A young man of average appearance was sitting with his eyes closed on a rock in the middle of a courtyard. The Huan Qi swirled toward him as always, but halfway there it veered off, as if something were siphoning it. A fat hen pecked at a black stone near the young man.
Opening his eyes, the young man frowned in clear confusion. Why do I feel like half the Huan Qi is going somewhere else?
The loss of the Huan Qi he gathered was something he could clearly perceive. A week had already passed since he began his plan to cultivate intensely for a month.
But something wasn't right; according to his calculations, he should have already condensed his fifth fragment and would now be stabilizing it.
Not even close. He hadn't managed it. Lin Mo Chen stood up and complained to his hen, "General Fatty, I'm killing myself cultivating and all you do is peck at that stone."
Lin Mo Chen looked directly at the black rock, hesitating. In the end he shook his head. It must be my talent, it's worse than I thought.
As he walked forward, behind him, General Fatty picked up the black stone with her beak and followed him.
The second week passed without any problem. Lin Mo Chen never left his house; he spent every day cultivating. With eyes red from staying up, he wouldn't stop muttering.
"What the hell is happening? This damned fifth fragment doesn't want to form." His gaze went to his vials; of the twelve pills he had, now only six remained. I'm consuming them at a faster rate than I thought.
His hand went to his head and ruffled his straight hair, turning it into chaos. "Shit, I don't know what's happening anymore! I have some kind of hole in my core or something!" he shouted in a low voice, scaring his fat hen.
General Fatty looked at him angrily while holding a black stone in her beak. Looking at him as if he were crazy, the hen went back to her business.
With a long sigh, Lin Mo Chen tried again to absorb Huan Qi to condense his fifth fragment.
***
"Damn it! Are the heavens jealous of me and turned me into a cripple?" A paranoid Lin Mo Chen was sitting with his back against a tree in the middle of the small forest in front of his house while blaming the heavens.
For the third week he had decided to leave the house, convinced that his quiet cultivation spot was haunted, but nothing changed. No, in fact, it had gotten worse.
Particles of Huan Qi were drawn like a small vortex toward Lin Mo Chen, but none entered his body, as if he were a colander where water escapes.
Going crazy seemed inevitable; since arriving in this world, nothing like this had ever happened.
It all started the day he ran into Lin Xuan. He was sure that guy's ghost grandma had something to do with it; he had no proof, but no doubts either.
"He must have done something to me. If that's it, there's no other explanation," murmured a disheveled Lin Mo Chen as he braced his hand on the ground to stand up.
Without him realizing it, nearby, a fat hen with a black stone followed him slowly without making any noise.
In the fourth week, Lin Mo Chen didn't even want to cultivate anymore. He even thought about fleeing and secluding himself in a village to live a quiet life, but abandoning his family was something he couldn't do.
That's why, although he gritted his teeth looking at his last pill, he still swallowed it quickly with anger. With his mind restless like a tornado, he recklessly drew in the surrounding Huan Qi with all his strength.
Dust rose creating a small whirlwind, the leaves of the trees vibrated and the muscles of Lin Mo Chen's body swelled slightly. His red eyes looked like those of a predator.
For a moment, an insignificant instant, Lin Mo Chen felt the Huan Qi enter his body, but it quickly got lost toward a certain point. In his desperate eyes, a wild gleam flashed.
"HAHAHA! I felt it! I'm not a damn cripple, just a little more!" Veins stood out on Lin Mo Chen's forehead when a stubbornness he didn't know he possessed filled his mind.
Fine, let's go all out. In those novels protagonists overcome everything with willpower; even if my Huan Qi vessels explode, I'll condense that damned fragment.
Little by little, the vortex surrounding Lin Mo Chen became more and more chaotic. A line of blood began to trickle from his nose; a headache like an earthquake directly in his mind made him double over.
In that brief moment of discord, the Huan Qi being drawn lost control and a violent reaction took place. Lin Mo Chen felt thousands of needles piercing his body.
Cough, cough!
A mouthful of blood burst from his mouth.
As his consciousness slowly faded, Lin Mo Chen recovered a last glimmer of lucidity. What the hell did I just do...? I'm screwed. And his body collapsed heavily to the ground.
In the last moments of consciousness, he saw blurry General Fatty walk in front of him, while in her beak she held a black stone with a dull glow.
Ah, yes... so obvious, so damn obvious... so cliché... Why didn't I realize?
He tried to laugh, but only managed to spit out another mouthful of blood, as his consciousness sank into darkness.