The clock was ticking. A week. That was the generous estimate before this borrowed body collapsed for good. Panic was a useless emotion, but the cold, hard pressure of a deadline was a magnificent motivator. Li Xuan plunged his consciousness into the vast, silent archive of his own mind.
For eons, it had been a library of lives he had observed. He now walked its endless corridors, not as a spectator, but as a desperate scavenger. He passed entire sections dedicated to magic, the memories shimmering with arcane power, and dismissed them with contempt. Useless. This world had no such ambient energy. He ignored the psions, the summoners, the enchanters—all their power relied on rules that didn't apply here. He needed something fundamental. Something that ran on the energy of this world. He needed Qi.
And then, he found him. A flicker of a memory, from a soul he'd plucked from Earth centuries ago. A gentle, unassuming doctor who had been reborn into a world of martial brutality. The man had despised fighting, and instead poured his soul into the art of healing. He'd become a living saint, a legend. And his greatest creation…
A memory surfaced, clear as day. The image of the man, old and serene, sitting under a colossal banyan tree. He was teaching his foundational technique. A method so simple, so profound, that arrogant cultivators seeking explosive power always overlooked it.
'The Wood Life Sutra,' Li Xuan remembered, the name a whisper in his mind. It was not a technique for fighting. It was a technique for living. It was based on the simple, powerful act of breathing, of drawing the latent vitality—the Qi—from the world itself to sustain the body. It was a technique even a mortal with no cultivation could use.
'In this current mess,' he thought with a grim irony, 'this gentle, pacifist technique is my only weapon.'
Night had fallen completely, blanketing the alley in a deep, oppressive darkness. The air grew colder, biting at his exposed skin. Li Xuan ignored it. He dragged the broken body back into a lotus position, the simple act sending waves of pain through his stiff joints.
He calmed his mind, picturing the old man in his memory. He followed the remembered steps with divine precision. Back straight. Hands on his knees, thumb and index finger touching. He took a deep, shuddering breath, pulling the frigid night air into lungs that felt like brittle paper. Then, he released it in a slow, controlled stream.
He repeated the process. Again. And again.
For hours, nothing. It was just a cold, starving child, sitting in a filthy alley, breathing. The sheer, mind-numbing repetition would have driven any mortal to madness. But Li Xuan's will was forged in eternity. His focus was absolute, his patience infinite.
It was in the deepest part of the night when he finally felt it.
A spark.
An impossibly tiny flicker of warmth in the cold, hollow emptiness of his stomach. It wasn't a thought or a feeling; it was a physical sensation. A single, minuscule thread of energy, drawn from the air itself, had taken root inside him.
He nurtured it. With each slow, deliberate breath, he pulled another thread from the world, weaving it into the first. The process was agonizingly slow, like trying to fill an ocean with a single drop of rain at a time. But as the night wore on, the single spark grew into a small, warm coal, glowing faintly in the pit of his stomach, pushing back against the gnawing hunger and the invasive cold. He continued this for the entire night, a silent statue in the forgotten darkness.
When the first grey rays of dawn crept over the city rooftops, Li Xuan finally opened his eyes. He slowly moved his hands, stretching his arms. A series of painful cracks echoed from his joints as he eased his body out of the rigid posture.
'So, the technique works,' he thought, a flicker of professional appreciation in his mind. 'I thought it might be a scam, or that its principles wouldn't apply to this world's energy laws. Lucky me.'
The process had been grueling. It had taken him nearly half the night just to draw in that first wisp of Qi. For a god, such a failure rate was embarrassing. But for this broken body, it was a damn miracle.
He turned his consciousness inward. The change was subtle, but profound. The sludge in his veins was moving again, a slow but steady current where a stagnant swamp had been. And the hunger, the all-consuming void in his stomach, was gone. The Qi he'd inhaled was now nourishing him directly.
He had fuel in the engine. Time to see if it would start.
He tried to stand up.
His legs buckled immediately, sending him tumbling back onto the cobblestones. He didn't get frustrated. It was just more data. The approach had failed.
This time, he crawled to the alley wall. He used the rough brick as a crutch, slowly, painstakingly pushing himself up. His legs shook violently. His vision swam. The small coal of Qi in his stomach burned, providing the single point of energy he needed. He gritted his teeth, his divine will roaring at the pathetic flesh to obey.
And then, he was standing.
He stood there, leaning heavily against the wall, chest heaving, legs trembling like newborn foals. But he was on his own two feet.
It was, without a doubt, one of the greatest successes of his long existence.
A slow, cold grin spread across Li Xuan's face. He looked up at the blurry, morning sky. He knew, with an absolute and unshakable certainty, that his former Boss was still watching.
Slowly, deliberately, Li Xuan raised both of his trembling hands, and showed two middle fingers to the heavens.
A message had been sent.