With the hard part behind him, Dario spent most of his time preparing. That involved learning about how to use a diagram for Koto harvesting just in case, organizing his pile of loot and picking which artefacts to bring along, but also following some of Hana’s instructions for taking the first steps towards cultivating with nature Ki.

  So it was that he found himself talking sweetly to a few flowers he’d found on the side of the road. But it seemed that his talk wasn’t quite sweet enough, or the light-green nature aura that hung around them was not so easily seduced. It was fundamentally different from handling light Ki, which was found everywhere, thanks to the pillar. Its nature was to forever keep moving, so instead of trying to stop it or move it yourself, you simply needed to… let it in. He’d learned to do that years ago and it was so natural by now that he didn’t remember if it had ever been hard. But that didn’t work at all for plant Ki.

  Following Hana’s advice, he then took to planting a seed in a little bag of dirt that he carried with him at all times. The act of nurturing a seed into a plant was supposedly a good exercise to prepare one’s mind for handling nature aura.

  Unfortunately, he also had to endure more training sessions with JeeJee.

  “Why is it that an Amber is so much faster than a Talc?” the old man asked as he strolled over to his chair.

  “I don’t know, they have more muscles? The integration thing makes them stronger?”

  “Koto integration does not have an effect on muscles. It significantly increases the capacity of the seams, and confirms their attunement. So then, why are they so fast?”

  He thought of the Ambers he’d seen. Besides those guards, who hadn’t really been running, there were only the ones who carried the huge nets of trash on the second floor. Come to think of it, they did always have a bunch of Ki circulating.

  “Something to do with moving Ki around?”

  JeeJee nodded. “Just so. The disciple should already be familiar with the concept of Fortification as external empowerment with Ki. The internal empowerment of the muscles and organs is what is most often called Energizing.”

  Dario perked up. Getting faster or stronger just by moving Ki around? That sounded an awful lot like a shortcut.

  “Why haven’t we ever practiced this?”

  “Energizing is only effective in locations where the seams lie near the muscles. In the case of this lazy disciple, the network of seams is woefully underdeveloped.”

  “Oh,” Dario said, realizing this had to be what JeeJee had mentioned the other day. “So how do I go about, uh, expanding them?” He didn’t like the twinkle in JeeJee’s eyes one bit.

  Soon he was sitting cross-legged on the ground, hands resting on his knees with his eyes closed as his old mentor guided him through the exercise.

  “Turning the vision inward, run Ki through the seams and describe the feeling.”

  Dario did as instructed, pushing his Ki around his body. Since it was held in his seams, the usually jittery light aura was now calm and controllable, almost as if it were asleep.

  “The seams are wide and strong near my eyes, but they become… narrower, the further down I go. Pushing the Ki down through my shoulders and as far as my fingertips is easy, still, but bringing it any further down my hips is a struggle. It’s like… a tunnel that keeps getting smaller until not even a trickle can pass through.”

  “Where water flows, a riverbed will form. It is a consequence of where one has most often guided Ki. Without any cause to drive Ki through the legs, the seams there remain dormant. In fact, smaller channels, or at least the seed of them, stretch throughout the entire body. Start with the right arm. Push as much Ki into it as it will hold.”

  He obeyed, pushing the Ki there until he felt a sense of pressure. In his mind’s eye, it looked like a cloud of light yellow Ki was being pushed into branching corridors until they couldn’t hold anymore.

  “Continue to push.”

  With a frown, he pushed more in, the sense of pressure increasing until it felt like his Ki simply wouldn’t move anymore.

  “Now, you must focus on branching it out. Visualize the small veins that run through the muscle then drive the Ki through them.”

  Dario brought his attention to his right bicep. The seam passed close to where he thought his bone would be, thinning as it stretched towards his fingertips. Now, he tried to imagine smaller tendrils stretching out through his muscles, then pushed again. There was a sense of pressure and discomfort, but nothing happened. He repeated it a few times with the same result.

  “It’s normal to feel resistance. Now establish a rhythm, like beating a nail with a hammer. You will beat it one hundred times at a steady pace, increasing the force slightly with each strike.”

  It was a painful process. First, it was like poking himself gently. After the tenth strike, it felt like jabbing a rigid finger into his arm, which turned into a needle as he kept striking harder, then into a nail.

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “This was supposed to be a shortcut,” he hissed through clenched teeth, but he was in too deep to give up now.

  At around the eighty-fifth blow, when it felt like driving a hot knife straight into his bicep, something finally gave. Dario cried out and clutched his arm as, with a sharp flash of pain, his Ki finally moved a bit further in. But as he investigated this new vein, he found that it was a thin and stubby little thing, barely worth mentioning.

  “That doesn’t seem too impressive,” he muttered as he rubbed unhappily at his bicep.

  “The expansion of the seams is a work of time,” JeeJee nodded with an all-knowing smile. “The same exercise should be repeated at least twice more for that vein. For a muscle as large as a bicep, one should cultivate eight veins at a minimum. Smaller muscles may require a bit less.”

  Dario’s eyes narrowed as he imagined doing this a hundred more times and he cleared his throat.

  “...Is there a shortcut for the shortcut?”

  As JeeJee later explained, there was a shortcut of sorts, but it had a downside. During the ascension to Amber, the large volume of Ki that was pushed through one’s seams would apparently anyway expand the channels’ network. But the more energy that went into digging out the dormant ones, the less would be used for expanding the existing ones. So it could lead to simply having less capacity for holding Ki. For Dario, the choice between doing nothing at all, or going through excruciating pain a hundred times over wasn’t a choice at all.

  Still, time passed quickly as he spent more time training in those couple of days than he otherwise did in a month. The day before he had to set off, JeeJee apparently also had enough of hanging around here.

  “Alas, the meagre diversity of beauties in these parts has run its course. This old man’s Dao Heart calls for a change, and it must never be denied. The time for another tour has come.”

  Dario was doing target practice at the outskirts of the Belt, where dry earth met a field of trash.

  “...You’ve been here less than a week,” Dario said as he drew another arrow from his quiver. After nocking it to this bow, he paused while the arrow lit up with Ki. Once he loosed, the Ki flared, making it so that the arrow struck the far-away target with a blinding flash of light.

  “The Dao Heart wills what it wills,” JeeJee said with a grin.

  “Oh, by the way, is there any downside to cultivating with two types of Ki? I’ve been thinking about picking up some plant Ki as well.”

  “Ah, the ignorance of youth, to speak so casually about a life-altering decision. It is certainly possible to control two types. It makes the process of ascending to Amber more challenging, not to mention Topaz, but that is still far off. Yet the main reason why many cultivators choose to focus on a single type is far simpler: it takes a lifetime to master only the aspects of one type. To try and master two separate elements is to stretch oneself thin.”

  “Sure, but I’m not that ambitious anyway. If I just stay at Talc or maybe Amber my whole life, it’ll give me more tools to play with, right? Besides, light Ki is cool but it’s lacking on offense.

  JeeJee laughed.

  “Oh, quite the contrary. Perhaps one day the disciple will realize that light has the most destructive potential of all elements. But very well, then as a parting lesson, let an old teacher provide his student with a few tips. First, keep in mind that plants drink the light. It will be best to keep the energies separate. Secondly, your arrow art is lacking. If the brightness flares too soon, the projectile will be far easier to dodge. Unless the aim is to distract, it is better to catch an opponent unaware.”

  The old man picked up a rock, which promptly turned invisible. Dario had to push Ki into his eyes to see it, noticing that a good bunch of light Ki was pressed up inside of it. There seemed to be a certain pattern to it, but it was too complex for him to pick up clearly. With a flick of JeeJee’s fingers, the rock went tearing through the air until it crashed into a half-rotted cupboard, exploding into a massive flare of light.

  “How can you put that much light Ki inside without making it all bright?”

  “Do you walk around looking like a lantern? Simply keep it within your grasp.”

  “Do I… what? What are you talking about?”

  But the old man was already chuckling happily as he strolled off, arms clasped behind his back.

  “Are you just going to walk through the desert? In sandals?” Dario called to his back, but when no answer came, he sighed and took out another arrow from his quiver. “Keep it within my grasp, huh?”

  ***

  The next day, Dario was ready to set out for Endanshi. With a large backpack full of provisions and some of his favorite artefacts, he should have most of what he needed. The rest, he could trade for.

  He took a final look back at the rickety houses and dirt roads, with the mountain of garbage towering behind. It might be a dump, but it was still home for him. His eyes were sad as they paused on his mother’s house, but then he took a deep breath and turned his eyes forward.

  Today, he was finally going to see the city of Endanshi, and tomorrow, they would set out to the wilds. When he started his walk, it was with a twinkle in his eyes and a wild grin on his face.

  “Treasure awaits!”

  The journey took him about half a day, the first hour through farmers' fields, followed by several more through drier land, dotted with hardy brown shrubberies.

  Until finally he crested a hill and paused to stare at the gigantic pillar that spread its clear white light not just through most of this floor, but all the rest of Tenjou as well. That’s what Dario had been told, at least. Since Endanshi was located on a hill and the light of the pillar never shifted or changed, the lavish buildings of ornamented stone that stood in its center cast a constant shadow on the modest wooden houses that lay on the outskirts.

  He didn’t know much about Endanshi, except that it was not the largest city on this entire floor, just on this side of the pillar. There were two more, closer to the pillar itself, which boasted a higher population. But Endanshi was a famous hub, mainly known for its huge moving platforms, a feat of artefact engineering that transported people, goods and the occasional animals up and down from the Mon, the lighter-colored part of the crystal ceiling that could be passed through. Provided, of course, that you met the requirements. Which Dario decidedly did not, as a mere Talc. For him, the Mon was as impossible to pass through as the rest of the unmovable crystal ceiling.

  He rubbed his hands and grinned as he looked out at the sprawling city and the purple crest that signaled evening. They were only due to meet tomorrow at red crest, so he had plenty of time to do some shopping first.

  Ten days was his promise to his mother. Just a few quick trades, then in and out into the wilds to get that noble a Koto, and maybe a sneaky one for himself too, while he was at it. Then he’d run off back home and all would be well.

  Just a quick in and out. No more trouble. It’d be as easy as feeding a trog.