Drudic Cultivation + Announcements | Twenty

First and foremost, I want to thank you all for continuing to support my hobby while I work full time. I missed a couple days and for that I'm sorry. That being said, I saw endgame yesterday and it was a good movie. 
I have "revamped" the roles on my patreon. Don't worry, I'm not gonna put a pay wall like "X dollars for Y chapters ahead" or anything like that, that'd only pressure me to write more. Instead I have added duplicate roles for anything past a three dollar pledge but personalized them to one of my two stories. This way, I know who is pledging for which effort, although that's just for my own personal edification. If you want to, feel free to swap your pledge over to the correct story, or if you don't care, don't bother :P.
Oh, and I tried to add fun little quips to each role. Then again, I'm not funny so we'll see how those are recieved. 
Finally, and this two are STORY RELATED so I capsed those words to draw attention, I have two more annoucements to dump into this text wall before the story begins.
First: I've decided to break off the beaten path once more. Not only have I swapped the genders for Yin and Yang because I hate people, but I've renamed the system they cultivate. I felt weird typing martial artists so frequently when we all know that xianxia stories end up more like goku vs freeza than bruce lee vs jackie chan. Thus, from this point onward they shall be refered to as Hallowed Artists who walk their Hallowed Paths (see: Dao), seeking the Truths of the universe (There're your laws). I think it sounds nicer, and it lets me use the term martial arts for like, well, martial arts.
Lastly: I woke up with a muse in my mind after only three hours of sleep and I've written my first smut. I don't know how I feel about it, apart from a little gross because I'm an awkward person, but it spans over ~6K words and would make up three chapters on its own. It's set farther into the future because, well, come on guys, Jiao is only ten, and I have no clue if I'll actually post it. Likely, I'll post an abridged fade-to-black verson of it in the offical book if/when I publish it, as well as the entire encounter on royalroad with a pre-chapter author note that it is, infact, smut, so that people can skip it if they wish. I'll probably do that with most of the smut. 
Anyways, here is the chapter, which is likely shorter than the annoucenemts. Sorry, but also you're welcome I guess. Oh, and thank you!
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Two months had passed since Jiao had entered the forest upon Crouching Grass Mountain and he’d made significant progress. When he’d entered, he had only a vague outline of a fighting style as well as a single meridian opened, his locus meridian. Now, he could fight beasts three steps higher than his cultivation without being injured, and had opened his third meridian that morning, his hydrus meridian.
The hydrus meridian ran through his bladder and kidneys before connecting back to his diantan. The initial connection of one’s meridians didn’t come with too many benefits, outside of cultivation speed, but allowed for the channeling of Qi back through the meridians. For the locus meridian, Qi channeling increased leg power as well as speed. For the telum meridian, his striking power increased, and his spine was slightly reinforced. With his newest meridian, he could channel Qi to help filter poisons and cleanse his blood. 
When looking at the long term for the path of hallowed arts these benefits seemed like nothing more than spare change but when starting upon the path, each one of them was like an evolution. Over the past two months, Feng Jiao had hunted several wild beasts and battled with them, harvesting teeth, claws, and meat to eat. Alongside his hunts, he’d cultivated as well as absorbed wood Qi from the trees in order to nourish his martial spirit seedling, the ash tree that Aideen had burned down, as well as fill his meridians. 
The main reason he’d opened his third meridian so slowly after the first two fell within two weeks of his awakening was preparation. He’d consumed the several Qi gathering pellets that were awarded to him from the God Tree but hadn’t taken either of the two higher quality pills he’d been given, the Three-tailed Tempering Pill and the Five-Seasons Pine Pellet.
The Qi gathering pellets that ever hopeful received from sponsoring sects didn’t actually gather Qi, like the name would imply. Instead, it would lull the mind into a purer meditative state and allow one to reach their senses out slightly farther than they would on their own. Each pill lasted about an hour and left the user open to attacks, to a certain extent. Because it dulled the senses to enhance the meditation, reaction speeds would slow as well as concentration during battle. In other words, the pills were imperfect.
Unlike the two higher quality pills, however, they were unlikely to cause lasting damage to one’s cultivation if used in excess. The two pills in front of Feng Jiao were high in medicinal potency, but also high in pill toxins. Pill toxin was a blanket term that was applied to binding agents and toxic catalysts that used during the refinement process, as well as the foreign Qi that the refiner would have to use during refinement. 
When consumed en mass, the pill toxin would build up in organs, meridians, and even the diantan and spiritual sea, slowly clogging away and reducing the efficiency of an artist’s cultivation. That is why Jiao waited until he had the capability to channel his Qi and filter toxins out of his blood before taking either of the pills. That, and the fact that he wanted to fill as many as his meridians as far as he could before taking the Five-Seasons pellet.
With only a month left until the Feng Family Reunion, Feng Jiao was due to leave the forest within three days in order to make the journey to the reunion. Thus, he was out of preparation time and felt the need to take the pills then and there. In a scene not too unfamiliar from when he connected his first meridian, Feng Jiao found himself sitting on the bank of a river next to a waterfall. This time, however, he was at the top of the waterfall.
After eyeing up the pills for a moment, he decided to start with the Three-Tailed Tempering Pill. From what he’d gathered, the pill was processed from the gall bladders of three separate breeds of python, all of which were raised by the Feng Family proper and processed into a yang-based cleansing pill. It would not directly enhance his cultivation base, but it would cleanse the organs of the worldly filth that accumulated over time.
The pill was round, a little larger than a cashew nut, and a blood red color. It wasn’t the highest quality of medicine, but it was a free mid-grade mortal medicine. Jiao cupped his hand in the river to gather water and downed the pill with a sip. Instantly, his blood felt like it was boiling, and his stomach ached. He lurched forward and vomited dark red blood filled with black filth as his digestive system purged itself. From his skin leaked a similar oily substance that smelled of tar and rotting carcass, impurities from his organs that didn’t have their own pathway. Then, naturally, the other half of his digestive system needed to void itself and Feng Jiao was off to the trees for the most uncomfortable but fast poop of his life.
Five minutes later, a beautiful young boy slowly walked out of the forest with small steps, a straight back, a flushed and sweating face, and cleaner organs. Feng Jiao stripped off his clothing, which was now filthy, and regretted not doing so before taking the pill. He’d known that the impurities would be forced out of his body, although the southern dam breaking was an unpleasant surprise, but for some reason, and he didn’t have a good one, he didn’t think to preserve his clothes.
The lithe young man waddled father upstream from the waterfall before slowly rinsing himself of the filth accumulated over ten years of eating commoner food, drinking bad water, breathing bad air, and two months of living in a forest with battle every day. The grime he washed off was almost equal parts dried blood as it was earthen impurities. The worst part was, the Three-Tailed pill was only a mid-grade mortal medicine. There was absolutely no chance that it completely purged him and most likely only offered a courtesy rinse. Still, it would be helpful for the next step for sure.
Feng Jiao sat lotus on the river bank with his legs in the water, still completely nude because he did not choose to rinse the filthy rags, he called clothes just yet, and began to cycle his breathing. With his breathing, he stirred the Qi he’d gathered in the next three meridians and began to cycle it as he further refined it into yang Qi as he’d been taught by Aideen. For the last two months, he’d built a surplus of Qi in his Toxitus, Viscus, Alvus, and obviously his Hydrus, meridians in preparation for a simultaneous breakthrough.
After absorbing the energy of heaven and earth, as well as some wood Qi from the flora surrounding him, he cycled it and refined it in his meridians in order to transform it into yang Qi, which he then refined to make it denser and purer. Of course, the wood Qi that he absorbed through his connected meridians went straight into his spiritual sea to help nourish the samara fruit that would eventually grow to be his official martial spirit, and the Qi absorbed through his channels poured into his Qi pool around his brain, formless and calm.
His breathing slowed even further as all of his movements stilled and he cast his gaze internally, concentrating on the overflowing pathways. Qi smashed at the barriers of his meridians like floodwaters after a burst dam but were unable to break his sturdy channels. Finally, the still boy moved once and brought a large pellet, almost the size of his palm, straight to his mouth.
The Five-Seasons Pine Pellet was refined from a special pine tree that grew within the God Tree’s mountain range. The pine tree changed colors with the seasons, from pink in the spring, to red in the summer, to yellow in the autumn, and white in the winter before resuming the cycle. Once every ten years, however, the crown of the pine tree would shift into a purple color for only two hours. The ten-year measurement was not exact, often varying by anywhere from a day to a month, and the two-hour period of purple could last for less but never more. Even more than that, the trees refused to be cultivated and would only thrive deep within the untamed woods of the mountain.
All of this added up to make a very rare, but extremely powerful, medicinal ingredient. Every student and elder of the God Tree was expected to either harvest the pine needles if seen or contact somebody with the knowhow instantly. The yin-based needles would then be processed alongside several other powerful yang-based fruits into a powder that was eventually congealed into a number of pellets ranging from one to seven. 
Within the God Tree, the pellet was not the rarest of medicines, but it was almost never sold to outsiders. Instead, the elders used the pellets to cultivate talents and increase their cultivation speed tremendously. 
As the pellet touched Jiao’s tongue, it melted and spread a calm sensation throughout his entire body. His temperature slowly rose until he started sweating bullets once more, then cooled as a breeze seemed to blow through his veins. Then his body lost all heat. Even sitting butt-naked in the sunlight, he couldn’t feel a single hair on his body that wasn’t frozen solid. 
This temperate cycle spun several times while Jiao tried to keep control of his body and continue cycling his Qi. Had he been counting; he would have found the number of cycles to equal nine. As nine returned to one and the tenth cycle should have started, Feng Jiao simultaneously felt his blood boil, chill, relax, and freeze. Then, after a split second, Jiao felt nothing at all.
Still looking inwards, Jiao found it was more difficult to cycle the Qi in his unconnected meridians. After observing it, he realized that the Qi was now viscous and potent, emanating the feeling of a calm before the storm. Jiao began the attack on his next three meridians and, in almost no time at all, connected all three of them at once. 
The process went extremely smoothly, the membrane never stood a chance against the extremely thick yang Qi. With his organs newly-cleansed as well, Feng Jiao was still able to move the thick Qi with sufficient efficiency. Without having the Three-Tailed pill, he feared his soupy Qi may have gotten clogged within his impurities, forcing him to void the Qi and start over from scratch. 
Upon further inspection, Feng Jiao also realized that his meridians had all grown fractionally larger, albeit almost unnoticeably larger. He cycled the Qi through the three newly connected meridians and reflected on his gains. He was now a Step-Six Mortal Awakening Stage hallowed cultivator, the average for the tourney that most kids participated in three to four years after they began their journey. He only had the Big Three left before he officially stepped out of the Mortal Awakening stage and into the Mortal Forging.
Via his Toxitus meridian, which was the Qi pathway that ran through his gallbladder and liver, he could now channel Qi in order to actively fight off poisons and infections. His Viscus, which connected his large and small intestines, would allow him to reduce his waste to almost nothing, provided the foods he ate were all purely nutritional. Unlikely, considering how much Feng Jiao had come to love fire roasted beast and oil fried meats. Finally, through his Alvus meridian, which ran through his stomach and spleen, Jiao gained the capability to better fight off bacterial based diseases as well as the ability to digest tougher foods like Core-Ranked beast meats. The first use was more practical, but the beautiful boy would be lying if he said that the second didn’t appeal to his nature more.
Although he didn’t gain much combat capability from the three meridians, or his hydrus for that matter, connecting those meridians once again increased the speed at which he could cultivate and fill his diantan as well as provided a wealth of small benefits for the short term. Oh, and he supposed his organs should be slightly more durable now that Qi would constantly cycle through them via his diantan and meridians.
His level of cultivation wouldn’t be obvious to most people he’d met upon inspection. Once someone reached the later stages of the Earthen Realm, the Hallowed Realm that followed the Mortal stages, they would be able to sense the cultivation base of anyone weaker than themselves. This was only thrown off by warding artifacts or deviant constitutions, sort of similar to the yang based one he had himself. Although, his yang constitution only seemed to affect his appearances rather than his hallowed path. 
As a newly minted stage-six awakened, Feng Jiao stood up and set off down the mountain to his home, only stopping to turn around ten minutes later after scratching his delicate bits on a branch and realizing he’d forgotten his ragged clothing. 
He had a competition to go win.