, after concentrating on the feeling, there indeed was something liquidy there. But it didn't mix with the airy things. More like it mixed with the very dreamscape itself? Or at least, the clamshell part of the dreamscape, inside and out.

The air went into him. The liquid went into everything that was not him, but was his?

Why am I not asleep? Each time Yu Han would cultivate in his dreamscape, he would lose track of time and gradually fall into a trance. Fei Rui said he floated. He would gain consciousness in reality the next day usually.

This time, his mind was lucid. Though at the edges of his consciousness, it did feel heavy. Like a vignette slowly closing in.

He focused on the airy stuff.

Is this qi?

Or breath.

Elder Chang's note mentioned the most straightforward way to get the Qi Awareness trait was to concentrate inwards while using a bloodline art. To feel out what triggers caused the bloodline art to start, and what caused it to end. If one could grasp that feeling, that would give them an awareness of what fuelled an art. That meant lifeforce, qi, or essence. For the Qi Awareness trait, it would enable one to feel internally the movements of qi most intensely, including lifeforce and essence. But it was up to the practitioner to figure out how to differentiate each of those. At the body tempering realm, the feelings all tended to meld together.

This gave people with bloodlines an unfair advantage, and Yu Han was better off for it. Though he was pretty sure there were other ways to get the trait that.

Until now, Yu Han had been practising sensing the qi while casting Echoing Dreamscape, an auxiliary art, while in Deep Sleep, his bloodline art. He did it while muting all other senses but touch, hoping that intensifying that particular sense would help him grasp qi faster.

Qi was a physical thing too after all. Not only spiritual.

He hadn't made much headway. Though while practising his cultivation art while amping his sense of touch, he did sometimes feel 'something' in his body. It was ethereal though. Like some sort of quantum particle. The mere observing changed the outcome.

Another avenue was the faint feeling of 'breath draining away' while overusing Echoing Dreamscape. Nowadays, it happened when he memorycast too much. Though perhaps that wasn't qi but essence.

The dark vignette closed in. Yu Han kept all his focus on the airy lines coursing through his being, ignoring the liquidy stuff for now.

He didn't know where his dreamscape body ended and the real one began.

Were the lines were in both? Or were the coming into one from the other? It had to be something he was absorbing from the marrow wine soup. Or was it not?

After what felt like hours of minute observation, Yu Han noticed that the airy lines started from three sphere-like space in his head, heart, and navel. Ji's Cultivation Contemplation mentioned the dantians. Were these them? One was supposed to usually sense them at higher levels of body tempering.

The one at his head was the biggest, yet the airiness there was the lightest. He could sense a heavier feeling of airiness coursing out from his heart with every pump.

Was that blood? Or was it lifeforce? Both?

Then came the navel. The airy feeling here felt the most similar to simply breathing. The lines here were discontinuous. Some were not discrete, but others were, as if they were motes. They travelled through his body with pathways that did not intersect with the things coming out of his heart.

Am I seeing my veins and arteries? Or are these capillaries? The lymphatic system? Or… meridians?

Ji's Cultivation Contemplations mentioned that one of the main objectives of the body tempering realm was for the cultivator to 'develop' their networks if dantians, meridians, and acupoints. For those without resources, this development wasn't conscious. The book said to 'trust the body and the dao.' Seemed like a flimsy excuse.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Yu Han tried to remember the shape of the network.

As expected, the network largely intersected at the head, heart, and navel. At the very ends of the disparate pathways that split from the whole network were membranes. It had to be porous though, because the airy lines were slowly entering. Most went to the heart, but some went to the head and navel.

Was this membrane his skin?

Acupoints perhaps.

A public use human anatomy text would be nice.

Young Ji wrote, with not a small amount of peeve, that there were infinite possible ways to open meridians and acupoints in the body. They varied according to the cultivation techniques, arts, pills, potions, training regiment, traits, bloodlines, lifestyle, the environment, how or what kind of qi is assimilated in the body, when it is assimilated, and other such esoteric factors. Each cultivator thus opens their meridians and acupoints in minutely different ways, even if they practice virtually the same arts and go through the same training process.

It was supposedly a proof of the infinity of the dao. Of unfettered destinies. Of freedom. But the sects and the clans hoarded the traditional, true, and tested ways of opening meridians, unwilling to share them with Young Ji since he wasn't part of a 'core' anything.

One requirement to join the inner sect was to enter the qi gathering realm before a certain age. By that point the meridian opening work should have been mostly done. In the inner sect, a disciple could acquire the true lineage arts of Stormy Reef. Young Ji had thought this was a way to keep the lesser born talents down, giving them an inherent disadvantage. Or perhaps, was there a way to adjust or modify the meridian network at higher levels?

No good, can't hold on.

It was too sudden.

The vignette closed in like a snapping maw. It shut down his visualization. The blackness was tangible.

It wasn't airy anymore. It was thick, with an inky smell. Like a sludge.

It didn't knock him out. Simply, blackened his senses. Not muting them, but veiling each with a tangible absence of colour. He tasted something metallic on his tongue.

"Han'er, wake up." A pointy thing poked him. He grabbed it and wrestled it out of his attacker's hand.

His eyes opened slowly. He felt sore all over, as if he had run a marathon, then was forcefully sleep-deprived for three days.

He opened his mouth to speak, but felt parched.

"Wa—water."

Huang Niuniu fumbled for a bit, then handed over a waterskin. He bit the string tying the mouth and pulled to loosen it, then chugged a mouthful of water. Only to spit it back out.

The water was black.

Requirements Met!

Bloodline Art Learned!

Inkwell Tendrils (-> Deep Writing Clam Bloodline).

Huh?

He looked from the spat-out black water to Huang Niuniu's face. Her nose wrinkled, face paled. She covered her mouth with both palms and did a gagging motion.

He looked back. The blackish water moved with his gaze, as if it was a remote-controlled slime.

Something slipped from his mind. The same feeling of airiness he had felt while in meditation. When he memorycast too much.

Trait Gained!

Qi Awareness.

The black water moved in slow circles, leaving a trail of smudge on the empty cauldron. Huang Niuniu, Fei Rui, and Mistress Miao looked at it, three pairs of eyes moving left and right.

A few inches in front of him was a translucent rope? Tentacle? Tendril? It jutted out from thin air. It moved with his gaze too. Or his mind?

It smudged the black water back and forth. No, the water didn't move, but the inky black things mixed with it did. Was it oil? Yu Han could feel the difference as clearly square and circle.

"You have so much essence," the cat said. "It's almost gone."

Yu Han fainted.

***

"Han'er, don't die!" He woke to Huang Niuniu's sobs.

Someone mewed.

"Don't die!" she wailed.

"Cow Girl, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be fin—"

"He's dying!"

"I'm not…" Yu Han said.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Huang Niuniu held up Mistress Miao.

"Eighteen."

"He's dying!" She gently dropped her on the floor.

"Weren't you supposed to not come if I didn't call for you?" Yu Han said. He was dry now, and dressed. He didn't do it. Who him naked? Yu Han had been super conscious of his body whenever he was in a sauna. And now with the jiggly bits, even looking at a reflection was pain inducing.

"Fei Rui did," Huang Niuniu said. She had two dimples, blushing fiercely. "Mostly. I helped a tiny bit. He said you were dying. I didn't let anyone else come in. I wiped you with a blindfold and put clothes on you. If I faint the same way, you can go call Senior Tan and not come in, okay?"

"Did you wipe me with the blindfold or while wearing it?"

She didn't reply.

Yu Han's whole body was still sore. He wanted to raise his hand and flick her forehead. He was too tired though.

A few inches in front of his face, a line of translucent something grew out like an uncoiling snake and flicked Huang Niuniu's forehead. It went right through, like a ghost's arm.

He felt more sore.

"Don't," Mistress Miao's voice came from somewhere on the left. He turned his head, his neck creaked like old gear. The cat was there taking a respectable distance from Fang Zhao, who was sitting cross-legged.

"You may go from qi depletion to deviation," she said. "If you want to."

"How do I make it go away?"

"Will it."

Yu Han imagined the reverse process of the translucent line uncoiling. It coiled, slowly, and vanished.

"What're you guys talking about?" Huang Niuniu asked, suspiciously.

"Brother Yu, did you succeed?" Fang Zhao asked, merrily.

Yu Han managed to nod.

"With this, Fang Zhao's debt to you is nulled," the cat said. "You're welcome," she said to Yu Han. Then she turned to Fang Zhao. "You're welcome."

"This is why you got stabbed in the back," Fang Zhao said. "You cannot read the mood."

"There were no blades," the cat tilted her head. "But many spells. Can you stab with spells?"

"It's an expression!" Fang Zhao groaned. "Sister Yu, it's your turn."

Yu Han brought up the arts window.

[Inkwell Tendrils] Bloodline | Elite 1 | Initial Step 1 | 0/200

Elite Grade. That's good.

As he was pondering the art, he was moved by Fei Rui and Fang Zhao. Li Yao wasn't there.

The crab and the boy, along with Huang Niuniu, scrubbed the cauldron clean.

"Han'er, you peed everywhere," Huang Niuniu said.

"I didn't!" Yu Han shouted. Where he got the energy he didn't know.

「Yu Han, you squirted everywhere,」 Fei Rui said.

"I didn't!"

「Uh-huh. But wiggly things in the dreamsea squirt ink.」

Right, Inkwell. Did I create that black stuff? Conjure it? He had first thought those were the impurities. Like when he took the Body Tempering Pill.

"How do you know what ink is?"

「Is that the right question to be asking? Or is it, 'Fei Rui, can you squirt ink too?'」

Yu Han gave up. He didn't get the crab. Nor Huang Niuniu.

She'd been giving him curious glances.

"I'll tell you about the bloodline art later," Yu Han said.

She beamed.

By the time they finished cleaning the cauldron, Yu Han had gathered enough energy to stand up. He reviewed his gains. Other than the Art, there was also the Trait.

[Qi Awareness] Mortal 7 | 0/800

It had the same grade and level as his Qi Affinity trait, like Elder Chang's notes had told.

Fang Zhao poured the rest of the marrow wine into the cauldron. This time, he brought out smaller creatures.

Hundreds of beetles. Spiders. Eels. More spiders.

Hmm, those ones aren't spiders. What were they called… Daddy Long Legs?

There were some writhers too. Mistress Miao stepped on one. It thrashed a bit, then ejected glowing liquid.

Snails. Centipedes. Butterflies.

"You—" Huang Niuniu pointed a trembling finger at the red-eyed boy. "This is bullying. Why do I get so many bugs?"

"Because you're a wisp," Mistress Miao said. "Many monsters are wispy. So you get many. Because you're a wisp."

Huang Niuniu stared at her.

"Oh, you wish for an elaboration. Hmm, troublesome," the cat prowled around. "Trust. Yes, trust me."

Huang Niuniu deflated. She brought out ten jars from the storage pouch, the one they had taken from the Mad Bloodhounds.

The cat sniffed them.

"Gu?"

Huang Niuniu shook her head. She cast a glance at Yu Han.

"Faituoplangqitangs," she said, biting her lower lip.

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