Eight days remained before the Luo Tian Da Jiao began.
Under a towering tree at Baiyun Temple, Shiratori Riku lounged on a rocking chair with an easy air. A bowl of hot tea sat on the stone table beside him. Not far ahead, Rokudo Rinko was puffing and panting through her life-force training.
Soon Rinko grew tired, drifted into the shade, sat on a stone stool, and downed a cup of tea.
"Uncle, I have never seen you train, yet your life-force is still so high. Did you develop another powerful art?"
She had not witnessed him cultivate for years, yet she still could not catch up.
"I told you long ago. Blind hard work is only self-consolation. True cultivation is not won by sweat alone."
"As for powerful arts, not really. I only adjusted my body to a balanced state."
Riku lifted his cup, took a small sip, and let out a soft sigh like a leisurely old grandpa.
"A balanced state. Uncle, tell me, tell me."
Rinko scooted closer, grabbed his sleeve, and started to shake his arm without realizing she was acting spoiled.
"If I make it too complicated, you silly girl will not get it."
"Put simply, the world has five phases, and they engender one another. The body also has five phases, and they engender one another."
"In the body, they are heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys. Illness or weakness means those five are out of tune."
"Excess kidney water weakens heart fire. Overstrong heart fire cuts off lung metal. If lung metal flourishes, liver wood will not grow. Without thriving liver wood, spleen earth will not prosper."
"In such a state the body falters. Too strong is bad, too weak is bad."
"Set them to the optimum, and you get liver wood nourishing heart fire, heart fire supporting spleen earth, spleen earth generating lung metal, lung metal moistening kidney water, kidney water aiding liver wood."
"When the five engender one another, life grows of itself. When life is robust, nature is fulfilled within. If the inner suffices, why chase the outer?"
Though he looked idle, Riku was constantly balancing the five within, holding them not high, not low, but just right. That too was cultivation.
"Oh."
Rinko did not grasp it fully, but she caught the gist: keep the body in balance and life nourishes itself.
"Uncle, if that alone nourishes life, then why practice inner-elixir work at all? It sounds redundant."
She felt like a fool for sweating over inner elixir every day.
"Nourishing life and tempering life are different. It is like eating. One person eats and does nothing, the other eats and trains hard."
"One ends up all fat, the other all lean tendon."
"The five-phase method nourishes life. The inner-elixir method tempers life, making it denser and purer."
Riku spoke calmly.
"Oh. Can I learn the five-phase method then?"
"Sure. Step one, learn inner observation of yourself. After you can do that, I will teach you to move the five-phase qi."
"Once you can move it, you must keep it going twenty-four hours a day, and during every meal."
"You must also split the energy you absorb equally into five portions. If the division is uneven, problems follow."
"Mm, let us save that for later."
Just hearing the steps made Rinko feel it was hard. She decided to stick to the dumb method for now and keep grinding.
Riku lazed until afternoon. He was about to take a nap when the chat group pinged.
[Congratulations to "Black Jack" for joining the chat group.]
[Congratulations to "Golden Donut" for joining the chat group.]
...
[I Am Not Crooked-Path: "New people, huh. Introduce yourselves first."]
[Whitebeard: "Hohohohoho, newcomers again. Things will get livelier."]
[Uncle: "Uncle does not like noisy places, but welcome anyway."]
[Black Jack: "My name is Black Jack. Just an ordinary unlicensed doctor."]
In the world of Black Jack.
Black Jack sat in his cliffside home. After absorbing the chat group's information, he stared blankly for a moment, then came back to himself.
"So there is such a wondrous thing in the world. Is it inside my head?"
"If I open my skull, can I take it out?"
The thought slipped in. As a surgeon, and a first-rate one in his world, he reflexively wondered if surgery could solve any problem.
Because of that habit, people had once called him the Demon of the Operating Room.
THUMP THUMP THUMP. THUMP THUMP THUMP.
He had just lifted his coffee when fierce knocking rattled the door. He frowned and glanced outside. It was already late. Who would come now?
He palmed a scalpel from his pocket and hid it in his sleeve, then went to the door and carefully opened it.
Outside stood several doctors in white coats and a woman on a gurney, a mask covering her face.
"Doctor Black Jack, please help us. This girl..."
They rattled off the condition in a rush, then begged once more. "As long as you can remove the tumor, any price is fine."
"Is that so. Then if I ask for five hundred million, no problem?"
"N-no problem. As long as you cure her."
"Then prepare for surgery. Bring the patient into the operating room."
His home contained an operating room, built for situations like this.
...
[Golden Donut: "Hello everyone, my name is Giorno Giovanna. I have a dream."]
[I Am Not Crooked-Path: "Yeah, skip that. We do not want to hear about your dream."]
[I Am Not Crooked-Path: "Let me share a discovery. Tea tastes better if I drink it while lying on a rocking chair."]
The moment Riku finished typing, a voice echoed in his mind, the same one he had heard when his trait first awakened.
[JoJo-world mission available.]
[Begin travel to the JoJo world?]
[Complete the mission to receive a new trait. Trait content is random.]