Qi Like Tar

The first bloodjade ant that Paike had faced had been relatively simple. Their overly done plan had gone off without a hitch. That was a rare occurrence, but it did happen every now and then.

He had been blessed with about the best supporting team he could ask for, and gotten lucky with his qi technique failing in a beneficial way.

The second ant gave him no such advantages. It was running through the forest, shouldering trees out of the way as it headed toward Wu Chen.

Paike stood in front of it alone.

They only needed a few more minutes. He just needed to stall it long enough for everyone to run. But he wasn't sure if he could do it. Even if he managed, would the others?

He was one of the two strongest in the group. How would you, Liming or Guan Li, fare? They didn't have his durability or fighting experience. Sure, they could act quicker and had more deadly attacks, but they wouldn't be able to kill one alone.

Even if they did, that might make things worse. Even with Mi Lixian's song, they had come a bit slower than expected, but they had come. If they killed more, it would likely bring the whole colony down on their heads, and they would have no choice but to just drop everything and run.

That had been part of the plan, and the others had paired up. When Guan Li pointed out where the ants were coming from, they didn't have enough groups to intercept. Leaving Paike and Li Feng to each try and face one alone.

Typically, one needed to be Late or Peak Topaz to fight one. But that was only if the goal was to kill it. He just needed to stall it.

The barrier impacted on the side of the ant's thorax and skittered off to the side, his aim slightly off. Even then, his qi shield veered off course rather than just pushing through. It was rare to see that happen to him. But the spirit beast had more qi than a tree and some resistance to the technique.

Bracing, Paike swung his staff even as he channeled his qi. Just as it left his meridian, he added a certain twist with a loop. Unmovable in His Convictions activated, but instead of being locked into place, Paike felt himself violently twist.

This wasn't solely due to his spinning qi. When he had tested it earlier, he had been locked in place as before. However, this was one of the tricks that he had seen the elders do in their fight. He and Guan Li had decoded part of what it did this morning, even if they didn't fully understand it.

The point was to expand the working to an area rather than a single target. Paike guessed that it would let him move in space, but lock him and the air around him to where they were, even as the spin from his qi was imparted into his body.

It had worked. Worked a little too well. He had forgotten how much force he could impart with his qi.

Luckily, the staff held as it impacted the side of the ant's head with thunderous force. Locking him in place prevented him from being shoved backward, allowing him to put his full force behind the blow.

Only the qi running through his channels, supporting his physical cultivation, prevented his muscles from tearing themselves apart from the forces they experienced.

Even as the ant stumbled into a tree, Paike fell to his knees and emptied his guts on the ground. The movement and strain were too much for his body.

Every moment he was in such a vulnerable position, he felt it was going to be his last. He pulled himself together as fast as he could, directing qi to his head and stomach to help them recover.

When he pushed himself to his feet, he found that he was in time. The ant had been dazed by the blow and was only now orienting on him.

Before it could fully turn, Paike activated Unstoppable in His Goals. This time he only used tricks that made it take effect even faster. He shot without any noticeable delay, satisfied that it was no worse than any talented cultivator could accomplish; he stung his target with a smile on his face.

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The downward blow bonked off the ant's head, forcing it to dip and stumble. But the overall effect was disappointing. There was no breaking of the carapace, nor a clear concussion that might have damaged its internals.

Paike frowned at his staff. It wasn't like his fists would be any better against this opponent. He thought longingly of Li Feng's sword or Xia Jun's spear. That might have let him break through the armor.

He considered making a shield at the end of it and trying to get the ant to bite down on it hard enough to break the shield again, but he wasn't sure if that would work again. The jaws could clearly break it, but that was risky.

Also, the shield was slower to move even in his hand; trying to swing a staff with it on the end might work defensively, but not at the speeds that the end of the staff would achieve in a proper swing.

The issue wasn't just with the qi, but that the shield formation was designed to prevent moving in the first place. It was supposed to move only enough to position it, and the fact that it stuck around after he let go was just a result of his oddities.

No, he would need to try something new.

He channeled qi through the meridian for the Acknowledgment of Worldly Matters, but instead ofdoing all the complicated formation work the art required, he tried something one should never do.

It was too simple to be called a new art or technique, just a few of the tricks pieced together in an inefficient and unoptimized way. Anyone who could see it would be sick from how ugly it was, but by a miracle it worked.

A mass of qi formed at the end of his staff. This wasn't just a cloud of qi expelled into the world. No, it had passed through his meridian, and it worked into reality. Therefore, it didn't just interact with other magic and energy, but physical objects as well.

The workings he had done also didn't anchor it in one place as the shield formation did. Instead, it was tied to the end of the staff. It was still harder to move than another cultivator's qi, but his working tied it to the end of the staff rather than a point in space.

It wasn't something he wanted to do, but arts and techniques used different meridians for a reason. How the meridian was made changed things about the qi that passed through it. Acknowledgment of Worldly Matters made a meridian that fixed things in place, allowing them to ignore outside influences; even the charge was more about preventing interference rather than pushing himself forward. The motion came from a separate part of the working. A modern artist would have used more than one meridian for that technique.

All this meant that he had to tie this qi to something, and he chose the end of the staff. That helped negate the difficulty he had in moving his qi.

He would have preferred to use the transient shield formation, but that was a modern meridian, and there was a lot less flexibility as it was built to only do one thing. If he wanted to repurpose the meridian, he would have to reattune it and modify it in a lengthy meditation process. Acknowledgment of Worldly Matters used the same meridian for more than one technique.

So by the most pedantic of descriptions, he had added a technique to the art. If he tried to show it to anyone or claim credit, he would be laughed out of any room. It didn't even come out like he wanted. His plan had been a simple spearhead. Arts that had a technique that summoned weapons were common and useful.

However, he didn't get a spearhead. There wasn't enough time to figure out why, but the qi formed into a rectangular lump instead. It wasn't even oriented the way he had planned.

This was so far from Guan Li's successful art creation or changes that it was laughable. Still, it wasn't something that a typical cultivator could do at all. He only actually knew two people who could modify techniques on the fly without months or years of planning. One was a natural cultivator. The other was his father. So he wasn't so upset.

Or he wouldn't have been if he hadn't already been going for a thrust. The mass of qi would prevent any penetration.

The second the qi formed, he quickly realized that the shape wasn't the only problem. He had forgotten, or didn't have time, to account for the spin of his qi. As soon as he felt the tug of the staff as it arced to the ground, he let go of the qi. Trying to get it to launch forward as the shield had. However, it didn't.

He wasn't sure why, but the thrust turned into him slamming his mass of qi into the ground so hard that he and the ant were showered in dirt. The qi dissipated on impact, leaving a small crater in the dirt.

Paike had the slightest bit of warning and recovered first. He did the same, working again. Just sideways and was ready for it.

The qi formed at the end of the staff he held off to the side, and he swung it around.

It struck the side of the ant like a hammer. The ant was knocked off its feet and thrown into a tree several paces away, with enough force that the trunk cracked.

The qi dissipated, and Paike smiled even as he began to siphon off more from the mass spinning in his dantian. When he used the spinning of his qi and its immovable nature properly, it worked perfectly together. He just had to plan ahead.

Despite the slight crack in the armor of its side, the ant scrambled to its feet without any apparent issue.

Paike felt a grin slip onto his face. He couldn't believe this was actually working.

"I guess I'll have to aim for your legs."

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