Chapter 153
Finally I’m on to blending the Blooming Lotus and Divine Dragon styles. This just is actually proving to be much easier than I expected. Just keep both styles in mind and do what feels right is the basic premise of the blending. Using the more flowing style of the Blooming Lotus to move between attacks, adding the solidified energy enhancements of the Divine Dragon style to the Blooming Lotus style kicks and flips. Somehow, it just makes sense.
Elder Po has left me alone to work on it all this week, so his preferences and input don’t affect my attempt to form my first personalized techniques. The great test will come on the tenth day of practicing the blending technique, when I will be putting it to use against another disciple, so Elder Po can decide if I’ve made an improvement and give guidance on where to take it from there.
My days aren’t all Martial arts training though. I’ve been nominated to make two meals a day for Karl and Elders Song, Ming and Po, as well as Sect Master Sun whose nose is incredible. He was walking by the pond and realized that the cooking coming from Elder Song’s library was not normal cooking. I’m not sure even my Lycan senses could achieve that.
At this point, I’ve gone through almost all the recipes in the introduction to cooking book I was gifted back in Houston. Once I get through learning the last few I’ll have to bribe Elder Song into giving me an apprentices training book.
My Lycan instincts are going a bit haywire lately, spending too much time cultivating in Karl’s lap has convinced my body that we’re mates, so every few hours that I train, my hormones intrude with an increasing urge to go see him. I’ve heard every cultivator must overcome their own tribulations to gain enlightenment between Core Formation and Immortality, but this is just becoming ridiculous. Seriously, I make all his meals, spend every night next to him, and still my body has decided I’m not paying him enough attention.
Elder Ming is also becoming impatient with my training. Who knew that waiting a mere month for me to stabilize my learning of the new technique before returning to alchemy lessons would be so stressful for her?
Today is a big day for her though. An old friend found an excellent hand drawn likeness of her when she first reached Core Formation at age Twenty One. She’s young, hopeful, her hair is perfect, not a split end or miscut strand. There are no signs of age, no laugh lines around her eyes, just a cheerful young alchemist celebrating one of the great accomplishments of her cultivating life.
That is the appearance she has chosen to use with the Cursed Polymorphism Pill. The dress she’s wearing in the photo is short and sleeveless, so I’ve got a lot to work with, and a pretty exact idea of her 3 sizes at the time. All I will need to do is fill in the blanks, picture a perfectly flat tummy, as she clearly had, add flawless skin but keep the tattoo on her arm and bring it back to its original vibrancy as she requested.
It takes me three whole hours to get the mental image right, and let me say, it’s an odd experience putting that much focus on the appearance of another woman’s nude body. I place the pill in her mouth and trickle energy into it, activating the effect and beginning the shaping process. Twenty minutes later it is perfect, I stop channeling the energy that is keeping the pill active and the effect finalizes in her body, leaving a flawless young women in front of me where a kindly Matron was a few hours earlier.