Chapter 13 – This gamer move cost Lang 40 years of her life

“Alchemy is the pinnacle of all cultivation. Mastering alchemy is mastering the universe.” - Quo Zadong, master alchemist who died of old age after he shirked his cultivation.

Lang was also doing alchemy. Not that she would have a way of knowing her dead friend-turned-spirit was trying to relearn alchemy anyways.

At 12:45 a knock at the door sounded at the door.

She brought out the cleaned out platter and brought it out to her butler Robin.

He gave her a bow, took the plate and made his leave.

She had the room all to herself for at least the next 5 hours. The time came for the main event, bleeding herself dry of years worth of Lifeforce to get rid of the parasite.

Lifeforce was a side-product of the creation of Qi. Soulforce interacted with the body to create Qi and if the Qi was pure enough, or if enough Qi had been created, Lifeforce, which looked red in the Soul Realm would be created.

A cultivator first obtained Soulforce from the universe, then, he could incorporate the new Soulforce as Qi, but the Qi of less proper cultivators usually was too similar to Soulforce, to squeeze any reasonable amount of Lifeforce from it.

However, the larger the quality was of the Qi, the more Lifeforce one would get. Your Soul Realm strength dictated your rate of obtaining Soulforce, and your Body Realm dictated the percentage that would get transformed into Qi and how high quality it was. The reason the Spirit Realm was discarded by the new-school cultivators. Spirits didn’t need anything but their own Soulforce, which meant they had no Lifeforce and they survived eternally, or unless their source was destroyed.

Lang entered her Soul Realm. She felt her Lifeforce, both her natural, pure Red, result of being born as a human. The experimental school of cultivation postulated that the Lifeforce intrinsic to humans was the first thing that we used to catch the Soulforce from around us in the first place.

Her pool had looked almost the same since she was 16 and reached the First Step to Immortality, a point at which a cultivator creates more Lifeforce than they spend, it had receded slightly as the parasites in her Soul Realm worked. They looked like pumps sucking it out of both pools.

At first step to immortality. a qualitative change happens in their pool, as it takes in a drop of cultivated Lifeforce for each drop spent.

She had cultivated around 22 years worth of orange-red Lifeforce, suspended in a funnel like the top of an hourglass above her main crimson pool. The red pool of original Lifeforce had 54 years left. The advanced LMT was able to show her as much.

‘You’re going down parasite fucks.’ She exclaimed in her mind, and for a second it felt like the pumps stopped.

Portioning it out was the most important step, and Lang wanted to use up as much of the lower-quality Lifeforce as possible, maybe even all of it. She could always make more.

Time for the Eldritch ritual, she prepared the magic circle, based on the principles of Soulcraft, of the Suzhouzan Dimension. There were three giant spirit dimensions that humans had based Soulcraft on, the Suzhouzan was the simplest, least dangerous and therefore the first one dimension hoppers would go to. But first they had to learn from the Dimension itself.

Lang finished the magic circle and looked into the Crucible to see her Spiritual Mask Imprint was prepared. She was happy to see that it was ready.

Placing the three phylacteries along with six receptacles. She added alchemical coal to the Soul Furnace, which started producing Soulforce at a fast rate.

Lang tied the Soulforce from the Soul Furnace to the six receptacles in the Soul Realm. She took the Spiritual Mask Imprint, placed it on to the seal and used Soulforce to open all three of the Phylacteries at the same time. This step was not necessary in terms of precision, but it gave her more time to add the pre-prepared commands to the Eldritch Rune.

Back in the Soul Realm, the Eldritch Rune of Transfigurement tied to her by her Mask Imprint, was now temporarily a Soul Being. She spun it around in the Soul Realm and, carved the commands of ‘Lifeforce Capture’ and ‘Containment’ into it.

That was the minimum requirement completed, but as Lang had time, she would add small changes to make sure she survived, and not all her Lifeforce was spent to make a single giant bomb.

She decided to put a ten year capture onto it. Or close enough to that much, it was slightly less, when the connection started waning, but good enough for her.

Finishing the process, she left the Soul Realm, prepared the four vials and put a little of her mucus on them, with a Linking Rune she linked those four containers to the cover, placed them inside the kettle-like apparatus she would later call Kettle of Life.

She closed the two vents with the Eldritch Rune of Transfigurement and Rune of Time.

“It’s all ready.” She said excitedly.

She placed the apparatus on a table, about equidistant to both the Eldritchating Still and Alchemical Crucible.

She turned them both on, interlocked her pinkie fingers and hoped it would work. She entered her Soulrealm and focused on her Lifeforce.

The two pools let themselves be seen as a small suction was occasionally taking Lifeforce from either. The Eldritch rune being the target, where the Lifeforce dissappeared.

Lang focused her Soulforce to have the Eldritch Rune target the top pool first and then continue down to her main Lifeforce pool.

She felt a massive exhaustion as the top pool physically shrank as if evaporating.

The parasites which were motionless until then, slowly started converging at the bottom, as the last vestiges of the pool seemed to evaporate, the main pool started getting lower, in a dizzying fashion.

The black-looking parasites at the top pool had coalesced at the bottom, opening and closing their mouths, but not getting anything. A couple almost transparent balls, Lang knew to be Cysts appeared as well, too hard to see in the orange-red substance.

As the pool was shrinking, it became increasingly more and more viscous. The surface tension of the new liquid made it hard for the parasites to drink it in mouthfuls.

“This is the final showdown for you fuckers.” The cysts would be unable to sieve in Lifeforce to even turn into parasites, and parasites would not be able to sustain themselves for the full 10 days they survived in non-immortals.

Leaving her Soul Realm she needed to make a measurement on the LMT. Even though it only took about 10 seconds, it felt like eternity for Lang.

Lang looked at her LMT, she had just lost 37.6 years of her life, in a matter of minutes. She smiled, ‘I succeeded’ she though, exhaustion taking her over.

********

Lang woke up sweaty, with a maid putting a cold cloth to her head. She felt the pajamas she had been using, tight around her body in an uncomfortable manner.

She opened her eyes, the maid immediately took a step back, bowed and said “Good morning young lady, you’ve been in bed for two days with a high fever.”

The maid left and while she was gone, Lang looked over her body, she was definitely a bit taller, maybe two or three inches, her hips were wider but most importantly, her breasts went from being tiny A’s to at least C’s.

She knew that that meant, her face would probably look much older, but she enjoyed the small victory.

She looked under her pajamas to look at her torso, hoping there would be no stretch marks.

“Thank the God-Emperor.” She said, as she saw that no stretch marks had formed on her sides.

Even sitting up gave her a dizzy spell, so she laid back down. This made her dangerously aware of the thrashing headache banging against her eyebrows and glabella.

The door opened and the maid came back with some chicken soup and tea. When the smell hit Lang’s nose, she realized how hungry and thirsty she was.

“Can you eat alone or do you need help?” The maid asked, sweetly.

“I think I need help.” With the help of her maid she wolfed down all the soup and drank the tea, after which the maid took her leave.

Lang was left alone. She felt a strange sense of lethargy. ‘Maybe it comes with age.’

No one came for an hour, everything was still, but she was painfully awake, and her forehead was being painfully thrummed against.

Lang was restless, ‘It’s been four days since Vera tried mirror-talking with me. Something has to be wrong.’

She was desperate for someone outside to care about her plight.

She was also scared of the repercussions of her actually going ahead with her plan.

Dreams took her again, a dream of a glistening Golden Dragon on a hill. Laughing and chuckling, what a majestic beast.

********

Lang woke up the next morning feeling much better, her clothes even tighter than last she woke up. And she felt hungry.

She tried sitting up and surprisingly, she sat up. She stood up from the bed and left the room.

When stepping outside, she realized her balance was out-of-order. So she found some loose clothes and did a little walking training in her room. After about 5 minutes of putting herself in order somewhat she was ready.

On her way to the kitchen part of the house, she noticed a number of people assembling as well. She starter regretting not putting on more formal wear, not like it would fit her.

At the entrance, there was a mirror, and the face full of childish delight had fallen in heavily, leaving the face she would imagine on a strict motherly figure in a storybook.

‘My effective age is like 30 at this point.’ She mused.

She went into the dining hall and saw ten other people at the table, one of which was her father Min Bao, sitting next to whom was the current Family Head Kem Bao, a man at the level of Jade Emperor, who was ruthless in his quest for money. He had been one of the alchemists that contributed to the cultivators the most, with his invention of the Alchemical Crucible.

Speeding up procedures and processes had instantly put a large value on his invention, however, because its working was simple, he decided it would be smarter to actually publish his idea for everyone to be able to make one, provided they pay the Bao family a small kickback.

He was almost good looking, with the traditional blue highlights on dark hair, but the look in his eyes made Lang dislike him since the day they first met.

“Ahh, Lang come sit with us.” He chided when he noticed her standing at the door.

“We were just discussing what to do with you.” He said in a voice that he obviously made more ominous than needed. “You’ve aged quite nicely.” He added in a sleazy tone, something that made Lang’s skin shiver.

Lang did as she was told and sat down next to her father, putting him between herself and Kem.

“Straight to the deal, in two or three days you won’t have the parasites, and they are no longer capable of infecting anyone, as their Cyst production has ceased completely.” He said in a happy voice. This one creeped Lang out the most.

“Your father is angry, because you disobeyed his order, and you can probably guess why I am angry, and you probably know that there are other families that are angry. But,” He said, putting his finger in the air “But, you have proven your design, if a bit crude, but it works.” At this point Lang wasn’t sure if she was being chastised or praised.

“You will resume your schooling at the University, the moment you have no parasites. No questions asked.” He said sternly. Putting a piece of meat into his mouth.

“You will be guarded by one of the family Great-Uncles.” The term Great-Uncle was used for cultivators who had no special achievements, but by virtue of living long and working long, they achieved the emperor status. They were used as the main ‘expendable’ taskforce for difficult tasks, or gathering ingredients from Fractured Spirit Dimensions.

Lang liked all three of the Bao family Great-Uncles. In many ways they were gentle, serene and powerful without the desire to rule or for petty squibbles, the true image of an ideal cultivator, at least in Lang’s mind. They seemed to not mind being given difficult work once in a while. They enjoyed teaching and each had a different style, ‘honestly this isn’t a bad deal.’ Lang thought.

She nodded and he continued “You will represent the Bao family at the inter-University games.” He said in a commanding tone, she could feel the Soulforce permeating through the word will. “You will make a report about how you beat the parasite in record time, and how using this machine, you should be able to cure everyone who is willing to drop down with their Lifeforce to 40 or whatever number you calculated. And then,” he took another pause, ate another piece of meat and said “You will design one that doesn’t require Eldritch Runes.”

Lang nodded again, unable to speak.

“Okay, you will become the pearl of the Bao family even though you look mature enough to be a mother of five.” With that remark even her father winced. “So here’s the deal, you win the tournament in whichever discipline you are best at, and you design it, by the time my team who hasn’t started looking at your schematics or research make one.” He paused and looked at Lang again “Do this and there will be no punishment.” With that, Kem Bao finished his meal, stood up and as he was leaving he added “Oh, one more thing, there are twelve more people in the family that want your treatment even as it is, you will have to do that as well.” Saying that he left.

‘This sound like a bad dream.’ Lang thought to herself, in my class I can probably become the Soulcraft choice but I might not even be able to win against the other classes in our school.

“I see you’ve woken up.” Her father tried to diffuse the situation, he smiled a forced smile.