Aimless Ascension

Wang Li turned her head immediately, sensing someone else's presence. She blinked at Gale once and glanced downwards at her appearance, as her face turned red in shame.

Wang immediately wrapped the clothes she was washing in her chest region, bringing some semblance of dignity over her modest breasts. Her left hand was fully clutched to her chest in case the cloth fell off, whereas the other arm was on the nether region, holding another cloth.

All that took her barely a blink of an eye, but Gale had seen what there was to see.

"You know there's a lock on the door," Gale couldn't help but say, "even better, there's a privacy screen."

Wang Li gritted her teeth at the rebuke. "Why are you still standing there?" she yelled. "Go back."

"Oh," Gale gave her another look on the way back. "Sorry."

Leaving those words, he got out of the bath at a flying speed. Gale was literally flying, releasing Stormsong. He flew directly to the house. Entering, he found Xiaolin playing with Vale and Rong'er after finishing her meal.

"Is something wrong, Master?"

"It's an insignificant matter," Gale said. "You don't need to worry about that." He moved to the couch across from her. "What are you doing now? Do you have the energy for some simple lesson?"

"Sure," Xiaolin said, perking her brows. Gale never taught him anything after her daytime training. Well, he left her with many texts to frown upon that took hours of her night study.

"It's a fundamental art that involves new ways of Qi manipulation," Gale said. "Well, we can say this is the first step to something complicated before the manifestation of Intent. Practitioners have a term for it. Coercion, though, it is not always compulsive controlling.

"The theory is simple. You pour your emotions through the way you channel Qi to give it a nature. Mhm, let me give you an example."

Gale looked around to see if he could find anything that could be handy. Then he found the fire burning in the fireplace.

"Watch this closely," Gale instructed. The next moment, his expression grew very serious as he focused on the fire burning.

There was no change on the fire, even after several seconds. However, Xiaolin felt a mesmerising feeling spread in the room like the feeling when she ran in the forest during sunrise. A warm fuzzy feeling filled the room, even though she couldn't point out where the change had happened.

"Did you feel it?" Gale asked. Receiving a nod from his disciple, Gale continued. "It isn't finished yet."

Suddenly, the room grew colder. Xiaolin turned her head towards Gale to find his eyes grew colder as well. Even though the fire was burning like before, a distant feeling spread between them as Xiaolin could only feel the absence of warmth. A coldness crawled from her toes and crawled further up to chill her spine.

Then all turned to normal as Gale retracted the minuscule amount of aura and Qi he used in the process.

"Obviously," Gale told her, "all this is something you can't learn until you have some grasp over your emotions."

Xiaolin nodded, not understanding clearly. "Master, what's the difference between Intent and the Coercion you showed just now?"

"What do you think?" Gale asked. "I think you have glimpsed something out of this?"

"Mhm," Xiaolin hummed. "It wasn't a hallucination. I clearly felt the warmth and coldness. It's like the Master decreases and increases the boundary between what I would feel with or in the absence of the fire. Master, you said coercion is something that needed emotions as fuel along with Qi. . ."

"And what does Intent need?" Gale asked, pointing her in the right direction.

"Spirit. Willpower, whatever it is along the line," Xiaolin answered.

Gale nodded. "Obviously, you can't weaponise emotions similarly to Intent, but at intimidation of making someone feel something, then Coercion is the best weapon in your arsenal."

A cute frown developed on Xiaolin's brows. "Is that how you intimidated Han Xiao on the very first day of your arrival?"

"That?" Gale picked his fingers to count. "It's a little more complicated than just blatant Coercion, though it had its part in it. I mainly used three things for that intimidation apart from Qi. Stormsong—my third fate lock, Intent and Coercion.

"When that fool flared the surrounding Qi to intimate me, I simply coerced the natural Qi around him to not listen to him. This is something not possible at a low rank. Then I finished with the release of Stormsong slightly with a very specific Intent of stilling the air in his lungs and around him. That got him all so red and breathless."

"Master, isn't that very dangerous?" Xiaolin couldn't help but ask. "What if something happened when you tried to control the air inside his lungs?"

"Well, it is somewhat dangerous," Gale agreed. "But since I was a couple of hundred times stronger than him, the trick came almost effortlessly. Obviously, if it were someone closer to my rank, I would have failed terribly. As you know, a practitioner's body is a terrible deterrent to Qi."

Xiaolin nodded with a contemplative expression.

"Don't think too hard. It is still far away for you to pull off this trick," Gale told her. "However, you can start training, Coercion now. It may not have great benefits in a terrible situation like how Intent has, but it is a neat trick to master when you want to intimidate someone. Moreover, learning Coercion would improve your Intent and control over your Qi and emotions, as it was quite hard to blend emotion into Qi. Simply for that fact, it's a good trick to learn."

"Master, how do I start training that, though?" Xiaolin asked, completely oblivious. "Emotions weren't something visceral. How do you work with it?"

Gale was about to answer when he found Wang Li coming with wet hair and fully clothed in a clean white robe. However, the image of her tantalising figure crept into his mind, the movement his eyes laid on her.

_________

Monthly privilege chapter goal: 705/1000

I'm adding another bonus reward to the 5 chapters mass release. I'll put a whooping 69% discount if we make it to 1000 this month.

Also, I'm in the middle of changing the book title. What are your thoughts on changing the book to Maidenless Farmer? XD.