Cursing myself in my thoughts I ignored everything. It was only when I reached my private little courtyard that reason surfaced.

 

It was also at the entrance to my private place that my servant Tao Fang waited for me. 

 

“ Miss, you have a visitor. ” Visitor?

 

“ Who is he? And has he stated the purpose of his visit? ” I ask her.

 

“ He presented himself as Gao Junjie. He said he was sent here from the Mercenary branch of the family. I invited him inside and boiled some tea for him. ” She replied. 

 

‘ Oh, my martial arts teacher is here, ah I should call it physical arts here. How should I behave when meeting him? I don't think presenting myself as just a young girl will be good. I need to be more, something more.  Ugh… Ah! Why don't I treat him as a potential employee? ‘

 

‘ Yes, let's treat this as if it were an interview. I have been in a few of them. Can't be that hard. Now I just have to imagine myself in the position of the employer. ‘

 

Close my eyes, check. 

Center myself, check

Imagine the proper behavior pattern, check. 

Take a deep breath, check and exhale.

 

Opening my eyes with conviction I nodded to Tao Fang and made my way inside. Passing through the small grass garden space and into the living room where only a table and chairs resided, I saw him. 

 

A man in his late 20, or early 30 sat there with black hair and a handsome visage on his face. 

 

Wearing dark leather pants and a short-sleeved leather shirt, he looked prim and proper. And his posture as he observed me, showed it with a back so straight one could say it was not a human back at all.

 

At least it looked that way to me from the angle at which I met him. Ignoring it for a bit I looked at him. When he saw me he stood and gave me a proper greeting with a slight bow, left hand covering the right that made a fist. 

 

“ First Miss, Yu Jiao, I Gao Junjie greet you. It is a pleasure to meet you. ” He greeted me.

 

If there was courtesy of a ritual to engage in, I ignored it. So far I have not received any teaching about the local customs. 

 

“ Mister Gao, welcome to my humble abode. ”

 

With the greeting done I took my seat and waited for him to do the same, but he did not. “ Mister Gao, I am not sure what you have heard of me, but I can tell you I have not yet gone through the local greeting customs and behaviors. So ignore everything and treat this as an informal meeting, or whatever will suit you, for now. ”

 

Seeing him sit down, I spoke my thoughts. “ Mister Gao, has my… uncle sent you here directly, or has the order been delegated to others? If it was directly, then I want to know what he has told you about me? ”

 

“ Directly, miss. But it was Lord Liwei and your father who informed me of the situation. ” He replied.

 

“ And what is the situation, Mister Gao? ”

 

“ I was told that the miss has lost all her memories and that your illness has recovered to a great degree, and that you desire to improve your current health, now that it is possible. ” Still prim and proper his body showed no sign of lying. Not that I would have noticed it, probably. 

 

“ Is that all? ” I asked him.

 

Still not showing any emotion on his face, he replied but there was a bit of hesitation in his words. “ There is one more thing. I was told that the roots that you possessed have been… burned away? ”

 

“ Yes, I have no roots in my body and probably won't ever have. Will that be a problem with your instructions? ”

 

“ I.. do not know. So far I have not met anybody in your situation, but since you are here and alive from what I can observe, I can guess that I will find out soon. ” 

 

“ Very well. Let me explain a few things. A month ago, Yu Jiao, the beloved daughter of Yu Liwei, died for a short time. In that short time, almost anything that made up the young girl vanished and in her place, I appeared. I have memories of a different Life and hence am a different person. “ With that said I waited for it to sink deep enough to not sound like a mad person. 

 

Done with that micro pause I continue. ” Currently, the relationship between me and my father is very strained, but that has nothing to do with you. What is important for you, is that the roots in this body were consumed to make my appearance possible. In truth, I don't need anybody's help to improve my body as I can do it on my own, but my father has sent for you. So there must be a reason. Please tell me about yourself and why you think I would need your help? ”

 

Maybe it was my explanation or maybe it was my behavior that changed things up, but he did take some time to consider my question.

 

“ As I said before I am not familiar with anybody without roots. So anything will be new ground for me. ” He admitted. “ I usually leave the teaching to my Juniors but if more help is needed by somebody, I usually help them correct the mistakes that were made. ”

 

“ Soo, you have more experience with teaching than anybody else?  ” I ask him.

 

Narrowing his eyes at me for a second he answered with a  question. “ Miss, are you aware of what the Heavenly Jade Affiliation - Mercenary branch is and its purpose? ”

 

“ Well, it's not hard to imagine, if you consider the name and to whom it's affiliated, but I am sure you will tell me more details. Right? ”

 

Not giving any indication of my retort, he explained it. “ In the later years of Founder Yu Tian’s life, he founded the Mercenary branch of the Merchant affiliation as he was tired of the mercenaries they usually hired. There were lots of unqualified people protecting the caravans he used. Lots of spying, ambushing, bandits, and looting went on at that time. They still happen even now but nothing compared to that time. Everybody knew that it was the Five-Clans interfering with him, but he was out of options in that part. He couldn't accuse them of their work behind the scenes. So one day he decided to change that and the Mercenary branch was founded. With it, he could properly organize the people he hired. ” 

 

“ Those he hired were usually newcomers with no affiliations to anybody. Through tests they were screened for trustworthiness, through combat they gained experience, and through rewards, they gained loyalty. Of course, it wasn't perfect but it worked.  ”

 

“ I have imagined something like that, but there is more to it if you asked me specifically about it? What is it? ” I ask.

 

“ That was how it started and it largely stayed that way, but right now it's much closer to a sect. ” He replied. “ There are two parts to it. The inner part stayed to the core part of its purpose. To produce trusted Cultivators affiliated with the Heavenly Jade Merchant Affiliation. But the outer part is new. It started with Lord Qian, your uncle. He allowed others to enter the training centers. “ 

“ Others? ” I ask in conjecture and he nodded.

 

“ Those who sponsored those that entered received training of similar quality with only one exception. They are not granted the Heavenly Jade Mantra, or the Physical aspect of it, since Yu Tian separated it and only the mainline practices the Spirit aspect, or both in the rare case. ”

 

“ Let me guess, you're related to the outer part and hence have a lot of experience with dealing with Mantras beside ours? ” I stated, my reasoning, and he nodded.

 

“ Alright, so far I am interested. Tell me more. I mean, how do you work? ” Again, I ask him.

 

“ Aside from the Heavenly Jade Mantra - The Physical Aspect, I am very well knowledgeable about the effects of other Mantras on the physical body and the other way around. For those who are sent to me, I examine and find the optimal way to develop them during Qi gathering so that they can make the best possible foundation with their respective Mantra. There are many components needed for me to do that, but so far, those that have stuck with me till the end, have become some of the best warriors that came out of our institution. ” He explained.

 

‘ Those that have stuck with him, he said? Guess, he's very demanding of his students. I can get behind that. ‘

 

“ Does that mean you only work with warriors and no spiritualists? ” I ask in small curiosity.

 

“ Mostly. ” He said. “ But I can do it for spiritualists too, as, in the Qi gathering stage, the most important thing aside from the Mantra is the physical body. If a spiritualist wants to reach perfection in physical form he is advised to forge the body, before opening one’s Inner Sea. Otherwise, a faulty foundation will forge a faulty body. ”

 

“ Alright, with your knowledge what does my situation of having no roots tell you? ” Another important question, I ask him.

 

“ Unknown as of yet. ” He replied and gazed at me. He extended his hand towards me and spoke. “ May I examine your current state? ”

 

Nodding I extended the hand over the table and soon I felt his Qi enter my body. As soon as it entered I felt his hesitance. Probably from the unfamiliarity of my condition in his mind. As he examined more of my arm and soon my body, I felt his curiosity. 

 

It took quite a while for me to stop. Unknowingly during this examination, he had closed his eyes in contemplation, so when he opened them and stared at me, he did just that, stare. 

 

“ How is it? ” I asked. 

 

“It is a… completely different picture without the roots. ” He stated.

 

“ Indeed it is, what you examined is the pure base physical body of a Human, without a shred of anything physically interfering with it. ” I remarked. “ The only thing that did interfere with it is Life Essence, my personal Power. But Life Essence has no direct component to influence the body so any changes that will happen to it are the physical changes that are ingrained in what it means to be Human or a version of it, I am told. ”

 

“ If it is, then why is it called Life Essence, if it has no direct influence on the physical body? ” He sent me a very curious question. 

 

“ An excellent question. I still remember when I first asked that question. ” I remarked at him. Placing my body horizontally beside me I pointed at it. “ This is my arm, quite obvious that one is, but what is not obvious is how it functions. Yes, you see its physical state, you can formulate how it works, you can even take it apart at its very foundations and figure out how it works in the physical aspect. What you can't tell is when I will send a signal to all its components and have it do something. ”

 

“ According to your knowledge, can you contemplate what Life is? ” With that question pointed at him I stopped speaking, but I did start moving my arm up and down, left and right. My elbow and wrist moved, my fingers clenched, unclenched, wiggled, and made shapes. 

 

When I did stop doing all that I stared at him, waiting for an answer. 

 

“ Are you talking about Intent? ” He asked.

 

“ Close, but it's a pretty good guess as you don't have the information I do. ”Smiling I said to him. “ Life is pure selfishness to prolong its individual existence. No matter the cause, no matter the How, no matter the Why, at its core Life will do anything and everything to stave off the emptiness and stillness that is Death. The Intent is its mechanism, the gear with which it pursues its goal. ”

 

“ That is a dreadful way to look at life. ” He commented, but no emotions portrayed his face. 

 

Shaking my head I spoke. “ Mister. Gao, since you will be responsible for my physical improvement take this as advice, what I said is not my way of looking at things. What I said is a Fact of Life, you can ignore it but you can not change it. Everything you see around you, these walls, the small garden with grass on it, the city in which we live, the forests somewhere out there, are all born out of the need for Life to prolong its existence in Reality across Time. The only difference is the scale of it. ”

 

“ Now let me finish my explanation of Life Essence. ” He nodded as if he accepted my advice but made no comment this time. “ Since you have figured out that Intent is the mechanism of how Life operates in the physical Realm, imagine that Intent has different flavors or compositions. Life Essence is the best possible kind for transferring that Intent, but it has no physical component to it. No, to get that much-needed component you need the Reality you live in, or as I call it Mana. When you obtain that Mana and are able to perfectly balance those two and when you merge Life Essence and Mana, you obtain Qi. ”

 

It was only when I said that part that emotion surfaced on his face. Its appearance is a slightly greater opening of the eyelids. 

 

Would have missed it if I had not stared at him, very intently. “ Mister Gao I can imagine the gears in your head turning but let's move on. Mana is Yang and Life Essence is Yin. I don't know if you can decline to work with me, but if you accept, then you will be exclusively working on the Yang aspect of my body, nothing more and nothing less. “

 

Not stopping there I continue. “ That means, not one bit of the Qi in our surroundings will be used to enhance the way my body works. No Qi enhancing pills will be used to affect the way my body will develop. The only pills that will work are those that deliver materials for the body to consume in the process of its growth. ”

 

Gears went grinding and soon he realized what I wanted him to do. “ You want me to create stress exercises in as much variety as possible and to slowly increase their difficulty with your progress. ”

 

“ Yes, Mister Gao. That is exactly what I want. I don't actually need help with that, but since I was offered your help, I will utilize it for the best possible outcome. ” I stated my thoughts.

 

With some hesitation, he spoke. “ Miss, from your explanation, you can still cultivate Qi even without roots, may I ask why decide to do otherwise? ”

 

‘ Umm, how do I explain this? ‘ Thinking for a bit I laid out a course of action. 

 

With a wave of my right arm, my phantom appeared behind me, only still invisible. Thinking about the right arm of my phantom, I had it appear in color. 

 

Immediately his attention shifted to it. It was much bigger than my arm and as it moved over to his side of the table, I felt his Divine Sense touch it. 

 

In seconds more wonder appeared on his face. I had the giant hand pick up the teacup. It was like touching something very small between your thumb and forefinger and then lifting it. 

 

The teacup did lift but not as smoothly as I wanted it to. When I placed it back down, I explained. “ What you see is part of an Ability that I have manifested yesterday due to circumstances. Similar to how Qi is made, this too is a product of Yin and Yang, Intent and Reality, but its core structure is more Yin based. ”

 

Saying that I disconnected said arm from the torso of my phantom and Ability. At that moment it reverted back into a construct made of Auril. “ What you see in front of you is a substance created out of the merger of Life Essence at 99% and 1% of Mana. It's called Auril and it is the main product of the Mantra I want to cultivate. ”

 

Leaving it there I left him to examine the arm construct. Having disconnected it from the phantom, I barely felt his Divine Sense touching it. 

 

“ This is fascinating. ” He said. Next, he poured Qi and started to actually move the arm, as I let him. Then he shaped it away from the shape of an arm into many things. “ This is essentially Divine Sense in solid form. ”

 

‘ Oh, is that how it feels to him? ‘ I wondered.

 

“ Close but no. Divine Sense is just Will or consciousness infused with Qi as the base. But even Divine Sense can materialize, as it probably will happen at a higher stage of Cultivation. At what stage I have no idea. ” I explained.

 

That got his attention. He looked at me and my declaration and nodded. At that moment I had my left phantom arm appear and reach out for that transformed Auril still in his control and just had snatch it away. 

 

His sadness overcame his stoic face of no emotion but only for a few seconds. 

 

Once my arm had it in its grip I sent my Will inside it and kicked out all his Qi, then I had it transform back into an arm and it vanished from his eyes. That done I had it attached to the phantom back again. 

 

“ That is the reason as to why I want to do what I want to do. ” I said. “ If I start using Qi and cultivate it, that Qi will change me internally somewhat and while I will still be able to activate my Mantra, the difficulty will only increase as my body transforms more. Sadly I am without a key ingredient for its activation and must leave that for the future. ”

 

“ Understood, anything I can do to help with the final ingredient? ” He asked.

 

Denying it, I spoke. “ As you previously saw, this arm had trouble lifting a simple teacup. This has to do with my Intent. It's just not clear enough, right now. That will change with practice but to receive the maximum effort from this old man's cane that I created I need more knowledge of fighting arts. Tell me about them? ”

 

“ Fighting Arts? ” Thinking of my request for a second he went on. “ They can be roughly divided into 5 categories. Just like the spiritual arts, they are divided by the elemental roots one possesses. Are you familiar with those? ”  I had an inkling of what he wanted to know but I shook my head, and he explained. “ There are the 5 main elements of; Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Wood. It is out of them that fighting arts rose in their specialty. It has a lot to do with the Mantra practiced and its effects on the body. Fire arts for example are very ferocious and their style is designed for attack and power in all their forms. Water arts on the other hand is for deflection and reflection. Air arts are similar to water but have more emphasis on movement and agility. Earth arts are the best at defense and absorption. Wood arts are a bit special and contain a bit of everything but they also possess the greatest vitality of all the fighting arts and you don't want to fight with them in prolonged fights as they will outlast you. ”

 

Taking more seconds to consider his experience he went on. “ As you have no roots, you can practice all styles, but my recommendation will be to focus on some of them and leave the rest as supplementary. Which do you want to focus on? ”

 

“ That one is easy to say as the Mantra I want to practice has features that I want to contain in my fighting style. ” With a quick nod, I could tell that he was used to this. “ Its core aspects are rooted in Earth, which would be force absorption. Water, which would be the fluidity of force transfer and Fire, expelling the attacker's force back to them. ”

 

“ From what I can understand, you are saying your Mantra is counterattack based? ” He inquired. 

 

“ Umm, you misunderstood me. ” I corrected him. “ My Mantra is not based on any fighting arts, at all. Its core aspect is body transformation, but due to the way it manifests, the counter-attacking style fits it best. ”

 

“ I see. I can work with that. Is there anything else I should know? ” He asked.

 

“ There is. ” I said. “ This body is beyond weak. I can barely run a hundred meters without knocking myself unconscious. I will need you to take that into account and focus on stress exercises that deal with improved blood circulation. After I have built up some improvement in that field, it should be stamina. After that, I will leave it to you. ”

 

As an afterthought, something popped up in my head. “ There is one more thing. The old man, I mean Elder He Shoushan, has given me some medicine for increased body growth. After all, I am still quite smaller than I should be at 13 years of age. Father... said he would be in closed meditation for a few days, so once he is out you can talk to him about the medicine I will need later. ” 

 

“ That should be all, I think. ” Done, finally. He nodded and stood up. Following him, I watched his emotionless face. 

 

“ Understood, I will go and consider everything said. Once I have derived the best solution, I will inform Lord Liwei and you. I will say my goodbye, for now, Miss Jiao. ”

 

“ Goodbye. Mister Gao. ”

 

With that, he was gone in seconds. 

 

‘ I did well there, I think. ‘

 

“ Anyway, I still haven't had breakfast. Fang, prepare the food. “ I said to my servant.

 

Tao Fang nodded and I went back to that table and considered everything that was said again.