Chapter 2: Brains and Brawn
Opening my eyes, I noticed that the day had passed and the moon was hanging in the sky. The next thing I noticed was a horrible stench. Looking down, I noticed some sort of black gook sticking to me. It is ,by far, the most disgusting thing I had ever looked at. Even a mangled corpse would be less revolting than this sticky black monstrosity.
Jumping into action immediately, I ran to the river next to the village as fast as I could. However, just moments after running, I tripped over my own legs. Perhaps it was the darkness of the night or the incredible speed I instantly accelerated too. Unfortunately, I had no time to pay attention to these occurrences as my senses were completely overloaded with the sight and smell of the black gook.
Jumping over the village walls and sprinting towards the river, I was so focused on getting there that I didn't even notice the astonishing speed I was moving. A journey that should've taken 10 minutes from Old Man Yang's house to the river took only 3 minutes!
Seeing the river ahead, I immediately jumped as high as I could to plunge into the river. Once again, I failed to notice the fact that I had jumped from the banks to the center of the 20 foot wide river.
Washing the gook off of my body as frantically as I could, I started to think properly again. Once I had got it all off, I sat on the banks of the river and looked up into the stars. My mind was moving faster than it had ever had before. Without realizing it, I had counted all the stars in the night sky after a single minute. 2,875. That's how many stars I could see this night.
While astonished at my thinking ability, I noticed something touching my body. I glanced down to see an average sized water snake had curled around my body. Instinctually, I grabbed it in an attempt to pull it off of my body and throw it into the water. However, when I grabbed its body, I failed to control my strength and squeezed it into a mush. The snake hadn't even had the chance to realize what was happening before it was killed.
Frantically throwing the half mush, half corpse snake into the river, I once again jumped into the river to clean myself off. Pondering how my body was able to easily crush that snake, I realized that I was much too tired to think. Making my way back to the village, the trip took much longer than when I was running.
20 minutes later, I made it back to my small house and jumped into my small bed. Soon after jumping in, I fell asleep. Waking up, I got out of bed and made my way out of the house to grab some bread from Johns bakery. Even after eating 2 slices, enough to fill me up any other day, I realized I was still starving. Spending the rest of my money, I bought 6 more slices of bread in order to satisfy my hunger.
Afterwards, I was finally able to sit down and think about yesterday's events. The grey speck, the black gook, the quick counting of my brain, and the easy crushing of the snake. Deciding to further test my body, I set off to Tonton valley with my axe. Coming to my usual spot, I noticed the destruction that the storm caused. Multiple trees were either bending or completely knocked over. Luckily, there were many more in fine condition. The valley had a fair amount of protection from the wind after all.
Finding a relatively unaffected tree, I got in position to cut it down. The first swing lodged the axe fully into the tree. Astonished, I pulled the axe out with surprising ease and swung the axe once again. The second swing mirrored the first one and by the twentieth swing, the medium size tree started falling.
I was completely dumbfounded with my own strength. The least swings I had ever needed to knock down any tree was more than 50. Not to mention, a tree of this size often took over 500 swings to cut down. Once it fell and I regained my witts, I started cutting it into sections. I hadn't only come here to test my strength after all. I also needed money as I had used all of it in order to buy food this morning. After an hour of work, I had cut down and chopped up 8 medium sized trees! The quickest I had ever cut down 8 trees was 10 hours! Not to mention, I barely felt any fatigue after the constant cutting.
Turning around, I looked at my sled and realized that it is far too small to carry 8 trees. Loading up as much as I could fit, I dragged it to Old Man Yang's shop. After 3 trips back and forth, I was 25 copper richer. Repeating the action of cutting down 8 trees and bringing them back in three trips 3 more times, I finally saved up a silver. Unfortunately, it took all day. If it wasn't for my increased strength and stamina, I would've collapsed after the first three back and forth trips.
Deciding to pass on dinner tonight in preparation for tomorrow, I went to sleep.
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Waking up, I went to Old Man Yang's store and bought a much better sled from him. This sled could carry 8 trees worth of wood. Old Man Yang was naturally suspicious when he saw that I had brought back 32 trees worth of wood yesterday. However, luckily for me, (since I had no reasonable explanation), Old Man Yang used to live in the Imperial city where asking too many questions is a quick way to get killed. The sled only costed 95 copper, so I had enough to get a couple slices of bread from Johns bakery. Setting off to the valley, I prepared to spend all day cutting trees.
Chapter 3: 7 days later
"What do you mean I can't sell anymore wood?!"
"You've already sold me enough wood to last me half a year, I can't afford to buy anymore."
Zhou Fan was in an argument with Old Man Yang. After 7 days of logging and earning a silver coin each day, he has already filled up Old Man Yang's yard with wood. Zhou Fan has been cutting down trees and bringing them back every hour of the day for the last week.
"Wait at least a month and then you can bring me some more wood. Until then, find someone else's yard to fill."
Realizing that he could no longer win this argument, Zhou Fan decided to head back home and get some much needed and much earned rest.
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Heading out to the bakery, Zhou Fan calculated how long his money would last him. If he spends 6 copper a day on bread, his 7 silver will last over 100 days. He practically had no other expenses, therefore, calculating anything else would be pointless.
After 10 minutes, he returned home and had a meal that consisted of 5 slices of bread and some water. While to others it may seem like a terrible meal, Zhou Fan has been eating it for the last 4 years.
After a meal, Zhou Fan finally sat down and got lost within his own thoughts. Remembering the gray speck from 8 days ago, he contemplated what it could possibly be. Unable to come up with any thoughts, he decided to imitate what he had done the first day. Although he had tried touching the lightning tree over the last week, he could no longer feel anything. It seemed that he had used whatever was in it up. Crossing his legs, he put all his needless thoughts to rest.
Zhou Fan clasped his hands together and cleared his mind of all thoughts. After 30 minutes of sitting in that position, Zhou Fan finally fell back into the state he was in when he touched the tree. Much faster this time, he noticed a grey speck. Zhou Fan tried breathing it in but it wouldn't budge. He tried again and again with no results whatsoever. After an unknown amount of time, he finally decided to stop trying. Looking outside, he noticed the sky was already dark.
Hopping into bed and closing his eyes, Zhou Fan decided to try to gather another speck of dust tomorrow.
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The next morning, after filling himself up with bread, he decided to attempt gather another speck of dust.
On second thought, Zhou Fan felt it was inappropriate to continue calling that incredible thing, 'a speck of dust'. After thinking for a while, he decided to call it 'Qi'. He had no reason for calling it that, he just decided to make a random sound and name the speck of dust after it. Isn't that how all words were made?
Recalling the first time he absorbed the Qi particle, he remembered that he had not breathed in with his mouth but with his mind. Although he had no idea how to do that, it was better to try than to not try.
Crossing his legs and clasping his hands, he fell into his mind once again. This time, it took only 5 minutes. Within the infinite darkness of his mind, he saw the Qi particle. After 5 minutes of trying to breath in with his mind, he finally saw the Qi particle move a bit! Excited, he frantically continued to bring it in. After 10 minutes, Zhou Fan successfully absorbed it!
He felt a wave of energy spread throughout his mind and body. All the fatigue from the past few days were washed away in an instant. Luckily for Zhou Fan, no gook came out of his body this time. Instead of stopping there, Zhou Fan decided to continue absorbing Qi. In just 3 minutes, he spotted another Qi particle! Thanks to his previous experience, Zhou Fan was able to bring it in much faster this time. Once again, Zhou Fan absorbed a Qi particle and felt a wave of refreshment.
He continued this cycle for almost 3 hours before, all of a sudden, an audible cracking sound came from his body! If the sound scared him so much he almost jumped, then the sudden influx of Qi particles made him feel like his soul was dragged from his body. Within his mind, the space that had always had no more than 1 Qi particle ,had 10 at the same time! Frantically taking this opportunity, he absorbed the Qi particles at a much faster rate than usual. After 10 minutes, he finally absorbed all of the Qi particles and felt a wave of refreshment much bigger than any other he had felt before! This wave covered every inch of his body!
Like the time he had absorbed his first particle, Zhou Fan felt as if the world had opened up a new door. Opening his eyes, Zhou Fan once again smelt the nauseating smell of the gook.
"Dam* it!" He shouted, "Not again!"
Running to the river at an even faster speed than before, he made it to the river in 3 minutes! Although the first time it happened he took 3 minutes, this time, he was even farther away from the river. Before the lightning tree, it would have took 12 minutes to make it to the river from his house! Bathing in the river once again, he had a nagging feeling that he would be seeing this river for a long time to come.
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The next day, he awoke near the river. After taking a bath, he decided to sleep while looking at the stars. 3,123. That's how many stars he could see last night.
Walking in front of the tree, he suddenly decided to punch it. Halfway through his action, he realized what he was doing. Too late to retract it, his hand collided with the tree. BANGG!
Instinctually, Zhou Fan closed his eyes. However, after feeling no pain in his hand he decided to open it.
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200+ Power
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121 Power
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