Chapter 34: Experiments

Chapter 34: Experiments

The light prickles at my consciousness. The serene ambiance ensures that the suddenness of sleep cycle termination proceeds smoothly. At least, for me it proceeds smoothly. For Lan Xiaohui, who suddenly experiences my [Tyranny] trait, it is sudden and jarring. A moment ago, she felt safe and warm, and now she looks over her shoulder, looking for lurking threats, before her gaze focuses on me, and a flash of comprehension adorns her features. And relief, for some reason.

She doesnt say anything when she realizes I am awake, and instead continues to go about her previous business. She holds another knife made of sword Qi and sword energy much sturdier than the last time I saw it and plows it into the neck of a large demonic snake, preparing to skin and process it.

I take in my surroundings with my perception and note that we are at the shores of a deep pond with crystal clear, azure waters. The plant-life here is of the spiritual variety, with several Silver Dew Lotuses and configurations of lily pads on the surface.

The Qi here is very abundant, as well. The tree line of the forest is at the very edge of my perception radius, with a vast clearing between this side of the pond and the forest.

It looks like she found a good place to rest, with ample food and water available, and most importantly, Qi.

I am surprised to find out that she has even reached the Mid stage of Qi Refining. How long was I unconscious?

I touch the internal storage array with my consciousness to find out what happened to my refinement queue surely, by now, it wouldve been completed.

The sub routine immediately informs me that there is a lengthy queue of refinement processes.

[ Processing: Time to completion: 12 days, 19 hours. ]

I find most of my internal storage is taken up by corpses of various animals. Monkeys, wolves, snakes, foxes, and a singular, large bear. In total, they take up about 7 of my 10 cubic meter capacity, stacked and arranged in such a way that they minimize the space they take up.

Though I am not capable currently of sweeping, or permanent changes, I see a few places in which I could optimize her Qi routing and the infrastructure of her meridians themselves. I am not able to open her vessels that requires strong, Dao infused Qi but I can, so to speak, rearrange her spiritual meat.

I decide to give it a try, and experiment. At worst, she will suffer Qi deviation and go insane.

I adjust some of her more critical meridians, shortening the path between the front of her head and her dantian, and adjust the surrounding vessels.

Immediately, the knife in her hands emits a slightly brighter glow, and I can even feel my own [Tyranny] emanating from it. For the first time, I experience what other creatures experience when I look at them.

It is quite pleasant.

The knife also becomes sharper, and she seems surprised at first, but then uses the added stability to quickly skin the corpse with one smooth motion.

How did you do that? she asks, now looking at her knife. She knows that this was not her doing, at least.

I optimized your Qi channels slightly, I tell her. But it requires active concentration.

She nods. Her eyebrows furrow into a thoughtful expression, and she opens her mouth slightly, as if to speak, but then decides against it and goes back to work.

I wonder if it is possible to dedicate a part of my sea of consciousness to perform a task independently.

I add it to my list of experiments.