K.J.Clay

Chapter 26 - The Edge of Control

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

The pain itself had faded quickly enough – just as his master had promised there were no lingering side effects. The memory, though, that was still vivid. 

He kept randomly tensing, his body bracing for pain that never arrived. And the damnable shaking that just wouldn’t stop.

Lao Yi seemed… subdued was the only word Zhujiao could think of. He had the terrible feeling that the process hadn’t ...

Chapter 25 - The Crucible of Pain

Zhujiao’s walk home was thankfully uneventful, though he did notice more than a few Red Talon members walking the streets. They didn’t harass him in any way, but he was uncomfortably aware of their gazes.

It was a little strange how overt they were being – he was hardly an expert on the gangs, but they usually weren’t quite this obvious about displaying their allegiances. Not to mention that there were more of them than he would have expected.

Was so...

Chapter 24 - The Crucible of Choice

He feels vaguely like an old, wrung out dishrag by the time he’s finally finished the process of purging his Qi. Lao Yi is mildly sympathetic at best, watching him stumble to his feet with an almost nostalgic expression on his face.

Zhujiao wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, his legs trembling as he tried to steady himself. The world around him feels muted, like a fog has descended over his senses, dulling the vibrant colours and sharp sounds that he had once taken for granted. Even...

Chapter 23 - The Weight of Progress

Running into Liang as he left his little apartment was awkward, to say the least. The nature of the cheap housing in which they lived meant that completely avoiding someone was all but impossible, but Zhujiao couldn’t help but wonder how much of a coincidence it was that Liang always left at the same time as him.

It was almost gratifying to see that the older boy didn’t know how to handle things either. Going back to their usual greeting felt too much like forgiveness, but ignoring ...

Chapter 22 - A Night of 'Fun'

Zhujiao’s feet dragged as he staggered through the narrow hallway towards his room. Lao Yi clearly took his choice of the quick route as something of a challenge and wasted precisely no time assigning him horrid tasks.

For starters, he had learned that while he had somehow miraculously avoided any permanent damage from his ‘miserable excuse for a cultivation method’ – his master’s words – there was still a certain amount of recovery to be had. 

Recovery that consi...

Chapter 21 - The Essence of Power

Zhujiao was becoming increasingly convinced that his master was actually a sadist in disguise. 

Gone was the kindly old man who selflessly gave his time to help the less fortunate. Gone was the mischievous troll who loved watching people flounder in confusion. Instead, they had been replaced with an uncompromising taskmaster who would accept nothing but the best.

Zhujiao would have struggled to take him seriously if not for the memory of that pressure bearing down on...

Chapter 20 - A Fool's Fortune

Zhujiao tucked his coin pouch securely under his shirt before taking a deep breath and stepping out into the corridor outside his little apartment.

Today promised to be very interesting, or at least he hoped so. If it turned out that Lao Yi had been messing with him about teaching him how to cultivate correctly, he’d… 

Well, he couldn’t really do anything about it, but he certainly wouldn’t be happy.

He tugged somewhat uncomfortably on the sleeves of hi...

Chapter 19 - Sneaky Investigation

Zhujiao really wasn’t sure what to make of his master. 

He had been all but certain he had sensed something weird about the old man the other day, a strange sucking void of Qi that had the hair on the back of his neck raising. 

Except… well, now he was sort of doubting himself. 

Experimentally, he focused, dropping into the strange sort of half-awareness that came with using his Qi senses. 

Nothing. 

Just the same steady, gentle prese...

Chapter 18 - Old Friends

Li Feng wasn’t trying particularly hard to keep the distaste from his expression as he moved through the slums towards his destination.

Why his old friend had decided to open a clinic here, of all places, was beyond him. Oh, certainly, there were plenty of people who needed help living here, but there were people needing help living everywhere – notably, in places that didn’t smell like something had died a few weeks ago.

Then again, Lao Yi – or whatever he was ca...

Chapter 17 - Mystery Afoot

Watching Lao Yi freak out over his age got old after a few minutes.

“It’s not like I look particularly old or anything, Master. How old did you think I was?” he asked amusedly. Okay, it hadn’t entirely gotten old yet.

“I thought you were at least fifteen!” the old man spluttered.

Zhujiao gave him a flat look. 

“It’s possible!” Lao Yi exclaimed somewhat defensively. “You could just be short! Actually, wait, why am I defending m...

Chapter 16 - Oh No! Social Interaction!

His new accommodations are incredible.

Well, no, actually, they’re not. They just feel incredible in comparison to his previous living situation.

When Madame Lu had mention the ‘paid dormitories’, he had pictured something not too dissimilar to the shared rooms at the orphanage. In reality, however, the paid dormitories are more like an apartment block – there are common areas, sure, and a shared entrance, but besides that he has an entire large room to h...

Chapter 15 - Bureaucratic Hell

It wasn’t a joke.

There were a lot of things he missed from the Before. The internet was highly underrated, electricity was a marvel he hadn’t appreciated enough when he had it, and he could hardly even bear to think about hot showers for fear of spiralling into depression.

One thing he hadn’t missed was all the paperwork. It seemed like an inevitable step along the path of civilisation for any given group of people to quickly find ways to bury each other i...

Chapter 14 - Test Time

Zhujiao awoke to the soft light of dawn filtering through the orphanage’s small, grimy window. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, the stiffness from the hard bed still present in his back. The other children were already up, going about their morning routines with the usual mix of reluctance and haste.

With a sigh, he got up and dressed quickly, tucking the small coin pouch securely into his tunic. He knew better than to leave it lying around, not with the other children eyeing his every ...

Chapter 13 - Strange Bedfellows

It’s been three days, and he is convinced that Lao Yi is the physical embodiment of chaos. 

Oh sure, he may look like a kindly old man, spending his days caring for the poor and disenfranchised, but the reality is that he’s a little gremlin who delights in irritating innocent people. 

Zhujiao can almost respect it, to be honest. Several times now he’s seen Lao Yi make an off-colour or insulting comment to a patient, then act completely oblivious. The befud...

Chapter 12 - Silver Lining

Zhujiao sighs again, shaking off the frustration. He was no stranger to hard work, but it was hard to scrounge up motivation when the task was this disgusting.

As if to punctuate his thoughts, a random passerby staggered into the mouth of the alleyway, vomited against the side of the clinic, then staggered off again. Zhujiao gaped in disgust at the sight and started breathing shallowly through his mouth. It certainly shed new light on some of the strange stains he could see. 2024-07-21 22:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 11 - The Old Doctor

There’s an old tree in the centre of the courtyard that he can see from the dirty, cracked window of the cramped room he calls home. It’s an ancient thing, gnarled and twisted and sagging under its own weight. On the particularly cool mornings when the fog hovers over the city, it looks almost like a monster, hunched over and reaching out with spindly limbs, ready to seize any unwary children who happen to wander beneath its branches.

The other children seem almost superstitious abo...

Chapter 10 - The Long Road to Recovery

He wakes about a week after they pull him from the rubble and immediately wishes he hadn’t.

They ask him where he’s from, but he can’t answer. He knows it’s a few days away and that it’s a mid-sized town, but… that’s it. Like the child he isn’t, he never bothered to learn the name of the place he lived. Home was always just called ‘home’. 

They assure him that they will find out where he’s from and get him home safely, but even through the haze of grief ...

Chapter 9 - The Price of Power

He paces the length of his bedroom, eyes locked on the Beast Core sitting on his bed.

He can feel it even without touching it, and the concentrated well of fire-aspected Qi makes his own reserves feel insignificant by comparison. As much as he desperately wants to sit down and start cultivating already, even in his impatience, he knows it’s a bad idea.

Cultivation requires absolute focus. His experiments with the bonfires have shown that losing control of the energy can result i...

Chapter 8 - The Heights of Power

According to Wei, Zhujiao has now achieved a minimum level of competence when it comes to moving through the forest. Coming from the gruff older man, that’s shockingly high praise, and as he basks in the accomplishment Jin retreats into a sullen silence.

The reward for good work is, of course, more work, and so they start to roam deeper into the forest where the larger animals can be found. Zhujiao is given a basic bow, a single arrow, and a mission to hunt a deer within a week.

Chapter 7 - Too Stubborn to Quit

For all that Jin seems determined to act like a prick, Zhujiao is forced to admit he knows his stuff. 

Wei, of course, moves swiftly and silently through the forest, and though he’s able to match the older man’s pace, it’s only because he’s a cultivator. Jin, on the other hand, is a normal teenager lacking both Qi and experience, yet he’s able to keep up without looking so much as winded.

It is rather satisfying to see how confused the boy is with how Zhuji...

Chapter 6 - Revelation

As expected, his mother is… less than impressed with him. 

She seems sweet and loving most of the time, but if he manages to cross the line, the gloves well and truly come off. His ears are still ringing. Naturally, he is banned – again – from going out into the forest and lighting fires. 

For whatever reason, she refuses to believe that he could actually be a cultivator, instead somehow convincing herself that he snuck off with some friends to cause mischief. ...

Chapter 5 - Breakthrough

His Qi flows smoothly in a cycle, sweeping through his body from his head to his toes. It has taken him longer than he is comfortable admitting to realise that the stupid scroll talking about the ‘celestial cycle of the sun and moon’ is basically telling him to move his Qi in a circle. 

It sounds blindingly obvious in hindsight, but he feels justified in saying that the scroll could have been a little clearer. 

He still isn’t entirely sure whether or not the metaph...

Chapter 4 - Consequences

He’s practically floating as he makes his way back home, having banked the fire. It wasn’t even that his senses were improved that much, more that he could… pay more attention to them? None of what he could hear and see and smell was new so much as he just hadn’t noticed it before, but now he could effortlessly pick out each aspect all at once. 

It’s like he’s been wearing sunglasses his whole life and only just taken them off. It’s only as he�...

Chapter 3 - The Journey of a Thousand Miles

The people in this world are weirdly healthy. Part of it is probably lifestyle-related - everybody is fairly active, having to walk everywhere, and no one he’s seen so far has the wealth necessary to afford enough food to get fat.

Still, he suspects that the majority of it comes from the faint traces of Qi he can sense from… well, everything. It’s in the food they eat, the water they drink, and the air they breathe. 

Interestingly, he can actually see the Qi wo...

Chapter 2 - Childish Concerns

Time passes.

He bullies his tiny, useless little body into moving, first dragging himself along the floor, then grabbing random objects and levering himself up as best he can, marvelling at the lack of pain and stiffness and promptly deciding that he utterly refuses to take it for granted, taking any opportunity he can to drag himself around the room, much to his mother’s bemusement. 

As soon as he figures out how to walk again – balance is surprisingly challenging as a b...

Chapter 1 - Wait, There's More?

Awareness is a fickle thing, at first. 

There are a few brief moments of clarity, but even when things are fuzzy and indistinct, he feels… safe. Peaceful. 

Surprising, but considering Kalen’s last coherent memory was the unique sensation of his organs shutting down one by one, he feels it’s forgivable to be a little confused. He was, depressingly, familiar enough with with the symptoms of a heart attack to recognise the shooting pain up his left arm and call for th...