Life-and-Death Sight Technique

At the command of his thoughts, Xie An felt his blood and vitality drain away at a furious pace. Dizziness followed, along with nausea so strong he nearly vomited.

He glanced at the blood and vitality reading on the panel. It had dropped to 0.2.

"Activating one talent takes that much blood and vitality?"

Then again, it made sense.

Activating a talent was essentially transplanting it into himself.

After using Ten Thousand Questions many times, Xie An had discovered something: it possessed a degree of intelligence. When draining more of his blood and vitality would endanger his life, it stopped on its own.

It was a built-in safeguard for its host.

Even so, passing out every time was no solution.

He would have to add a command that predicted the cost in blood and vitality.

[Talent activated]

[Spirit Sight: Qi-Gazing]

"Qi-Gazing? Could it be like the ability Uncle Shui mentioned, sensing the Vital Breath inside others?"

Xie An wanted to test Qi-Gazing at once, but the drain had been too severe. Nausea and dizziness wracked him; even opening his eyes took effort.

He needed to replenish his blood and vitality quickly.

There were only two ways: sleep and rest, or eat something nourishing.

The former was slow. The latter was fast.

"Qiu Lan, get me two bowls of ginseng and hen soup!"

Xie An called out toward the door.

"Right away! I'll have the kitchen make it." Qiu Lan answered from outside, then hurried off.

Xie An slumped against the headboard. Waiting for the soup would take far too long.

Slaughtering the chicken, cleaning it, simmering the soup... It would take at least two hours.

He heard Zhou Ji practicing his saber in the courtyard and called out, "Zhou Ji, come in. I need to speak with you."

Zhou Ji entered shortly afterward. Seeing Xie An leaning weakly against the headboard, he started. "What do you need, young master?"

Fighting his exhaustion, Xie An asked, "When martial artists are injured or worn out, is there any medicine that restores their strength and blood and vitality quickly?"

The last time he had exhausted himself, he had thought only of ginseng and old-hen soup.

That was a habit of thought from his previous life.

This was a world of martial arts. There had to be pills made specifically to replenish blood and vitality.

Sure enough...

Zhou Ji said, "Poor martial artists can only eat more meat, then sleep it off. They recover naturally within a day or so. Those with money can take Essence Qi Pills, which replenish blood and vitality quickly. Whenever my father escorted a shipment, he would grit his teeth and spend the money to carry a few. If he ran into vicious bandits on the road, they let him fight longer."

Xie An nodded. "The Xie Residence should have Essence Qi Pills, shouldn't it?"

"It does, of course. The Xie Residence has plenty of resources. When the guards overdo their training or try to break through a barrier, they often buy a few to improve their chances."

"Go to the storehouse and bring me a bag of Vital Blood Pills."

"Yes." Zhou Ji turned and left.

Before long, he returned with a bag of Vital Blood Pills.

Xie An opened it. Inside were ten round black pills, each the size of a thumbtip. They gave off a refreshing medicinal fragrance with a faint hint of blood.

He took one and popped it straight into his mouth.

Gulp!

The pill reached his stomach and dissolved, sending a warm current through his limbs and every part of his body.

His exhausted muscles and bones recovered at a visible rate.

Within a few dozen breaths, Xie An felt most of his blood and vitality return. The weakness and spasms vanished.

The panel showed his blood and vitality back at its full 1.4.

Remarkable!

I should have done this ages ago.

Fully restored, Xie An tossed two Vital Blood Pills to Zhou Ji. "I've seen you practicing your saber day and night. Don't run yourself ragged and hurt yourself. These are a reward. Practice with me later."

"Thank you for the reward, young master!"

Delighted, Zhou Ji took the pills and went out.

Zhou Ji was obsessed with martial arts and had recently been trying to reach the fourth of the Four Barriers, Organ Tempering. But whenever he trained late into the night, his blood and vitality couldn't keep up. With these Vital Blood Pills, his chances of breaking through would undoubtedly rise.

After Zhou Ji left, Xie An got out of bed and stretched his limbs.

Then he activated Qi-Gazing with a thought.

The scene before him... had changed!

He could see a wisp of transparent "qi" around the wooden table. It was lifeless and utterly still.

The floor tiles, ceiling, and lamp all had wisps of transparent qi too, but none of them moved.

Xie An pushed open the window and looked at the plants in the courtyard.

A wisp of qi rose from the grass.

A wisp rose from the tree as well.

But both moved very slowly.

When he looked at Zhou Ji practicing his saber, he saw a mass of rising qi surging around him. It blurred his vision like heat shimmering above a fire.

Zhou Ji's qi was clearly denser and more active than the plants'.

After comparing them, Xie An finally had a basic grasp of Qi-Gazing:

Everything has qi. The qi of inanimate things is motionless Dead Breath, while the qi of living things is rising Vital Breath! And the density of that qi might indicate how dangerous something is!

To test his theory, Xie An went into the courtyard and crouched beneath the pomelo tree to watch an ant.

Its wisp of qi was tiny, but it was definitely rising.

Crunch.

Xie An crushed the ant underfoot.

Its rising qi immediately stopped.

Just as I thought...

Qi-Gazing must be the ability to sense Vital Breath that only Dark Force masters possessed.

Dark Force masters could only sense it vaguely, while he could see it outright.

This Spirit Sight: Qi-Gazing truly was extraordinary.

With Qi-Gazing, I can tell the living from the dead like Uncle Shui. I can even make a rough judgment of how dangerous someone is before making a move. What a talent!

This ability was not to be underestimated.

In an age rife with eerie folklore and ghostly happenings, Qi-Gazing was an exceptionally precious Life-and-Death Sight Technique!

If he could return to the entrance of Li Family Village at noon today, Xie An would recognize Li Yunfeng as a dead man at a glance.

It made Xie An feel a little more capable of protecting himself in these chaotic times.

Something occurred to him. He hurried back to his room and looked in the mirror.

He activated Qi-Gazing.

Thank goodness...

His reflection had qi too. It was not as abundant as Zhou Ji's, but it was unmistakably rising in thin curls.

So he was alive, and no ghost had possessed him.

A relieved smile touched Xie An's lips.

He still did not quite understand where talents came from. But one thing was certain: if he touched something with a distinctive ability, he might identify its talent. Once activated, he could use it himself.

It worked much like identifying a martial art and then transplanting it.

Talents were more mysterious, though. Unlike martial arts, they could not simply be written down on paper.

As for what a talent was... Xie An thought of it as an innate, unusual ability.

The Ten Thousand Questions model could transplant not only martial arts but talents too. That was absurdly powerful!

Hm?

As Xie An kept looking, he suddenly noticed a wisp of qi descending amid his own rising currents.

Descending qi?

He had never seen that before.

What did it mean?