The Dao of Magic

09 - City

I think Lola might be bored. So far something exciting happened every day since she was born, and the last few days was just walking. To combat this I played with her. Actually, it's a thinly disguised training session for both of us. No, actually it's just kids games. We played tag. I couldn't think of anything else, so we just chased after each other.

The worst part is she is winning. I am a first realm cultivator, Lola is still a mortal animal, but she is getting faster than me. At first, I beat her easily. Pump some qi, do some steps and I won. In the past day, she has started to get a grip on her own cultivation. She has her core inside her heart, the best place to send qi from to the body. I have to manually guide qi through my veins, she can just release it from her heart and it will flow into the rest of her physique perfectly. Her body has started to increase blood flow to intensively used areas. When she is sprinting full tilt the majority of her blood flows to her hind legs.

Every time she feels tired she comes whining to me, rubbing herself on my legs and begging for some caressing. I then praise her and rub her with qi infused fingers. Now she is whining at me, but I don't fall for it. I sense with some qi and she has plenty left in the tank still. She isn't running away even though I am currently it.

"Stop pretending you shitty rabbit."

I give her a kick and she goes flying. She rolls a bit on landing, swivelling her head around. Then she sees me and sprinted back to me, now hopping around wildly. That started our second game, the flying rabbit.

When her qi is full I kick full force. Or is it called launching? I don't really kick her, she sits on my foot and like a catapult, I sweep my foot forwards. She has had days to integrate the qi in her body, which includes her fur. Qi laden fur is the best shock damper in the universe. With my knowledge of science, I never managed to make a more efficient shock absorber than qi charged fur. So when she is full of qi I can kick her nearly a kilometre before it will start doing damage. She is also a body cultivator, so this is perfect training.

It's not like I find it funny when I send her squealing into the distance. It truly isn't hilarious at all. She then comes sprinting back and I send her flying again. Not funny at all.

It is now getting late in the fourth day and I see a road. It is just a dirt road again, crossing my path diagonally. I decide to follow the road, logic telling me that it should merge with a main road ending up at the city gates. I pick up Lola and put her in my pocket again. She grew a bit and could probably beat up any normal grown man, but she is technically still a baby.

"I can see some people coming this way, rest for now. We can play later again, okay?"

Lola closes her eyes and falls asleep immediately. The only thing keeping her awake was her enthusiasm at playing and her qi reserves. Body cultivators tend to need to sleep a lot more than other practitioners. I don't need to sleep anymore, but it helps with information processing. My body's strength is inferior to any other cultivation path but the lack up sleep is a necessity in any hostile environment. Lacking the need for sleep saved my ass more times than I can count.

A cart with a couple people in ratty clothes on top passes me by. The beast of burden is another misremembered artistic impression of an animal that I know. The being resembling a horse has a few darker zebra striped on its grey hide, while its hoofs are replaced by... duck feet? They don't resemble duck feet at all, but it's the closest approximation that I can come up with. The driver shouts something unintelligible at me but I just keep walking. Their clothes look and smell fairly horrible. Not crusty hobo levels of filth but I'm willing to bet they haven't seen a bath or shower in a month. All four people have brown and black shades of hair, one woman and three men. I scan them with a thin wave a qi. Two men and a boy. Their cart is half empty, bags of grains and spices fill half. Must be farmers coming back from the market or something.