It was dark outside. I guessed it was around midnight. There was a clock on the system interface, but it was a real-world clock. Even if I multiplied the time scale, it didn't represent the time where I was currently in at the current in-game location.

Without sleep, I wasn't tired at all. Qi circulation was like a magic pill for an all-nighter.

4 books were similar.

To summarize— apart from how they used qi to fight, each martial art gave priority to different body parts. However, all of them said that 3 qi gathered spots are important. They were called Dantian in Chinese located at abdomen, heart, and brain.

Other parts were about philosophy and how to fight. I didn't understand why something like philosophy, poem, or mantra existed in the books. Maybe they were for self visualization? 

Wind Chakra and Blade of Northern were out of my choices because of this reason. I wanted to stay away from something that resembled religions.

Now, what should I choose between aura art and Wind Pagoda? 

Was there a reason for martial artists to stick with learning one thing? There shouldn't be, my expected answer was to stick with one thing and master it.

The aura book was simple, too simple that there were only a few moves in the book such as coating a weapon with qi and using qi to enhance the body. It wasn't weapon-specific and also, didn't emphasize any aspect of the battle. 

While Wind Pagoda's teaching contained a bit of poetry, it wasn't the level that would annoy me.

Possibly, they had a mentor for each martial art and they would send one to teach me. If I chose the aura style, there was a high chance that Dorian would be the one who teaches me. Which— I preferred someone else.

Since I made the decision and there was nothing else to do, it would be better to improve my qi.

I moved to sit on the bed which provided me comfort compared to the wooden chair. Sitting posture didn't matter as long as it didn't interrupt your focus. With steady breathing, I circulated qi inside. As qi flow gradually matched the tempo of my breath,  I felt like the circulation became natural.

The experience was pleasing. My sense was heightened as if I knew everything in the room. Not visual, but I would say it was something like a qi sense. Even the bed had a tiny amount of qi contained.

 

[You've developed Qi Hypersensitivity F]

[Your constitution became sensitive to qi. You can sense qi slightly better, however, you're vulnerable to direct qi attack as well]

 

[Due to better cultivation understanding, Basic Qi Cultivation Method became E rank]

 

I wasn't sure if Qi Hypersensitivity was a good or a bad thing. Was it similar to having a sensitive nose so you would be the first one who noticed that someone farted? That sounded troublesome.

 Back to qi circulation—

Could it be improved? Apart from fighting, cultivation shouldn't require experience, only knowledge. I was sure that if I tried all variables permutations, I might be able to discover a new cultivation method.

What I wanted to do was basically trial and error, but without discrete outcomes.

There were multiple variables I could think of. The first thing that came into my mind was breathing. Other variables were surrounding qi, flow direction, and organs or body parts priorities.

Started with breathing.

Set the breathing tempo into 3 cases; slow as someone who was going to die, slow like when I tried to calm myself down, normal breathing.

There was no point in testing with fast breathing tempo because it only interrupted the qi flow.

Because there was no deterministic result in the short-term. The goal of this experiment was to see the relationship between breathing tempo and qi flow, and also to find the optimal tempo for me.

I began to inhale, then exhale as slowly as possible. 

 

***

Too slow wasn't good. I felt like my focus was on the breath rather than the qi. Apparently, breathing slow and relax was the best

I also tried different ratios and times between the time used to inhale and exhale. The optimal was 4 seconds inhale and 8 seconds exhale.

For surrounding qi, I would try circulating outside my room later since I didn't want to go outside yet.

Next was flow direction.

Every book suggested circulating in the same direction, but what if I tried in reverse? Would it mean I break the rule?

Starting with the abdomen, going down to the bottom, then up...

…!!?

It started to feel hot. Qi was running wild from clashing each other. Suddenly, my body was getting hotter like I was burning alive.

Before I could stop, the sharp pain emerged in the stomach.—

 

[Your intestines have been ruptured.]

HP: 19/20

HP: 18/20

...

 

"...!!!"

Almost, but I didn't scream. Should I stop...? No, I should force it to see the result.

This was not much worse compared to getting shot.

People might think I was a masochist, however, I considered myself a scientist. I had to complete the experiment.

Controlling qi to flow in reverse wasn't an easy task. Because my focus was used I didn't hear any more system messages.

The next one was heart—

 

[You're having internal bleeding.]

[Your heart has been ruptured.]

 

The view was changed. I noticed myself lying down on the floor.

My whole body was numb. I couldn't move. I couldn't feel...

 

HP: 16/20

…

HP: 10/20

 

[You've tried an unknown cultivation method.]

[Because the player doesn't have enough knowledge about cultivation, the system cannot disclose the name of the skill.]

[Due to severe pain, the system will inject morphine.]

[The system will force disconnect]

The last thing I felt was cold enveloped my whole body before I was forced to logout.

 

***

The capsule lid was easily opened. I love how the engineering team cared about the emergency aspect, but it wasn't the time to admire it.

17 meters away! My legs were going fast like my life on the line. The acidic smell hit my nose. It was like a volcano that was ready to blow up at any moment.

"Upff"

I swallowed the liquid. Yes, it was painful, but it bought me some time.

Speaking of a volcano, it didn't erupt once. There would be an aftershock after. Throwing up wasn't much different. The next wave would come soon.

"Bleaghhh"

This was unsightly, but at least I made it to the restroom. I did not wish to see myself right now. 

Hugging a toilet reminded me of early days in university life where I got drunk like there was no tomorrow.

 

***

The storm had passed. The moment of tranquility soothed me as if I was a protagonist in a natural disaster movie. There would be a phrase like Ah... we survived or something along this line.

Although it might sound exaggerating, my relief matched the fantasy. Cleaning vomit wasn't a thing I wanted to do. The smell was the hardest part to get rid of.

The side effect of morphine caused temporary arrhythmia. I tried my best to pull my head up, so I wouldn't kiss the gastric juice.

The amount of pain was unimaginable. I didn't understand how a sheltered girl like my friend, Remy, overcame in-game suffering.

After I flushed the toilet and brushed my teeth, I went to my PC instead of going back into the game.

The desk was messy, but no matter how I organized it was still messy. I pushed those miscellaneous away to find paracetamol.

It was a good thing that I always put a bottle of water on the desk, so I didn't have to drag my weakened body to get a glass of water. I took the acetaminophen even though I was recently injected with morphine.

'Hey, Pochi. What's GGQ pain reduction level?'

As I turned on the computer, I asked Pochi.

[From the official website, the pain reduction is 40%.]

Sounded like a lie. It was the first time I had Internal bleeding. I didn't have anything in my memory to compare.

What intrigued me more was qi circulation. The game's message told me that my attempt wasn't a total failure. There were major adjustments I should look into.

As always, satisfying my curiosity was the first priority.

I opened the terminal and entered the script. I could order Pochi with voice, but typing was faster and more enjoyable. 

'Hey, Pochi. Give me flat white.'

[Miss Canary, the time is 1 AM. I suggest you avoid drinking coffee when feeling nauseous—]

'Shut up and start brewing coffee'

[Understood.]

I had to stop Pochi before he could complete his copy-paste Guugle medical advice.

Behind the desk, a coffee machine was installed into the wall, so I could get coffee any time I wanted.  When the wall opened, I took the cup and sipped.

As I thought, flat white was the perfect choice to calm my stomach. It was brewed with Brazilian beans that grew around 1100 meters above sea level. This height gave a hint of chocolate while maintaining the body. With an excellent roaster, the beans were caramelized without getting burnt and delivered mild sweetness that blended well with whole milk froth.

I enjoyed the smoothness while watching the script ran.

The script I entered was a command to run a web crawler and scraper. The original product, which was called Spydr, was a robust and fast web crawler. All I did was copied and improved its performance.

When I got caught, the software was deleted. However, as someone who read through the source codes, it wasn't hard to recreate the program. I used the web crawler to find and analyze all search results related to qi cultivation in Gaia Grand Quest. Whatever if it was on the clear or deep web the information was going to be arranged into graphs.

[Analyzing completed.]

Even if Pochi didn't say that I would notice the message on the screen anyway.

Looking at the overview of the relationship graph I saw a bunch of keywords, mostly related to cultivations. 

The weirdest I saw would be tapioca milk tea. The weight of the graph was 0.014 which meant 1.4% of the content was talking about tapioca and cultivation. Was it because someone's username was or related to tapioca milk tea? Or people were simply enjoying a refreshment after qi training.

There was a small number indicated that reverse qi flow was possible.

[Miss Canary looks like a child who's searching for a game cheat.]

"Don't lump me with them. This is the process of research and learning."

[That you have to use Spydr on a game?]

Tsk... I'm not in the mood to argue with a bot.

I filtered every keyword out except important keywords related to qi circulation such as dantian, body part names, and qi circulation. Then, recalculated the weights on the graph and compared them with the previous graph.

Looking at what I found, my mouth couldn't stop grinning. 

This was the power of data science!

With a plan in mind, I headed back into GGQ.

 

***

[Your character died.]

[You've unlocked Fame status.]

[Fame -10]

[Your death has become a topic among squires in the training camp.]

 

Upon logging in, the system gave me warm welcome messages.