This Must Be True Qi Guidance. Probably...... (2)
"Stay still."
The priestess said this as she knelt down beside Thirin.
"!"
Thirin flinched in surprise.
The priestess leaned in so close their bodies nearly touched, then placed her hand directly on Thirin's lower abdomen.
'This is getting seriously dangerous...!'
Thirin's face burned as if it might explode.
The priestess's cool, delicate fingers began gently tracing Thirin's lower belly, right below the navel where the dantian lay.
Drawing slow circles, pressing with intent, moving as though searching for something hidden beneath the surface.
At that touch, the flames in her lower abdomen twitched and reacted. Goosebumps erupted across her entire body.
The priestess paid no attention to Thirin's reaction and whispered softly into her ear.
"Remain calm. Focus only on your breathing."
"......"
But Thirin couldn't focus at all.
Thirin was a walking mass of perversion. If there were a marshmallow test for temptation, she would fail in five seconds flat. On top of that, Thirin was a complete heterosexual.
When those two facts combined, Thirin's brain instantly began interpreting the entire situation in the most depraved way possible.
'This woman... right now she's...!'
The priestess looked down at Thirin and spoke with a hint of sternness.
"Your vitality is becoming disturbed. Focus solely on your breathing."
Thirin couldn't hold back and blurted out nonsense.
"H-hey, you have to create conditions where I can focus before telling me to focus...!"
"......What do you mean by that?"
The priestess tilted her head in genuine confusion.
Thirin shrieked as if she were being molested.
"I-If you're touching someone in such a perverted way, how am I supposed to concentrate?! A-are you trying to seduce me right now?!"
"......"
The priestess stopped moving her hand.
"......"
"......"
The priestess smiled sweetly. Then she climbed straight onto Thirin.
Thirin was stunned speechless.
Was this woman finally beginning a full-scale seduction?
Thirin. Male. Heterosexual. Weak to temptation.
Thirin's perverted brain began interpreting the situation in an extremely manly fashion—in other words, in whatever way flattered her most.
'What do I do? Should I pretend I can't resist and just go with it?'
Having mounted Thirin, the priestess nodded.
"It seems..."
"It seems?"
"It seems I was mistaken."
"Wh-what...?"
The priestess gave a benevolent smile and slowly raised her fist.
"I thought the evil qi lodged in your bone marrow was faint enough that it would be fine, but that doesn't appear to be the case."
"...!"
"There's no helping it. I'll have to correct it directly, even if I must destroy the source."
Blue energy began gathering around the priestess's fist.
"No, no, no no no!"
Thirin cried out in panic.
"It's gone! No evil qi! It all healed just now! It's completely clean!"
"......Is that so?"
"Yes! It's completely gone! Totally disappeared! Zero evil qi!"
The priestess smiled brightly.
"It was a joke."
"......"
Thirin was at a loss for words.
The priestess placed her hand on Thirin's lower abdomen once more.
This time there were no unnecessary movements.
Once her palm settled over the dantian, an energy different from Thirin's began to seep inside.
The priestess's energy started circulating through Thirin's body.
It was ticklish. A strange sensation like being gently stroked inside her blood vessels with a feather.
Generally, this kind of act was called True Qi Guidance in murim novels.
It was a serious and precious teaching in which a master poured their own energy into a lesser practitioner's body to help them comprehend the flow of qi and blood.
"Pffft..."
Of course, perverted Thirin's brain simply classified this new stimulus as erotic and activated her broken thought circuit.
She was filtering this solemn, serious, and even sacred training process through the lens of 'a blonde beauty with 120 charm is putting something warm inside my body'!
-Smack!
"Ow?!"
The priestess's palm lightly slapped Thirin's belly.
"Why did you hit me?!"
"What sort of filthy thoughts are you entertaining so vigorously? Isn't your energy running wild on its own? Didn't I tell you to focus only on your breathing?"
"No, it's because your touch is way too...!"
"Behave yourself."
"......"
Thirin felt utterly wronged. She was already miserable enough that she couldn't achieve rebirth and her most important body part had vanished, and now even her freedom of thought was being suppressed! What kind of dictatorship was this!
-Smack!
"F-fine! I'll concentrate! I'll do it!"
Thirin finally surrendered.
She groaned and desperately tried to erase all the lewd demons and distracting thoughts filling her head.
'Sad thoughts, sad thoughts... The ketchup fell off the french fries... Sob sob...'
Thirin closed her eyes and focused every sense on her breathing and the 'energy' flowing from the priestess's hand.
"......"
That energy was different from Thirin's flames. That was the only way she could describe it.
If Thirin's internal energy was a wild, self-burning flame, the priestess's energy felt like a quiet, deep well. Cold yet clear, calm yet impossible to measure in depth.
That serene energy did not rampage through Thirin's body.
It flowed gently along her meridians, like an adult taking a lost child's hand and guiding them.
With her eyes closed, Thirin followed the flow of that energy.
The priestess's energy moved throughout Thirin's body, illuminating one by one the countless acupoints and meridians Thirin had never noticed before, like lighting lanterns in the darkness.
'Ah, there was a path this way too.'
'Why is this spot so narrow? Is it blocked?'
Thirin felt as if she had become an explorer traveling inside her own body.
The priestess was unfolding and showing her the map that was her own body.
"...."
It was a wondrous experience.
Thirin finally shook off all her distracting thoughts and focused completely on the priestess's energy flowing through her.
An energy like clear, pure spring water, different from Thirin's flames.
The moment that energy completed its circuit and returned to her dantian, Thirin impulsively reached out.
Or rather, she didn't physically reach out.
Thirin moved the flame in her dantian to snatch the spring-like energy and fuse it directly into her own flame.
"...!"
The priestess's body twitched violently.
She looked down at Thirin with wide, startled eyes, but Thirin kept hers closed.
What Thirin had just done was quite dangerous, and in a way, rather wicked.
It wasn't quite on the level of the Star Sucking Great Art, but it was definitely something similar.
The priestess sighed. It didn't seem like Thirin had done it intentionally.
"......You may rise."
One strange session of True Qi Guidance had ended. The priestess carefully withdrew her hand from Thirin's lower abdomen.
"You have already created a Divine Core, sister."
"Divine Core?"
The priestess nodded.
"We call it Divine Core. Mages call it a mana circuit. The imperial army probably calls it an imprint formula. The temple's knight order has its own term, but I'd rather not speak it myself."
"You're talking about the thing in my lower belly, right?"
"Correct."
The priestess continued.
"The Divine Core is vitality—the vessel where all life gathers its vigor. The Divine Core you consumed, sister, is an object that can dramatically amplify that vitality."
Thirin felt like she roughly understood what the priestess was saying. Divine Core was basically the dantian, the swallowed core was like an elixir, and vitality was internal energy.
It was confusing, but since this was a fantasy world, it was a little strange they used the same terms as murim people.
The priestess tilted her head as if something felt off.
"But this is strange. It's different from when I saw you a few days ago. Your pulse points—the pathways through which vitality flows inside your body—have noticeably widened. What exactly have you been doing?"
'Meridians.'
Thirin's internal translator now perfectly converted the priestess's words into Thirin-speak.
In other words, the priestess was saying:
'You created a dantian on your own, and in just a few days your meridians have opened up smoothly. What the hell kind of monster are you?'
The priestess tilted her head again.
"Did you perhaps receive instruction from someone? Whoever could guide you to create a Divine Core... If such a person exists, shouldn't you be going to them instead of me?"
Thirin shook her head.
"No. I self-taught."
"......Self-taught?"
The priestess looked dumbfounded, but Thirin simply shrugged.
"I'm kind of a genius."
"...I see."
The priestess accepted it surprisingly easily.
"Yes. You are indeed a genius, sister."
"......"
Receiving such direct praise made Thirin feel embarrassed, so she cleared her throat awkwardly.
The priestess stared at her for a moment, then accurately identified Thirin's problem.
"However, you have no idea how to handle that power, sister. You cannot make even the slightest fine adjustment."
The priestess's diagnosis was spot on.
Thirin was like a character who had jumped straight to endgame stats.
She had obtained immense power but didn't know how to control it properly.
"Then what's the issue...?"
"I will send a very small amount of vitality into your body. Try following it."
The priestess placed her hand on Thirin's lower abdomen again.
The energy flowing in this time was far thinner and more delicate than before. Like a single strand of thread.
That thread gently brushed past Thirin's dantian, then slowly began moving toward her arm along the meridians.
"You must not devour this vitality like before. Reduce its size first and simply follow it."
Thirin closed her eyes and chased the flow.
'Found it.'
She drew out a thin strand of her flame and pursued the priestess's energy.
It wasn't easy.
Thirin's internal energy was flame. If it grew even slightly larger than the energy the priestess sent, it would devour it instantly.
Thirin patiently shrank her energy, and the priestess waited with patience.
Deciding that Thirin's flame wouldn't consume her energy, the priestess slowly began moving the qi she had sent inside Thirin.
"Hng..."
It was like playing hide-and-seek inside a narrow cave.
When the priestess's clear energy moved ahead to light the path, Thirin's red flame followed precariously behind.
She nearly lost it several times, but Thirin focused with desperate intensity.
Finally, when both energies passed the shoulder and elbow and reached the wrist—
The priestess's energy lingered at the tip of Thirin's finger. As if inviting her to devour it.
Thirin pushed her flame to her fingertip.
-Fwoosh!
"Uh... huh?!"
A red flame bloomed at the tip of Thirin's index finger.
"I did it!"
She had done it. Thirin had finally become a flame mage.
"The Witch of Flames has returned!"
Thirin cheered.
"......It's Flame of Intent."
"Flame of Intent?"
The priestess spoke quietly.
"A fire that can burn only what you desire."
"What the hell. That's fucking cool."
The priestess continued as if she hadn't heard Thirin's exclamation.
"Whatever you wish.... If you desire to burn evil qi, it will burn evil qi. If you desire to burn a person, it will burn a person."
"...A person, huh."
"Of course, I believe that since you are a righteous person, sister, you will not burn people."
"If you keep praising me like that, it's embarrassing."
At Thirin's small grumble, the priestess smiled sweetly.
"Now try stopping it."
"Already?"
"If you don't stop it now, it will become quite troublesome."
"Got it."
Thirin obediently tried to extinguish the flame.
"......"
She blew on her finger in the air, but the flame refused to go out. If anything, shaking her finger made it burn even more fiercely.
"How do I turn this off?!"
"Stay still."
The priestess's voice came. Thirin turned her head with a sinking feeling.
'No way...?'
-Thud!
"Urk!"
The flame burning at Thirin's fingertip vanished as if it had never existed.
The priestess withdrew her fist and sighed, looking exhausted.
"I forcibly broke the flow of vitality."
Even while groaning, Thirin realized her problem.
She couldn't control the flow of her internal energy. She didn't know how to stop the flame once it had started.
And of all things, what she had used was Samadhi True Fire.
Fire greedily devoured everything.
If left alone, it would burn the surrounding air to grow larger, and if there was any fuel nearby, it would latch on without hesitation and reduce everything to ashes.
Since Thirin didn't even know how to control her internal energy, and the technique she had used was Samadhi True Fire, the Flame of Intent would have continued burning until her dantian was completely emptied.
Realizing this, Thirin fell into a slightly gloomy mood.
"I roughly get the feeling. But does that mean once I start shooting fire, I can't stop until my internal energy runs out?"
"That depends on how diligently you train, sister."
The priestess continued in a tired voice.
"For today, let's repeat what we just did. Send vitality along the pulse points as I did, produce the Flame of Intent, and this time the goal is to very slowly reduce the flowing vitality to extinguish the flame yourself."
Thirin nodded, then suddenly felt a bad premonition.
"...What if I can't extinguish it...?"
The priestess smiled brightly and raised her fist once more.
"......"
Thirin somehow had the distinct feeling that she had gotten herself into serious trouble.