Chapter 9: First Lesson on Cultivating

After a short time of cleaning up the lab, with James choosing to avoid contact with anything remotely suspicious looking, his body finally began to calm down and he and Skay returned to the courtyard.

In the paved courtyard was a handful of odd gadgets like strange looking cameras and metal antennae on tripods, which seemed very poorly wired together with a mish-mash of bizarre electronics sticking out of them and connecting to a single advanced looking laptop on a wooden desk running some undecipherable program.

An ancient looking corpse with gaunt wrinkled grey skin and long snow white hair sat hunched over on a seat in the courtyard. If this corpse had even a single breath of air left to take no one would ever be able to tell as its dead glassy eyes just stared straight ahead peering into the void between life and death.

“Harvy stop fucking sitting around you useless piece of crap I need you to...” The moment they arrived Skay left no time for the corpse to enjoy this moment of peace in death and it jolted as if shocked by an electric current the moment Skay began lashing at his soul and giving out instructions.

“Hmmm. I’d have thought he’d actually be dead by now. Old Madman how long do you think it’ll take before his heart actually stops beating?” James asked as he observed their science experiment rigidly trying to stand up like some rusted piece of machinery fighting frozen joints.

Skay looked over his Black-Pad then walked up and took Harvy’s pulse. After a moment a strange look passed through his eye’s and he began poking and prodding his slowly moving cadaver.

“Muwahaha. His heart seems to have slowed it’s beating to within an inch of death long ago my boy! In fact whatever’s still moving this lifeless corpse is beyond even my ability to comprehend ... momentarily.”

With that, Skay started searching through a bag on the floor filled with an assortment of random equipment rescued from the debris of the base, until he pulled out what looked like an adrenaline syringe. He then unceremoniously and with no warning pulled the cap off and stabbed in into the chest of the very dead looking carcass.

In just a few moments the corpse’s body reacted and for the first time since yesterday James noticed it blink and then rubbing its eyes it started mumbling about a nightmare until it looked down and saw the massive syringe being pulled out of its chest by Old Skay. The tiredness in his dazed eyes quickly reverted to fear and as the adrenaline fired up his body’s life signs again the flickering candle flame representing his soul dimmed to the size of a lit match.

James made no effort to try and discover just what must be going on inside the head of poor young Harvy and instead made his way towards Jessy’s room. As he passed by he noticed a servant moving towards their guest rooms from the mansion pushing a cart holding a series of bread’s, roasted meats, fruits and nuts and a whole variety of other foods.

Unable to stop himself he diverted towards the servant and politely took control of the food cart then knocking on Jessy’s door in passing yelled. “Jessy you bitch! Breakfast in the courtyard.”

Thus without further ado a constantly enraged Jessy joined the ever stoic James and the endlessly cursing Mad Dr. Skay in the courtyard and for the first time the trio sat together and began to discuss their plans.

As they ate James chose to distract Jessy from her rage by informing her of some of the things he’d learnt of this world so far followed by the upcoming decision she’d have to make in regards to if she wanted to start training with the clan.

Jessy and James politely chose to ignore last night’s brief tryst because they both knew inside even before it’d begun that such a thing was entirely a stress relieving event and in no way matched their emotions regarding each other.

For James, who was in the past rather randy already, that incredibly brief and forceful love making event relieved more built up tension and stress than an entire day of drinking fine liquor, bathing in a spa and enjoying fine foods.

In much the same manner, Jessy felt no great emotional changes towards James after the incident and readily recognised it as her seeking an outlet for all her pent up emotions and stress.

They both refused to admit to themselves or each other that thanks to James’ new found spirit energy it was the most explosive orgasm they’d ever had, but with their present opinions of each other they would probably take that secret to their grave.

It wasn’t too long after they’d finished eating that Hao, whom James had recently learnt was actually the present Family Head, who essentially controlled the Clan, arrived at the courtyard carrying a series of small books illustrating a whole manner of oddities.

Before they began, Jessy and Hao began a short debate regarding her conditions for swearing an oath until at last they settled on a deal in which she would be assigned under the direct supervision of Dr. Skay and answer only to him as a lab assistant. James cringed slightly when the Old Freak brought up this possibility and he then laughed coldly inside when Jessy jumped at the chance to avoid full blown servitude to the clan in exchange for assisting the good Dr. Franken ... Dr. Skay for as long as his oath remained in effect.

Once they began scanning through the books the trio noticed a few contained odd breathing patterns that when maintained normally, allowed your mind to wield significantly greater control over your spirit power. These where referred to as breathing techniques and are one of the most important things any early cultivators must learn about and practice.

The reason being that once you learn to calmly enter a state of meditation and ‘enter your spirit realm’ as it was described by Hao then the quality of your breathing technique combined with your innate martial and elemental talent would affect the rate at which your body began to gather spirit energy from its surroundings.

When he was a explaining this he gave a strange look at James causing him to shiver and continued to explain.

“Also in this world there are a great number of naturally occurring plants and materials that spend hundreds to thousands of years and sometimes even longer spans of time innately absorbing the Spirit Energy of their surroundings. Cultivators like us can refine their innately absorbed spirit energy and rapidly increase our cultivation progress. The battle for cultivation resources is incredibly fierce.

“In the future you may come a across a strange number of oddities, born from an inanimate object or some plant and animal life absorbing spirit energy and developing spirit properties. Many fall into collective categories such as Spirit Beasts, Spirit Herbs, Spirit Plants, Spirit Minerals, Spirit Stones and some other various terms I’m sure you’ll eventually hear about later.

“For example the Golden Grain Fly’s that you swallowed in route to the city are a difficult to catch Spirit Animal that generally have absorbed spirit energy for tens to hundreds of years. Having eaten them is also considered a great fortune for young cultivators even in the True Spirit Realm but in your case would have been a death sentence had we not had the Extreme Yin Pool on our mansion grounds.”

At this point James face blanched a little and then his eyebrow rose slightly. “You called it a ‘Spirit Animal’ is that somehow different from a ‘Spirit Beast’?”

Hao nodded his head a few times and said some “Good Good’s”. He quietly considered how rare it was to be teaching a quick disciple for once.

Although being the Head of the Clan and rarely taking time to personally teach disciples he made an exception this time solely because of little ‘Jay’ as he’d intimately started calling him in his head. If James were aware of this he’d immediately throw everything aside, pack a bag with some of his equipment launched through the Gateway and start hiking in the direction of the next closest city, spirit beasts and bandits be damned!

Hao then continued on in his lecture. Narrowly avoiding letting his inner nickname for James spill out with a shielding cough. “You’re right little Jayhem! junior, Spirit Animals are creatures that have started gathering Spirit Energy but have yet to develop any true consciousness. They’re just wild animals with no true thoughts of their own and only instinct. Depending on the animal they may eventually break through and develop a soul but the level of cultivation needed for such a thing varies drastically based on the life form. The Golden Grain Fly for example will probably never develop consciousness even if it flies around absorbing spirit energy for a million years and even after its cultivation has risen significantly. Those little blue Forest Hoppers on the other hand are born with a soul and considered Spirit Beasts from birth. As such the more energy they gather the stronger their soul becomes until they can form a True Spirit. Although considering how weak their species soul is and their total lack of affinity to any element, it’s rare to see them evolve their cultivation.”

Finally he returned to explaining some of the books. Including the breathing techniques and a number of books on different visualisation techniques for meditation to ‘view your spirit realm’, there where a number of ‘martial’ techniques. Martial in the sense that they describe methods of applying spirit energy within the body to achieve amazing feats of power and help a cultivator affect the natural laws in their surroundings. Similar to if you could move stuff with your mind, pointing your finger at it when you move it would be a useful ‘crutch’ that allows your mind to achieve the same effect for half the effort.

There were a great number of basic techniques for applying spirit energy within the body from kicks and punches to odd methods of stepping that increased your running speed or agility in battle. Some of which James had noticed when arriving. There was also one more interesting martial book that described the spirit aura which was that strange pressure he felt weighing down on him the first time they met Hao and his disciples.

According to the literature and Skay’s explanations after examining it, your aura is essentially the manifestation of your spirit energy outside your own body, without the use of a martial technique. Its control and power is limited only by the sheer force of your will-power and the amount of spirit energy you have at your disposal. It’s most interesting use in James’ opinion wasn’t the ability to pressure others or even to manifest your element outside of your body, but it’s use to shield you from damage if worn like an armour over the skin. If your aura can cover fifty square meters when you release it and can pressure a commoner to the ground imagine how much damage reduction it would have if compressed to the thinness of a piece of cloth and covering your body.

The moment James had this thought he swore to himself he’d find a way to achieve this goal. Although the book mentioned it to be almost completely impossible James refused to let some book tell him how to live his life. He’d master this life saving technique no matter what!

While James was excitedly envisioning himself wearing invincible body armour Skay was going absolutely ballistic over the meditation techniques. He was constantly writing notes in his Black-Pad muttering about ‘brain chemistry alterations’ and ‘self-hypnosis mind altering’ along with various other phrases James chose to try and ignore.

Jessy on the other hand was madly in love with the martial technique books as she flushed with excitement imagining herself beating James into a sloppy paste with the Pressure of the Sea punching technique or the Thousand Crushing Waves kicking technique, it almost looked like she was getting a sexual thrill out of the idea.

Seeing their fanatical reactions Hao then smiled and pulled out three elongated pink fruits that looked like bananas except with the soft pink skin of a peach. Throwing one to each Jessy and Skay he then slowly approached James with a very strange look in his eyes and after licking his lips he began explaining. “Before you each start choosing techniques you’ll need to eat this Spirit Fruit. It’s a quite common fruit with a very gentle spirit energy used to give enough spirit energy to a mortal for them to test their elemental affinities. Now Junior James just slide your mouth over it and take a bite.” Hao started approaching James with the phallic shaped fruit at waist height and thrusting it forwards along with the motion of his hips.

James visibly paled and couldn’t back away fast enough. His dead eyes stared at Hao and he coldly replied. “I won’t need it. I’ve already got spirit power so should be fine to test my affinity without it.”

Hao was visibly upset at missing this opportunity to live out one of his twisted inner fantasies but said nothing as he dejectedly slid the fruit back into his robe. With a cough he brushed aside this rejection as he then pulled out three equally cut lengths of pale withered tree branches and handed them to the trio.

“Cough! Well then, this is a branch from a spirit tree called the Tree of Elements. What you have to do is try and envision yourself pouring some spirit power into the branch.”

Skay started poking, twisting and bending the branch in all sorts of ways as he started mumbling aloud. “Interesting. So we just envision our spirit power. I suspect the manner in which a person envisions a foreign power greatly affects the nature of their affinity. I’ll have to run some tests...” finally he looked at James and grinned. “Boy, you’ve already proved that you have the lightning element so if my guess isn’t wrong then you most likely envision spirit power as some sort of bioelectrical energy produced by your body which acts exactly like normal electron flow electricity correct?”

James eyed this Mad Scientist suspiciously but still nodded an affirmation.

Skay’s grin towards James grew somewhat madder. “Boy, this time, try and envision everything you know about some other law. Say gases for example and envision your spirit power acting as a gas.”