Climbing the Ranks - Chapter 33 preview (Patreon)

Walking out of the hall, Arthur made his way straight to the hostel. He paid for an additional ten day, wincing at the lost of a full Credit before he went up to his room. Better to pay for extra time and get a credit on file than to find himself under and get thrown out while he was in the midst of something important. And he did have something important to do. Important and stupid.

Maybe it was foolish to try, but he had been thinking about the advantages of all these heroes and special sect members and the rich had, and he had, in his hands, one of those advantages. So he was going to use it. Even if it might kill or damage him.

Hurrying into his room, Arthur dumped out the technique scrolls he had purchased, set his new fighting spear beside him and made sure the door was locked and a chair placed in front of it Not that the Tower guards would allow anything to happen to him, but they were not magical enough to appear immediately. Better to be safe than sorry.

Checking that the bars on the window were engaged, Arthur sat down on his bed and picked out the pill. He turned it over and over again in his hand and then jumped up, stripping to his underclothes and putting a towel beneath the spot he would cultivate.

Then he sat back down, forcing his right knee from jittering. He could not help but think this was foolish, but…

“Ugh… tastes like bad Chinese medicine…” Arthur said, feeling the bitter, muddy flavour on his tongue. “Wait. Is there good Chinese medicine?” He scratched the back of his head, trying to think of any of the concoctions he had been forced to drink by his master, to realise that there really wasn’t. All of them had been horrible.

Then, the heat in his stomach began to grow. He had no more time to think about such things, so he focused on breathing and cultivating, pulling energy into his body and churning it around. Not that he had ever used a pill before, but everything he had indicated the process was similar. Just that the energy he would be pulling would start from his center.

Heat grew in his stomach as the pill broke down and interacted with his body. Not the heat of a fire, but a cold heat, that sent wracking shivers through him. Like a brain freeze, except starting from his stomach. At first it was low, no colder than iced kacang swallowed too fast, freezing his stomach as he sat there. Then, it began to pick up, the cold-heat growing with each pulse of energy, as though a lump of frozen energy was being chilled by liquid nitrogen.

Every second, it grew colder. Except even as the chill in his stomach grew painful, tendrils of energy would reach out through the entirety of his body, sending lightning through his nerves and tendons, his veins and arteries. Blood chilld and sung, and Arthur began to sweat as his body tensed and released.

The cold grew too much, the block of ice in his stomach sending liquid nitrogen through his body. His teeth clenched and clenched and he wished he had grabbed a strip of leather or maybe his mouthguard, just so that he would not break his teeth.

Then, he had no more time for even those absent thoughts as the pain swept over him. Nerves on fire as cold lightning danced through it, Arthur sweated and struggled, churning his cultivation process as fast as possible, drawing the energy into his stomach, into his dantian where the refined energy could be stored.

So much energy, coming into him at once. More than that though, he could feel it changing his body, ripping apart muscles and tendons, strengthening ligaments and joints as he sat there, the pill freezing and shattering the impurities as his new Tower body struggled to fix it.

Fuel and catalyst, all in one. Head thrown back, muscles thrown taut and tight, Arthur screamed into the sky, struggling to stay conscious and together. More than anything, he knew, instinctively; that if he were to fall unconscious he would damage himself, maybe die.

So he stayed conscious, a bobbing sliver of himself in a sea of pain, bailing the energy back into his center where it rushed out just as fast to heal him.

Innumerable time passed, as the ocean of pain shrunk with every bucket of energy he pulled away. In time, the pill no longer added to it, and the energy – the cold, ponderous and freezing energy – faded, leaving him to float in an ocean of calm.

Safe, at last, he relaxed.

And collapsed.

***

Hours later he woke up, mouth dry and his jaw aching. He stumbled over to the sink in the room, draining a cup of water and wincing at the pain that shot through his mouth as dried blood cracked and pulled apart and the cold water struck raw nerves. After a bit, he spat out the shards of a broken tooth, making a face. He stumbled back to his backpack, searching through his camping gear before finding what he needed and returned to the sink with pliers in hand.

For a long second, Arthur hesitated before he stuck it in. A lot of grunting, muffled swearing and pain later, he extracted the cracked tooth from his mouth, spitting out a torrent of blood that slowly trickled off as his expanded cultivation body healed the minor wound. It didn’t, unfortunately, regrow his tooth though, making him tongue the still sore section.

“Bodoh!” Cursing himself, Arthur stumbled to his seat and winced at the smell he caught of himself. He changed direction, throwing the window open before he got out a camp towel, making his way back to the sink to wipe himself down.

“At least no black gunk. I wonder if that was a lie or I just didn’t manage to breakthrough enough?” He could not help but wonder aloud. Of course, there was no answer; but at least the rank smell of sweat and fear was easy enough to get rid of. He could take a shower, but that would require him leaving the room and he was not ready for that yet.

Eventually he sat on his bed, closing his eyes for a long moment before he braved what he had been avoiding for long minutes.

“Status.”

Cultivation Speed: 1

Energy Pool: 7/15 (Yin Aspected)

Refinement Speed: 0.015

Refined Energy: 1.13 (2)

Attributes and Traits

Mind:  3

Body: 6 (Enhanced Eyesight, Yin Body)

Spirit: 4

Techniques

Focused Strike

Accelerated Healing – Refined Energy (Grade I)

“No, no, no, no… that’s not good!” Arthur said out loud, staring at the new change. He worked his jaw and fingers, his mind as he tried to prod the damn software to give him more details about what it meant that he was Yin Aspected.

It, of course, provided nothing. Instead, he groaned and let himself flop down onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Memory came back, of the body. Had it been a little smaller, a little thinner and smaller boned than what he had expected? Maybe shorter? Was its hips larger? Was it wearing female clothing???

He couldn’t recall. It was not something he had noted and everyone wore pants and shirts, robes… not skirts or dresses, and he hadn’t seen any female underclothing. But that didn’t mean anything. Maybe it really had been a man, who was yin aspected.

He didn’t know.

All Arthur knew was now, he was too. And what that meant, he was uncertain.