Chapter 3

I had to do four days of fasting while taking these herbal pills; one, three times a day. The only thing I was allowed was water. I have been through quite a few therapies in my attempts to save my life and had some idea of what I was in for when I started. I tried to distract myself by reading through the rest of Liu's journals and warned May that I would probably become irritable. I would try and warn her when I was in a foul mood and then she needed to keep her distance.

She laughed at me and said since her period had started over a year ago she would offer me the same courtesy and we both crossed our fingers hoping that our bad moods wouldn't happen at the same time. Most of the fast was very similar to what I had experienced before but there was one key difference and that difference gave me hope. By the third day, my body started producing a vile-smelling black residue on my skin. I think I had a shower every two hours. To sleep those two nights I wore clothes that I would be quite happy throwing away. By the end of the fourth day, my body was still producing the black residue and in Liu's diary she had stopped producing any toxins by the fourth day so I continued another two days by which time my body stopped excreting the vile substance.

Thinking about it, I was thirty-three-years old and Liu was only fourteen when she did her fast so it made sense that I had more toxins to remove. I was glad that I had read the rest of Liu's journals while on my fast because she had noted certain factors that had speeded up her cultivation.

Energy is all around us and in everything, but it seems to become flavoured by its experience and that vibration made a big difference to our ability to absorb it. People seemed to have natural affinities for different elements and were better able to absorb energy from specific elements. In Liu's case, she had a particular affinity for lightning energy and had specifically designed the granny flat, which was her cultivation space, to enhance the amount of electrical energy that was available. The underfloor heating in the granny flat was essentially just an electrical system that flooded the area with electrical energy. Liu suggested that technology could overcome the natural deficiencies of the world to make it faster to cultivate than even a much more energy-rich world.

The Ng clan was a clan that based its success on Alchemy. The pills that I used were high-level pills. Fortunately, most alchemy formulations are based on the chemical composition of the constituents, not on the energy available for the plants. The other set of pills were designed to pull in energy naturally and therefore speed up cultivation. They didn't contain any energy, just created an energy suction.

The manual described a set of postures and breathing that was designed to speed up the movement of the energy which in theory would also create suction for the energy around the cultivator. In my mind, I called it the energy gathering kata or EG kata.

Liu described her experience of cultivation and in her case, there was too little energy in her meridians to move much until the pills had helped increase the volume. She attributed her success to her alignment with lightning and the amount of electrical energy available in the modern world.

Based on what she had reported I knew that following the manual with the positions and the breathing was essential, but wouldn't do much initially. Still, I figured I needed to practise anyway, so I would go through the movement and breathing routine and try and pull in energy with the pills.

From reading the journal I knew the ring was a spacial treasure. If I was able to circulate energy and was able to control it with my mind, I would be able to divert a little into the ring which would allow me to enter the dimensional space. As soon as I stopped giving it energy I would return to normal space. No matter how long I stayed in the dimensional space, no time would pass in the real world, but time would only exist in the dimensional space when I was there. However, the dimensional space was a dead space and the only energy that existed there was what you brought in with you. It wasn't a place for cultivating but it was set up for alchemy. According to Liu, there was also a library although the language was unknown. A few sections had been translated which included the formulation for the two pills. It was the duty of any family member who managed to use the ring to create a stock of pills for the next generations.

I didn't want to ruin May's chances of being able to cultivate so I divided the energy gathering pills into half, saying to myself that the most I could use would be half of them. Still, I wanted to stack the deck in my favour so I ordered a few things online. Electrical or lightning was covered by the floor, but what could I do to increase the other elements? Heat might be covered by the underfloor heating but in case it needed a naked flame I bought four gas fires with a gas bottle. To increase wind and water I bought four fans with a misting function. I couldn't find a solution for earth, but I did buy twenty small trees in pots, including bamboo, oak and fruit trees including apple trees as they were prominent in mythology. I hoped the soil in the pots might help the earth element. My living area was going to be very crowded, but I would experiment and probably remove whatever didn't work. I was hoping to use my internal computer intelligence named Ice to help me work out what was working.

May had decided that Switch would be included in revealing her family secrets since she had already agreed to look after May if I was to pass away. I think that won Switch over. Obviously, she couldn't have access to the physical books until our isolation was over which was four months if I had no symptoms or three months after I had recovered from symptoms. She didn't want to wait that long, but I was able to send her a digital version of everything that I had read. She wasn't going to be able to start until I was able to make some pills for her and we came out of isolation.

Chapter 4

Switch decided a long time ago that my nickname would be Prof since, apparently, I think too much. Part of me wanted to dive straight in, take the pill and activate all means of increasing the appropriate energy in the air, but my logical mind felt uncomfortable with that approach. I once heard a proverb which said if you have four hours to cut down a tree, spend three hours sharpening the axe.

I bought a special camera that covered a wide range of scanning frequencies, hoping that it would be able to monitor changes if I was able to absorb the energy. Obviously using underfloor heating, gas heaters, or even fans with water mist, all of these would impact my body temperature, so before I took any pills I started practising the energy circulating kata, recording my temperature including each variable. I did multiple readings to create a control but would be relying on Ice to let me know if she detected any changes.

Two days later I began my first experiments, taking my first pill. What I found out was the wind helped but only for a while, so I took a guess and opened all the windows and doors and that resolved the issue. There seems to be a certain amount of energy in a certain amount of air, so once it is gone, unless the air is renewed it is gone. I didn't react to any of the plants, but I did wonder that if I did, would I need to continually renew the soil or give the plants a chance to recover?

The water significantly increased the effect and although the gas flame did nothing, the underfloor heating also helped. At a guess, it would mean I was aligned with lightning, water and wind.

Each pill lasted for about four hours and I used one pill a day. Similar to Liu I didn't notice anything for the first week, but at the end of the week, Ice noticed that even after the pill ran out of its effectiveness window, my body was still gaining a little energy when I was performing the energy gathering kata (EG kata).

Halfway into the next week, I started feeling a sensation of energy moving around my body when I was doing the EG kata that would slowly disappear when I stopped. Following the advice from Liu, when I felt it strongly, I stopped doing the kata and tried to meditate, using my mind to continue the energy movement. It wasn't until the fourth week when I was able to keep the flow with meditation.

I stopped taking the pills then and meditated most of the day. May was very understanding and even tried to help by cooking meals and cleaning around the house so I didn't have to do anything else. By the sixth week, I didn't have to start the energy flow with the EG kata and was able to make the energy go faster. According to Ice, when I stopped taking the pills the amount of energy that I was pulling in reduced significantly, but I made up for it by spending more time. When I speeded up the movement, I created a stronger suction.

As part of my research when starting my journey I had investigated the acupuncture meridian pathways, but when I felt the energy rushing through my body, the acknowledged pathways were only the surface pathways. There appeared to be a deeper pathway in the core of my body that created a spiral leading towards my belly button that then went up into my lower belly before joining the surface pathways again creating a secondary loop.

The other thing that Ice noticed was that after my sessions, my body would slowly leak energy. It was like I could direct the energy without any problems but holding onto and making it mine was harder and outside of my control. Regardless, I was making great progress and as I was approaching the time when I could start to have symptoms, I started to believe that I could survive this disease.

Cat flue was not universally fatal, in fact, less than five percent of people who caught the virus died, but the majority of those were people who already had health problems. May's father had some lung issues from his childhood that may have been the reason why he had succumbed. All I could do was continue trying to improve my health and hope.

While I was using the EG kata we created a virtual space so both Switch and May could practise at the same time. I used the information I was getting from Ice to make small adjustments to increase its effectiveness. Switch was naturally quite a competitive person and was itching to start but without the pills to both remove toxins and increase the body's ability to pull in energy, it was unlikely that she would make much progress. Not that she was going to let that stop her. I have a suspicion that she spent more time than me trying to draw in energy. She took my ideas about increasing the available energy and even turned some of them up a notch.

My job, at least until I retired for health reasons, was an internal computer software designer so my Ice character was top of the line and enhanced by my own efforts. Ice did have plenty of spare capacity, so I was able to task her with helping. Ice took Switch through the same protocol that I used but was unable to detect any sign of energy flow. It was not really a surprise, but still disappointing.

I liked her idea of a Faraday cage suit charged with electricity but didn't think it would go well with a fan blasting misty air in my direction. Higher temperature flames may help someone who had an affinity for fire, but since I didn't, we would have to wait for when both Switch and May were cultivating to test her theory. May was told that she needed to wait until she reached physical maturity before she started cultivating. Still learning the steps of the EG kata would help her in the future. She did warn me that once I started successfully cultivating my body would naturally keep doing it, even if it was at a lower level. Her mum had trained hard until she fell pregnant and then stopped completely. Despite this, her body continued to gather energy until one stormy night when she went past her body's limits and ascended.

There may be descriptive names for various levels, but in reality, Liu had just been able to tell how full she was. In her journal, she described it as a glass of water. After she had been gathering energy for a few months she managed to get a sense of how much her body could take. At that point, her glass was maybe a little bit less than a quarter full. When she became pregnant she was over three-quarters full. It took eight years, almost nine years for that last quarter to fill naturally. That was still probably very fast but in the modern world, electricity is all around us. I had no real fear of ascending before May and explained all this to her so that she wouldn't be worried about me abandoning her.

May really wanted to be able to ascend and find her mother. Switch and I discussed it and decided to join her. I didn't know how old May would be at that point but didn't like the idea of her going on her own. Both Switch and I were in our thirties and neither of us had anything to hold us in this realm. Switch had no family that she would mention. I'm pretty sure there were some members who were still alive, but Switch had no interest in men or having babies and had been ostracised a long time ago. The original treatments for my prostate cancer had left me infertile. My wife had stuck with me, telling me it didn't matter, but two and a half years ago she found out she was pregnant. Obviously the child wasn't mine and she had been unfaithful. I went through a divorce as quickly as possible and fairly shortly afterwards found out that my cancer had returned. Personally I felt the two events were linked.

I quite liked the idea of ascension for a different reason. During the divorce, my wife made a deal with me. She wouldn't ask for any alimony if my will had her as the sole beneficiary. Initially, I thought I would just spend it before I died, but in reality, I didn't like wasting money. If I ascended, I would try my best to bring all my money with me leaving her with nothing and that thought brought me a certain amount of glee.

My parents had passed away so it was only my sister who was still around. I loved my sister, but she had hurt me badly. With my cancer treatments, all my hair had fallen off. My sister was a top model and when I refused to wear a wig and create a more beautiful image overlay she had point-blank told me that I couldn't be seen with her. I was proud of her though and showed May my digital scrapbook of my sister. May told me that my eyes were more beautiful. My eyes were my favourite feature and quite unusual. I had light greeny-blue eyes that almost looked unnatural and very striking.