Edward and Adel ate their lunch quickly as they both wanted to get to work. They ate some canned beans and sliced bread, which was going to be a main staple of their diet till they went down the mountain and bought more, thought even that would take at least a day’s worth of time. Probably even more if someone went on foot, in a straight line Inyang to the North of the Sichuan regions capital Chengdu.

Since they had the tent for starters they weren’t in a rush to build a house. Even if they where in a rush though this path wasn’t a good place to build a house in. It wasn’t exactly abandoned even if unattended and it was also to small for a permanent residency to be built on it.

Edward was planning on going even further up.

From what he had seen in the maps he had searched about the are the past few days in preparation for Mike’s trip, the path they were currently one wasn’t one of the well trodden paths and instead of following the roads that went west into the Sichuan region it went North-east Following the direction of the river. The path continued on the sides of relatively short mountains till to the east of it a small river flowed. There Edward was planning on making essentially a 90 degree turn and going up towards the small mountain range that existed there, which was barely separated from the rest of the mountain range creating a basin of hills in between. Without actually reaching the peak he planned on finding a plateau with a stream and if possible a pond that fed into the river to their east.  

They couldn’t go there immediately for a few reasons.

He wanted to take it easy for a few days while Adel gathered herself and he familiarized himself with his newfound strength as well as the DIYing he would be doing from now on. The route was more than one kilometer long  and they had a lot of stuff to carry currently and it would be hard to do it in one day, not to mention that debris may have fallen on the path making impassable without clearing it out first.

Thinking about all that Edward went out of then tent and walked towards a tree close to it. Not the Cherry tree of course since he would never cut that down. He held the Hatchet he had just bought strongly in both arms. He breathed in and swung. The Hatchet chopped deep into the trunk, lodging itself in.

Edward was still surprised with his strength, it would take a while to get used to. He would have to put less force into his swings since he wanted the hatchet to last longer than 20 swings.

Edward pulled the hatchet out and went in again and again, until the tree fell. He made sure to be careful to not get pummeled by the tree before he pulled it aside to let the wood dry. He followed that up by going to the next tree, followed by another one and another one.

The sun was setting and Edward has managed to chop down more than 10 trees. With his great strength and amazing stamina he hadn’t stopped for breaks other than for drinking water. HE placed all the trees in a neat pile and placed the hatchet next to that pile as he cleaned himself using a lot of their water reserve, by using a big basin, a towel. Though they had bought 3 packs of 6x1.5 Liter water bottles it would run out pretty soon if they consumed it at that pace.

Edward finally got into the tent were Adel had been resting for the better part of the afternoon. She hadn’t been able to fall asleep and had been waiting for him to finish up with todays work.

“Ed, from tomorrow I want to help as well.” She said as Ed took plopped down on the tents thick mattress like bottom.

“It’s pretty tough, Adel, you should stay here and relax.” Edward spoke in a muffled voice as he was pushing his face into his pillow.

“Don’t treat me as if I am weak! I’ll have you know that when you were playing with Mike I was working Ed! Not to mention that I already feel better, not only mentally but… I somehow feel more energized since we came up here.” Adel said as she looked at Ed making sure that he agreed to her request and fell back down with her eyes closed ready to sleep.

‘So the Qi, if that is what it is, here is strong enough that if someone stays here for even half a day they will start to feel better…. It maybe just that Adel feels better because she has calmed down and the extremely small effect of the Ambient Qi has made her feel even better than what she actually dose, basically borderline placebo. Even in that case the Qi would have to be enough for there to be an effect…Incredible.’

The train of though continued as Edward thought about the possibilities of there being more places with Rich Energy like this one al over the world, how they hadn’t been discovered until now and the theory that they didn’t exist up until recently and that maybe something was coming to the world, a big change that no one expects, except maybe some Conspiracy theorists.

The more he thought the heavier his eyelids felt until eventually sleep took for the first time away from the home in which he lived in for the past 18 years, for the first time in his new home and for the first time where he is completely free from the oppression he had been living under.

--------------------

It was the beginning of summer and the weather was getting hotter and drier with everyday that past. It wasn’t hot but it at least helped with the drying of the wood which Edward had found out on the first morning in the mountains that it would take way to much time.

Thus without bothering to dry everything he used his might to cut some of them there and then which he then used to create a small roofed and walled off space, only on three sides, under which he placed all of their bags. It was only about 1.5 meters tall but that was enough.

On top of the wood used as roofing Adel had taken leaves and ropes and tied them together in order to not let the rain, if it rained, get through the wood and soak all of their belongings.

Since Edward read from a guide book that would wood take forever to dry if not placed inside of a kiln he decided to cut it up. So after gathering more wood every morning and cutting it into thin 2 centimeter thick boards while keeping all the ones that were too much bark or not wide enough to be made into a board as firewood, which he would actually need to dry, in a little more than one week he had about 50 trees worth of boards. He could probably make a house and then some with the added logs that he had cut.

At the same time both he and Adel had noticed something about themselves. They didn’t speak about it yet but they both knew about it. They had been getting stronger. Adelaide’s worn fingers and hands as well as her beaten back had already recuperated. She looked younger than ever and she could do much more demanding tasks without getting as tired compared to two weeks ago.

Edward’s change was even more apparent though. Added to the impressive physical he had gained in just one day that he had been away from Adel, by working so hard with his body and tiring himself out Edward was getting stranger every day. Which led to him doing a couple hours of exercise everyday, which worked in a positive circle and reinforced the pace at which his physical capabilities improved. 

He had decided on some things for now. He would call the energy Qi, and cultivation the act of taking that Qi into your body and using it to strengthen yourself. Now as a weeb/Chinese web novel reader and things in between he really wanted to go ahead and assume a bunch more stuff but maybe because he hasn’t just read one Web novel about Cultivation he doesn’t know what to do.

Too many conflicting ideas exist and he doesn’t know which one is real. There may exist martial spirits, or spirit roots or Dao pillars or 9 m=specific meridians. A plethora of things could be true but he just doesn’t know.

He also doesn’t exactly know of anyone else in his current predicament and no matter how stuck he is, Adel obviously was and will never be a choice for that reference.

Deciding though that he was getting nowhere by just thinking and fearing all the things that he could possibly fuck up within himself Edward informed mother that he would be going down to the city to by a bunch of books.

He knew though that he wasn’t going to be able to return the same day since it would take him most of the day to reach the small town outside of Deyang city. Right after returning he was also planning on finally transferring their stuff and getting to building the wooden house that he was planning on for the past week.

Edward had found a place further up the path closer to what he sensed as the center of the node that they lived on. It would very possibly have much denser Qi in the air and in the vegetation making it an even better environment to cultivate and leave in peace. It wasn’t that far away from where they had set up their camp, meaning that he could always come down and visit the Cherry tree. He felt that he should at least keep it company from time to time since it had gifted him with the strength to save Adel and become free for the first time in his life.

He also had the though of moving it whole to the place that they would built their Japanese styled house, because Edward liked that kind of style, but he didn’t know how or if the moving would hurt the tree and so he decided against it for now.

After a sleeping as usual Edward got up early the next day, the trip that with a car would take a hour or so had to be done by foot and even with his improved stamina an strength Edward was dreading it.