Chương 48: The Pressure Cooker Method of Heavenly Ascension

We make camp away from the caravan, in a small valley with a stream running through it. The water is clear, cold, and the grass is soft: a good place to rest. We could go further. We've already cleared more than two days' worth of travel with today's training. But there's no need. The caravan is behind us, the road ahead is empty, and the sun is setting. As the sun dips below the horizon, painting the valley in shades of orange and purple, I turn to Ling'er.

"Food. Hunt something." She nods and vanishes into the darkness. Twenty minutes later, she returns dragging a six-foot spirit boar. Smaller than the ones we've hunted before; but perfect for a single meal. Its tusks are short, its hide is dark, and it's still warm.

"Good. Prepare it. I'll start the fire." She nods again and sets to work. Weeks of hunting have made her proficient. The knife moves in her hand like an extension of her arm: skinning, gutting, butchering with economical precision. I've seen accomplished butchers take twice as long with half the grace. Soon, meat sizzles over the flames. She eats her first serving; rare, almost raw. I take a portion for myself and begin to cook it more thoroughly. Cooking was never my strength.

In my past life, my culinary skills began and ended with instant ramen and microwave meals. I could boil water, toast bread, and reheat leftovers. Anything beyond that was a mystery. But I've been watching Old Chen for months. On slow days, when the sect was quiet and the disciples were training, I'd find excuses to linger in the kitchen doorway. I watched how he seasoned the meat, how he knew when the oil was hot enough, how he coaxed flavor from simple ingredients with patience and instinct. I also have memories.

Not just from this body, but from before. The scent of my mother's cooking, drifting through the kitchen of a house I'll never see again. The way she'd hum while she stirred the pot. The way she'd taste the broth and adjust the seasoning without measuring, just knowing. I put everything together. Salt from my pack. Herbs gathered along the trail. A splash of the spirit wine I've been saving for special occasions.

The meat sizzles and browns, and for a moment, it almost smells like something my mother would have made. Ling'er looks up from her second serving.

"Master, are you... cooking?"

"I'm experimenting." She watches me with an expression I can't read. I focus on the meat, turning it, willing it not to burn. While it cooks, she meditates. The Five Phases Transcendence method has transformed at this new realm. Where before she absorbed qi from her surroundings, now she draws it. A gentle pull rather than a desperate grasp. But I feel it. The qi in the valley shifts, flows toward her like water toward a drain. The grass seems to dim. The air feels thinner.

She's drinking it in, and the area around her is going dry. The five elements cycle through her meridians in perfect balance; each one feeds the others in an endless loop that shouldn't work but does. The meat is done. I pull it from the fire and take a bite. It's not bad. Not great—the seasoning is uneven, the cooking is inconsistent, but it's edible. It's food I made with my own hands, from ingredients I gathered, using skills I learned by watching and remembering.

Ling'er finishes her meditation and looks at my portion.

"Can I try?" I hand her a piece. She chews thoughtfully.

"It's good," she says.

"Different from Old Chen's."

"Old Chen has been cooking for fifty years. I've been cooking for twenty minutes." She shrugs and takes another piece.

"Still good." The pattern establishes itself. During the day: walk the road. When it's empty, Ling'er carries me at high speed—her small body a blur of motion, the landscape streaming past like water. When travelers approach, we walk normally, her breathing perfectly controlled, her posture slack with the convincing exhaustion of a child who's been walking too long. She detects people up to three miles away now. The bone's perception is expanding, reaching further, sensing more.

She knows when someone is coming long before I do. During the evening, we hunt, prepare and eat. I've been experimenting with cooking. Now I find myself thinking about flavor. Texture. The way different ingredients interact. I remember things from my past life: marinades, slow cooking, the pressure cooker my mother used on busy weeknights. I season the meat before we set out in the morning, rubbing salt and herbs into the flesh, then wrap it in oiled cloth and store it in the storage ring.

The ring preserves it, keeps it cool, prevents spoilage. By evening, the meat has absorbed the flavors. The pressure cooker is harder. I have an iron pot, the kind Old Chen uses for stews. It's thick, heavy, with a tight-fitting lid. But a lid isn't a seal. Steam escapes and pressure doesn't build. I explain the concept to Ling'er as we set up camp.

"The idea is that steam builds pressure, raises the temperature, cooks the food faster. But you need to seal the edges so the steam can't escape." She looks at the pot.

"You want me to seal the iron?"

"Your metal shaping. Just around the rim. Enough to hold the steam in." She considers this. Then she picks up the lid and presses her fingers to the edge. The iron softens under her touch, flowing like clay, conforming to the pot's rim. It's seamless. Perfect. She looks up at me.

"It needs a valve, you said? Something for pressure to release?" The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"A small hole. Just a pinprick." She pokes her finger through the iron like it's cardboard. I stare at the hole. Then at her. Then at the pot. She's just pierced solid iron with her bare hand. No visible effort. No strain. Just a casual, matter-of-fact demonstration of power that would take most Foundation Establishment cultivators qi to replicate. I move on, shaking my head. The stew comes together quickly. Meat, vegetables, water, a splash of spirit wine.

The pressure cooker hisses, steam escaping through the tiny hole Ling'er made. The Gaze tracks the temperature, the doneness, the moment when the meat becomes tender enough to shred. Improvised Pressure Cooker - Grade: Low Effect: Reduces cooking time by 30% compared to conventional methods. Verdict: Crude but effective. The iron is well-sealed. Ling'er's valve is precisely sized. You're using a cheat skill to monitor stew. Your ancestors are weeping. I ignore it.

When the stew is done, Ling'er takes her first bite. Her eyes widen. The meat is tender, falling apart, rich with the flavor of the marinade, infused with the herbs and wine. Better than anything I've made before.

"Master," she says, mouth full, "this is amazing." I take a bite. It is good. The pressure cooker works. The marinade works. The hours of watching Old Chen, the half-remembered videos from my past life, the ghost of my mother's kitchen… all of it comes together in a single bowl of stew.

"Eat," I say.

"We have a long way to go." She eats. During the night: cultivate. Ling'er sits cross-legged by the fire, the Five Phases method cycling through her meridians. The qi in the valley flows toward her, gentle but insistent, drawn by the bone's hunger. I watch her for a while, then turn to my own cultivation. The Frost Manual is slower. My meridians are resistant to change, but the adjustments Ling'er made to my technique help. The Five Phases lens helps.

Every night, I feel the cold settle deeper into my bones, become more natural, less forced. It's only one step out of a thousand. But slow progress is better than none. By the third day, we've covered most of the distance to the mountain pass. Ling'er's endurance has increased noticeably—she can carry me for longer periods without slowing, without breathing hard, without the faint tremor in her legs that used to appear after the first hour. The road ahead is empty. The mountains are close.

The pass is guarded, the journals said. A toll. I already secured a permit through intermediaries; so whoever was observing us wouldn't easily tell I was buying permits to go. But there's no guarantee the guard isn't corrupt, pressing us for more fees. We have to stay prepared. For now, we walk. Or rather, I'm walking; Ling'er is beside me, her eyes closed, her lips moving silently. She's not stumbling.

Her feet find the path without apparent guidance, her body weaving around rocks and roots with the same unconscious grace she brings to everything. She's cultivating. The Five Phases method, I assume. But something feels wrong. I activate the Gaze. Ling'er - Cultivation Status Status: Anomaly Detected Effect: Attempting to compress liquid qi into a denser state by sealing eight key acupoints. Qi enters but does not exit. Body temperature elevated far beyond mortal survivability.

Dantian volume reduced by 15%, pressure increased by 200%. Verdict: Should be impossible. Should be lethal. Should cause meridian rupture, organ failure, and spontaneous combustion. It is not. Monitor closely. Intervene only if she stops breathing. I stare at her. She's walking with her eyes closed, compressing her dantian to pressures that should kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator, raising her body temperature to levels that would cook a mortal from the inside out. And she's not even breathing hard.

Several minutes pass. I keep a perimeter, half-expecting her to explode, half-expecting the ground to crack beneath her feet. Neither happens, and I'm too scared to interrupt. She exhales. A long, slow breath that seems to carry heat with it; the air shimmers, the grass wilts, and then it's over. Her eyes open.

"Master." She doesn't ask if I saw. She knows.

"What were you doing?"

"The pressure cooker." She says it like it's obvious.

"You sealed the pot to build pressure. The heat increased. The cooking time decreased." She touches her chest.

"My dantian is like a pot. My acupoints are the seals. My qi is the meat and water." I wait.

"At Qi Condensation, qi is gas. At Foundation Establishment, it's liquid." She frowns, searching for words.

"But liquid isn't the end. There must be something beyond liquid. Something denser. More powerful."

"You're trying to compress liquid qi into something... else?"

"Yes." She nods.

"I don't have anything concrete yet. No name for it. But I can feel what it wants to become. If I can make all the qi in my body into that… beyond liquid, then my reserves won't just be five times normal. They'll be something else entirely." I absorb this. Her at Fifth Stage is already worth five of me. Five of any normal Foundation Establishment cultivator. She doesn't tire. Her reserves are inexhaustible. She surpasses me absolutely in speed and strength.

And now she's trying to compress her qi into something denser than liquid. Liquid to solid was the path to Core Formation, but I had a feeling that's not what she was trying to achieve. Regardless, the concept is so far out of my expertise that I know better than to try it for myself. Knowing me, I'd just end spontaneously combusting.

'The Gaze still reflects her as Fifth Stage.' She's able to do so much more at the same rank as me. So does cultivation stage not necessarily reflect combat ability? If two people are both Foundation Establishment Fifth Stage, but one has compressed their qi to something denser than liquid like she's striving for. They're not even close. Then what is cultivation stage measuring? Base capacity? Not potential. Not actual power. The question pervades me as we walk. Ling'er doesn't seem to notice my distraction.

She's experimenting again pressing her thumb against her meridian points, feeling the pressure, the flow.

"Master," she says eventually, "that's why you were cooking, isn't it?" I blink.

"Hm?"

"The pressure cooker. You knew I would see it. Understand it. Apply it to cultivation." She looks up at me with an expression I can't quite read. Expectant. Proud.

"You taught me a concept through action instead of words." I open my mouth. Close it. I was not teaching her anything. I was making stew because I was hungry and wanted to eat something that didn't taste like campfire ash. The pressure cooker was a memory of my mother, not a calculated lesson. But she's looking at me like I've just done something profound.

"... The best lessons," I say, "are the ones you discover yourself." She nods, satisfied.

"I thought so. Thank you, Master." She returns to her experiments, and I return to my thoughts, which are now significantly more complicated. I keep walking. But the question doesn't leave me. If cultivation stage isn't a direct reflection of combat ability, then what have I been measuring all these months? What has the Gaze been showing me? And what else is possible that I haven't even considered? If she compresses her qi further, if she turns liquid into something denser, what will her Fifth Stage be worth then?

Ten of me? Twenty? She's not just climbing the mountain. She's building a new mountain to climb. I focus on the road. The pass is ahead. The toll is waiting. I'll think about the metaphysics of it all later.