The Dao of Magic

16 - Tree

I love running. Pumping my legs to an internal rhythm while playing some music in my mind from memory. I can simply focus on moving my body to the beat and stop thinking for once. Squinting my eyes against the wind I take stock of my surroundings. I'm running over flat grasslands, going back south. I left the road behind me and made a detour around the inn I came across. The sun has started peeking over the horizon, lighting up shards of fog still clinging to the grass.

I will need an artefact for the next step in my plan. I'm not talking about my priority list, that is just a global living guideline. The plan I'm working on right now is something that I never needed to do before. I don't have enough qi to enact it though, so I will have to fix that. I send more qi into my body and speed up, Lola is keeping up with ease.

Body cultivators integrate their qi into their fleshy body. Mind cultivators have the biggest qi pools but their bodies are barely any stronger. Qi needs to be applied manually to muscle groups in order to produce impressive feats of strength. Normal - dantian - cultivators are a bit of both, able to produce magic combined with average strengthened physique. Qi users going the body cultivation route have the majority of their total qi locked inside their flesh, bones, skin and organs. They can use a little bit of power to aid certain fighting skills, but they won't be performing any grand spell works anytime soon.

This all means that Lola in her normal state can beat the crap out of me. I need to rely on other tricks in order to beat someone like her. She might be stronger than me but if I suspend her in a network of qi wires she wouldn't have any leverage to reach me. This means any team of practitioners would ideally have at least one of each, that way they can compensate for each other's weaknesses.

I break away from this train of thought when the forest comes into view again. Slowing down I start a casual jog. A white flash passes just in front of me. A certain rabbit seems to be having fun jumping off tree trunks like a ping pong ball. I reach a recognizable clearing by the time I've started working up a slight sweat. Lola isn't even breathing harder. Stupid cheating horn-toting piece of adorable fluff...

I slow down even further as I detect various living beings in the clearing. I jump into a tree and traverse the last few meters to the edge of the woods jumping from branch to branch. I barely see a colourful hodgepodge of wildlife chilling on the grass when I hear a snap and a squeak. Looking behind me I see Lola tumbling down, taking a branch filled with square and purple leaves down with her. Just as I want to scold the stupid thing for giving our position away, I feel a myriad of gazes peering at me.

The entire group of funky wildlife is staring at me. They don't do anything else, they don't even stand up. I blink my eyes a couple of times and drop to the ground. Their gazes follow me walking around the edge of the clearing, their necks and head the only thing moving. This is really weird, what is going on here.

On a whim, I simulate some fear. My eyes grow wide and my eyebrows reach for the sky as I observe a slow moving blue vortex centred in the open space. Did I create a permanent mana phenomenon? How much am I fucking up this region? Are these animals going to become much stronger thanks to this mana hotspot?

I shake my head and decide to make the most of the situation. My core is running on fumes now, there is no liquid qi left in the tank. Looking over the animals I find a path to the centre that is fairly unobstructed. I walk slowly through the horde of animals.

"Lola, come here for a bit."

The white bunny slowly hops my way. I reach the clearing centre and sit down. I pat my leg and Lola nuzzles up to me. I grab her and place her in my lap. Looking her in the eyes I take a deep breath, filtering out any mana before breathing it out. She seems to get the hint after a minute of demonstrative breathing and her nose starts twitching slower as she takes deeper breaths.