Improvement

By the time Chu Bai returned home, even the village dogs had stopped barking.

He pushed open the wooden door. The dim yellow oil lamp was still burning inside, and his younger siblings were already asleep.

But his parents were still awake at the table.

When Chu Bai came in, his mother, Li Qing, hurriedly set aside the clothes she had been mending and rose from her stool. "Big Brother, you're back? I saved you some food in the pot. It's still warm."

At the sound, his father, Chu Xianglin, looked up. A simple, honest smile touched his weathered face, but he said nothing.

Chu Bai noticed that his father's trouser legs were covered in hardened flecks of mud. He had not looked this bedraggled when he left that morning.

He must have spent the whole day working in the fields without a break.

"Dad, Mom, you're still up?"

Warmth filled Chu Bai's heart as he sat down at the table.

Li Qing quickly brought him a large bowl of coarse rice and a plate of stir-fried greens from the pot. A few pieces of pork crackling no bigger than fingernails had even been laid on top.

"Eat while it's hot." Li Qing sat across from him and studied his face in the lamplight. "How did it go at the Inner Gate today? Was Daoist Zhang strict?"

"Everything went well." Chu Bai picked up his bowl and shoveled in mouthfuls of food. "Master Zhang doesn't say much, but what he teaches is the real thing. I understood it and managed to keep up."

"That's good, that's good." Li Qing broke into a smile, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes smoothing out.

Chu Xianglin, silent until now, tapped out his pipe and said in a low voice, "Big Brother, don't put too much pressure on yourself. Your mother and I don't understand cultivation, but we know it isn't easy."

"Your mother and I talked it over. Just do your best to learn. The ten taels are spent, and that's that. We're poor, but losing that money won't keep us from getting by."

He paused, his words turning awkward. "If... I mean, if you don't get into the Dao Academy this time, don't lose heart. Old Wang at the village entrance told me that, later on, you don't necessarily have to attend a Dao Academy to sit that 'Heavenly Examination.' At worst, you can spend a couple more years studying at home. We'll take it slow."

Chu Bai's chopsticks paused.

He knew his father was trying to comfort him, afraid he would buckle under the pressure and back himself into a corner.

But he knew better than anyone that this was only the wishful comfort of poor folk.

The Dao Academy taught young students. It received government subsidies, charged low tuition, and offered a systematic inheritance of knowledge.

If he failed to enter and became a "Rogue Cultivator," he would have to buy every Spell Art and every scripture at the market before he could take the Heavenly Examination. The prices were astronomical!

Never mind learning Spell Arts. The next cultivation manual alone, the one he would need to break through to a higher realm, could bankrupt the Chu Household ten times over.

His family had scraped together the ten taels by emptying everything they had. How could they possibly support a Rogue Cultivator?

If he could not clear this hurdle, the road ahead would only grow narrower until it ended altogether.

"Don't worry, Dad. I know what I'm doing." Chu Bai swallowed his food and looked up with an easy smile. "I've only just begun."

"Of course. Our Big Brother has been clever since he was little," Li Qing said with a smile.

As they talked, Chu Bai polished off the heaping bowl of coarse rice, along with every bit of pork crackling in the vegetables.

He put down his bowl and chopsticks. There was food in his stomach now, but the hunger rising from deep within his body had not completely faded.

"Want another serving?" Li Qing asked, surprised at the sight of the spotless bowl.

Chu Bai was still growing and usually ate a little more than most, but tonight's bowl had been packed tight. It held half again as much as his usual serving.

"No, I'm full." Chu Bai shook his head.

The family did not have much grain left. If he ate his fill, everyone might be drinking thin porridge tomorrow.

But Li Qing sensed something. As she cleared the bowl, she said, "Looks like Qi Refining takes a lot out of you. Tomorrow I'll use the old rice left in the jar. From now on, I'll cook your rice a little firmer. We can't have you wasting away before you've even finished learning."

Chu Bai opened his mouth to refuse, but in the end, he only nodded.

Back in his cramped little room, Chu Bai did not immediately collapse into bed.

He sat cross-legged on the hard bed and closed his eyes for a moment. Only when his thoughts had completely settled did he take up the cultivation posture of the Lesser Qi-Gathering Art again.

Night was deep, and all was silent.

He had trained for an hour at the academy during the day, and his body was already exhausted.

The weakness brought on by Refining Essence into Qi made him want nothing more than to lie down and sleep.

An ordinary person forcing himself to cultivate in this state would likely struggle to enter meditation with his mind so scattered. He might even send his qi down the wrong path.

But with a thought, Chu Bai brought the pale blue panel into his mind.

[Acquired Fate Pattern: Relentless Toil, Relentless Effort]

The words seemed to hold a strange power. His drowsy resolve hardened in an instant.

As long as I practice, I'll make progress. If my Fate Destiny grants me Relentless Effort, then I'll see just how far this body can go.

In—out—

The familiar rhythm began again.

Chu Bai endured the aching pressure in his meridians, guiding that faint sense of qi through his body over and over.

Once... twice... five times...

As time passed, fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and slid down his cheeks.

It was a sign of extreme fatigue.

But he did not stop.

With every breath, he wrung more potential from his body, drawing every trace of essence from the coarse food he had eaten and turning it into barely perceptible spiritual energy.

He did not know how long he continued. At last, his head began to throb, and his body sounded its instinctive warning that any more training would injure him. Only then did he slowly stop.

Chu Bai let out a long breath of stale air. His bones felt ready to fall apart, and he lacked even the strength to lift a finger.

But the first thing he did was summon the panel.

[Skills:]

[Minor Qi Gathering Technique: Proficient (2/200)]

Looking at the number that had finally risen by one, Chu Bai smiled from the heart despite his pale, exhausted face.

"It really did go up..."

It's only one point of proficiency, and I'm still short of the standard of one wisp every three days. But I ground out that progress while utterly exhausted, without even spirit food to nourish me.

That one point meant he had not only stabilized his sense of qi, but also taken a small, solid step toward retaining spiritual energy.

The step might be tiny, but if he kept walking every day, he would eventually fill in that so-called "heavenly chasm"!

Chu Bai could hold himself up no longer. He tipped sideways and fell flat onto the bed.

The instant his head touched the pillow, heavy sleep surged over him like a tide and swallowed him whole.

That night, he slept deeply.