yansusustories

I've managed to deal with my stuff so here's the next OMF chapter as promised! From now on, we're back to daily chapters. :)

Qiu Ling felt Jing Yi’s gentle gaze and smiled even more sweetly. Mn, it seemed like helping him had made his beloved look at him with different eyes. Qiu Ling bent forward and stretched his neck to make it easier for his beloved to reward him.

Jing Yi laughed and cupped his cheeks. "Thank you for saying that. You’re absolutely right." He also leaned forward and gave Qiu Ling a peck on the cheek. "So, how do we continue?"

Qiu Ling pursed his lips. How come he had only gotten a kiss on the cheek? With how helpful and motivating he was, shouldn’t he get at least a peck on the lips? Well, he probably shouldn’t expect too much. After all, his beloved was shy.

He straightened up and cleared his throat. "Well, normally, you would use the spiritual energy inside yourself to command that outside of your body. But for that, you first need to take some in."

Jing Yi nodded slowly. "Right. And … I don’t really know how. I mean, does it actually make sense? If you need spiritual energy to move spiritual energy, then how are you supposed to take it in in the first place? Wouldn’t that be impossible?"

Qiu Ling blinked his eyes. That … that sounded very reasonable now that his beloved mentioned it. He scratched his neck, wondering what the problem could be. For a dragon, this wasn’t an issue but humans would indeed need to be able to move the spiritual energy without having any. After all, taking it in was essentially moving it toward your own body.

"Mn, well, just now, I moved the spiritual energy toward your body. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe it does work differently for you and the first step is actually moving it outside on your own before you can take it in." He furrowed his brows. "In a sense, you could probably say that you first need to gain a thorough understanding of the spiritual energy. When you manage to do that, you can command it and then take it in as well, making it a part of yourself."

"I see. But … gaining an understanding is different from sensing it, right? So how would I do that? I only know the basics, nothing more."

"I don’t think it’s so much about having knowledge about it as it is getting your own understanding."

Jing Yi could only look at him with confusion.

"Ah, I don’t know how to explain." Qiu Ling brushed through his hair and looked away, wondering if there was something he could use to make this easier for Jing Yi. Wasn’t there something he could compare this to? Coming to your own understanding instead of being told …

He perked up and turned back to his beloved. "Right! Just think of yesterday: You’ve seen me make a fire several times already but you only found out how it’s really done when you tried it yourself, right?"

"Well …" Jing Yi furrowed his brows. "I did somewhat get a better feeling for it but I still needed you to explain to me."

"Uh …" Qiu Ling inwardly cursed. Right. That probably hadn’t been the best example …

"But thinking of that, maybe it’s really similar."

Qiu Ling raised his brows. Really? How so? Hadn’t they just found out that it wasn’t?

"After all, I do know some simple things about spirit veins and spiritual energy. And I’ve seen you do it as well. So now, it’s really just about trying it out and understanding how I can do it as well. Also … you’re helping me in this case just like with the fire yesterday, right?"

"I guess that’s true. Then …"

Jing Yi smiled. "Well, didn’t you say you had another idea what we could try? Maybe let’s just go with that. The more I do, the more I might find out."

Qiu Ling nodded. "That’s true. Well, my idea was just that maybe you’d have an easier time grasping it when the surroundings varied. At this place, the spiritual energy is dense but that alone might not be enough. Previously, you were able to sense the spiritual energy because I used it, right? Then maybe it’d help if I varied the way I used it. What do you think?"

Jing Yi pondered and then nodded. "Even if I can’t, it can’t hurt to try, right?"

Qiu Ling nodded and then once again used his magic to move the spiritual energy. He didn’t have more than a vague notion of what he should do but he still felt that they might be on the right path. Anyway, just explaining wouldn’t do it since his magic still differed from the humans’ way of doing things.

As a start, Qiu Ling made the spiritual energy move as slowly as possible until he felt that it almost crept forward at a snail’s pace. He kept his gaze trained on Jing Yi’s face the entire time to make sure he could react if there was something that sparked his inspiration. Unfortunately, while Jing Yi was very focused, there didn’t seem to be any sudden insight.

Qiu Ling wasn’t just giving up though. He continued at a slow pace and made the spiritual energy move closer to Jing Yi and then further away. Only when he had repeated the same thing a few times did he accelerate his speed.

Once again, he moved the energy toward Jing Yi and then away from him, making sure that the speed stayed the same.

Jing Yi focused on the energy he could sense. By now, the feeling was distinct. While he still needed to focus to be able to sense it, it was at least clear when he did so. He was even able to tell just what Qiu Ling was doing to vary his use of the energy as he had said.

Following the changes, Jing Yi’s expression grew pensive. Just what was it that he should understand from this? The only thing he could sense right now was that Qiu Ling was able to make it move in all directions at will and that as fast as he could. But … he still didn’t know what exactly that should tell him.