Shuttered Impulses [HIATUS]

Chapter 25

Kai opened his eyes an hour later and clenched his fists. He glanced down at that moment and noticed the washing robe completely filthy and frowned at his appearance. 

"Don't worry. That's just your impurities being expelled."

He looked up and saw Mei leaning leisurely against the opposite side of the Hot Spring with a green wolf next to her. Kai opened his eyes slightly wider and continued to stare at the wolf. When had a little wolf cub climbed into the water with them?

"Who's this," he asked. 

Mei's mouth twitched and glanced down at the green wolf floating on the water's surface with it's belly to the sky. 

"A green dog."

Kai's face was covered in black lines at Mei's answer. "I can see that. When did it get here?"

"While we were in the Hot Spring."

He began to feel like Mei was answering his questions obtusely on purpose. Since she wasn't going to give him a straight answer, he decided to forget about the green wolf. 

"I feel a lot stronger."

"Did you finish separating the medicinal qualities from the mineral water? If you were able to then your cultivation would've been significantly boosted."

Kai frowned a bit, "I was able to separate an exceedingly small amount but it felt as though my body was going to tear apart if I continued."

She nodded her head. That's exactly what I expected. "I understand. Your body constitution isn't completely solidified yet and you've just barely broken into body strengthening. Once you're at Senri's level of tempering your body it won't be so taxing to absorb the medicinal qualities of this water."

He nodded his head and asked, "Are you going to begin showing me how water is strong?"

"Yes." Mei stepped towards Kai and gripped his hands. Kai blushed a bit when he felt the softness of her hands against his calloused ones. They were rough from all the manual labor he did. Having the water element meant lack of good jobs. 

Mei began by circulating her own water energy into the tips of her fingers on the right hand. "Sense my Qi with your own as I show you how to use water as a weapon."

Kai followed her instructions and laid his left hand on her right hand's wrist while the right hand held her left. His Qi entered her body and began to observe the way she circulated hers. Water Qi condensed into her fingers and drew out some of her blood. Kai was watching everything with his Qi as well as his eyes so he noticed when the blood took form outside of her body and 'coagulated' until it froze. 

Her blood had transformed into a small Blood Ice Dagger. Using her knowledge of science from her previous world, she made the water molecules inside of the Dagger to continue becoming colder until it reached a temperature that humans would avoid. It was so cold that Kai's teeth began to chatter and the Hot Spring was making hissing noises as though a fire had water thrown on it. 

"Ho-ow-how did you-u-u-u-u do-o that?"

Kai attempted to speak while he was shivering. He understood the process and even felt like he'd be able to replicate it but that didn't mean he found it believable.

"Ice is formed from water. Have you ever seen an Ice Elemental use their element and watch it sit out beneath the sun? It turns back to water. However, there's more to ice than it being water that's extremely cold."

He didn't know that ice was so complicated. There was a time that he'd been to a Black Market match and watched an ice user battle a water user on stage. Kai hadn't waited around to watch what happened to the ice though. 

"What more is there? Isn't ice, ice and water, water?"

Mei let out a sigh and began educating Kai.

"In order for ice to form, it needs to begin at its initial stage: water. To create ice like I just did, take a bit of your water and focus on it. Do you sense the slight particles of the element moving around?"

Kai pulled on his water and closely observed it. He noticed the Qi particles she was mentioning. Inside of the water were tiny particles moving around and forming the liquid. He gave a slight nod.

"Water is made up of these particles and energy. If you look at them you'll notice the speed that they're moving. Now, I want you to sense the particles of water within my ice dagger."

Listening to Mei's instructions, he sent his awareness through his left hand and into the one she was holding the dagger with. A frown formed on his face as he noticed what she was talking about. 

"They're slower."

"Correct. Water forms into Ice when the particles inside of it slows down and its energy reduces. With the decrease in mobility and energy, the water particles begin to stack together which causes it to solidify. It's not just caused by 'being cold'. Now that you know, try it with your water."

Senri began thrashing in his pool at that moment so Mei swam towards the edge of his spring used some of the qi in her body to pull him to the surface. Kai was focusing on his task and ignoring the heaving person in the other part of the spring.

"Ah~ Young Miss, I nearly died! Why didn't you say anything! Huu Huu," Senri boohoo'd as he quickly swam to where Mei was observing him. 

"And miss watching you flounder around? No thanks. This is a lot more interesting. Anyways, how was it?"

"Like I almost died!"

Mei rolled her eyes, "Not the part where you were sucked under the water by the floor. I meant, how was absorbing the yang medicines?"

Actually, the reason why Mei told him to use the Yang pool was because she noticed the reason he looked so feminine was due to too much yin in his body. He was causing an imbalance. If she had to guess, he most likely cultivated at night because he worked as a maid during the day and didn't have time. If he continuously cultivated when the moon was high in the sky there was bound to be a backlash. Thankfully there was this type of Hot Spring to counterbalance his inattentiveness. 

"Eh? Oh. . uh? HA?! It feels like my muscles got a bit bigger!" Senri sounded incredulous as he lifted an arm and began groping it with his other hand. Mei also noticed this. It seems like this Heavenly Spring already began stripping Senri of his womanly figure.

"Yes. The yang has begun to balance out the overabundance of yin you've got stored in your body. I won't be surprised if you begin to grow a lot as well."

"Really," he asked excitedly. I can finally feel like a man! It brought tears to his eyes just thinking that he will no longer be mistaken for a female. 

"Don't get to excited. You will still have that feminine face," Mei doused his happy thoughts. 

Senri pouted a bit but her words couldn't snatch away all of his happiness. This was the first time that he felt like his Young Miss was a really good Master.