Chapter 19
"You alright?"
Alden was shaken out of his thoughts by a voice. He looked up to see the outstretched hand of Renna, and grabbed it.
"Thanks." He replied, unable to suppress the excitement from bleeding into his voice. "Actually, I couldn't be better."
Then he turned towards the Scourge. "What the hell was that, old man?"
"A little demonstration of power." The man shrugged.
"That was awesome." Alden praised. He had long read about the strength of cultivators. But seeing it first hand was a different experience altogether. What the Scourge had casually demonstrated was just the tip of the iceberg, after all, he was a cripple. Yet, for an ordinary man, it was an impossible feat to accomplish.
"Are you a masochist, by chance?" Renna commented, her lips subtly twitching upwards. "Then again, I should have seen it coming."
Alden glanced at her and laughed. It seemed like his excitement was getting to her. Getting the Scourge's approval, was the same as getting the man on board with their plans. She had all rights to feel good.
The Scourge rolled his shoulders once, then bent to retrieve his coat from the fence post. He slung it over one arm and gave Alden a long, measuring look.
"Alright. You've got some grit. Enough to move past scraps in the yard." He jerked his chin toward the gates leading out of the Stonewatch compound. "Let's not put on a show here. Too many eyes."
Renna tilted her head. "Where, then?"
"My place." the Scourge said. "It's quiet. No one's gonna be nosy enough to come sniffing around."
The three slipped out of the yard together. They took the back-alley route, winding past the edge of the Arena District, through a quieter part of town where the shouts and clatter faded into the distance. Eventually, they stopped in front of a small, nondescript property tucked between two larger stone buildings. The walls were plain. The gate low. But as Alden stepped inside, he felt the difference.
The place was calm. It almost looked peaceful.
The courtyard opened wide, a shallow square of mossy flagstone and soft grass bordered by trees. The sun filtered down through the leaves, and the air carried the faint scent of earth and dust. It wasn't fancy, far from the grandness of the Thornevale estate.
Yet, for someone like the Scourge, it felt fitting.
The old arena fighter walked to the middle of the courtyard, rolled his shoulders once, and dropped into a cross-legged seat with a lazy grunt.
"Sit."
Alden and Renna looked at each other then shrugged. They lowered themselves into the ground.
"This." Scourge began, tapping a finger against the ground, "is where we start."
He tilted his head back slightly, as if settling into an old rhythm. "Qi, life's energy, flows through everything. The air, the ground, you, me, that rat hiding under the bench over there."
Alden didn't look. He wasn't sure if it was a joke.
"Everyone has Qi." the man continued. "But not everyone can use it. Cultivators learn how to draw it in, purify it, and store it inside themselves. That's where the inner world comes in."
Alden frowned. He's been reading some books lately, so the theory wasn't new to him.
"Tell me what you know. Start with the basics. What do you think cultivation is?"
Alden inhaled, sorting his thoughts. "It's… drawing in Qi, the energy in the world. Pulling it into yourself. Refining it to strengthen your body, spirit, or whatever, depending on the method you follow."
"That's the general idea." the Scourge nodded. "Go on."
"As you cultivate, you'll need a core, eventually. But before that, you train your body to withstand Qi. You can't just swallow Qi blindly or you'll die or go crazy." Alden frowned. "At least, that's how the theory goes."
The Scourge chuckled, low and rough. "Hnh. You've got the basics down, enough to know that going into this blindly can kill you." He leaned forward, scarred hands resting on his knees. "And yet... I don't know how you did it, but you seem to have already conditioned your body to Qi."
Alden could feel the probing glance boring into him. And he did his best to hold it with his most nonchalant look. Eventually, the man understood that he wasn't going to elaborate.
He stroked his chin. "Your body shouldn't risk any adverse reaction to drawing Qi inwards. Have you discovered your inner world?"
This time, Alden nodded. By now, he had come to understand that the foggy realm that he visited each night was actually what cultivators referred to as Inner world. A place which housed the soul, and where he would be building his Qi core.
The revelation elicited a reaction from both Renna and Scourge. The former adopted a thoughtful expression, while the later grinned.
"It seems you're a lot more talented than I anticipated. Anything else you want to add? Perhaps you have already formed a core on your own?" The Scourge jokingly said. But Alden wasn't so sure himself.
There was something in his inner world. It looked like a core, at least, what he imagined a core would look like.
But he couldn't control it.
He could draw energy from it, energy that would be used to heal and strengthen him. Yet, what he could draw out was limited. And the energy itself was uncontrollable.
From what he's learned, a Qi core was the total opposite of that.
"I wish." Alden responded, dismissing the Scourge's inquiry.
"Of course, something like that wouldn't be possible." The man laughed. "But anyway, having discovered your inner world saves us a lot of time. You can start meditating."
He leaned forward slightly. "Now. What we call meditation isn't just closing your eyes and breathing slow. It's the act of pulling Qi into yourself. Of sensing it, guiding it, making it yours. The deeper you go, the stronger your draw."
Alden nodded slowly with a frown. By drawing parallels, he would say that the exercise was like breathing. Absorb air into your lungs, take the oxygen, then release the CO2. Except, instead of air, he would be absorbing Qi. A completely new matter, which, like air, was equally invisible.
"All right." he responded, despite the many doubts clawing at the back of his mind, he assumed the lotus position, and closed his eyes. He had attempted to sense Qi in the past. But until now, the most he achieved was plunging his spirit into his inner world.
"Good. Try."
Alden blinked, frowning. "What do you mean try? Aren't you going to show me an example first?"
At that, the Scourge smirked. "I'm already doing that. You're just too dull to feel it."
Alden squinted at him, suspicious. The man didn't look like he was doing anything special. Just breathing slowly.
But maybe… maybe that was the point.
Just do it, Alden told himself. Don't overcomplicate things.
He settled in, closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing. Just like the meditation book Renna had given him back then. Inhale steady. Exhale slow. Clear the noise. Listen for something deeper.
He listened.
And waited.
But nothing came.
He sat there for a while, trying different breathing patterns, adjusting how he sat, letting thoughts drift, then pushing them away again. He tried counting his breaths. Listening to his heartbeat. Letting his senses open to the courtyard.
Still, nothing. No pressure in the air. No hum of energy. No glowing light.
Just silence.
His brow twitched. He kept going. Tried harder. Slowed more. Hoped that if he just pushed a bit further, then he would get it. But still, nothing happened.
The failure wasn't new. He'd tried this before. And every time, it had gone the same way, like trying to hear a whisper across a canyon.
He gritted his teeth and gave it a few more minutes. But the more frustrate he grew, the worst it would get.
Alden took several deep breaths, evacuating the tensions. He stopped searching, and instead focused on regaining his calm.
And then, he felt a small twinkle. Something brushed the back of his mind. A flicker of pressure. It felt familiar, almost like a memory, and he grabbed it.
Then the world dropped. In a blink, the courtyard vanished.
He stood now in that same vast, mist-choked space. In the distance, pulsing like a low drumbeat in the dark, was a familiar orb of unknown energy.
Alden sighed.
He failed again.
With practiced ease, he pulled himself back. Retreating from his inner world, and his eyes snapped open.
The courtyard returned. The wind rustled the grass.
Across from him, the Scourge raised an eyebrow.
Alden sighed. "I failed. My inner world, it pulled me in, again."
That made the man pause. He leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing. "It pulled you in?"
Alden nodded.
The Scourge gave a low whistle. "Looks like you've got quite the strong soul. Trainees can't even feel their inner world until they learn to sense Qi. You? You're diving in like you live there."
Alden's frowned. "Yeah, but that's not really helping, isn't it?"
"Normally, with such a strong soul, you should have long since sensed Qi." The Scourge said, he scratched his chin and looked down in thoughts. "I don't understand why it's not working. Maybe you need a little push."
The Scourge tapped his knee once, then rose from the ground with a grunt.
"Wait here."
Alden watched as the man strode toward the house. The old door creaked open, then shut again, leaving the courtyard strangely quiet.
He let out a breath and turned his head. Renna had shifted sometime during his attempts. She now sat cross-legged by the fence, her cloak gathered around her, back pressed against the wood. Her eyes were closed, posture steady, hands resting lightly on her knees.
Alden stared a moment, then glanced down at his own hands. She made it look easy.
The Scourge returned before long, one hand clutching a slip of yellowed paper inked with tight, curling runes. He slapped it against the inside of the gate, the parchment gluing to the wood naturally. Markings flared briefly, then dimmed to a faint glow.
"There." he said, settling back across from Alden. "This will keep curious eyes away. No one likes a flare of Qi leaking out in the middle of town."
Alden nodded, and then felt a faint shift in the air. It was subtle, a light pressure rolling outward.
"Focus." the Scourge instructed. "Don't overthink it. Just feel it."
Alden closed his eyes, forcing his breath to steady. He tried to catch it, that weight, that pulse in the air. But all he managed was a growing tightness in his chest, like the courtyard had thinned of air. His throat worked, struggling to draw in a deep breath. His temples pulsed.
But there was nothing else.
"I still can't feel it. May-"
"I know." The Scourge's voice cut him off. "Keep trying."
A hand pressed flat against Alden's sternum, rough palm hot even through the fabric of his clothes. Something surged, foreign, invasive, crawling beneath his skin like molten threads.
For a moment, it was nothing but heat and discomfort. Alden clenched his teeth, digging his nails into his knees. Then, with a sudden jolt, the pressure cracked something unseen inside him.
And the world shifted.
Alden's breath hitched and his eyes flew open in excitement. Only to constrict in horror a second later.
The courtyard was the same. The fence, the ground, the house, they all remained, but the air between them writhed. Shapes coalesced in the corners of his vision, forming from shadows too thick to belong.
They shambled across the dirt, some crawling, others twitching, their limbs stretched wrong. Faces half-rotted, jaws slack and dripping. Eyes burned faintly red in skulls too hollow to contain them. One dragged a broken spine across the ground, vertebrae clattering like beads. Another hovered above the earth entirely, its torso hollowed out, ribs opening like insect mandibles as it drifted closer.
A low moan rippled through the air. The smell of rot clung to the back of his tongue.
They were everywhere. Lurking against the walls, crouching on the roofline, seeping through the talisman's faint light.
Alden froze. Every instinct screamed to move, to fight, to flee. But his body refused to respond, the Scourge's Qi burned through him, keeping him in place.