Insight

Headache.

A splitting headache.

Xia Lin woke as though his skull were about to crack open.

He opened his eyes and found himself still lying in the open space before Qi Feng's ramshackle shed. The sun had already begun to set, and the slanting golden rays stabbed painfully at his eyes.

The moment he opened them, he felt the entire world spinning.

"Ugh—"

He tried to sit up, but the instant he moved, a fierce wave of dizziness hit him.

It was not ordinary hangover dizziness.

This feeling ran deeper, more inward.

Xia Lin closed his eyes and tried to sense his body.

Then he noticed it. Something was spinning in his dantian.

It was a vortex made of energy, like a miniature whirlwind, slowly rotating.

With every rotation, a faint stream of power flowed through his body along some invisible path before returning to the vortex.

Is this—the Sea of Qi?

The thing in his dantian was like a vortex that would never stop, filled with chaotic, unstable energy.

And its rotation was constantly affecting his sense of balance.

Xia Lin tried to stand again.

He braced his hands against the ground and slowly rose, immediately realizing what the problem was.

That internal sensation of "spinning" completely conflicted with his usual sense of balance.

His body told him, "You're standing upright," but his inner perception told him, "You're spinning."

The two signals contradicted each other, leaving his brain utterly confused.

Xia Lin swayed and nearly fell again.

"Hahahaha!"

A piercing burst of laughter came from across the clearing.

Qi Feng sat carelessly atop a pile of wine jars, swaying a bottle of Shadow Eel Wine with only a little left in it, his face full of

gloating.

"What happened to all that swagger from before? Already gone limp?" He