Stan did not drink. Instead, he noticed that part of the platform had already disappeared. Realizing he had no other choice before the rest of his foothold vanished, he jumped into the lake.
The liquid was warm, not warm like heated water, but warm like sunlight, like something that carried its own internal source of gentle temperature. It reached his knees, then his waist, then his chest as he waded forward.
He felt his newly-opened Qi meridians respond immediately. The pathways within his body, which had been actively but slowly circulating Qi since the meridian clearing, began to hum with a steadier, deeper flow.
His foundation, the core reserve of Qi in his lower abdomen, solidified in a way he could physically feel. Something loose became something stable. Something new became something fundamental.
The system responded to the direct contact with the pool
