50: Chapter 50 Damn Frog

Returning to the Qingyun Sect happened on a rainy evening.

Xie Feng's blind staff tapped against the bluestone mountain path of the Sect, splashing tiny droplets of water from the tip of the staff.

Tu Ziguan walked beside him holding an umbrella, tilting the canopy toward Xie Feng while half of his own shoulder was soaked through.

The grand protective array of the Qingyun Sect cast a faint glow in the curtain of rain, forming an invisible film that enveloped the entire mountain.

Behind the mountain gate was the bluestone long flight of stairs he had walked countless times, and at the end of the long stairs were the courtyards of the Outer Sect Disciple, and further up were the Inner Sect, Artifact Hall, Scripture Pavilion, and Sect Master's palace.

Rain beat down on the surface of the umbrella with a dense, pattering sound.

"You're back."

Tu Ziguan switched hands holding the umbrella beside him.

"Mhm."

The days after returning to the Sect were ordinary; Xie Feng moved back into the Inner Sect courtyard, went to the Martial Arts Arena every morning to practice staff techniques, meditated in his room in the afternoon to recover his Spiritual Qi, and in the evening Tu Ziguan brought over meals, where the two of them finished eating while chatting over a dish of salted vegetables and a dish of peanuts.

Wen Yushu occasionally came over to sit, narrowing his eyes as he listened to Tu Ziguan brag about the improvement plan for the fourth version of the earth-shaking thunder, and whenever he heard something unreliable, he would interject a sentence, choking Tu Ziguan until he rolled his eyes.

There was no news of Xie Tianxiong and the Xie Family.

Tu Ziguan made a Breakthrough to the Third Realm on the fourth day after their return.

That night, Xie Feng was meditating in his room, Spiritual Qi flowing sluggishly through his six Meridians, when he suddenly sensed a very familiar wave of Spiritual Qi coming from the neighboring courtyard as Tu Ziguan's Spiritual Qi surged upward from the Peak of the Second Realm's Nine Heavens.

In one go, he directly smashed open the Bottleneck.

When the Spiritual Qi swept past the Second Realm's Nine Heavens, there was no sound, and then all the Spiritual Qi of the entire courtyard surged toward the neighboring place, continuing for about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea before slowly stopping.

When Xie Feng went over, Tu Ziguan was sitting cross-legged on the couch, his entire body soaked in sweat, grinning widely as he smiled.

"Third Realm."

Xie Feng tapped his knee with his blind staff.

"Congratulations."

After Tu Ziguan's Breakthrough, his entire demeanor was different, walking with a brisk wind and speaking with a voice three shades louder than usual.

Early the next morning, he ran off to find Mo Tang, saying he wanted to add a Third Realm Spiritual Qi circuit to the earth-shaking thunder.

Mo Tang said that Third Realm circuits aren't added like that, and the two argued for a whole morning before finally being rebuked one sentence at a time by Wen Yushu.

This person Wen Yushu was now close to the Fourth Realm; a Genius was truly terrifying.

As for Xie Feng, he studied that statue every day, though now it couldn't even be called a mere statue anymore; Tsathoggua's image was becoming more and more vivid, almost counting as a living sculpture.

Tsathoggua's sculpture squatted on the windowsill, where Xie Feng had placed it ever since they returned.

A palm-sized toad with a plump torso, closed eyes, and slightly upturned corners of its mouth.

It squatted on the edge of the windowsill, facing the room like a real toad squatting on a stone waiting for insects to fly by, imbued with an aura of sacred laziness.

Xie Feng could perceive it every day when meditating—that extremely subtle, living thing's breathing undulations seeping out from the depths of the sculpture's material bit by bit, much slower than a heartbeat and much deeper than a breath.

These past few days, Xie Feng checked his condition while recovering the Spiritual Qi in his six Meridians; the recovery speed was neither fast nor slow, no different from before he was injured.

He didn't know if Yog-Sothoth's ability was still there, but Ghatanothoa's mark was extremely vivid, except Xie Feng always felt that something was very bizarre about it; he couldn't put his finger on it, but it was just very strange.

One day, while Xie Feng was meditating, the sculpture suddenly flashed.

The closed eyes of that toad opened a slit, glanced at him, and closed again, and Xie Feng's Spiritual Qi came to a complete halt at that instant.

The Spiritual Qi in the six Meridians maintained the posture of that instant of stoppage, completely motionless.

It stopped for about the time of a single breath before resuming its flow.

"Something's going wrong!"

When circulating his Spiritual Qi the next morning, Xie Feng discovered that his cultivation had dropped.

His Spiritual Qi perception traced the situation inside the six Meridians over and over again.

There was no damage to his Meridians, and no abnormality in his Dantian; the flow rate and intensity of his Spiritual Qi had indeed decreased, but the way it decreased was wrong.

His Spiritual Qi had been compressed.

The Spiritual Qi that originally occupied the entire meridian now only occupied half of it.

Flowing through the other half of the Meridians was another kind of thing.

Extremely fine, extremely faint, almost imperceptible silvery-white threads.

That was definitely not Spiritual Qi.

Xie Feng tuned his Spiritual Qi perception to its finest, chasing those few silvery-white threads deep into his Meridians to probe them; the silver threads swam slowly within the envelope of Spiritual Qi.

Those silver threads were closer to something between liquid and light; he tried pressing his Spiritual Qi against the silver threads.

The silver threads were not pressed apart, but instead swallowed that wisp of Spiritual Qi pressed upon them.

That wisp of Spiritual Qi was wrapped by the silver threads, transforming from gentle Spiritual Qi into cool, slick, silvery-white substance between liquid and light.

Then the silver threads became a fraction thicker, something completely unnoticeable without careful perception.

Xie Feng withdrew his Spiritual Qi, sat on the couch, and laid his blind staff horizontally across his knees.

He stared in the direction of the sculpture on the windowsill for a long time.

The toad squatted on the edge of the windowsill, its eyes closed and the corners of its mouth slightly upturned.

"What the hell."

He went to find Elder Zhao.

Elder Zhao was in the Outer Sect pill room, squatting in front of the furnace to watch the fire.

When Xie Feng's blind staff tapped into the door, he didn't even turn his head.

"Come in. Close the door. The furnace is leaking wind."

Xie Feng pulled the door shut and sat down on the low stool beside the Pill Furnace.

Elder Zhao watched the fire for another moment, then patted the ash off his hands and turned around.

"What is it? How is your Spiritual Qi recovery?"

"Eighty percent recovered," Xie Feng said, "and then it dropped."

Elder Zhao's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

He walked over, reached out to place his hand on Xie Feng's wrist, and a warm, thick stream of Spiritual Qi was channeled in from his fingertips, traveling a circle along Xie Feng's Meridians.

When it reached halfway, his Spiritual Qi paused.

"What is that in your Meridians?"

"If I knew," Xie Feng said, "I wouldn't have come to ask you."

Elder Zhao's Spiritual Qi made another circle.

This circle went very slowly, stopping when it reached near the silver threads and trying to touch them.

The silver threads did not swallow his Spiritual Qi; Elder Zhao was in the Fifth Realm, and his Spiritual Qi was much thicker than Xie Feng's, so the silver threads could not swallow it.

But it moved.

It slid away from beside Elder Zhao's Spiritual Qi like a fish slipping past the hand of a person wading in water.

Elder Zhao's Spiritual Qi chased it by half an inch, and it slid away again.

"It's not poison, not a Gu, not a Seal."

Elder Zhao withdrew his fingers, his brows furrowing even tighter.

"It's like some kind of living thing, but not a living creature.

It stays in your Meridians without harming you, simply converting your Spiritual Qi bit by bit into itself.

Can you still use the Spiritual Qi after it has been converted?"

Xie Feng tried to mobilize those silver threads.

Driven by his will, the silver threads moved slightly, as if stirring a basin of thick glue.

The silver threads were drawn out from the Meridians, traveling along his guidance toward the direction of the blind staff, stopping when they reached his palm before scattering into a patch of extremely faint silvery-white light spots and disappearing.

"I can use it," Xie Feng said, "but once used, it's gone. And when using it, the feeling is different from Spiritual Qi."

"What kind of feeling?"

"Spiritual Qi is pushed out, while this is scattered out."

Xie Feng felt for Tsathoggua's sculpture from his sleeve and placed it on the desk in the pill room.

The palm-sized toad squatted on the desk, with its plump torso, closed eyes, and slightly upturned corners of its mouth.

"It was caused by this sculpture."

Elder Zhao looked down for a moment, then reached out to pick it up; his fingers passed right through the middle of the sculpture's torso, as if passing through a mass of air.

Elder Zhao's fingers paused in mid-air, stopped for a breath, and tried again.

His fingers passed through the toad's head, through its torso, and through its limbs.

The sculpture squatted on the desk, completely undamaged, and Elder Zhao's fingers passed back and forth through its body several times without touching anything at all.

"I can't see it," Elder Zhao said.

I knew it! Sigh... Xie Feng sighed inwardly.

Elder Zhao withdrew his hand and looked down at the empty spot on the desk.

"When you entered the door, something was flashing inside your sleeve. It wasn't the light of Spiritual Qi, but something else.

Now you've placed the item on the desk, and I can't see it.

My Spiritual Qi sweeps across, and there is nothing there.

But when my hand passes through..." He turned his palm over, facing himself.

Elder Zhao looked at his palm for a long time, then tucked that hand into his sleeve.

"Do not let too many people know about this thing," he said, "I currently have no solution for the changes in your Meridians.

Go to the Scripture Pavilion and look for Elder Wen. He has seen more things than I have."

Xie Feng tucked the sculpture away, stood up, and his blind staff tapped across the green brick floor of the pill room as he walked toward the door.

"Xie Feng," Elder Zhao called out from behind.

Xie Feng stopped.

"Be cautious when using those silver threads of yours.

They are not Spiritual Qi; every bit you use is a bit less.

What will happen when they are used up, I do not know.

Don't use yourself up."

"Understood, many thanks, Elder."

Xie Feng nodded slightly, his blind staff tapping out of the door of the pill room, and instead of going immediately to the Scripture Pavilion, he returned to the Inner Sect courtyard, sat down on the couch, placed the sculpture on the windowsill, and began to meditate.

His Spiritual Qi perception sank into the six Meridians, counting those silvery-white threads one by one.

After counting for an entire afternoon, he counted them clearly.

"About twenty percent has been converted?"

The converted silver threads occupied twenty percent of his Meridians, while the remaining eighty percent was still normal Spiritual Qi.

The silver threads and Spiritual Qi did not interfere with each other; when Spiritual Qi flowed in the Meridians, the silver threads swam within the Spiritual Qi.

Feeling the state of these bizarre silver threads, Xie Feng roughly understood what this thing was.

"Could this thing be the mana points inside a blue bar?"

In the cthulhu mythos tabletop rules, casting Spells requires mana points, consuming magic and SAN values to cast, and now eighty percent of his Spiritual Qi had been turned into mana points.

Nyarlathotep gave clues, and Tsathoggua gave the blue bar. One acted as the KP, and the other acted as the System.

Xie Feng opened his eyes, facing the sculpture on the windowsill.

"Did you fucking plan this together?"

The sculpture squatted on the windowsill, its eyes closed, the corners of its mouth slightly upturned, saying nothing at all.