Qi Sense

The surroundings seemed clear, at least for now.

"We can't stay here, we have to keep going! Hopefully this place isn't so simplistic as just a single room connected by a tunnel." The girl who held the light talisman spoke, while taking the lead down the tunnel.

We quietly followed along still weary and nervous about those who attacked us.

'Reinforcements, is that what he said? Why did he mistake us for their reinforcements? How did they even know we were coming down? We didn't see anyone when we entered the place nor when we were walking down the stairs.

Could someone of possibly been at the bottom without us noticing? That would make some sense I suppose, it was like looking down into an abyss from up the stairs. The darkness could of completely shrouded the man down there and us none the wiser.

I wonder, what would have happened to their plan if we just didn't go into the central doorway, and instead one of these side paths.'

Soon we reached the end of the tunnel, the light of the talisman revealed the edges if a doorway . The thought from before seemed logical so I told the others about it. They gave signs of acknowledgement such as 'oks', 'alrights', and some nodded as well.

Becoming more and more unnerved about my own revelation I unsheathed my sword and gripped it tightly by my side.

"Everyone be careful, we don't know what's in the room." She spoke before swapping the talisman into her left hand, and pulling a sword out from her waist with her right.

She raised the talisman up into her left like a torch and the light emitted reached a little farther away shining onto a broken bottle. It was the bottom half of a small porcelain bottle jagged edges lined the top. The other top half was most likely the broken fragments nearby.

Moving in a little more we saw counters and writings for items in priced for contribution points. On the counter to our left there was a sign that read materials. On the right there were a few round wooden tables and wooden chairs, most of them scattered and toppled over.

'Well at least we kind of know where we are.'

"Someone else is here." Yao Ya spoke in a serious tone beside me.

"Eh? W-Where?!" one of the two girls who I helped up asked, franticly searching the edges of the limited area the light reached.

"There's one of them right behind that counter on our left." She pointed a specific spot that's roughly fifteen meters away from us. It was tough to see since it was out of the talisman light range, but a rough outline of the counter can be noticed.

"Are you sure? This is no time to be joking around." The one holding the talisman asked with a slightly solemn tone.

"Yes, I'm positive he's hiding right over there." She said adamant about this.

"Ok, let's check it out then." She said advancing toward the position at a slow pace.

We of course followed along all the while I thought of how could she have known about him.

'Ah of course! How could I have forgotten! That Qi sensing thing that could search a certain radius around us. I completely forgot about that, I need to start using it.'

Closing my eyes I thought about it I became the center of a small circle that only I could feel around me. After a moment I felt like I was slowly being drained of the energy within my dantian, oh that's right it uses qi to keep it going. It should be around five minutes of total time before I run out and have to gather some again.

It was small at first and only encompassed myself, but as I thought about the space around me it slowly grew until it reached a radius of five meters around me. I could sense the two girls who held each other before were still holding onto each other.

I tried thinking of further expanding it with no success, but as I started to think of only the counter in front of me. Qi doesn't have a defined shape, at least I don't think it does, so maybe I could change it as I wish. I put all of my spare focus on the counter ahead I was closing in on and the overall radius started to shrink little by little while extending forward a meter thick pillar.

'It's working! I'm doing things! And I learned all this by myself!'

The five meter radius circle I had dwindled in size as the pillar grew longer and extended farther. It grew steadily around ten centimeters a second.

'It seems the area of my shape is dependent on the original area of the circle. The area of a circle is pi multiplied by radius squared, so 5 times 5 is 25 times 3.14 is uh.... more than 75 meters, something like that. Eh, I'll figure it out later when I get my phone back. I can't do quick math with most decimals.'

Once the pillar reached six meters outwards we were within five meters of him. I could sense him too! And he wasn't moving even though we were already so close to him. At this moment I realized something, ugh! My dantian! A fifth of the stored Qi had disappeared already!

'What! How? I've only been using it for thirty seconds! Is it because I was extending the reach of my senses? If it is then it would use four times the amount of Qi to extend it forward in a direction. Or is the Qi usage exponential as I expand the reach?'

No matter the reason I cut off supply to my Qi sense, who knows if I would need that Qi to defend my self later?

Finally we were upon him, just on the other side of the counter. We had all taken out our weapons in preparation, yet he still didn't come out. After a few moments we heard some sounds coming the counter.

*Snore*… *Snore*

'Are they sleeping?'

I looked at the others to see a blank expression plastered on their faces as well.

*Snore*… *Snore*

Hearing the sounds again I went over to peek over the counter. The girl who held the talisman walked up too as the light moved along with the foot steps.

Peeking over the girl appeared on my right and we saw a man slumped over against the counter, seemingly asleep. His eyes were closed and his chest lightly heaved up and down. He wore the same clothing as the people from before. Looking over to his right I saw a cleaver machete type weapon leaning against the counter as well.

It had a small handle and a slightly curved rectangular blade. Only one side of the metal was sharpened and there was no point. It started to curve halfway down the blade at the sharpened side inward toward the handle by a few degrees. The weapon next to him would most likely only be used to hack and slash at his opponents.

I motioned my head towards the weapon and she must have understood what I meant as she sheathed her sword and started to reach for the weapon by his side. Grabbing the weapon she quickly pulled it up and out of his reach before signaling for the others to come over and assist us.

We decided to hop over the counter to take care of him.

"Alright, now what? Are we going to tie him up or something?" I asked staring at him as he slept.

"Good idea!" Yao Ya immediately responded

"Alright with what?"

Not long after she came in front of me and reached for my waist. I instinctively stepped back as I looked at her.

"What are you doing?!"

Before I could even finish my sentence she had already reached me and swiftly untied the sash belt I had around my waist in a matter of a few seconds. My clothing instantly loosened and I held a part of it up so it wouldn't fall down.

"H-Hey why are you are taking my sash!? Couldn't you just take his? If you're going to tie him uo with it."

She froze for a moment before she turned around "Y-Yeah... you're right.. *𝘚𝘪𝘨𝘩* 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘪𝘵."

"What was that last part?"

"Nothing! Here's your sash back."

"Uh.. okay."