The "classroom" was a patch of trampled azure grass, shadowed by the looming bulk of the northern boulders. The "desk" was a flat stone. The "teacher" was a woman who looked like she might expire if she spoke too loudly.
Lin Qinghe held the Basic Breathing Technique with trembling hands. Her eyes, however, moved across the pages with the speed of a predator scanning a battlefield.
"Garbage," she muttered, flipping a page. "Trash. Oversimplified. Who wrote this? A toddler?"
Ji Han sat cross-legged opposite her, his back straight, his hands resting on his knees. He ignored her commentary. He was paying for this lesson with water he couldn't afford to lose; he would extract value from it regardless of the reviews.
"It's what we have," Ji Han said. "Interpret it."
Lin Qinghe scoffed, a wet, rattling sound. She dropped the book onto her lap. "The method is crude. It suggests using the 'pores' to inhale Qi. For a mortal with blocked meridians, that is like trying to drink a river through a straw."
"So it's impossible?"
"No. Just inefficient." She looked at him, her gaze critical. "You were trying to 'visualize' the energy entering you. I saw your face scrunched up like you were constipated. What were you imagining?"
"Particles," Ji Han admitted. "Glowing motes of light. Like dust."
"Wrong."
She leaned forward, wincing as the movement pulled at her internal injuries. "Qi is not dust. Qi is the breath of the world. It is a pressure. The air around you is heavy with it. Don't try to pull it in. You are a void. You are empty. Let the pressure crush it into you."
Ji Han frowned. "Reverse pressure gradient. High concentration flows to low concentration."
"Speak human," she snapped.
"I make myself a vacuum," Ji Han translated. "I stop pushing. I just... exist as a hole."
"Crude," she whispered, "but accurate. Close your eyes."
Ji Han obeyed.
"The Magpie Bridge," she guided, her voice dropping to a whisper to conserve breath. "Tongue to the roof of the mouth. This connects the Ren and Du vessels. It creates a circuit."
Ji Han pressed his tongue up.
"Now," she continued. "Don't imagine light. Feel the heat. The sun has been baking this grass for hours. The Wood Qi here is angry. It is hot. Feel the skin on your arms. Feel the heat pressing against it."
Ji Han focused on the sensation of the eternal sun. The burning on his neck. The warmth of the air.
"Don't fight the heat," Lin Qinghe commanded. "Accept it. Let it sink through the skin. Let it burn the impurities in your blood."
It was a terrifying instruction—to welcome the pain of the heatstroke that was threatening to kill him. But Ji Han was desperate. He stopped mentally shielding himself from the temperature. He relaxed his mental barriers.
He let the heat in.
For a long time, there was only discomfort. Sweat trickled down his spine. His throat burned.
Then, a flicker.
It wasn't magic. It felt like a subtle electric shock, a static discharge rippling across his forearm. It moved from his skin, traveled inward, and dissipated into his muscle.
"I felt something," Ji Han murmured.
"Don't speak," she hissed. "Chase it."
Ji Han focused on that sensation. He tried to replicate the "void" state. Another ripple. This time on his shoulder. Then his chest. It was agonizingly slow, like filling a bathtub with a medicine dropper, drop by drop.
But the drops were accumulating.
A low warmth began to pool in his lower abdomen—the Dantian. It wasn't full; it was barely a smear of energy. But it was there. It was real.
[System Notification: Proficiency Gained.][Basic Breathing Technique: 2/100][Basic Breathing Technique: 3/100]
Time lost meaning. In the frozen afternoon of the Time Dissonance, minutes stretched into hours. Ji Han sat like a stone, and Lin Qinghe watched him, her eyes heavy with exhaustion but sharp with calculation.
Eventually, the hunger became too loud to ignore. Ji Han's stomach gave a violent growl, breaking his concentration.
He opened his eyes. The violet sun was still there, mocking him.
"You have... acceptable perception," Lin Qinghe admitted, leaning back against the rock. She looked paler than before. The effort of teaching had drained her.
Ji Han uncrossed his legs. His joints popped. He felt strangely lighter, despite the hunger. The heat didn't feel as oppressive anymore; it felt like a heavy blanket he was learning to wear.
"Check the water," he said, standing up.
He went to the catchment basin.
The muddy hole had gathered more liquid. The sediment had settled to the bottom, leaving a layer of brownish-clear water on top. Maybe half a cup.
It was pathetic. But it was renewable.
He carefully scooped the water out with the cap, drinking a sip, then bringing a sip to Lin Qinghe.
"We need food," Ji Han said, looking at the three loaves of bread.
"I cannot eat solid food," Lin Qinghe said quietly. "My organs... the shock would kill me."
Ji Han paused. "So you need soup."
"Broth. Or water."
Ji Han looked at the bread. It was hard as a brick. If he soaked it in water, it would turn into a mush. But he didn't have enough water to spare for soaking bread.
He looked at the azure grass.
"This grass," Ji Han pointed. "Is it edible?"
Lin Qinghe glanced at the vegetation. "It contains Wood Qi. For a mortal, it is indigestible fiber. For a cultivator, it is low-grade resource."
"I'm a 3/100 cultivator," Ji Han said dryly. "Can I eat it?"
"You can try," she said. "If you vomit, you lose water. If you don't, you gain sustenance."
It was a gamble. A high-stakes gamble.
Ji Han drew his rusty sword. He walked to a patch of fresh, blue grass. He cut a handful of stalks. He peeled the tough outer layer, revealing a fibrous, pale inner core.
He put a small piece in his mouth. It tasted bitter, like raw aspirin and dirt.
He chewed. And chewed. He swallowed.
He waited.
His stomach clenched, confused by the alien matter. Nausea rolled over him. He breathed through it, using the technique. Reverse pressure. Accept the heat.
The nausea faded.
"It stays down," Ji Han said.
He looked at the bread. He could save the bread for when he was truly desperate. For now, he would graze like cattle.
"Seven years of eating grass," Ji Han muttered.
He sat back down next to Lin Qinghe. The "Long Day" continued. They were alive. They had a tiny source of water. They had a teacher. And they had grass.
"Tomorrow—or whenever I wake up," Ji Han said, his eyelids drooping with sudden, crushing fatigue, "we figure out how to make a shelter. The sun isn't setting, and I can't sleep in an oven forever."
Lin Qinghe didn't answer. She had already passed out, her breathing shallow.
Ji Han gripped his rusty sword, closed his eyes, and drifted into a fitful sleep under the eternal, unblinking sun.