A small fire lights up a figure dressed in simple clothing. Dark pants and a dark grey shirt cover the lanky frame are lit by flickering flames, making a striking contrast with the dark forest. Roots lay around the fire, a stripped and skewered bunny carcass hanging above the fire as the figure tends to the fire. The figure’s back is sticking inside the biggest tree visible, halfway sticking out of a small alcove. The air around this scene flickers like heated air rising from a scorched desert.

A spike of pain flashed through my eyes as my vision switches back from observing myself. Sensing shapes with qi is the first step, seeing is the second. Less well-defined senses like smell, taste and hearing are a little more difficult to pull off, as they require a good working understanding of these senses. Feeling with qi is the simplest, only requiring one to notice holes in your qi. Seeing is just registering specific directions of light. Hearing is similar to noticing slight variations of air pressure, something I can’t do with my lacking qi reserves. Smell is even worse, requiring detailed analysis of airborne chemicals. Taste is equally complicated and requires molecular analysis of anything solid sensed with qi.

I decide to postpone any further remote sense training for now and do something about the black hole that is my stomach. A filled stomach is a happy stomach and I decide to settle my tumultuous emotions with food. Grabbing a bunny leg I sprinkle it with a small salt bottle I received from my spatial ring and take a big bite. As soon as I started cooking my hunger surged up, almost knocking me flat. I need to make some adjustments to my priorities and place food a lot higher up on the list. Sustaining your body with qi is easy when qi is everywhere. The current need to make my own qi from its component parts makes it a more valuable commodity, and I don't want to waste my meagre fighting power on suppressing hunger.

Drool drips from my mounts as I bite into the succulent flesh. A tasty smelling root I dug up from the forest starts to get blackened from the fire. Unwilling to wait I decide it is done and dig in. I don't worry about incompatible proteins and micronutrients. Alien vegetables are usually useless for any non-native beings when it comes to nutrition value, but using qi to break matter down into its individual components allows the body to use the sustenance anyway.

Having fed myself I look to the little bunny in my lap. Having just eaten its mother I can't bring myself to do it any harm. I decide to think about it later and just feed it some qi for now. It should sustain the little thing until morning. I tear off a strip of cloth and wrap the critter up warmly, after which I lay it inside the hollow tree where it soon falls asleep. With the experimental subject stowed away, I focus on other things.

As I bury the remains of my meal I decide to make a vague plan. Information is king and it is a commodity that I am sorely lacking. I heard some people talking while I was stalk… examining the village but it was gobbledygook to my ears. A working knowledge of the local language gets set as the number two priority, with gathering strength as the ever-present number one. I don't look forward to having to decipher a new language, especially if that language got developed on a planet that is unknown. A lot of languages on earth are based on a few proto-languages, so neighbouring countries tend to have a lot of similar sentence and grammar tricks. That speeds up piecing new ones together tremendously. Here I am working with a blank slate, so only listening and analysing for extended periods of time will net me any results.

Figuring out what the deal is with the imbalances mana ecosystem gets set as priority number three. Adventuring and exploring come fourth. Happy with the slipshod plan I've got going I decide to spend the night actively cultivating. A few ideas on how to improve my qi gathering speed need to be put to the test.

After thanking the tree once again for its usefulness in giving me shelter I settle myself down and get to work. I undo the gathering partition in my mind and take manual control. Only taking in mana via breath is a slow but steady process but I want to have some excess qi for general usage. I spend half my qi to access my spatial ring. A dagger twists itself into this plane of reality as I take it out of the folded space. A small prick on my finger gets me a small stream of blood to use. I let it drip to the floor in front of me and let it gather in a small puddle.

I think I need to provide some information on runes and formation here. Drawing out a spell effect is essentially using a magical or mystical alphabet to tell the energies what to do. Just like with any alphabet, somebody in the past thought it was a good idea to write things down. That person then probably used hieroglyphs or simple drawings to convey the wanted meaning. Over time these pictograms changed into a proper lettering system. It is the same with any magical language. That begs the question why people tend to view these type of runic systems as sacrosanct. Changing these glyphs is often seen as heresy.

My own views on these systems is a lot simpler. The symbols are representations of intent. This is true for any written language. Certain letters represent either sounds or concepts. On Earth Asian symbols are often symbolic representations of concepts while the western alphabets represent sound. I did a lot of testing with these systems in the cultivation world and have come to the conclusion that pretty much all established systems are too complex. Breaking this all down further allows you to reach a simple conclusion. As long as the image in your mind is clear enough you can draw whatever you want. I once made a grand spell formation in the shape of a glorious cartoon heap of poop. As long as your mental image is strong enough you can put novel's worth of intent behind a single character, but any type of maintenance or modification would be near impossible that way. With that in mind, I created my own magical coding language, a combination of shorthand, the standard Latin alphabet and scientific symbols.

A person usually learns a few runes, tries them out and finds that they work as intended. Its pretty obvious to me that they will work as intended because that’s what they are supposed to do in your mind. This only further strengthens the effect of the intent behind the symbols, making a self-reinforcing cycle. With this in the back of my mind, I start drawing a circle around me.

“Contrast, contrast, contrast contrast...”

I keep mumbling the word while I finish the circle. The qi in my blood flashes briefly as I connect the circle. The current formation is useless, without any indication of what is supposed to be contrasting it does nothing. I draw ten symbols evenly spaced throughout the ring. A small part of each symbol sticks out of the circle. The ten symbols represent the ten distinct energies I feel around me. I decided to go with triangles and squares. A triangle pointing away from me is a mountain, so that’s earth. A line horizontally through the bottom represents what's below the mountain, water. A triangle pointing towards me is the opposite of a mountain, air. Another line through the bottom is the fuel for the triangular flame, so fire. Metal is a square. As long as it makes sense to me it's fine. The dark versions get filled in with my blood, representing both the darker and more plentiful aspect. Then I write ‘gather’ in shorthand just inside of these symbols below each one. While drawing the last squiggle I think really hard about both gathering and the formation being complete. I am rewarded with another flash of light as the circle drains me almost dry of qi.

With a spinning head, I notice the gathering energies. I breathe in deeply, absorbing it all. The circle should hold for a few days, blood is an effective but not very durable inscription material. The circle increases the mana around me slowly, but I frown at the slow speed. I need some sort of longer range attractor, the circle itself only sucks in energies that are in its immediate vicinity. The tree is a natural barrier above my head so I didn't bother putting in height restrictions, this only leaves the option to expand horizontally.

I try to remember what the most effective shape of an antenna was. I think fractal type shapes were proven to be the most effective. I prick myself again as I draw a jagged repeating line around the circle. I attempt to draw a six-pointed star where all the faces are divided into triangular lines again. I think it was called a Koch snowflake? I try to figure out a mathematical formula that could represent the shape I want, but math never was my strong suit. Deriving a formula through brute-forcing solutions is not something my mind can handle yet, unfortunately.

“Endless repetition, each part the same as the whole, an endlessly repeating pattern at each level”

Five minutes later I’m feeling light-headed but a weirdly organic star is surrounding my circle. I connect it to the circle at a few points and immediately feel mana rushing towards me in greater quantities. Absolute conviction about certain scientific concepts is rather useful even if you don't fully understand the underlying principles. Just the fact that this information was the cumulation of millions or billions of people doing science and sharing information is a potent confidence and efficiency booster. Having magic to do stuff is rather convenient, but usually, stifles any form of pure physical knowledge. Mysticism relies on belief, and just believing something blindly can't hold a candle to a properly proven scientific theory.

I can't help but smile as I feel my qi growing. The mana in the air just around gets sucked into the ring from a couple of dozen meters away. Pretty soon the mana in the air becomes incredibly thick. Breathing in the soupy air sends rivulets of power through my body as I force it into my veins. I don't know what effect raw mana usually has on the physical form, but it doesn't seem to be affecting me at all. When the mana reaches my heart I send it through the chambers and septum into my aorta. From here on it goes through the carotid arteries into my head, where the qi centre in my brainstem greedily sucks it up. Cultivation is such a paradox, you need to sit still for the best result but I feel like running around in wild joy every time it goes well. As I focus on guiding the energy I fall into a daze, time slipping by unnoticed.

A slight nudge to my thigh startled me from a euphoric daze. With a grin still plastered on my face, I look to the side and see a little hairy pink thing looking up at me. My eyes open wide. Rabbits should spend the first week of their life hairless and blind. Their senses and fur follicles are only supposed to start working at around 10 days after birth, but this little fella has a slight fuzz and is looking at me. When I think about how small the little thing is the answer becomes clear. What might be an insignificant amount of energy for an adult human is a humongous amount for any critter the size of a matchbox. Its eyes shine with a slight intelligence, I don't think that normal day old rabbits should have such a piercing gaze, not breaking eye contact. I pick it up and put it in my lap again, sending some qi inside to check how it's doing.

My eyes open wide again, its soul has not degraded any further. The darkish grey seems to be lighter than yesterday, did my qi do this? Qi isn’t supposed to be such a cheating fix it all. It’s just potential energy with a possible flavour. Basically, dynamite in powder form. It can do great things but needs strict usage rules and regulations in order to prevent people from making pretty blood explosions of themselves. I take a closer look and find out that it's a female. Nice to know. Sending some more qi inside of it I release my control, only watching what it does. It slowly sinks into the flesh of the critter while some focusses in its heart.

“Hello misses rabbit body cultivator. I’m sorry about killing and eating your mommy, but you seem to be doing alright I guess.”

She twitches in my grip, and I stroke her head.

“Just relax there for a bit longer okay? Dawn shouldn't be far off now”

The rabbit seems to get back to sleep and I continue my trance.

The forest slowly gets lighter, signalling the rising sun. A small section of my mind warns me of increasing light levels and breaks my concentration. I take the majority of the qi I’ve gathered and sent it through my blood vessels. It flows through the arteries and capillaries, soaking my flesh in its potential. Most of the qi returns through my veins to my heart, where I send it to my brain again. The left behind qi slowly integrates itself into my cells, helping the various and complicated chemical processes that occur there. It basically superpowers anything that's going on in the cells, sticking to any form of biomolecule and giving it a boost. Once enough qi settles there hunger and thirst will become non-issues, seriously boosting strength and recovery rates.

Once all the leftover qi is back in my centre I put the bunny on the ground. She startles awake and slowly moves around, sniffing everything she comes across. I thank the tree and get a positive response in return. Exiting the hole I stretch while the bunny shuffles after me. She has a little more fur now, light hairs covering her pink nakedness. After kicking the ring of rocks from the fireplace away and throwing dirt over the extinguishes ashes I put the bunny in my breast pocket and start walking towards the village.

After an hour of leisurely walking, I’m now sitting in the underbrush bordering the village. I put the bunny on the ground and she starts nibbling on some grass. I really should either do my experiments on her or name her. The fact that normal bunnies need a few weeks to start eating solids only amuses me now. Spreading my qi through the air I focus on the village that spreads out in front of my eyes. Closing my physical eyes I start to look at what there is to see. The inhabitants all seem human enough. No elves or orcs here. One man walks around with scales sporadically covering his body, all covered by clothes. The rest seems perfect examples of some homo sapiens variety.

The total qi in my body has increased dramatically. The formation proves its effectiveness by multiplying my total qi a dozen times. Having some to spare I change my light sensing trick into a vibration sensing one. Instead of catching directional light I now compress my qi to the max. Because it comes from myself and is not a foreign energy this task gets accomplishes easy, compressing it to a point. Now I just need to focus on minuscule variations in air pressure in that location. I don't have confidence in sustaining sight and hearing both, so I feel for a moving void in my qi. Finding my first stalking victim walking out of a wooden house I move the point of qi near it. A vague pulsing sound keys me in on the fact that I am able to hear footsteps. Changing the way I listen to the air vibrations a little I try to tune my qi listening device until the footsteps become more distinct. Instead of rhythmic rumbling I now hear the slap of footwear on the dirt road.

A roaring series of syllables pound into my mind. It talked, apparently. Turning down the volume a bit I make further modifications until the words become distinct. Words of alien inflexion and tone pour into my mind while I busily file them away, looking for patterns and structures. Once my current subject walks out of my range I focus on other people. I spend the entire day sitting in the bushes, petting the rabbit and listening to every word that’s being said.