Fate Shift - Chapter 8

Back in his room D’Gedda sat cross-legged on his bed and contemplated how he was going to schedule his future cultivation. He decided to dedicate four hours a night to sleep and one hour each day for meals. That left him with nineteen hours to devote to cultivation each day barring unexpected events.

Regarding how he spent those nineteen hours, D’Gedda decided to prioritize opening four meridians each day. He could most likely open seven or eight a day realistically. Still, there was no way D’Gedda would do that. In his past life he’d never stopped regretting how few meridians he’d opened during the Meridian Opening Realm. To be exact he’d opened 66 meridians.

In Meridian Opening 40 meridians was the bare minimum needed to ascend to Soul Inception. Anyone foolish enough to stop there didn’t deserve to be called a cultivator as far as D’Gedda was concerned though. Each opened meridian increased how much Qi a cultivator’s body could hold, how efficiently a cultivator could cycle their Qi, and often led to overall greater strength. Not opening enough meridians could make reaching a high cultivation realm almost impossible.

While miraculous opportunities to open one’s meridians after the Meridian Opening Realm existed, they were incredibly rare. The reason for this was connected to why Meridian Opening was the third cultivation realm. Although D’Gedda didn’t know the reason, it was common knowledge even in his first life that the longer one waited to open their meridians the harder it became. When someone who’d waited too long tried to open their meridians, they’d find the act of opening them without damaging them to be proportionately difficult to how long they’d waited. Realistically, without unbelievable luck there was no way someone who’d reached the age of forty would be able to successfully open their meridians.

D’Gedda had spent decades of his previous life searching for such an opportunity but it was an act of utter hopelessness. Even knowing it was a pointless act he’d still searched; that was how great his desire for a second chance was.

Of course D’Gedda’s case had been rather unique. As a cultivator skilled in the usage of Possession spells D’Gedda should’ve been able to change to a body with more meridians, circumventing the issue althogether. Unfortunately that hadn’t been an option for him . . .

Now that he found himself in a new body D’Gedda refused to take any unnecessary risks with his cultivation. He planned to establish as near to perfect a foundation as he could. In the Meridian Opening Realm, a near perfect foundation would mean opening 113 meridians. Such a feat would’ve been unlikely without the Seven Powers Cultivation Art and the glimpse into the mirror demon. With it, D’Gedda didn’t plan to settle for near perfect. He was aiming for the best possible result!

In D’Gedda’s past life it was believed that the human body only contained 99 meridians in total. In the first volume of the Seven Powers Cultivation Art it clearly stated that the human body actually contained 113 meridians. That was shocking but not too shocking for D’Gedda. What truly was beyond his expectations was that the cultivators of this age had developed techniques for creating artificial meridians!

D’Gedda couldn’t imagine how difficult creating such techniques must’ve been. He could only guess that generations of effort had been expended for such an incredible concept to bear fruit. According to the Seven Powers Cultivation Art a total of seven artificial meridians could be opened within the body using the art. It didn’t clearly state if that was the limit for all modern Cultivation Arts or just the one D’Gedda was using. Perhaps even more meridians could be opened. D’Gedda didn’t allow himself to drift off imagining such things though. Once he hit the Soul Inception Realm he’d regain access to his soul, which would in turn mean he could cast Possession. If 120 meridians weren’t enough he’d still have a chance to gain more.

The actual act of opening meridians was tedious more than it was difficult. The first step for D’Gedda was to draw a strand of Qi from his Dantian. He then extended the Qi towards where he knew a closed meridian was. This would normally be like searching for a specific tunnel in an ant hill while trying to avoid destroying the whole hill. Without divine sense it was like doing all that without any sense but touch. Thankfully, D’Gedda simply had to follow the Seven Powers Cultivation Art’s instructions. How to open each meridian was described in exacting detail; each step was clearly explained using simple terms.

Once he’d found a closed meridian D’Gedda began the process of opening it. It was a slow and somewhat delicate operation. D’Gedda couldn’t use too much Qi or be very forceful with the Qi he used. He also didn’t dare to rectify any mistakes he made once they’d been made. He only had one chance with each meridian. That said, the level of focus required wasn’t too demanding and the technique for opening meridians was naturally simple enough for common novices to employ, let alone D’Gedda.

The greatest danger when opening meridians like this was complacency. For a regular novice a single slip of one’s concentration would probably be enough for them to damage or even destroy a meridian. This would be unlikely if they opened a few meridians at a time like D’Gedda was but would a common novice have that caution? D’Gedda doubted most would, in part due to how easy the process would seem. These novices didn’t have the experience D’Gedda had had, how could they understand what living with 66 meridians was like? After they successfully opened the first meridian they’d most likely be tempted to continue opening more meridians and if they failed to pace themselves a mistake would almost become inevitable.

The more D’Gedda thought about it the more D’Gedda suspected this was a test for novices the Seven Powers Sect had intentionally created. Novices with less than 113 meridians would no doubt have made at least one mistake. Based off of the number of meridians a novice had some of their character and talent could be inferred. Yes, D’Gedda was rather certain this was a cleverly-designed hidden exam. He planned on passing it with flying colors.

Eventually D’Gedda opened his body’s fourteenth meridian. He paused, collected himself, and then proceeded to open the fifteenth. After several hours he stopped; he’d finished by opening his seventeenth meridian.

With four extra meridians opened D’Gedda had more room to store Qi in his body. So he of course began cultivating. Naturally D’Gedda started his cultivation by inhaling deeply.

Out of the many things a Qi Cultivator needed, Breath was one of the most important. Breath referred to an individual’s ability to collect and absorb Qi from their surroundings. In the case of the most common type of Breath, Mortal Breath, that meant absorbing Qi contained in the air each time one inhaled.

D’Gedda’s body had Mortal Breath so obviously this was how he absorbed Qi. After inhaling a surge of impure Qi was forced down into his Dantian through his meridians. The air in the sect contained many types of Qi but in comparison to other areas it was rather pure. When D’Gedda employed the Seven Powers Art he was able to transform a sizeable portion of the impure Qi into Seven Powers Qi. Once he’d refined all the Qi he could he exhaled, releasing a dark cloud from his mouth.

Like this D’Gedda continued increasing the amount of Seven Powers Qi in his body. While he cultivated D’Gedda focused most of his attention on other things. Cultivating with Mortal Breath was a safe but time-consuming affair; it was boring really.

‘Based off of how many meridians I’m opening each day I should hit the Soul Inception Realm in 24 days’ D’Gedda thought. ‘Aside from maintaining that pace, what do I want to accomplish in this time period? I don’t need to earn money and I have no reason to form connections with other people. I do want to practice using the novice spells of course but is there anything else I should work on? I suppose doing more information gathering is important but that can be postponed till I’m an apprentice. Perhaps I should conduct further tests with the System of Fate? Yes, that seems like a good idea.’

D’Gedda had already finished experimenting with Appraisal several days ago. Aside from learning very simple information with it like a person’s name, it was mainly used to record knowledge one already had. For instance, when using Appraisal on a wooden chair it would become possible to record the chair’s material as wood. From then on, any wooden chair that was appraised would list that the chair was made of wood. Appraising a stone object after this wouldn’t list the object as being made of stone though. In essence the Appraisal feature was too clunky to be worth bothering with.

What D’Gedda actually wanted to experiment with now was if he could unlock more features connected to the System of Fate. Since he didn’t have any clues aside from how he’d activated Appraisal that meant that D’Gedda was in the dark. So he tried all sorts of things. None of those things actually unlocked a new feature for the System of Fate but at least D’Gedda was able to keep himself mildly entertained while waiting to finish his cultivation for the day.

When he’d finally finished refining Seven Powers Qi, D’Gedda left his personal quarters. It didn’t make sense to practice casting spells in such a confined area. Besides, the Seven Powers Sect had several training centers for novices to use.

The one D’Gedda went to was in an underground building. From the steps leading down into the building D’Gedda found himself in a kind of lobby. Two slightly curved hallways veered off to the left and right sides of the room; a counter took up the room’s central space. A bored girl sat behind the counter staring aimlessly at nothing in particular.

D’Gedda didn’t have to ask the girl anything as she began giving him an explanation the moment he approached. “Take any room in the right hall, they’re all free. Once you step inside the door will close automatically and a barrier will activate. Once the barrier is up you can cast spells as long as you want.”

D’Gedda nodded in acknowledgement, although he doubted the young woman cared, and did as she had suggested. Once inside a room he saw the barrier the girl had described. It was almost invisible but D’Gedda found he couldn’t push any Qi through it.

Satisfied the barrier would do its job, D’Gedda began practicing. He’d picked up a large number of novice spells and he wanted to cast each one at least once. He doubted he’d be able to cast them all in a single session, he didn’t have enough Qi for that, but he had 24 days to work with. Eventually he’d be able to try them all out.

D’Gedda started with the earth spells. Mobilizing his Qi, D’Gedda sent some into each of his hands’ meridians. Then he activated the spell, consuming his Qi. Specks of dirt began to fly towards D’Gedda’s hands, eventually coating them in a layer of earth. In effect D’Gedda found it was as if he’d donned a pair of gloves, albeit gloves made from soil. The ‘gloves’ only lasted 30 seconds before collapsing into a dirt pile at D’Gedda’s feet. This was the Earth Armor spell, a very basic defensive spell.

Earth Armor was a great example of a typical novice spell. It didn’t require much Qi and it was simple. On the other hand it wasn’t particularly effective either. Earth Armor didn’t offer exceptional protection and had a short duration, to mention just a couple weaknesses. It was hardly impressive.

D’Gedda cast Earth Armor again but this time he used his Seven Powers Qi differently. Previously he’d used just the power of earth but this time he used earth and cold. The result was a pair of chilly dirt ‘gloves.’ Moving his hands was much harder this time but D’Gedda could also tell that the ‘gloves’ were also harder.

If he were to name this spell D’Gedda would call it Cold Earth Armor. Cold Earth Armor sported greater defense at the cost of reduced mobility but overall was more effective. At the same time it required less Qi to cast than the regular Earth Armor spell.

As for why Cold Earth Armor took less Qi, D’Gedda wasn’t certain. Intrigued he began testing variants of the single-power spells he’d picked up. Before long D’Gedda realized what was going on. It turned out that the more powers D’Gedda used in a single spell, the less Seven Powers Qi the spell needed.

‘Perhaps this is the true strength of Seven Powers Qi’ D’Gedda thought. ‘Rather than using each power individually, the correct method is to combine several powers together.’

D’Gedda was too interested in this line of reasoning to follow his earlier plan of action. He spent the rest of his spell practice mixing various powers together. Mixing two or three powers together was often not too difficult. Mixing four or more powers was far harder though.

By the end of his training session D’Gedda had already created a new plan. He wanted to create variants of the novice-level spells he already had that used several powers together. He’d focus on having most of these spells contain three to five powers. Aside from those spells D’Gedda also wanted to create at least one spell with all seven powers. As he headed back to his personal quarters D’Gedda found himself looking forward to the next day.

I feel like the chapters I’ve been releasing have been too short but I’m not certain how much longer I want my chapters to be. For now I’ll try having most of my chapters be 2k+ and I’ll see whether or not I like that chapter size.