He couldn't sleep. He felt as if he had been lying upon his bed a while, but to no avail. He wasn't overly hot and he wasn't too cold. He wasn't uncomfortable and it wasn't as if his mind was racing with many thoughts. If there was any restlessness at all, it seemed to emanate from his centre, as if he was having trouble digesting something sugary, perhaps?
A few minutes later, the feeling had worsened and he rose to a seating position and wondered if he needed to expend the excess energy. Using the light of the globe, he grabbed his glasses where he left them on the table and grabbed the broom to vigorously sweep. But although his arms quickly felt weary and his eyes heavy, that sensation within his gut would not be still. So he flopped onto the bed once more, removed his spectacles and covered his eyes shut with his arm. It was at this point, he had a revelation.
Placing the spectacles on to the table, he assumed a lotus position and closed his eyes, focusing upon the weird feeling and noting that it was indeed coming from his inner sea. The spiritual energy was usually moving lazy and in a clockwise rotation and resembled a mass of tiny stars all assembled closely together at the centre, but more hazy at the edges and it was the hazier light that he would send to circle through his network of meridians or out into the fire or cauldron. But although it's speckled consistency had not changed, it was moving all over the place, up and down, clockwise and anti-clockwise, contracting and expanding. It was the source of his discomfort.
Seeing as the only thing that he knew to do with this energy would be to make pills or cultivate, he chose the latter considering the late hour. It was harder to do, however, the turbulent sea did not want to be directed in a uniform manner through his meridians. So at first, it took all he had to force the sea to move clockwise along a stable point. There seemed to be so much more spiritual energy than he'd originally thought and it was still in a frenzy as he directed it, suddenly rushing through his meridians as if it took on a life of its own, each network of thin lines glowing hot as the energy filled them. He ground together his teeth as he felt a sweat break out upon his forehead, his concentration flickering due to the flaring pain. And after the swiftest circuit of his body was complete, the energy became even more rapid within his inner sea, spirialling, contracting, faster and faster until there was nothing but the fiercest speck of blinding light at the centre.
As if a dam had broken within him, the concerntrated speck of energy suddenly exploded, unable to maintain its purest form. It expanded outwards, pushing out of his skin into the air, seeming to dissolve all about him like sparks from a firework.
He gasped for air, pushed out of his inner sea, but unable to fathom what had just occurred. Had he experienced some sort of deviation? Would the cultivation of his body be set back again? He took a deep breath and focused on calming his racing heart before taking a glance inward. And there he watched, his lazy, spiralling energy continuing to swirl about a central point. The only difference seemed to be that the energy was brighter and less speckled and loose about the edges.
With a sigh, he let his head droop, not bothering to open his eyes. He figured he could wait until morning, check the diaries, see if there was any information about what had just happened to him.
His nose twitched. Ew. What was that disgusting smell? Was that coming from him? With a sigh, he placed his hand upon his knee, resigning himself to another bath as soon as possible. Squelch. He opened his eyes and tried to focus on what little he could see through narrowed eyes. His hands had turned blackish brown, appearing to be coated in something gross. Actually, so was his arms. He jumped off of the bed. So were the bass of his feet! He grimaced as he headed to where he kept the rags of cloth and basin of water for a quick morning wash and quickly used them. The water blackened quickly as he wiped his hands and face and feet, before hurrying to get his glasses so he could look over his body.
Not an inch had not been covered in the unpleasant substance. So he decided to jump into the now cold bath that he had been too lazy to empty the night before.
But opening the door, he came to see an odd sight. The sun was actually fairly high in the sky, not just peering over the horizon like he had assumed. And beneath it's warm rays and the shortened shadows of the tall trees was a tall and slightly arrogant man hovering over a shorter, dumpling of a man and a couple of his minions, all a little worse for wear.
Jin Li glanced over at him as the door unlatched and opened. He looked the smaller man over once and seeing him well enough, nodded. "I see you broke through to the secondary cultivation level," he said, almost amused by that gormless face. "I didn't know you had it in you."
"Huh?"
On seeing Jin Li standing before him, Leon was both secretly happy and openly confused and part of him was even angry. It had been almost four weeks since he had last seen Jin Li after he had become enrolled into the martial arts school and no message or word of him had came. Not that he'd been waiting around or expecting one, but surely it would have been polite. And it wasn't as if Jin Li was more than a mountain or so away, being the that the martial arts school was part and parcel of the Ascending Mountain institute, just like the alchemy school.
But before he could formulate clear thoughts on this, he glanced down at the round youth staring up at them from the ground and who happened to be sporting a black eye. This man was the bully of both this body's souls; Caprian. The skinny, sneaky Virgial was with him, but the other minion was a new face and not one memorable. He was fairly plain with brown hair and brown eyes and an expression of one who had sucked on lemons. Tor was not with them. Perhaps due to the presence of Jin Li, but Leon's body was not shaking with the memory of fear, but was actually quite calm.
"What's g-g-going on?" Leon asked, still wiping the black substance from his fingers and hands as he spoke.
"We simply came to talk to you," Caprian sneered, unconvincingly. "But this barbarian attacked us!" Leon said nothing, simply raised an eyebrow before glancing at Jin Li.
"Oh, so you intended to knock before prying the door open?" Jin Li asked, snidely, kicking away the metal bar upon the floor as he tossed the hammer he held in the air before catching it.
"He owes us," Virgal claimed. "He took herbs off of us to make pills. We came to collect." Jin Li turned to look at Leon, who sighed.
"It was under threat," he told Jin Li. "B-b-before I m-met you. They stole my p-pills and b-b-beat me in the p-past. B-but they n-never came b-back for them."
"So was it they who broke into the hut that last time?" Jin Li accused. "You claimed that you didn't know who it might be."
"Cap-p-prian was sent to the inner school," Leon explained. "I thought the b-b-bullying was over." He struggled to remove more of the black stuff as the rag was now as dirty as his skin. "What d-do you want Caprian?"
"You!" Caprian turned red, filled with hot air and bluster. How dare this once quivering wreck of a boy dare grow a spine and stand against him! He wanted to teach the boy another lesson, but felt suppressed by the aura of Jin Li. He took several large breaths. "Those pills of yours were not all simple! When I handed them to the Herb Hall, they found a Beast Calming pill that not normal. The Teachers became all dizzy over it and had me enroll into the inner school. I did not know this until my new Teacher asked for me to duplicate it! But, no matter how I follow the recipe, I cannot make what they ask for. They will kick me out of school if I fail again! You must make it, you owe me this much!"
Leon felt the anger rise in him. That pill they spoke of was Leo's creation and he had died when they beat him for refusing to give them his pills and then they stole them anyway. "I refuse," Leon replied. "You b-beat m-me half to d-death and n-now seek m-my aid? I owe you n-nothing!"
The three beaten boys glared at Leon, not daring to turn their ire against the one who had physically hurt them and scrambled away to leave. "You will regret this!" Caprian declared as he waddled with some speed away from the pair.
Leon sighed, scratching at his scalp, which just also happened to be painted with the unpleasant substance. He turned his attention to a smug Jin Li. "So," he said, uncertain how he felt now his bullies had fled, "What are you d-doing here?"
"Me?" Jin Li raised one eyebrow, wondering why his servant was questioning his presence now. "I came for my breakfast, of course."
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