Chapter 25: Limits

Ki Jung finds the tea house without trouble. She enjoys herself more than she expected she would. Ki Jung meets several people around her own age range, learns to play Majong, enjoys some tea, and engages in some interesting discussions. The evening at the tea house is the first of many.

The weekly trips to the tea house raised her spirits. It feels good to interact with others her own age. She even allows herself to be led to a semi-secluded area where she engaged in some good old fashioned kissing and groping. Thankfully, the young man does not ignore her when she tells him, “Stop.”

The next several months pass by without incident. Ki Jung has two classes, each with ten students for Aikido. Min Joon has tested moved up another rank to Third Kyu. Others tested into the fourth rank he just left. Peng Chenming is working hard and trying to catch up. The biggest barrier is the time requirements, though Master Lee has stated that if a student can pass the test on three different days, in a two week period, she would advance them.

Peng Chenming is an adept student. He pays attention and learns quickly. By the time Min Joon has earned his Third Kyu, Peng is finishing the third test for early advancement to the Forth Kyu. He is now caught up to the majority of the students who started before him. This includes Phong Ahn.

Occasionally Ki Jung looks at the work board to see if there is a need for someone to take care of a menace outside the city walls. Twice she arrives there to find something worth her time and pulls them from the notice board and heads out on her days off.

In one instance, the target was a pack of meter tall lizards that resemble Komodo Dragons that walk on their rear legs and have extra neck vertebrae to allow them to see the ground and area around them. They are a mottled mix of colors that blend in well with the landscape around. The battle had been hard-won. It is well worth it, though. The reward is a pill to be used in body cultivation. Such pills are worth many tens of gold for the novice-level versions. This was a Journeyman level pill, which means that it is worth over 100 gold. Ki Jung later learns that the corpses she gathered and turned in were worth far more than the pill. Still, from her perspective, it was a good deal. Everyone got something they wanted.

Another bit of information that she comes across was that it is nearly impossible to open more than the third Qi-lock of any ability in the First Realm. In what can only be considered legend, anyone capable of opening a fourth Qi-lock would be regarded as Godly in the First Realm. This means that she will be able to achieve Body like Iron, but achieving Body like Titanium will be next to impossible. She will be able to open one more Qi-lock for Pakchulbong but any more advancement in her Qi-Gong Arts is unlikely. What surprises her the most is that she is how far ahead of anyone who has never ascended from the First Realm in regards to her martial arts skills.

A journeyman is the pinnacle of skill in the First Realm. There is only so far you can advance with the limited resources available in the First Realm. With this new understanding, she makes it her goal to raise Min Joon to the level of Journeyman 3 in Aikido and turn the teaching over to him. This will make him the second most powerful person in this city, and possibly in the whole of the First Realm. This also explains why she cannot seem to find anyone who can help her improve her Sword skills Most who have the skills to help her improve are either in the middle or outer rings, or have ascended. The same goes her spear skills. Staying here in the First Realm will not do her any good. Not if she wants to improve and achieve a higher state of being.

With all this new information, Ki Jung starts to make plans for ascending. Those plans include pushing her limits to reach Body like Iron and unlock the third Qi-lock Pakchulbong. To do this, she will finish up her studies in alchemy and herbology, as she has reached Apprentice Level 2. On the magic studies side of things, she has managed to reach Journeyman Level 1. Of course, it cost her a lot of gold to improve to achieve those levels. Each time she was able to use a higher-level spell healing spell, she bought it as soon as she could afford it.

Often, she earned the gold through the city’s work/quest board. Or, Ki Jung hunted resources in exchange for specific spells. At this point, she had moved up from minor healing to minor area healing and Directed Heal. Minor Area Healing allows her to heal multiple targets in a circle five meters in diameter. Directed Heal enables her to pinpoint healing to a specific wound, illness, or poison, rather than flood the body with healing energy, which is wasteful.