After what he considered to be a glorious feast, Arthur sat back on the bed with his back against the wall. Returning to his original world and its’ food had been a heavily emotional experience, and he needed a minute to pull himself together. He knew that there was any number of things he should be doing, such as trying to figure out where he was, but by the heavens he was going to take a second. Opening his eyes again, Arthur was shocked to see that the sun was going down, meaning that either something had drastically changed with the earth’s orbit around the sun, or he’d fallen asleep. Considering the world wasn’t a frozen or charred wasteland, he put his money on the latter.
Rising from his position leaning against the wall with a groan, Arthur was surprised to find that he was sore. “Of course i’m sore, i’m not a cultivator anymore”, he said while trying to stretch the soreness out, only to freeze at his own words. He wasn’t a cultivator anymore, he was just a mortal again. A not insignificant part of him roared in indignation. He was no mortal, he was the Fist King, he who breaks mountains. Entire sects had rallied against him only to be left bloody and defeated in the dirt, the lucky ones surviving as broken shadows of what they once were.
Another, quieter part of Arthur rejoiced. He was mortal again, no longer harangued by those who sought to make a name for themselves by killing him or those seeking vengeance for the deaths of the former, no longer cursed to be feared and hunted like a wild beast by those who believed themselves to be righteous even as they squabbled pettily amongst themselves while the weak got crushed between and beneath them.
Arthur bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to bleed in order to get control over himself. “Well that was unexpected,” he said after spitting blood out of his mouth. Unexpected might’ve been the wrong word though. Back in the other world, he’d fought bloody and dirty to reach the heights of power and reputation he’d thought necessary at the time, only to find with time that same power also made him a target, becoming a cycle of death and violence until he’d finally hit the point where people decided it was smarter to leave him the hell alone. Now that Arthur had been essentially set back to square one, it wasn’t unsurprising that he’d feel a bit chafed.
“Okay, I need to get a grip,” Arthur said as he smacked his cheeks to get himself back into the here and now. “That was another life in another place. I’m back now, and i’m going to make the most of it.” He slowly walked over to the window and threw it open as he said, “do you hear that world, i’m back and i’m gonna make you my bi-”. The words died in his throat as he saw a city he didn’t recognize in ruin. Derelict cars clogged the streets, completely silent as the wind blowing between the buildings rustled the branches of overgrown trees. Arthur saw neither people or movement from the window, only the oppressive stillness of a place long abandoned and left to be reclaimed by nature. He honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if he saw a fricken tumbleweed blow through the streets.
“You *THUNK* have *THUNK* to *THUNK* be *THUNK* kidding *THUNK* me *THUNK**THUNK**THUNK*,” Arthur said as he banged his head against the window in exasperation. So much for the small hope he’d had of just returning to his normal life, albeit likely buried under medical debt, that he’d had. No, something screwy had to go down bad enough that his comatose body got left behind as everyone else got the hell out of dodge. Arthur turned his eyes to the heavens. “You really like screwing with me so much you’re doing it here too, huh? Well don’t blame me for screwing back.” Turning from the window, he hobbled back out the door of his hospital room looking for supplies.
As he searched for what he needed, Arthur pondered exactly how he wanted to advance. He wasn’t quite sure about what Qi affinities he would have in this body, but in all the time he’d lived in the last world, he’d made a hobby out treasure hunting and travel, giving him the opportunity to study numerous cultivation techniques, looking for insight in how to improve his own and fix some of the many screwups he’d made. The problem was now that he was completely starting over, Arthur had his pick of the orchard, and that choice had consequences. Whichever technique Arthur chose, he’d essentially be stuck with. Especially since there almost certainly wouldn’t be any ancient tombs or sects he could plunder for more knowledge to tweak his own art. It was liking having a grand feast in front of him, and being forced to choose one dish to live off of for the rest of his life.
After raiding a few medical carts and a janitor closet that had thankfully been left unlocked, Arthur had all of the supplies he could reasonably gather for his stupid, stupid plan. After taking a break to drink a bottle of water and eat some trail mix, he stripped off the hospital gown and sat in the lotus position on the table of the conference room he found on the side of the building facing the setting sun, chosen specifically because he needed all the light he could get to see properly.
Centering himself, Arthur spread his awareness throughout his body, taking stock of all the work he’d need to do. It wasn’t as bad as he feared, but it still wasn’t great. His Qi channels weren’t completely clogged, but his meridians would definitely need some work to make useable. With a sigh, Arthur began to gather his life Qi into his core and sent it down on the paths to the first meridian. When he reached it, he raised one of the syringes he’d looted and jabbed it into the meridian, slowly pulling the plunger to draw out the impurities loosened up by his Qi until it popped free entirely. Repeating this process over and over until he felt like an oversized human shaped novelty pincushion
Overall, the entire process was both incredibly disgusting and exhausting, and if Arthur had literally any other options, he would’ve pursued them instead. But he didn’t. He had no idea what had happened to his world while he was comatose, but it had to be catastrophic if at least an entire city had been abandoned, leaving him with essentially no recourse. Which really sucked, because he’d spent about a decade of his life span manipulating his own life Qi to do this, but eggs had to be cracked and all that. The upside of this stupid plan was that his body was now as well suited for cultivation as it was going to get without going through body restructuring, already giving him one hell of a head start compared to when he first started cultivating in the other world.
When he had finished cleaning his body out, Arthur braced himself before he returned his awareness to the outside world again, knowing damn well what he’d see, and more importantly smell, when he did. At least he thought he had, but as was often the case, Arthur had underestimated just how much this stupid idea would suck. The corruption in his body was head and shoulders above what he’d expected, creating a massive pool of absolute putrescence in front of him stemming from all of the plungerless syringes in his flesh and streaming off his body like a river which was more industrial waste than water. It was horrible, no, it was worse than that. Arthur had witnessed his fair share of battlefields and other sites of horrible death and effluence, but this took the horrible toxic cake. It was only through a supreme act of self control, and getting the hell out of that conference room as fast as he could, that kept him from passing out from the wretched stench.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Acting quickly while he still had strength in his body from the life Qi, Arthur rushed to the office next to the conference room, yanking the syringes from his body and grabbing the bucket full of cleaning products he’d prepared, dumping it over himself as he forced himself not to scream when they touched the puncture holes. Grabbing a rag, he proceeded to scrub himself raw, marveling at the fact he somehow looked even more emaciated than before. Arthur was very glad he couldn’t see himself clearly in the fading twilight, because he was almost certain he looked more like one of the undead than a human being.
Shuddering at the memories that little thought dredged up, Arthur finished his scrub down and poured a few bottles of lukewarm water over himself to wash off the cleaning products. Feeling like a tomato that someone threw in a dishwasher, he grabbed the crutches he was really glad he’d found and thunked his way back to his hospital room. Pausing only to chug down a couple sports drinks he’d been smart enough to open before he started the whole process, because he barely had the strength left to lift the bottles right now, Arthur flopped down on the bed and passed right out.
It was well into morning by the time Arthur woke back up, feeling like there were tiny gnomes trying to pickaxe their way out of his skull. With a groan, he levered himself out of bed and grabbed a bottle of water and drank it, and then a few more for good measure. About half a gallon of water later, Arthur had succeeded in drowning the little pointy hatted bastards enough for him to think. “I think I want pancakes,” he said to himself. Looking out the window at the nothing going on outside just like it was yesterday, he sighed. “Damnit”.
Accepting the fact that he wouldn’t be eating glorious golden discs of carbohydrates slathered in sugary ambrosia for some time, Arthur decided there was no time like the present and gathered what he needed for part two of his plan. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting in a loose circle of various knickknacks he’d had to use as substitutes for the usual testing materials. These knickknacks were a twig from a dead potted plant, a little candle he made from a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a strip of gauze he lit with a gas station lighter he found at the nurse’s desk, a small pile of dirt in a coffeecup also taken from the potted plant, a scalpel, and another coffeecup full of water.
Breathing deeply, Arthur gathered a small sliver of life Qi, a week’s worth at most, and sent it radiating out of him and into the items surrounding him. He waited for a few pregnant moments, praying for something to happen. When nothing did, Arthur wanted to put his fist through a mountain. “Motherfucker,” he shouted as he kicked apart the circle of completely unaffected crap he had used to test his Qi affinity.
“How in all of the hells do I not have a Qi affinity here too? I want to throw fireballs damnit, or turn my skin to steel and my fists to sledgehammers. Hell, I would’ve settled for Wood Qi and covering people in poisonous mushroom spores or making spears out of poison ivy, but noooooooo, I had to go and roll snake eyes for the second time in a row. FUCK!”. Tantrum finished, Arthur stood there, wheezing as he considered his options. Pretty much all of the really impressive cultivation techniques he’d studied were right out, because they needed some kind of elemental affinity practice do them properly and use their techniques. The ones that didn’t really have any affinity requirements instead need resources that Arthur was definitely not going to find in his world, hell, he was surprised Qi worked at all here.
The other issue was Arthur needed something powerful right now, because he barely had the strength to walk properly and he’d just woken up in the aftermath of something catastrophic happening. Which left him two real options, his original cultivation technique, The Burning Soul Fist, or something insane. Arthur really didn’t want to use the same technique a second time, even though he knew where all the pitfalls were, because the Burning Soul Fist had a frankly ridiculous drawback. Namely, it actively used his Life Qi as a cultivation resource, which was how he knew how to use his life Qi to clear his meridians in the first place, but had the nasty side effect of shortening his life. Which is why he didn’t even make it to three hundred when, by rights, someone of his cultivation level should’ve been able to live for over a thousand years.
He’d lived to two hundred and seventy in the other world, but that was due the frankly ludicrous amount of natural treasures he’d consumed to feed the furnace of his cultivation technique in place of his own life, which was definitely not a practice he’d be able to replicate in this world.
The only reason Arthur did use his life Qi was because he knew damn well cleared out meridians were worth a measly decade of his lifespan if it meant he lived through whatever horrible catastrophe that had caused what he saw outside and was probably still kicking around in some fashion, and because it give him a damn good foundation no matter what cultivation technique he used. Granted, he’d kind of been gambling on using one of the numerous, non-bullshit cultivation technique, but he could still make do.
The other technique Arthur was considering could charitably be described as unorthodox, and uncharitably described as brick chewingly weird. However it wouldn’t actively kill him just to advance, which was a major point in its’ favor. The downside was that it was right up there as one of the most difficult cultivation techniques to practice that he knew, for very annoying reasons.
“Ah screw it,” Arthur said as he finished his breakfast of beef jerky and soda. “Nobody ever accused me of taking the easy street anyway. Once again assuming the lotus position, Arthur began to cultivate.
