The Dao of Magic

05 - Circle

A small fire lights up a figure dressed in simple clothing. Dark pants and a dark grey shirt cover the lanky frame are lit by flickering flames, making a striking contrast with the dark forest. Roots lay around the fire, a stripped and skewered bunny carcass hanging above the fire as the figure tends to the fire. The figure's back is sticking inside the biggest tree visible, halfway sticking out of a small alcove. The air around this scene flickers like heated air rising from a scorched desert.

A spike of pain flashed through my eyes as my vision switches back from observing myself. Sensing shapes with qi is the first step, seeing is the second. Less well-defined senses like smell, taste and hearing are a little more difficult to pull off, as they require a good working understanding of these senses. Feeling with qi is the simplest, only requiring one to notice holes in your qi. Seeing is just registering specific directions of light. Hearing is similar to noticing slight variations of air pressure, something I can't do with my lacking qi reserves. Smell is even worse, requiring detailed analysis of airborne chemicals. Taste is equally complicated and requires molecular analysis of anything solid sensed with qi.

I decide to postpone any further remote sense training for now and do something about the black hole that is my stomach. A filled stomach is a happy stomach and I decide to settle my tumultuous emotions with food. Grabbing a bunny leg I sprinkle it with a small salt bottle I received from my spatial ring and take a big bite. As soon as I started cooking my hunger surged up, almost knocking me flat. I need to make some adjustments to my priorities and place food a lot higher up on the list. Sustaining your body with qi is easy when qi is everywhere. The current need to make my own qi from its component parts makes it a more valuable commodity, and I don't want to waste my meagre fighting power on suppressing hunger.

Drool drips from my mounts as I bite into the succulent flesh. A tasty smelling root I dug up from the forest starts to get blackened from the fire. Unwilling to wait I decide it is done and dig in. I don't worry about incompatible proteins and micronutrients. Alien vegetables are usually useless for any non-native beings when it comes to nutrition value, but using qi to break matter down into its individual components allows the body to use the sustenance anyway.

Having fed myself I look to the little bunny in my lap. Having just eaten its mother I can't bring myself to do it any harm. I decide to think about it later and just feed it some qi for now. It should sustain the little thing until morning. I tear off a strip of cloth and wrap the critter up warmly, after which I lay it inside the hollow tree where it soon falls asleep. With the experimental subject stowed away, I focus on other things.

As I bury the remains of my meal I decide to make a vague plan. Information is king and it is a commodity that I am sorely lacking. I heard some people talking while I was stalk... examining the village but it was gobbledygook to my ears. A working knowledge of the local language gets set as the number two priority, with gathering strength as the ever present number one. I don't look forward to having to decipher a new language, especially if that language got developed on a planet that is unknown. A lot of languages on earth are based on a few proto-languages, so neighbouring countries tend to have a lot of similar sentence and grammar tricks. That speeds up piecing new ones together tremendously. Here I am working with a blank slate, so only listening and analysing for extended periods of time will net me any results.

Figuring out what the deal is with the imbalances mana ecosystem gets set as priority number three. Adventuring and exploring comes fourth. Happy with the slipshod plan I've got going I decide to spend the night actively cultivating. A few ideas on how to improve my qi gathering speed need to be put to the test.

After thanking the tree once again for its usefulness in giving me shelter I settle myself down and get to work. I undo the gathering partition in my mind and take manual control. Only taking in mana via breath is a slow but steady process but I want to have some excess qi for general usage. I spend half my qi to access my spatial ring. A dagger twists itself into this plane of reality as I take it out of the folded space. A small prick to my finger gets me a small stream of blood to use. I let it drip to the floor in front of me and let it gather in a small puddle.