Guess you weren't wrong afterall

Oliver stared at Long Wei for a while longer. He made his choice. When given a way out, sometimes, it was best to grasp it, lest he regretted it in the next moments. The three recovery pills slipped out of their hiding place and melted onto his tongue. Quickly, he channelled his qi and guided the healing energy through his limbs. Blood Ignition pills were the best choice when one wanted to increase one's combat potential countless times over within the shortest time frame possible. The side effects? The body ate itself from the inside out to facilitate that sudden boost in combat strength. Use it long enough and one could cripple their cultivation talent beyond repair.

The pills boosted his body's natural ability to recover, delaying the Blood Ignition Pill'a after effects by a significant degree. The weakness in his limbs set in. He stumbled backwards slamming against one of the stalagmites. A thick line of blood trickled down his lips.

"You are much smarter than I thought you were. Well done. Give yourswlf a round of applause, " said Long Wei.

Oliver fell to the ground and didn't bother trying to stand up. It was crazy he thought he could pull off the battle with two untested variations of the Blood Ignition Pills. The decision was dumb. Far dumber than he initially thought.

"The ponds. They are spirit ponds. Or at least conventionally," fear strained Elrand's voice.

He moved closer to Oliver just so he could calm his heart under the vague sense of protection. Alresia crawled to Oliver and clung to his arm. She reached into her dantian and gathered whisps of qi that she injected into him, to aid his recovery.

"I wouldn't have discovered its use if it weren't for this fool, " Elrand pointed to the man sealed with different types of paper seals, "He fell into the pond. As you may have realised. These trial grounds forbid us from absorbing the spirit qi in the atmosphere. Yet. When drenched in this water, anyone can absorb the harmful qi in the atmosphere-"

"Why didn''t your men dare to use their qi when battling me? Besides the swordsman, and him, " Long Wei asked, pointing at Oliver.

He stood a few meters before the trio. His vigilance towards them was non-existent. The battle a few seconds ago led him to the conclusion that Fullreach Academy was a waste of money and resources. The Academy didn't deserve its title as one. He'd force them to close their doors after the trials. The people of the Imperial Expanse couldn't be bred to be that weak, by any force. Quality was all that mattered. In the latter years, when major wars break out, would his pull of experts only come from these weaklings nurtured by similar weak Academies?

"I was going there. The ability to absorb harmful qi comes at a drastic price. Complete Paralysis. I'm not a biologist. At least of the Animal Flesh. So I couldn't come up with a proper diagnosis. Of what the cause was. But I do have somewhat of an idea. When you drink the water or end up having it on you physically, it passes through your body and rushes toward your Nine Heaven Nodes, and then uses that to enter through your meridians that travel to your Mindscape.

" And there... I don't know exactly what happens. I only know the result. You become a zombie, only capable of absorbing and purifying the harmless qi and then depositing it to your dantian. The body does that on its own. Over and over until all the water is used up. And then you back to normal with far less qi in your dantian than you started with, " Elrand spoke, his voice evened out over time as his passion for the subject overtook the fear.

Elrand's words made Alresia's mind spur into action. One of her fingers trailed to a pouch at her waist. In it were three viles of the glowing blue liquid wrapped in thick cloth. Before she met Oliver she came across a similar pond and fished out some water using her qi and the vial. She planned on testing its effects after she left the 'belly of the beast', as Oliver referred to it. The words Elrand spoke left her soaked in sweat. If Oliver hadn't come, her main thoughts were to sip its contents. Her lack of foresight scared her.

"Hm... Let me see, " Long Wei said.

He turned around and went to one of the last ten Fullreach Academy students still alive in the cavern. Kneeling down, he grabbed one of the girls by the hair and dragged her head to his eye level. Only the white of her eye was visible, the pupil jolted to the back from the torture Long Wei put her through.

"Recovery Pill! "

Long Wei's words boomed. Elrand jumped in fright. Then it hit him. He reached into his robes and pulled out a glass bottle. Twelve glowing pills were inside. He tossed the glass bottle with shaky fingers. Long Wei caught it and popped the pills into his hand.

"Wakey Wakey!"

He shoved two recovery pills into the girl's mouth. Sacrificing a bit of qi, he helped the girl swallow the pills. After, he injected a bit more qi into her so that she could digest the medicinal energies found in the pill. Long Wei sat still and helped the girl digest all the energies, helping accelerate her recovery.

Time flew by. Seconds became minutes and minutes morphed into hours. The girl's eyes fluttered open, and her consciousness crashed into her. She screamed, experiencing the pain stacked over multiple times. Then she stopped. Everything stopped. And her senses came back.

"It's good that you are back. A shame you'll be going back."

Long Wei dragged her up and walked towards the pond. The alchemist spoke quite a lot of things and he wanted to personally confirm them with his own pair of eyes. Maybe his Heaven Shrouding Eyes could glean some of the mysteries behind the phenomena.

"Why are you doing this? " the girl asked.

"Shh! "

Long Wei dunked her in the unknown liquid to Alresia's horror. Then he pulled her back and sent a few tendrils of qi to his eyes. A solver hue layered on top of the black of his pupil. The girl became a flaming black mass under his vision. But he didn't want to see the amount of life force she had left, rather he wanted to see the effects of the water on her meridians. He pulled a few more bits of qi and guided to his eyes once more. The silver glow intensified. The flaming black mass receded until it became the shape of the lady. White lines appeared against the black, sketching the precise position of each of her meridians. Lo g Wei even saw the position of her Nine Heaven Nodes. Judging by the messy entanglement going on with her meridians he realised she had little talent in the meridian department.

Qi Condensation was split into nine layers. The first three layers were known as the Bloodforging Stage and required a cultivator to use the power in their blood to activate qi-strains. Qi-strains were tiny particles that allowed a cultivator to absorb qi into their body. Normally, Qi-strains were attached to red blood cells. These were dormant and could only watch spirit qi pass through the blood. But once activated, the Qi-strains detached from red blood cells and floated within the blood as solo cells. They could then lock onto spirit qi that passes through them. Cultivation during the Bloodforging Stage was simple. The goal was to turn the body into one major 'Qi-strain' in laymen's terms. Basically, something that could absorb qi.

The next step was known as Meridian Awakening Stage and it formed the next four layers of Qi-Condensation. One of the core features of the Meridian Awakening Stage was unblocking one's predestined meridians. The more talent a cultivator had, the fewer meridians and the less tangled they were. The opposite was true as well.

The girl in front of him had a mess of a meridian situation. It was like he was gazing at countless strands of wool wrapped in countless knots. Compared to him, her future cultivation was hopeless. He only had nine meridians. She had thousands. Guiding Qi through them had to be torture.

He focused his gaze on the foreign energy that seeped through her nodes and entered her meridians. It forced itself through her meridians and went all the way to her Psyche Barrier. It passed through the thing like it didn't exist. And what happened next, he couldn't see with the level of intensity he operated his eyes.

"Half your story checks out. But the other doesn't," said Long Wei.

"Grrr..."

The lady's words turned to mush a few seconds later, and her breathing became heated too. Next, the strength in her limbs evaporated.

"Maybe you weren't wrong after all. "