As Nick expected, after three days of exercises, reading and torture that already felt like of a milder level, they shook hands. For this lecture he brought the grand elder out on the balcony, for his own pleasure, of course.

“The yin and yang is an ancient concept of power that existed many, many years ago. It’s meaning is that everything exists as inseparable, contradictory opposites. For example: day and night, the Sun and the Moon, hot and cold – you get the idea. But, regarding our question at hand – the opposites are male as yang and female as yin. I will give you an example. When this body was born, it was forcefully extracted from mothers womb and had incomplete soul in it. Therefore, as soon as I could, I got the fatty Elsa to be around me. Don’t think it was just random. She has very strong yin for this era and it helped me to synchronize the partial soul with the new body. In a way I did something similar to what I’m going to suggest to you. But your case it will be much more difficult, so listen carefully, even if it might sound easy, it really isn’t.”

Nick had prepared a huge lecture during the last days, so he just went according to his memory, “Next, I will tell you practical application and then we can go into more details. So, by exchanging their yin and yang males and females in ancient times acquired incredible powers as well as longevity. As I said before, these forces are opposite, but compliment each other at the same time. Thus, in order to use them, you have to have special techniques. These days yin and yang in this world is very scarce and I have few ideas why the world has degraded, but that is not our topic and does not really matter. So, although scarce, they still exist in the human bodies.”

“By using the Qi humans have today, you can, in a way, replicate the ancient techniques and practice the sacred yin-yang ritual. It would consist of male and a female connecting physically and then guiding the Qi flow within their bodies from one to another in a special way. By guiding the Qi, they will, at the same time, automatically guide yin and yang that you people are not capable of sensing any more. The opposite powers of yin and yang will strengthen, energize and rejuvenate both parties. One has to start this practice by pressing your palms together and guiding Qi through them. The peak techniques are used later when male enters female and they guide Qi through their mouths and genitalia. When you come to this part you will have to consume as much as possible of the natural catalyst – oysters. It will help to balance yin and yang more effectively.”

Nick was not sure if this old freak still had any potency left, but he also could not remember any other aphrodisiacs. Therefore – he just went with the concept of ‘large amount of oysters to be consumed on a daily basis’.

“What you have to understand is – it’s not that easy. You can’t just go and hump any village girl, otherwise you will just kill her without reaping any benefits. Power level of parties has to be more or less similar. Please note, that it is important to not practice it with multiple partners, because different people have different amounts of yin and yang, in a way it is similar to the concept of Qi. Even more so is the fact that women are very jealous beings and, even if they don’t know for sure, they will feel the presence of a competitor and they will create a lot of resentment in their yin – that is too dangerous, especially for you. Also, when you go and practice each day with another partner, you will just waste your time trying to synchronize without starting to get the real benefits. In fact, practicing with different partners can lead to yin-yang deviation, that is similar to the Qi deviation, but with much heavier repercussions.”

Nick’s cheeky idea was simple. There was only one female Qi master around who could be on the grand elder’s level. If he could make both grand elder and elder Agnes busy through the nights, they would have less time to kill people through the day. Also, it was just a simple biology – people who have active intimate lives are more lively and healthy. He hoped he could make grand elder believe that the newly acquired energetic feeling is because of the ‘new technique’.

“Now to the most important part. Why would I suggest this ancient power system and not any other? It is because for almost two centuries, together with lifeforce, you have absorbed huge amount of yin, but there are multiple problems with it. First, it is filled with the resentment of young females you have killed. Second, it is unstable because of that resentment. Third, your yang is also going out of order because it has not been synchronized with yin in a long time. You have probably noticed that with years going by you have less healthy sleep – it is because night is the yin time; sometimes your extremities can get cold even if you are a Qi master – cold is also governed by yin. You are not that stupid and can think of multiple other symptoms as well.”

“I would advise you for the next fifty years to practice this technique only during the night and, preferably, exactly for the period from dusk till down, even if you don’t implement parts in your own rejuvenation system. Next, use only the first step for at least one month, well, I would suggest half a year, but you are an accomplished Qi master and can test and modify the intensity as needed by yourself. We will go over techniques a bit later, I just want to finish with this – when you do your next rejuvenation, don’t simply paralyze the girls letting them see what is going on, add some hallucinogens so they feel pleasure from various illusions. Otherwise the resentful yin might kill you already during the next procedure or the one after that. You don’t realize yourself how close you are to the critical mass.”

‘That is it girls, I can’t do more for you at the moment. At least you won’t die in pain. But I promise, I will try to stop this old bastard, even if I have to kill him myself! That and I hope I have not opened some kind of Pandora’s box.’

It was really hard to imagine what more Nick could do in a one meter tall body that was barely capable of covering the distance of fifty meters, not to speak about going against the Qi masters of this world.

Judging by the passion that was burning in the grand elder’s eyes, Nick succeeded. And as expected, lecture continued through the day, with the usual breaks. Nick told more fairy tales, but added believable map of Qi circulation, so this would look more like a real technique. Grand elder even came the next day to specify some details.

‘I just hope this will give me some breathing room. I really want them to stop following me.’

Truth to be told, Nick was also looking forward to see how his scheme will turn out.

And it didn’t take long. Soon he didn’t meet elder Agnes or the grand elder in the mornings. They seemed to be still sleeping. Even in the late afternoon they already were starting to prepare for something. Elder Agnes seemed to be in bad mood lately, mumbling to herself something that sounded like ‘that old pervert’ and ‘I’ll kill you, bastard’.

Nick just laughed and thought, ‘Don’t worry old witch, soon you will run around smiling widely.’

He didn’t have much free time himself. The fire resistance treatment was coming to an end and he was looking forward to the ‘cold’ procedures. It didn’t really hurt that much anymore during the last few days, but he was on so much ‘fire’ lately he wanted to ‘cool down’. Nick wanted to treat himself to some ice shakes in the mornings and have a refreshing cool bath after. Elder Jan already explained that the mixture will contain the essence of rank three ice wolf’s blood and Nick was wondering what fruit flavor will it have this time.

‘It can’t be mango again, right? May be apples? I hope it will be peaches, I really would like to have some.’ He thought to himself.

As usual, the reality was much more cruel. First time he drank the new mixture, the smile on his face froze … literally. It felt like his mouth and throat were covered in layer of ice and he could not even swallow. There was no excruciating pain, but the feeling of drinking something like liquid helium was not really ‘pleasant’.

With his experiences around elders of Holy Order, Nick was kind of prepared that something unexpected might happen, thus he was already performing the first Qi technique before starting his ‘breakfast’. It relieved some of his struggles, but the bulging eyes and whimpers were telling their own story. Another problem was – with his body growing the amount food he required grew and so his did his suffering in proportion to that.

After breakfast he already didn’t have any illusions towards the bath part. He was thrown in to the tub, just to get paralyzed with cold and slowly sank to the bottom. When elder Jan, who was supervising the first few cold resistance treatments, saw it, he quickly fished the frozen dumpling out, let him recover a bit and then threw back in while the surrounding apprentices were taking notes on how to perform the treatment correctly when elder won’t be around later, so they can do their job properly.

This time Nick was not in so much pain. It did hurt during the recovery part, but he tried to perform the first Qi technique all the time and it was not as bad as the ‘fire baths’.

Nick’s new schedule was basically the same as the old one – eating, bathing, practicing physical exercises and reading. The new addition was his tendency to take naps in sunshine on the balcony. Apprentices were not allowed here and with grand elder and elder Agnes busy, he had quite a lot of leisure time.

It continued like that for over a month until one day he saw grand elder sitting at the meeting table in the library and loudly slurping. There was a small hill of empty shells on the floor and still multiple full plates of oysters on the table. It seemed like grand elder was performing genocide wherever he went – this time mollusks had to suffer.

Nick looked at this old pervert stupefied. ‘Rally? Already can’t keep it in your pants?’

But then he got an inspiration again and with small steps strode towards the grand elder.

“I see you are preparing for the next step.” Nick shook his head like a disappointed grandfather looking at his naughty grandchild, “You are too rash. Your mental state is not stable – you didn’t even come to me to ask for additional pointers. It seems that your yang is also experiencing a bit of imbalance. Does your practice partner not trust you fully and seems to resist sometimes?”

“Lord Baal!” Grand elder turned his skull face to look at Nick while oyster juice was still flowing down his chin, “Of course, you can tell! I just felt I have to make that bitch submit to me and this seemed to be the most effective way.”

‘Of course, you ‘felt’! Well, at least you are not hurting innocent people like this.’ Nick sighed inwardly.

Then he lied down on the cushion and closed his eyes to prevent him from going blind looking at the disgusting style grand elder used to eat poor oysters.

“First of all, you should spray a bit of lemon juice on the oysters when eating those. It will be less disgusting and actually will be more healthy as well.” When traveling with his parents, Nick did try out this kind of food and knew how to ‘properly’ eat it even though didn’t really enjoy it.

“Next, since your yang is not stable in addition to the yin, it is early for you to take this step. Although there is a way. In fact, it is the highest level of the yin-yang technique, but I am not sure if you are mentally strong enough to practice. If you do, you might even prolong your life by additional fifty years.”

“Please teach me, Lord Baal!” Grand elder was ecstatic. He was at the death doors for almost two centuries and prolonging his life could be even more important to him than the existence of the Holy Order.

“Sure, but for that I want convenient ladders to be installed in this library so I can get to the top shelves of each bookshelf by myself.”

Needless to say – the ladders were installed within two hours after this conversation.

“The highest art of yin-yang technique …” Nick sighed as seemed to reminisce on history from long ago, “Only emperors at that time practiced it. The principle revolves around man not discharging his semen. It is not as easy as it sounds, because even the strongest men could loose themselves in a moment of weakness. Remember – if you decide to take this path – there is no way to turn back. If you discharge your semen later, the yang in your body will explode your partner and probably your genitalia alongside with her! You may slip once or twice in the early stages, but I strongly advise you against it.”

As already accomplished actor, Nick took a long, effective pause. Hearing the grand elder breathing heavily in excitement he felt disgusted again, so he decided to wrap up and leave the old pervert be.

“To perform this technique more effectively, you will have to choose positions where you can use your right hand freely. Remember – the right hand is very important as the right side is the yang side! The weakness moments to the man come only when the female is starting to loose control of her yin, so you will have to ‘wake up’ your partner by slapping her on her buttocks. Thus you can not do this when she lies on her back. And remember to use the right hand! It is very important that yang calms the yin down! And you both have to follow the specific Qi mapping as well, it requires incredible concentration, so you have to be careful!” Nick took a piece of paper and made up some map for Qi flow that had to be followed while performing this made up ‘Qi technique’.

‘Ok, now you can go and die, you old pervert! I hope you’ll blow up. Or may be the old witch will just kill you, anyway, both results are fine.’

Nick stood up and left the grand elder in deep thoughts.