Battle Qi and Mercenaries

Battle Qi and Mercenaries

After transmigrating, Lorist spent more than two months recovering from his injuries and read every book he could find on Galintea's history, geography, folk legends, and travelers' accounts. Only then did he finally gain a rough understanding of this unfamiliar world.

It was a world that looked somewhat like medieval Europe on Earth. In Lorist's memories, knights and lords were things from that era. He had even made several sets of knightly armor himself and sold them for a high price on Taotao Online.

The people here also resembled Europeans; they were all white. Yet Lorist felt that this world was far more civilized than the dark and ignorant medieval civilization he had learned about online. Uh, perhaps only the food could compare to the Middle Ages. Oatmeal porridge, black bread, mashed potatoes, and salt every day made eating unbearably miserable. He truly suspected that the plump caretaker had been sneaking the tasty parts from his meals—that had to be why she was so fat.

With that suspicion in mind, Lorist asked the caretaker named Keli whether she could change the menu.

Keli replied that this was the academy's food for patients.

Lorist said that if so, he would stop eating patient meals and have regular food instead.

So the next day, Keli brought him black bread and mashed potatoes. The oatmeal porridge was gone, replaced by vegetable soup with two leaves floating in it.

Lorist ate until tears streamed down his face, once again suffering beyond endurance.

Unlike the white Europeans from his previous life, people here were accustomed to putting their family names first and given names afterward, just like Chinese naming customs. Lorist had read in a book about the origins of the nobility that during the Dark Millennium, warriors with courage and strength who went alone to hunt Magical Beasts and returned alive would be granted titles by tribal elders. Names such as White Mountain, Big Tooth, or Flying Eagle would be placed before their own names, eventually evolving into surnames. Norton, for example, meant Angry Bear in Ancient Elvish.

The greatest difference was that Galintea had two moons. The first and larger moon was called Daphne. It was silver-white and known as the Silver Moon Goddess, or the Goddess of Love. The second moon was much smaller, called Sufina. Blood-red in color, it was known as the Blood Moon Goddess, or the Goddess of Vengeance. At night, it hung at the edge of the sky as a red crescent. According to Galintean legend, if Sufina ever revealed her full form as a full moon, it meant that a large-scale war would once again break out in the mortal world.

In myths and legends, both the Silver Moon Goddess and the Blood Moon Goddess were wives of the God of Light, the God of War, and Sigva, God of Sun. Thus, throughout Galintea, having two wives was considered perfectly natural and universally accepted, provided one could afford them. Since neither wife held a higher status than the other, the bride price for the second wife could not be less than that of the first. Therefore, for the sake of domestic peace, many people—even nobles—would rather marry only one wife to avoid trouble.

The more history books Lorist read, the more confused he became. Galintea Continent was enormous, yet humanity's territory covered only a little more than a third of it. The rest consisted of wastelands, forests, or mountain ranges, places where humans had never set foot. Yet many history books and miscellaneous works on geography and customs depicted maps of the entire Galintea Continent. They were broadly similar, and it was said that these maps had been left behind by the age of Magic Civilization, surveyed by mages.

There was also the matter of language and writing. The language was the so-called Common Tongue, spoken by all humans in Galintea. There were no dialects, only one language. Its writing consisted of thirty-two pictographic letters, with two or three letters combined into a diamond-shaped script. It was not difficult to master. The books said that mages had specifically created and promoted this language and script for humanity. They themselves also knew Ancient Elvish, Dragon Language, Goblin Language, and several languages imbued with magic.

What surprised Lorist most was that many maps depicted Galintea Continent on a round sphere. The Galinteans also knew that they lived on a planet, though they did not call it a planet, but a plane world. Some books describing Magic Civilization mentioned many so-called sub-plane worlds, and those sub-plane worlds were likewise round planets floating in the void.

Unless the legends about mages were true history, these maps, languages, and writing were truly difficult to explain. If they were indeed true history, then Galintea's civilization had taken a different path: magic came before Battle Qi, with an emphasis on cultivating individual strength rather than following Earth civilization's path of technological development.

Lorist began to take an interest in Battle Qi. He carefully studied the handwritten copy of Blazing Flame Battle Qi, then only understood through his own cultivation experiences that the key to Battle Qi lay in blood circulation.

The Galinteans called the points where the body's blood vessels converged nodes. The human body had seventy-two major nodes, three hundred and sixty minor nodes, and one thousand and eighty extraordinary nodes. So-called Battle Qi involved sensing the Vital Energy in the air, accelerating blood circulation, and directing the blood through certain nodes according to one's intent to form a special circulation. This produced Qi Sensation and granted explosive strength, speed, and reflexes. That was Battle Qi.

One thing Lorist found astonishing was that Battle Qi had attributes. Just as the traditional Chinese medical books he had memorized in childhood said that the human body possessed the five elements—the skin, nostrils, lungs, and large intestine belonged to Metal; the tendons, eyes, liver, and gallbladder belonged to Wood; the bones, ears, kidneys, and bladder belonged to Water; the veins, tongue, heart, and small intestine belonged to Fire; and the flesh, spleen, mouth, and stomach belonged to Earth—Battle Qi simply had many more types of attributes.

For example, from the perspective of Battle Qi, the circulation formed by blood vessel nodes from the crown of the head, through the eyes, to beneath the jaw produced Light Attribute Battle Qi. The Battle Qi produced from the back of the head down to the tailbone was Dark Attribute. The Battle Qi generated by several blood vessel nodes passing through the kidneys and bladder was Water Attribute. The nodes in the right chest encompassing the liver and gallbladder produced Wood Attribute Battle Qi. Battle Qi cultivated in the right abdomen was Fire Attribute, that cultivated in the left chest was Metal Attribute, and that cultivated in the left abdomen was Earth Attribute. There was also Wind Attribute Battle Qi, generated by more than a dozen major blood vessel nodes from the shoulders to the thighs. In addition, there were rarer attribute Battle Qis such as Blood Attribute and Ice Attribute.

Generally speaking, Battle Qi cultivation involved using several major blood vessel nodes to form a pentagram or hexagram structure, then using several or more than a dozen minor blood vessel nodes inside that pentagram or hexagram to form a new blood circulation. One then accelerated the blood flow to generate Qi Sensation. Mastering this Qi Sensation, achieving movement of Qi with one's thoughts, was the purpose of Battle Qi cultivation. In this respect, Lorist felt that cultivating Battle Qi had a familiar resemblance to cultivating internal energy in his previous life.

However, Battle Qi cultivation had many incompatibilities. Different attributes of Battle Qi could not be cultivated together. For instance, if one cultivated Earth Attribute Battle Qi, one could not cultivate any other attribute of Battle Qi. Otherwise, while it might not be called qi deviation, being forever unable to advance to the next realm was certain. There were also many types of Battle Qi. Even the attribute-less Basic Battle Qi had more than a dozen varieties. Like Military Battle Qi, they were all low-tier Battle Qis, and reaching Black Iron Tier through them was already the limit.

Yet the benefits of Basic Battle Qi and Military Battle Qi were, first, that they had no attribute requirements and anyone could cultivate them; second, they were simple to cultivate and allowed practitioners to sense Qi Sensation more quickly. Most of their blood vessel nodes formed pentagram structures, and they contained fewer minor blood vessel nodes, making it easier for cultivators to master the movement of Qi Sensation.

The Battle Qi Enlightenment Classes currently popular in the academy basically taught students Basic Battle Qi first. Once they reached Black Iron Tier, students would choose mid-tier or high-tier attribute Battle Qi according to their own attributes and cultivate it on their own. However, most Battle Qi Manuals on the market were low- or mid-tier manuals that could only be cultivated to Silver Tier. Mid- or high-tier Battle Qi Manuals that could reach Gold Rank were rare, and any that existed were worth a fortune.

Lorist was very interested in the Blazing Flame Battle Qi cultivated by this body and resolved to practice it diligently. He was not too worried about its lack of cultivation methods beyond Silver Tier. His memories told him that this body's third uncle came by once every year, first to check on Little Locke, and second to deliver a year's living expenses and tuition. So once Blazing Flame Battle Qi reached the Black Iron rank, he could ask this third uncle to bring the latter half of the manual for him to continue cultivating. But who could have expected that after only three years, this third uncle would suddenly vanish without a trace? Then, a year later, the Krissen Empire erupted into a succession war among three princes. The war lasted six years, and he completely lost contact with his northern family.

Lorist did not care about losing contact with his family. On the contrary, he was somewhat delighted. The original owner of this body had been exiled in the first place. Now that contact had been lost, he no longer needed to worry that someone would suspect he was an impostor. The problem was that his living expenses and tuition now had no source. Food was not an issue; he could eat at the home of Madoff, the fat man who set up a stall outside the academy gates, or simply eat at the academy, since tuition already covered three meals a day. Though those meals were rather awful, tuition itself was a serious headache.

At the time, Lorist had already spent three and a half years at Dawnlight Academy. He had received passing certifications in both accounting and Knight Training and could graduate. But this was where he had arrived after transmigrating. Over more than three years, the friends he had met and the familiar surroundings were all here. He had long regarded Molent City as his hometown. Where could he go after graduation? At seventeen or eighteen years old, having only just entered Black Iron Tier, was it not too early to venture through this unfamiliar world with such strength?

Furthermore, in order to understand this world called Galintea, Lorist had enrolled in two more majors during the second half of the previous year: pharmacy and Magical Beast Lore. Deep down, he believed that learning more would help him integrate into this world. Fortunately, when Lorist transmigrated, he had arrived in Galintea's most prosperous and civilized city rather than some remote mountain village. That spared him the trouble of blindly feeling his way through the world, where a stroke of bad luck could leave him dead in some corner with no one ever knowing.

Tuition for one major per semester cost five to eight Gold Fude. Magical Beast Lore was manageable. It mostly involved studying illustrations and learning the characteristics of various Magical Beasts: which methods could kill them, which parts of their bodies were useful or valuable, and so on. As long as one had a good memory, passing the course was not difficult. Pharmacy was the deadly one. Not only did he need to identify all kinds of medicinal materials, he also had to learn how to process them and eventually synthesize potions. All of that required money for experiments.

Over the past three years, whenever Little Locke's third uncle visited, he would buy Little Locke clothes and tasty food, then leave around thirty gold coins for Little Locke's yearly tuition and living expenses. Sometimes, if the caravan business was doing well, he would leave a few more coins. Lorist was not extravagant in daily life. Aside from buying books and food and hiring servants, he had no other expenses. Even so, he had only saved twenty or thirty Gold Fude.

Perhaps in the eyes of Madoff, the fat man who ran a snack stall outside the academy gates, twenty or thirty Gold Fude was an astonishing fortune. But for Lorist, who wanted to continue his studies, it was only enough for another year or so.

Since he did not want to leave Molent City, he had to find a way to earn money. Several friends took Lorist to register at the Mercenary Guild, where he became a lowest-rank Bronze Mercenary and began taking odd jobs running errands for others.

However, Lorist had experiences from his previous life and a quick mind. While accepting errand jobs at the Mercenary Guild, he discovered a business opportunity. He contacted several friends, pooled a few gold coins, and bought a large quantity of low-tier Magical Beast pelts. After having them tanned and made into the kind of backpacks that had been common in his previous life, they brought them to the Mercenary Guild. Their novel design, freedom of movement, convenience, quick loading and unloading, and large capacity made them deeply popular among mercenaries. Three or four hundred leather backpacks were snatched up in no time. Lorist and his friends each received more than ten Gold Fude. Striking while the iron was hot, they did it two or three more times and earned another seventy or eighty gold coins.

Just as Lorist and his friends were preparing to open a leather workshop specializing in these backpacks, they suddenly discovered that the market was full of imitation backpacks. Not only were there countless styles, but prices had also dropped drastically. The group cursed furiously, but there was nothing they could do. They abandoned the idea of opening a leather workshop.

This incident gave Lorist a little reputation in the Mercenary Guild and earned him prestige among his friends. In truth, Lorist had many more ideas for earning gold coins, but he did not want to attract attention and chose to keep a low profile. The gold coins in his hands were enough for him to live comfortably. Usually, he attended classes at the academy, and in his spare time, he accepted small errands at the Mercenary Guild. During academy breaks, he formed a small adventuring party with several good friends to explore and hunt a few low-tier Magical Beasts. His days were relaxed and carefree. In just two or three years, Lorist had become a seasoned mercenary.