The following year was quite peaceful.

I continued my pursuit of Rank 1 and 2 alchemy mastery, and even though I was only a Martial Disciple, I was able to supply the Pavilion with a variety of Rank 2 pills. Once the level of my alchemy skills became evident, open discontent with me had faded, but I doubted that it had vanished entirely. Still, my ability to concoct Perfect Rank 2 pills had left others with little room to undermine me.

According to WuJing, the Pavilion had begun sending the majority of my pills outside the Wastes, since most of the people here were too poor to afford them. This was the first step to our goal. The more of my pills were sent outside the Wastes to be sold in more prosperous areas, the greater the chance that higher-ups in the Pavilion’s headquarters would take notice of me. Once I could assume the role of a Grandmaster Alchemist, I was certain that I would be able to leave this small corner of the world behind.

Alchemy wasn’t my only pursuit, though. I also continued my study of herbalism using the flowerbed in my apartment. Unfortunately, my results with this profession were… mixed. I didn’t have a teacher, the techniques I was using were substandard, and the location of my plants was less than ideal. Still, I was slowly gaining an understanding of the process of growing medicinal herbs.

I monitored the medicinal energy in the plants from the moment a seed was created to the time the herbs were ready for harvest. The small changes in the energy structure of plants as they grew and the way they accumulated toxic energy was a complex interplay between the plant and its environment. While I could learn some of this from books, the more I watched, the more I felt that I needed someone to guide me. I could see the various energies in the herbs, but I had almost zero understanding of what was happening or why. As time passed, my lack of progress on herbalism made me put the topic to the side for future study.

With cultivation, however, my progress was both steady and obvious. Every other month, I advanced my cultivation base, and I spent the intervening time studying any small changes this made to my body. The enhanced technique provided by my enlightenment was far more powerful than I could have hoped, and as long as I cultivated correctly, advancing had a negligible impact on the qi flows in my body.

In turn, if advancing did cause changes to my qi flows, it meant that I had done something wrong. So, by using the alterations in these flows as my guide, I was able to correct the thousand tiny errors I had made while cultivating and smoothly advance to Martial Disciple Peak.

I didn’t just focus on my own progress, though. I also helped Mei and SuYin cultivate their techniques. Because the quality of the techniques that I had given them was far below that of the technique I had received an enlightenment for, I was able to find multiple ways to improve them. Because of her age, Mei had needed to cultivate at a slightly faster pace than SuYin so that she would be able to reach Peak Disciple by the age of 20. SuYin was younger, only 19, so she allowed herself to go slower and had only reached Martial Disciple 7.

Mei needed to ascend to Martial Master within the year, but I wanted her to wait until I had completed my study of the Martial Master dual-element technique. If I could improve it, I would hopefully get another enlightenment, and that would allow me to provide significantly better guidance for Mei during her breakthrough. She had nine months before qi stagnation would set in, so I was a little rushed, but as I told her, qi stagnation wasn’t too terrible when you had unlimited access to Perfect pills.

When I was ready, I arranged for a leave of absence through Mei and entered secluded cultivation. I was finally ready to break through to Martial Master once more.

After sitting down in my cultivation room, there was one last thing I needed to do.

“System, move my temporary reset point to this moment.”

Purchase confirmed. Cost 19,706 credits. 25,806 credits remaining.

This hadn’t been where I had wanted to place it. I had wanted to create a reset point near the Peak of the Master realm. However, I was planning to create a new Rank 2 cultivation technique, and I was hoping that this would grant me another discount. If I didn’t purchase a temporary reset point until after I advanced, then I wouldn’t be able to buy it without wasting my discount.

In any case, while purchasing the reset point later in life would have been slightly better, the difference was only slight. Creating my new cultivation technique was of far greater importance.

Improving the Mid-Profound technique to a basic Peak-Profound technique seemed like an incredibly simple thing to do. The only difference was improving the quality of the meridians to match a Peak-Yellow technique. After studying the manual for a short time, I had come to the realization that the original author had used weaker meridians simply because this technique would be incredibly difficult with Peak-quality ones.

The cultivator needed to create two meridians simultaneously, always keeping the flow of fire and wood qi throughout the body balanced. The first time I had created Peak-Yellow meridians, it had been extremely challenging, and that was after I had already spent years practicing with weaker ones. So, I could only imagine that a Peak-Profound version of this technique would be nearly impossible for the average cultivator.

After a bit of practice, I quickly concluded that improving this technique to use Peak-level meridians wouldn’t be a problem for me. My enhanced affinities and experience were enough to easily cultivate this technique at a Peak level, but that wasn’t good enough. That wouldn’t make a ‘novel’ cultivation technique, only a slightly improved one. I needed to go further.

There were two key issues I wanted to address.

First, the dantian. The Rank 3 technique that I had used previously required me to cut holes in my meridians for qi to flow to and from my dantian. After living with that cultivation base for years, the only word I had to describe it was ‘janky.’ It felt like someone had created a meridian system and only later realized they needed to attach a dantian to it, so they kludged together a way to make it fit. That wasn’t acceptable. I wanted a cultivation system that was designed to work together properly.

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The other problem that I was fixated on was the layout of my meridians. Why were so many Martial Masters crazy? What was wrong with them? I finally had an answer.

The flows of energy through the body were what affected the mind. If meridians were placed exactly on top of the existing flows, it would speed them up, making their effect a bit more potent, but this small increase should be manageable for nearly anyone. If they were misaligned, however, they interrupted the flow of energy through the body and caused mental deviations.

The Twin Mountains Sect encouraged disciples to cultivate Rank 1 and 2 techniques with completely different energy flows. If disciples were extremely patient and allowed their qi flows to settle completely after each breakthrough, the discrepancy between their two techniques still wouldn’t be ideal, but it wouldn’t cause them too many problems. However, the longer they cultivated without returning to baseline, the more intense their mental deviations would get.

I needed to perfectly place my meridians to match my natural qi flows precisely. Where my qi flows naturally diverted to the core of my torso, I would leave gaps where I could seamlessly integrate a dantian in the future. Leaving holes in my meridians may be questionable, but it seemed to be the best option, unless I was willing to throw away all common sense and construct a dantian before even advancing to Martial Master.

Still, I didn’t believe this was enough to be truly novel. I needed to push further.

By referencing the Rank 2 versions of the techniques that I used for insights previously, I found two different options for enhancing a Martial Master’s cultivation base. One had eight additional meridians placed throughout the chest and head. This seemed interesting, but the placement of these additional meridians didn’t match any of my current qi flows, so I was hesitant to use it. The other two created countless capillary meridians throughout the body to follow ever-smaller tendrils of qi. This idea would be significantly more work, but I believed it was an excellent fit for my Rank 1 technique, which utilized additional acupoints.

Plan in place, the only question I had remaining was how big to make the meridians. They should contain the natural flow, but they should also be capable of holding larger quantities of energy transferred from around the body. Bigger seemed better, but how big was too big?

Unsure of the answer, I began experimenting. I created an arm meridian that was the same size as my natural qi flows, but after testing it a bit, I realized that it was constricting the rate at which my qi wanted to move. I carefully dispersed that meridian and started again. I slowly increased the size until I reached a diameter I was happy with.

Using that sample meridian as my reference, I began working on my first true chest meridians. The fire and wood qi in my body followed different paths, so I carefully made separate channels for them. Every centimeter, I created several small capillaries to follow tiny tributaries that branched throughout my chest. I was not willing to pause for a moment in this process. I wanted each meridian to be completed in a single sitting to avoid any small defects from arising.

As I wove my first meridian, I swallowed Meridian Builder Pills like they were candy. Each time, I had to take two, one for each element, and after several hours, I also had to begin taking Fasting and Restorative pills to avoid eating or sleeping.

The process of making a single pair of meridians went on for days, but when I was finally finished, what I saw was a thing of beauty. The placements weren’t completely perfect, but they were close. My only disappointment was that I didn’t get an announcement for a novel technique, but that wasn’t too surprising. I wasn’t done yet.

After a short rest and my first real meal in days, I got back to work. With the first pair of meridians in place, the qi flows had shifted, so I worked mostly from memory as I placed them where they were supposed to be instead of where the flows currently indicated. Again, I was less than 100% successful, but it was close enough.

Once I was finished, I allowed my qi to flow through both pairs of meridians, enhancing my body and internal organs.

I had ascended to Martial Master.

System Alert: A novel cultivation technique has been created. The Focused Hearth Fire Mantra. Rating beyond Peak-Profound Rank 2 Wood-Fire Cultivation Technique. Would you like to submit this technique to the Dao?

“Yes!”

Submission Successful. Contribution Confirmed. Calculating… Reward: 50% discount for the next purchase below 2,000,000 credits.

Note: Profound Rank 2 techniques will no longer qualify you for further discounts.

Information flooded my mind, and I collapsed to the ground. Countless calculations for qi flows, meridian size, meridian placement, and ways to alter weaves to best accommodate branching meridians poured into me.

After I finally regained my senses, I looked at my brand-new meridians and wanted to cry. They took me over half a month to create…

Taking a deep breath, I slowly and carefully began to unweave and disperse them.

A month later, I left my cultivation room as a newly minted Martial Master 1.

I had finished in time, but I still needed to hurry to ensure that Mei was able to advance before it was too late. I opened my door to begin searching for her, but she was standing right outside.

She grinned at me. “Hey, Fang, ready?”

I shook my head. “It feels like you’re showing off…”

“Just excited. I only have around half a year left. We need to get to it!”

I couldn’t help but let out a light chuckle. “Alright, come on in.”

We both entered my cultivation room. It was a bit cramped with the two of us in there, but the isolation helped us focus.

I examined her energy body as I had done several times before. Everything was clean, and she showed no signs of impurities from either poor cultivation or bad pills. The flows within her were vastly different from mine, so her meridians would need to be placed very differently, but the new knowledge that I had gained made understanding the necessary changes easy.

“Have you been practicing?”

Mei held out her hand and formed a practice meridian. I examined it and frowned. When comparing it to the manual that I had given her, it was fair to say that she had done an excellent job, but…

“We need to fix that. It’s not right.” I paused as I tried to put my thoughts into words. “The weave isn’t right.”

I held up my hand and created a large example of what she needed to do. “Can you do this?”

Mei examined my altered meridian for a long time before trying it herself. Even after several attempts, it wasn’t quite right. There were small, nearly imperceptible burrs in the weave. It would have worked, but it wasn’t perfect.

She shook her head dejectedly. “It will take time.”

“Let me…” I reached out with my water affinity and tried to manipulate her qi, but her affinity was too high for me to wrest control of it. “Can you, I don’t know, let me move your qi? I’m not sure if it’s something you can consciously do.”

Either she knew what to do, or her blessing kicked in, because suddenly, I was able to manipulate her practice meridian like it was my own.

I grinned excitedly. “Alright, I think this will work. Start forming your first meridian, but give me partial control. You focus on gathering qi and placing it into a rough weave. I will perfect it and make sure its size and placement are correct.”

Mei nodded and got to work.

Compared to constructing my own meridians, this process was a breeze. In less than a day, Mei had a brand-new Peak-Yellow meridian. After two days, she stepped into the realm of Martial Master.

“Thank you, Fang.” She bowed her head, but this time, she didn’t cry. She didn’t show much of any emotion at all.

“You’re welcome, Mei.”