Transcending Dreams

B2 - Chapter 25: Specks of Light

William combed through his memories, studying the times when the change occurred in his meridians.

Each speck of light was slightly larger than the previous one, leading him to make a guess he felt would be proven correct. What he gathered already pointed in that direction.

While the Lung Meridian seemed to skip the stage where the Qi was a fog in varying stages of denseness, he wrote that off as a consequence of changing his cultivation technique to Horizon’s Seeker. Even if it wasn’t, it seemed like an anomaly compared to the following three meridians.

The Heart, Stomach, and Liver Meridians all acted in a similar manner. They all had a predictable path. A thin wisp of Qi spread throughout the meridian before it slowly changed to a thick fog, then came the speck once it reached a certain point.

More importantly, he could pinpoint the range his Spirit attribute was at when the meridians rejected additional Qi.

The Lung Meridian did this when his Spirit was in the high twenties. The Heart Meridian around sixty.

As for the most recent one, the Stomach Meridian, couldn’t be much more than a hundred and ten Spirit. The rejection occurred with barely any of the new Qi absorbed.

William thought about it carefully. The Spirit needed for each following rejection increased drastically, or at least it seemed that way with what he had just recalled.

There was far too little data to draw any patterns from, but if it continued, he guessed that the Liver Meridian would reject any additional Qi when his Spirit was around two hundred.

The only way to test this out was to assign his unused points.

Points: 303

William had plenty to spare, but he would need to use a quarter of it just to see if he was correct.

… This was not the move.

He had to keep repeating that to himself since it seemed there were no other benefits to be had, even if he was proven correct.

But on the other hand, this was the Spirit attribute. How much could it set him back if it turned out to be a suboptimal idea?

In the worst case, he would be able to recover the seventy points that would be spent in seven levels. A benefit of the Foundation Establishment Realm is that each level-up gave him ten stat points instead of the five he had become used to.

William needed to find out.

[+40 Spirit]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 650 —> 850]

He closed his eyes, cautiously guiding the newly added Qi into the Liver Meridian. Everything was absorbed without issue. As expected, the thinly spread wisp of Qi in the meridian thickened into a transparent fog.

It wasn’t enough.

He added more, far less than before, to ensure he wouldn’t miss the crossing point.

[+20 Spirit]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 850 —> 950]

The same thing happened. The Qi inside the meridian became more dense but still showed no sign of forming the speck of light.

Again.

[+10 Spirit]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 950 —> 1000]

There was still no rejection. His Spirit had already reached two hundred. He had to think if his assumption was way off.

William decided to try one more time before letting it go.

[+10 Spirit]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 1000 —> 1050]

Even though the past several tries had been uneventful, his guard was still up. The Liver Meridian absorbed all of the Qi just as easily as before, making him think for the briefest of moments that he would need to give up.

The appearance of a dim light in the center of the fog of Qi was sudden, and before he could process it, all of the Qi in the meridian started to collapse rapidly toward the center.

Soon, the only thing left was the speck of light in the center of a mostly empty Liver Meridian.

It seemed that William had found his exact number. To test it, he added one point to Spirit.

[+1 Spirit]

[Modified | Spiritual Energy]

[Spiritual Energy Capacity | 1050 —> 1055]

The speck of light in the Liver Meridian pulsed in warning as he directed the minuscule amount of Qi to pass by. He proceeded to lead it to the Kidney Meridian, the last one which had been untouched till now.

William opened his eyes and exhaled slowly before a chuckle escaped him. That gave him the Spirit he needed to add to repeat the process in the Kidney Meridian.

Working backward, he calculated the Spirit required to ‘fill’ the Lung Meridian. It was twenty-five.

The Heart Meridian needed ten more than that, totaling thirty-five.

Twenty more for the Stomach Meridian, totaling fifty-five.

This continued with each subsequent meridian. A geometric progression that quickly made the Spirit required reach to unreasonable numbers. He supposed he should be happy there were only five major meridians to worry about.

Still, it was massive.

Three hundred and eighty-five. That was what his Spirit attribute needed to be to fill the Kidney Meridian.

He could do it right now, but that would require depleting nearly eighty percent of his unused points. Unthinkable, but that was alright. Time was on his side.

If he really was in such a rush, it might be possible to hunt those subhumans who thought they could walk the demonic path without issue. Taking out a group of that trash would be more than enough.

William blinked, realizing his heart was beating faster than it should. Simply thinking of those walking meat sacks of experience points made him furious.

He shook his head to rid his mind of them. As he mentioned to Elder Yu, it would be doing himself a disservice to spare a thought to the likes of them… when they weren’t in range for an easy kill, of course.

“Cultivation is a waste,” William said out loud to get himself back on track. “I need to practice my martial skills.”

“Would you like to exit cultivation mode?”

That was a convenient side effect of talking to himself.

“Yes.”

The Qi Refining room transformed. His surroundings were suddenly depleted of the thick Qi, the soft light changing into something much brighter and lit up the dull, grey room.

It allowed William to see the arrays carved into the walls before they started to glow a brilliant blue.

[External force is affecting the user’s mind]

That was a familiar alert.

The dull room disappeared from his vision and was replaced with endless grassland. Similar to the Qi Refining room in Xuanjing City.

“State the desired level of your opponents.”

William kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t say he wasn’t surprised by a disembodied voice speaking to him, but it wasn’t the oddest thing he had seen so far in this world.

As for what the voice told him, that would greatly depend on which skill he would be practicing. He wanted to focus on [Force Multiplier], but that seemed counterproductive since he already had that hundred percent next to it… not that he knew what it stood for.

He pulled up that submenu to confirm it for the first time in a while.

Martial Skills (4):

1. Force Multiplier (100%)

2. Thunderous Palm (90%)

3. Thunderous Kick (90%)

4. Earth-Shaking Stomp (70%)

William stared blankly, wondering when the compatibility his weaker skills had increased in percentage. The last time he had seen them, they were below fifty percent.

It certainly wasn’t from practice unless it counted the killing spree he went on with the mobs in the Shard.

At the very least, it made his decision easy. He wanted to see if there were any changes to his basic martial skills.

But there was something William wanted to try before it slipped his mind again.

“What does the percentage next to the martial skills mean?” He asked out loud.

“Query not applicable. State the desired level of your opponents.”

Whatever controlled the room answered him instead of the system. As was expected. There was a reason he often forgot to ask the system something.

It was a waste of effort.

“Give me an opponent in Early Stage Foundation Establishment Realm.”

“Accepted.”

A humanoid opponent appeared around a hundred feet away. He could have chosen something higher for a better match, but that was for later.

William wanted an easy fight to test out his weaker martial skills.