21 1.21: Gathering Chi and The Bug Eyed Monster

Upon arrival at the entrance of the settlement, Ding stopped at the stall where the residents there traded with others with food and other homemade wares. Upon seeing the lady that helped us before; Ding and Eun gave the lady a wrapped banana package. Cheng showed his appreciation to her for her deed that she had given us last time.

"Auntie, please accept this little gift from us. Even though we didn't prepare this ourselves but this gift was actually from Stone Village."

"Yes, we had a feast yesterday and we got the blessings from theChief's great-grandson."

"Auntie, please accept it."

"Even this is a small gift, but we hope that you and your family would enjoy it."

We all spoke gently to the lady and she at first refuse such a gift as what she did before for us was from the bottom of her heart. However, after much persuasion, she finally relented.

" Thank you so much, you all are good children." she praised as she took the wrapped banana leaf and gave to a child that looked around 6 years old and told him to bring it back home.

The boy took the wrapped banana leaf and skipped his way back home which was some meters away from the stall.

" Are you here to meet the old Master?" she raised her eyes at me and I nodded in acknowledgment. "Alright, off you go then. Its almost lunchtime," she advised and we waved at her direction and headed towards the old Master's house.

Upon reaching the old Master house we greeted with a salutation and his head poked outside the door and gestured us to wait at the gazebo just ahead of the house. We made a beeline to the gazebo and found our spots again and had me sitting at the circular spot where it was made of rough and prickly coconut material.

After a short while, the old Master and his wife came out of the house and greeted us. His wife had brought out a tray with an earthen jug with several cups in it and served us tea from it. We solemnly took a cup each and sipped on the hot steaming tea with our cupped hands.

"Ah yes, time now for Gathering Chi, I suppose?" he nodded at my direction. "Progress you make good. Good student you make."

"Hungry you? Snacks I make... " gestured the wife as she headed back to the house. We all nodded in acknowledgment as we were feeling a bit hungry at that time.

"Old Master, what will I do before I reached Gathering Chi as you mentioned," I queried anxiously as half expecting that the experience I am going to get would be different this time.

"Soon you know. Drink you first, snack eat later. Gathering Chi I open for your first." the old Master replied casually as he took a drink from his cup. He took some tobacco from Chang and rolled himself a cigarette with the ear of the dried corn.

After lighting it he took a long pull and blew it on my face making me swatting at the air to clear the smoke automatically.

"Gathering Chi begins now..." after he stubbed his cigarette and went back to his house to retrieve 3 incense stick. "Yourself do this every upgrade. No need come here anymore," he said as he lighted the 3 incense stick and placed each one on my sides and one at the front.

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"Now you meditate." old Master instructed as I closed my eyes, sat in a lotus-like position and cleared my mind. The smell of the burning incense emitted a fragrant scent, a mixture of jasmine, rose, and frankincense. Each fragrance represented a different kind of fuse within my soul as I slowly absorbed each different distinctive scent.

In my meditated and empty mind, I saw 3 dancing flames on both of my sides and my front. These small bluish flames were flickering and hopping around in midair. I subconsciously wanted to reach out to them but I restrained myself.

As the flickering blue flames were dancing around in mid-air, I felt my body slowly raise a few inches off the ground and somehow felt that I had levitated and rotated anti-clockwise. It was a slow yet subtle movement that I felt no resistance to it.

Then the vortex that I felt during Losing Self that was in the center of my forehead began to release and this time it was twirling like a small typhoon outside and encircling my body. It was twirling clockwise while my body was levitating and moving anti-clockwise.

If anyone could see this it's like a whole new image of some kind of divine power source that emitted around my surrounding.

In my lotus sitting position, I heard sounds that resembling something like a vault being opened. It started from the center of my abdomen and moved diagonally towards my right arm and shoulder.

"Kaching... Kaching... Kaching... Kaching" sounds that was felt by me as it unlocked and moved from my shoulder to the center of my throat and then went to my forehead and traveled down to my left shoulder this time and back to my abdomen.

The sounds and sensation of the vault being opened moved again from my abdomen down to my right knees and then traveled across to my left before ending on my abdomen again.

My breathing was controlled with 6 seconds inhale then hold for another 6 seconds before exhaling them for 6 seconds next. During this controlled breathing, the vaults opening within my body; along with the feeling of levitating and the twirling of the vortex around my body; I could suddenly feel divine white lights coming out of my body.

The lights then dimmed and I felt my levitation and slowly descended back to the mat I was sitting on. The vortex that was encircling and moving around me died down and went straight into the center of my forehead.

The 3 flickering and dancing flames in mid-air slowly diminished and I felt a total sense of enlightenment. My body and mind were totally at ease and I felt an overwhelming feeling of awesomeness that I could neither describe.

Slowly I opened up my eyes and let the sunshine penetrated as I fluttered my eyelids. The 3 incense that was burning earlier had long burnt out leaving a mound of ash lying at the base of the stick.

The old Master was nodding appreciatively at me and said, "Good you did. Upgrade to Gathering Chi you had. Fighting skills you upgrade. Attack and defense you upgrade. Long way to go you still have."

The manner of the old Master needs a while to understand and I nodded appreciatively back. I looked at my hands and found nothing amiss but I somehow felt lighter and filled with renowned energy I had felt before. Its time to test out my new found energy and prowess.

I slowly stood up and walked to the side of the gazebo where a Wing Chun Dummy stood and I assumed the position in front of it. I then unleashed a series of attacks on it.

"Poww...Smack...Thump...Boom...Slap..." sounds of the aftereffects resonated throughout the gazebo as I hit a flurry of punches and elbow strikes to the dummy. After a while, my strikes became a blurr to the eyes of those who were observing me as I kept on hitting it and there was no way anyone could keep track of where my punches and strikes landed.

I stopped striking the dummy and I felt that I had not even broken a sweat nor felt any signs of exhaustion. I felt an explicable feeling of exhilaration. "Fuyoo... No sweat! Did you guys see that?! I exclaimed to the Cheng, Ding and Eun. The three brothers who were not martialist nor have any interested in the martial arts were stunned and watched with jaws dropping at the speed of the strikes I had performed earlier.

"Weh! Bo...You now are different eh... It seems you are like the Master himself!" remarked Cheng as I went back to the group. "No la, I still have a few more upgrades. The first few upgrades as explained by the old Master would be simple. But as I progressed on the upgrades would take longer but once I reached a few more stages the effects that I had would be more significant and more devastating in nature. "I explained thoroughly to them as I went to express them in lengths as well as with the flail of my arms and hands making it more dramatic.

The brothers were lost for words as the gasped Oohs and Aahs at my upgrade to Gathering Chi. In the MMORPG world, upgrading to Gathering Chi would be too nooby to explain much but in others perspective, I try to make it as colorful as possible.

After a short discussion with the old Master and sipping yet another cup of tea brought by his wife; I exchanged information needed for the next upgrade of my Qi.

"Two months you come, you want OK, you do not want OK."the old Master simply said as he laid his hands out. This means it's up to me to come for guidance. Although I could still meditate and then surpass to the next level, I guess with the Old Master alongside me would be the best advise.

After exchanging some thoughts and words with the old Master, we excused ourselves and left the old Master and headed out of New Hope Village. We all decided to stay at Stone Village for the night. Half expecting yet another feast there, we made our way gingerly towards our next destination.

Over the horizon, we saw several columns of smoke rising from the settlements. Thinking that the villages were preparing some kind of feast, we hurried our pace.

Along the fences before reaching the gate we saw several lit oil lanterns with strips of white cloth hanging from some sticks. We had a foreboding premonition coming when we saw these things. We doubled up our pace and we entered the gate, we were taken aback with the sight before us.

Two houses made from stones and clay seemed to have caved in from the outside. In fact, it was actually trampled by some beast! Lots of pieces of stuff were strewn on the floor and people were running back and forth in afrenzied manner, shouting to their loved ones as they gathered up whatever stuffs they could fund useful strewn on the ground. We quickly made our way and located Gao.

"B...Bug eyed monster a...attacked" stammered Gao as he recollected his composure."It took away the young children away!" Gao explained and shook with tremendous fear.

"The Guardian Spirit came to fight off the bug-eyed monster!"

"What the hell! We only passed this village some hours back! What kind of monster was it?!" Eun was interrogating Gao as the latter stood there frozen to the ground with eyes wide open.

Cheng and Ding went to the blacksmith area and took out three bone spears; ram back to where Eun and I were standing with Gao and handed one to Eun.

I myself have the keris but was wondering whether those guys really wanted me to gamble with my life 12 inches away from the enemy while they themselves were armed with a 6-foot bone spear.

"Not fair...!!" I screamed out loud in my head