Ivor saw a cave, dashing into it with a bundle of wild plants in his arms and cuts covering his legs. He had seen a wild beast on the way, a large orangish bear, but he went through some brambles to avoid it, picking up some berries along the way. Ivor grinned. “I guess it’s time to check my gains.”

After attuning with qi, Ivor could see traces of qi, allowing him to know some things about the plants so he could sort them. He set down the three chunks of bark from the volcano trees that he had acquired along with a strange neon-green stone and three flowers with razor-sharp obsidian petals. ‘I bet that these all have different properties, but they all have one type of qi, although it varies a little between them. I guess I’ll call it mineral qi.’

Next, Ivor set down the twenty-nine volcano tree leaves he had taken, together with some bright orange pine needles and a red marble. ‘These seem like they’d have fire qi, just based on the objects and designs of the things that share it.’

Ivor took out some azure moss he had seen growing atop the surface of a pond and a nice-smelling purple flower. ‘For this, maybe water qi? That would make sense.’

The Hobo’s voice resounded in Ivor’s ears once more. “Hey, somebody just exchanged a Sovereign Contribution Point for some information on the situation, and asked for the information to be shared with everybody here. Anyways, there are 10,000,000 people who were transported here. The people transported here are a third of the cultivators on earth, with more cultivators the closer to the center of the area I plopped humanity down in, as well as people who annoyed me and some people I picked at random to round out the numbers. Over 10,000 have died already, and if you die, don’t be boring like them. I’m broadcasting this, so make your deaths entertaining. Anyways, now that that tangent’s over, to explain about the beast tides, islands are going to collide into the island you’re on and bring beasts with them. The area of the island will increase according to the golden spiral. I’ll let in 50,000,000 more humans after the beast tide. If you kill enough beasts, I’ll even reward you. Make a safe place for humanity. Also, little buddy Sio, I know you’re there. You can’t hide from me. Now then, I’ll only be making announcements when the beast tides end. Honestly, humanity amuses me to no end, or I wouldn’t even care that much. Hiding the existence of cultivators? I laughed my ass off. Toodles.”

‘Oh, I guess I was on the outskirts of where the humans were dropped? There weren’t many people on the way here.’

Ivor looked at his treasures and thought back to his meeting with the Hobo’s clone. ‘Opening my meridians, huh? How would I do that with treasure qi? I know that I’d need to create the treasure qi first, and then maybe inhale it to open my lung meridian. But how do I make it with what I have? Wait… I know something I could do with these treasures, although it would be a good bit easier with other qi types.’

Ivor went out to soak the azure moss in some water, as he was curious about how it stayed dry in a pond. It seemed to absorb the water. He burned one of the pine needles, and the flame it made was massive. ‘Those all did what I expected. The green stone looks pretty mysterious, maybe that would work? Well, I guess I’ll try it.’

Ivor put a few handfuls of the fiery pine needles on the ground and set them alight before throwing the green stone in the fire. He then wrapped the burning pine needles in azure moss to insulate and cool it. The fire dimmed and Ivor thought ‘refining minerals with fire and cooling it with water… after that I intensify the fire again, so hopefully this does what I think it does.’

Ivor inserted four volcano tree leaves into the fire through gaps in the azure moss, intensifying the fire inside. Then he squeezed the azure moss and a green gas came out. ‘Hm… it seems like the gas might contain treasure qi, but I don’t really want to inhale it. Wait… shit, I just did. I hate analysis paralysis. I’m too calm, aren’t I, considering I might die, huh? Oh well. Guess I’ll just run with it then.’ Ivor felt his consciousness dimming and fell to the floor, asleep, but only after near instinctively inhaling primordial qi and using it to push the green gas into the walls of his lungs and through those into his lung meridian. In his sleep, he started coughing up black blood, blood laced with the impure qi of his lung meridian.

* * *

Ivor woke up feeling somewhat refreshed. His lungs felt lighter somehow, better in an abstract way. “I… didn’t die? And looking at the black bloodstains on the floor, I might have started to open a meridian? Wow, I’m lucky. And yeah, sensing inside of my body, my lungs have some qi infused with the concept of a treasure in them, or that’s what it feels like, at least… and I’m definitely stronger. Oh, the treasure qi in my lungs feels… a little like that green rock, I guess. Ah well, that’s probably important, but whatever. It seems like there were some more cultivators here, so I guess I’ll go check that out. Maybe they’ll know what the hell is going on with all of this.”

* * *

Ivor walked out of the cave with a newfound power in his step, a power sourced from the oxygen being pumped into his blood by his newly-opened lung meridian. He proceeded to start running around, as he didn’t have a damn clue where anything was and his sense of direction was screwed up when he fell unconscious. “Hey, is anyone there? Anyone? I hope I didn’t run into an uninhabited region.”

Ivor heard a growl. A weirdly small tiger burst out from some bushes and charged at Ivor with astounding speed. “Wait… how do I fiiight?!”

Ivor’s cowardice grew two sizes that day. The tiger jumped at him with explosive speed and tore off part of his leg as he tried to run away. Ivor screamed out, and the heavens seemed to listen. Or maybe it was his subconscious that heard his pain. As he screamed, a green gas flew out of Ivor’s mouth in a massive spurt before his knees grew weak and he fell to the floor again, panting. “Wait… am I out of oxygen? But my lungs are enhanced… unless…”

Ivor turned around to face the small tiger to see that its eyes were seemingly trying to close. It was only then that Ivor noticed the miasma around him. “Did I breathe that out? It feels kind of like… that green stone, in terms of qi. It’s also kind of like the qi in my lung. Maybe it’s an ability? Okay, I’ll call it ‘Demonic Legend Green Stone Doom Qi Toxin Breath’! That seems like a cool name. Ah shit, why didn’t I feel this?!”

Ivor noticed that the small tiger had pushed through the poison and clawed his chest, leaving a large gash. He had a thought and burst into action. Ivor jumped up onto the small tiger, flipping it over along with himself, and grabbed both of its paws, pushing them down and to the side. The effort made him pant even harder than before, but he had the tiger held down… or so he thought.

The tiger’s legs contorted in an unnatural manner before stabbing Ivor in the lungs with its left leg's claws. Blood was welling up in Ivor’s chest, but then he had an idea. Ivor coughed up blood into the tiger’s eyes, and this was blood from his lung, infused with poison from the green stone. The tiger tried to bring its paws up to its eyes to wipe away the blood, and Ivor let it - but he forced its claws into its eyes and then spat a mouthful of poison blood into its new wounds. Ivor got up triumphantly, with these words: “I really need to think of a cool one-liner.”

It was at this point that Ivor promptly passed out.

* * *

Ivor’s eyes opened slowly. “Where am I?”

A man in front of him said to him: “Hello junior brother. You killed that tiger, which is a great contribution to the Samsara sect! If you ever want to join, I’d recommend it! The Samsara sect is the strongest sect on earth. It looks like you don’t know much about cultivation, junior brother, so I’ll answer any questions I can in thanks for that tiger corpse! Don’t judge me too much on it, I saved your life!”

Ivor groaned. “Well first… who are you? And where am I anyway?”