Author's notes:

About the language and notation:

The Baylon language is a predecessor to Latin, which is why it looks like Latin at a glance.

Mental communication is denoted by a < and ends with a >, so a mental communication will look like this: "< Who are you? >"

Some warnings:

This story is posted on the Literotica website and the author does not give permission for it to be reposted or reprinted anywhere else without consent.

P.S. I haven't gotten an editor yet, so any mistakes are mine. Interested editors are welcome :)

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Flashback story so far:

Sun Wukong prove to be an able fighter and healer and helps the rest of the group as they assist a village, that have been attacked by bandits.

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Chapter 10 -- Flashback: The Peaches of Immortality

Lescare

"This is a bad idea." I told Sun Wukong, as I looked at the imposing mountain-top castle.

He looked at me with a dare-devil grin on his face. "No, it's a very good idea. Nobody would ever suspect anyone of doing such an insane act."

I silently agreed. Scaling the walls of Mount Kunlun, the fortress belonging to Xi Wangmu aka. Queen Mother of the West was really an 'insane act' as Wukong had said.

Not only did the fortress have incredibly tall walls, but the outer walls were also standing on top on a mountain, making the approach and scaling of the wall even harder without being detected.

Unfortunately, during a drunken night at Hao's wedding, I had shown Wukong my natural ability to levitate and that was the reason why he had asked for my help.

The walls were magical and would dispel any attempt to scale them, using Magic or Vis, thus Wukong had concluded, that a Mentat with a natural ability to levitate had to be the best possible way to do it fast and undetected. He might even be right about it, but the walls were just the start at it was rumoured to be an exceptionally well defended castle.

"Yu Rou better be here." I stated. During Hao's wedding a woman called Yu Rou, who were a handmaiden of the Queen Mother of the West, had caught the eye of Sun Wukong and being his charming self, he managed to seduce the woman. However, during the week-long celebration, he had realized that it was more than a casual fling: He was in love and wanted to marry her.

Yu Rao had been exited and happily agreed, but when Wukong had asked Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West didn't give her consent immediately. Instead, she had set a challenge for Wukong to prove that he was worthy, by simply saying that if he could give Yu Rao a kiss, he could marry her. That would have been a rather easy challenge, if Xi Wangmu haven't ended the sentence by teleporting the young woman away, making her disappear in an instant.

Wukong had officially requested my help, allowing me to contact Arcem Discendi and get permission to help him.

Later, I had used the Inquisitor tracking spells to figure out where the young lady had reappeared, which was in a small village at the foot of the mountains. Of course, since it took five days to travel there, she was long gone when we arrived, but according to the locals, she had travelled into the mountains. A week, some fights against the local bandits and a lot of travel later, we were here.

"She's waiting in there." Replied Wukong and gestured at the direction of the walls. "We just need to get to her."

I accepted the statement with a nod. Besides being an excellent Martial Artist and a Vis user, Sun Wukong knew some human magic and had some very useful natural abilities. One of these, was an ability to sense the direction to people he knew as long as they were within a day's travel and while the same could be done with Ars Mentalis or Ars Magica, his ability was totally undetectable, like any natural ability is.

"We'll go in tonight then." I said and sat down in the bushes we were hiding in. "There's no way we'll get inside undetected during the day."

"Good point." Wukong sat down next to me. "Let's wait."

Night-time came and with it a thick layer of clouds, that obscured the moon and made it even darker than usual, as Sun Wukong and I stalked closer to the walls.

The darkness didn't bother us, as we both knew the 'cat's eye' Vis trick that enabled us to see in the dark as well as a cat. Unfortunately, we were pretty sure that at least some of the guards knew that power as well and consequently both Wukong and I were dressed in dark clothes, to minimize the chance of being seen.

Somewhat to my surprise, getting over the walls went exactly as we had planned it, as I levitated us upwards until we reached the top of the wall, where we threw our cloth-wrapped grappling hooks over the stone works and dragged ourselves onto the top of the walls.

"See?" whispered Wukong with a grin that was barely visible in the dark night. "It worked."

I just nodded in reply. Even a whisper could carry a long way.

We both walked over to the other side of the battlement and looked down into the courtyard.

A few guards walked on patrol on a large open space, that lead up to another wall, but otherwise, the courtyard was empty.

Luckily, the wall curved and at the ends of it, it connected with the inner walls. Not a design I would recommend on open land, but as the castle was built on a mountaintop, with only the front gate needing extra protection, it made sense.

It also gave Wukong and I an easier option to sneak into the castle, instead of trying to cross a patrolled courtyard and through the guarded inner gate.

Again, it went without a hitch, which made me slightly nervous, and a glass later, we were crouched on the inner wall, looking at the main building of the castle, that had been hidden by the walls.

Dimly lit by the moon through a slight hole in the clouds, it was more a palace than a castle and it looked beautiful. At least four stories tall and built of stone and wood, everything above the fortified ground level was richly decorated with statues, jade carvings and colourful paintings.

The space between the palace and the castle walls was a giant garden, with grass and small cobbled paths in between islands of flowers, trees and bushes, most of which bore fruits or berries. There was even a small stream running through it, adding to the idyllic sight.

I shook my head in wonder. In the lowlands, this would have been a masterful piece of engineering. Here in the mountains, it was incredible.

Xi Wangmu a.k.a. the Queen Mother of the West, had already demonstrated her ability to use magic by teleporting Wukong's love interest away, but she clearly wasn't the only one able to wield magic.

The hole in the cloud cover disappeared along with the moonlight, leaving the garden in darkness. Several bit oil lamps lightened up some key points on the palace, but otherwise it was blessedly dark, making it a lot easier to sneak into.

I looked around to make sure no guards were near us and then whispered. "Where is she?"

"Upper left part." He replied in a low voice, still looking at the palace. "Let's go get her."

I levitated us both down to the ground and then we used the bushes to our advantage, hiding us while we carefully made our way through the garden, stopping only when a four-man patrol came walking, looking like they would rather be in a warm bed.

To our surprise, the patrol decided to take a break where two garden paths crossed near the small patch of bushes and trees Wukong and I were hiding in.

There was no way to leave our hiding place without being seen, so we settled down to wait.

A low rumbling sound made me stiffen and curse silently, as it dawned on me it was my stomach growling. I doubted the sound could be heard by the guards, but it was inconvenient none the less.

Luckily, there was no reason to go hungry in a fruit garden and hidden by the bushes I reached up in the low growing fruit trees and plucked some peaches before I sat down again. Even in the low light, I could see Wukong's shoulders shaking, as he laughed silently.

Smiling, I handed him one of the fruits and watched the resting patrol, while we ate.

As it turned out, the peaches were extremely delicious, with firm, yet soft and delicate flesh and a lovely aroma. They also had smooth skin, unlike the velvet skin of the peaches I was used to.

We were finished eating before the patrol was finished resting, so Wukong got us a second batch, which we devoured as well, before the patrol finally continued their walk.

We did the same, sneaking through the rest of the garden and then levitating up to the third store, so we could climb onto a balcony. It took almost a glass, but there was still lot of time left when we started our search for the young women, Wukong leading the way.

Fortunately, the palace was almost void of guards, which made sense, as they were supposed to guards the walls and entrances, and with most of the palace population asleep, we eventually found a staircase leading to the next floor and went up.

Wukong turned right and shortly after that, stopped in front of a large door, constructed from jade. He paused for a moment and silently opened the door, allowing us to look inside.

Unlike the rest of the palace, which had been mostly dark, this room was dimly lit by oil lamps, and we could see at least six beds in there. All of them occupied by people who were either sick or wounded in some way. Two young women were sitting in chairs by a table, obviously keeping an eye on the patients, but as we looked, they stood up with worry painted on their faces. To my relief, Yu Rou, Wukong's bride to be, was the woman on the right.

Wukong moved through the room so fast, it almost looked like he had teleported. He ended up next to an utterly surprised Yu Rou, giving her a quick kiss, before he said, "Hello darling."

She squealed in delight as she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss, in a most un-Lescarian way.

The other woman saw it as well and shook her head in disapproval, as she reached up for a thick silk cord of a type I'd seen before. Usually, such a cord was connected to a bell somewhere, either to call for assistance or alarm.

She jumped away when my throwing knife slammed into the wall, cutting the cord in two as it buried itself in the wood.

Despite being occupied with Yu Rou, Wukong heard the noise and looked questioningly at me.

"She was reaching for the cord." I explained.

He nodded and turned his attention back to his love. "What does that cord do?"

"It sounds the alarm." Answered Yu Rou with a frown.

Turning his head, Wukong looked at the maid. "Don't do that."

Since he had his head turned away from me, I couldn't see his facial expression, but he must have looked fearsome, because the maid turned and ran. Unfortunately, it's not easy to run in a long dress and she had only taken two steps, before her foot caught the hem of the dress, causing her stumble and fall, landing on an occupied bed.

That in turn caused the patient to wake up screaming in pain, as her body hit him in the bandaged stomach area and when she hurriedly moved away, I could see blood starting to seep through the cloth.

"Oh no!!" exclaimed Yu Rou, panic in her voice.

Wukong sighed and looked at me. "Could you do something, please? I don't think Xi Wangmu would be pleased if her people die as a result of this."

Agreeing with his statement, I nodded and walked over to the wounded man.

It didn't take long to determine, that the man was gravely wounded in the stomach and the maidens fall had caused the wound to reopen. Now it was bleeding, and he would die soon if nothing was done.

To make matters worse, the wound would take half a day to heal with Vis, making that type of healing unusable as there simply wasn't time to use it before the man had died. That the man also had numerous broken bones and other damages consistent with a fall from a great height, was inconsequential in this case. It was the stomach wound that was killing him and with the severity of the wound, it was a small miracle that he was still alive.

"Not good." I said to Wukong with a grimace. "You have to guard me, because this is going to hurt like a trip through the Courts of the Underworld."

The maid who had caused the whole situation, looked at me with disbelief in her face. "You can't be serious! He's impossible to heal!"

"Partly correct." I answered in Lescarian as I sat down beside the bed. "He can't be healed... but I can heal myself."

The maid watched me wide-eyed, as I placed a leather strap between my teeth and lay down on the floor. With the damage the man had taken, sitting up would only complicate matters.

Using an Ars Mentalis trick to increase my tolerance to pain, I took a deep breath to steel myself, placed a hand on the patient and activated Tralativa: The Ars Mentalis trick that would transfer his wounds to me.

A shimmering field surrounded us both for a few heartbeats and then I clamped down on the leather strap to avoid screaming in pain, when it felt like I was stabbed in the stomach with a sword. Bones cracked and snapped like dry twigs inside me, while muscles and tendons were violently ripped apart along with the nerves.

The pain was excruciating, spiralling out like liquid fire from my stomach to embrace my upper body.

It took a few heartbeats to get the pain under control, but I finally managed to block it and started to focus on the wound in my stomach area.

Mental energy poured through my body as I closed the ruptured blood vessels to stop me from bleeding to death, while working on the rest on the stomach wound. Slowly, severed muscles fused seamlessly together, tissue reconnected, and skin healed, as I weaved the mental energy into the pattern of healing.

When the stomach wound was healed, I went to work on the broken bones and damaged tendons, again fusing and reconnection what was broken or severed.

When I opened my eyes again, the morning sun was shining through the now open window shutters and a mild breeze brought fresh air and the scent of flowers into the room, where it mixed with the smell of blood.

Looking down, I discovered that my dark clothes were soaked in blood from the wound and used an Ars Mentalis trick to clean my clothes, so I wouldn't look half dead to the casual observer.

Sun Wukong and Yu Rou was sitting by the table, talking with an elderly man, while the maid was sitting on the edge of a bed, looking bored. She did however notice me opening my eyes and stood up, looking at the other three. "He's awake... Can we call the guards now?"

Yu Rou looked at Son Wukong, who nodded and said, "Yes. The Queen Mother of the West set this challenge. I have meet it and I will meet her as well."

The maid nodded and walked over to pull at the remains of the silk cord.

Looking over at me, Wukong grinned. "Bai Bao, you're insane, you know that, right?"

I shook my head. "What? For healing a person?"

"No, for taking the wounds on your own body."

"It was the only way to do it." I replied and as I was speaking, it dawned on me, that the elderly man was the one I had healed. "May I ask how you got those wounds, Sir?"

He laughed at the question. "Yes. There was a party, I got drunk and decided to get some fresh air. Fell of the balcony and landed hard."

"And don't they have a healer here? I mean, this is Mount Kunlun, the fortress of the Queen Mother of the West, the most powerful Vis user I know of."

The elderly mans slanted eyes twinkled with humour, as he said, "The assistant healers are gathering herbs in the mountains and the Master Healer is me." He bowed. "I'm Bian Que."

For a moment I sat there, stunned. Bian Que was legendary in Lescare as a healer and I had even read some of his recipes for using healing herbs, that Anqi Sheng, the Master Healer at Arcem Discendi, had been kind enough to lend me. However, the lack of lifesaving healing suddenly made sense. While Ars Mentalis could only be used to heal the healer, Vis healers couldn't heal themselves.

"Honoured to meet you, Sir." I said and stood up, so I could return his bow properly.

Wukong looked like he was going to say something, but the arrival of the Palace Guards interrupted him. They were less than pleased to find two armed men, who had managed to sneak into the middle of the palace undetected. We were quickly surrounded and were told to surrender our weapons, which we did without complaining.

As always when he wasn't using it, Wukong's magical staff was the size of a Lescarian hairpin and the guards gawked, as he used slight-of-hand to make it seem like he pulled out of his ear. It became even worse, when he carefully placed it on the ground, where it extended to its real size, which meant it was a little taller than him.

The guards jumped backwards at the sight of the expanding staff, but when nothing else happened, they got their courage back and tried to pick it up.

I stifled a laugh when they couldn't lift it. As all magical Baylon-made weapons given to non-Baylons, Wukong's staff was keyed to him, meaning that it could only be used by him. There were many different ways to ensure this and the enchantment on Wukong's staff was rather genius in my opinion: If anybody else tried to use it, it would become extremely heavy, making it impossible to use in combat or even lift.

As a weapon designed for Ordo Gladius, the enchantment on my sword was less severe and didn't activate until someone tried to use it, enabling Inquisitors to give up their swords in case the situation demanded it. Like now. However, any non-Baylon trying to use it in combat, would get an electric shock strong enough to rattle an elephant.

The guards gave up on trying to lift Wukong's staff and left my sword on the floor as well. Instead, they escorted everybody through the palace until we entered a large room, equipped with a throne like chair in the far end.

Richly decorated with jade, gold and silver, it was without a doubt one of the most beautiful rooms I had ever been in. Even the furniture was made from carved dark wood and the vases and fruit laden plates was exquisite in their quality.

As we stopped in front of the throne, a jade door in the wall behind it was opened and a group of people came in, led by two beautiful maidens, dressed in silk ropes.

However, the woman that followed them, made them look ordinary.

Where they walked gracefully, she glided. Their beauty was brilliant, she shone like the stars on a cloudless night. More women followed her, but I ignored them and glanced over at Wukong. He gave the slightest of shrugs. Whomever she was, she wasn't the woman we knew as the Queen Mother of the West.

Studying the women escorting her, I recognized the second last woman as the one we had seen during Hao's wedding. The question was, if she had pretended to be the Queen Mother at the wedding or if she was doing it now. Reacting on a hunch, I closed my eyes for a few heartbeats, focused on seeing the Vis and then opened them again.

The swirling Vis in the room gave of so much light it almost hurt my eyes. Squinting slightly, I endured assault just long enough to determine that the second last woman outshone the rest by a large margin, meaning she had a lot of Vis and didn't bother to hide it. It didn't mean that she was the real Queen though. One of her maidens might have lot of power and showed it as another decoy, while the real queen hid her power.

"... bloody thieves." I hear a guard mumble to his friends a few meters to my right, bringing me out of speculation and into the real world again.

As I turned my head to look at the speaker, one of his friends mumbled. "Yeah... Just give me one or two rounds alone with them and I'll... "

"And you would get defeated." Said a familiar voice softly.

I looked up and saw the commanding officer of the Queen Mother's bodyguard walking towards us. He had been at the Hao's wedding as well and we had talked several times.

As I watched, he stopped and looked at the guard. "Mind your tongue, Soldier, and stop insulting people you don't know. It will get you killed some day."

"Yes Sir." Said the soldier, though he didn't really look like he believed the commander.

The commander nodded shortly to the guard, but if he had intended to say more, he was interrupted by the woman pretending to be the Queen Mother.

"Well met, Sun Wukong. I assume that you have come to claim your bride."

"Yes, your majesty." Said Wukong.

"... but not alone, I see." She continued as her eyes settled on me.

The commander took the cue. "Your majesty, allow me to present Bai Boa of Mount Penglai, Healer and a student of the wizard Anqi Sheng."

A hush went through the room by the mention of my old healer mentor. He was obviously famous here, which was something he had neglected to mention during our many training and healing sessions.

The woman pretending to be the Queen Mother regarded me in silence for some heartbeats, before turning towards Wukong. "Sun Wukong, I will grant you your bride... however there is a slight issue in my garden we need to look into." She paused, eyeing both Sun Wukong and me. "According to my gardener, there seems to be some peaches missing. Do you happen to know where they are?"

"Yes, your Highness." I said with a bow and explained how my stomach had started to growl while hiding and that I had eaten the peaches.

"Though not alone." Added Wukong. "I ate half of them."

"So, you two admit having eaten five peaches each?" There was something in her voice I couldn't quite place. An edge, that wasn't there before.

"Yes, Your Highness." We answered in unison, with me adding, "If that is a problem, I will gladly pay for them. It just wasn't an option at the time."

A new hush went through the room, but this time it was slightly aggressive, as if having eaten the peaches was taboo.

A nicely dressed man glared at me and before anybody else could say anything, he sneered. "The Peaches of Immortality are priceless, you moron! They grant eternal life!"

For once, I was speechless. Belonging to the Queen Mother of the West, the Peaches of Immortality was a sacred fruit common in Lescarian stories and it was said, that the fruit took three hundred years to ripen. When consumed, a peach would add three thousand years of life and grant eternal youth to whomever ate it.

"It's gonna be a long ass life." Mumbled Wukong in Baylon so softly only I could hear it.

I almost laughed but remembered where I was and stopped myself in time. Compared to magic, Vis Vitae was a relatively weak force, and I simply couldn't believe, that a fruit could extend life more than the mightiest of Ars Magica. However, we had obviously stepped on a taboo and that was never good.

The Queen Mother looked at the one who had spoken. "Long life, not eternal life... and only to the wise." She corrected him gently and then addressed us again. "We shall talk more about this, but in a more private setting." Looking at the guards, she added. "I will talk with Sun Wukong first. Bring Bai Bao to the jade chambers."

The Commander bowed. "As you command, my Queen."

Wukong and I exchanged glanced. Short of fighting our way out, there wasn't much we could do.

--------

The Jade chambers proved to be a luxurious room filled with jade carvings, and I enjoyed looking at them for a while, until my thoughts returned to what the Queen Mother of the West had said about only the 'wise' were granted a long life.

If they really believed the Peaches were some kind of magical or Vis-imbued super fruit, it didn't make sense that it only granted its powers to a select few. Any herb I knew of, magical and ordinary alike, worked on everybody, wise or not.

The word 'wise' also bugged me. Normally Lescarians used 'wise' in the meaning of learned or knowledgeable, but how could that apply to eating some fruit?

It didn't... unless the fruit released some power only the 'wise' could use and in the terms of Lescarians, that meant a Vis or Magic user. It also meant, that the energy should be inside me right now since I ate five of those peaches.

Taking a seat on one of the rooms many large pillows, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the energy flow inside me. Superficially it seemed normal, but looking closer, I discovered some slight differences from before.

The most important change being a healing pattern, that extended throughout my body and connected some of the most important energy nodes in ways that reminded me of how the energy lanes were connected in a woman.

Since women were designed to give life, their energy patterns were both different and more efficient than those in a man.

However, there was a reason why I haven't seen that kind of connections before. Under normal circumstance, there was no way to get the flow of Vis in the body of a man to behave that way, as the energy lanes to support it simply wasn't there.

It was like watching water flow upwards and the only possible way to do that was to use either Ars Mentalis or Ars Magica. However, if the power was to be contained in a fruit, it simply had to be Ars Magica, since Ars Mentalis couldn't be stored that way.

Opening my eyes again, I walked over to the window and looked out at the garden, concentrating first on the flow of Vis Vitea in the area and then on the flow of magic.

The result nearly floored me.

Both Magic and Vis were natural to the Earth itself and flowed through the planet as blood flowed through the body. Mostly these flows, like veins in the body, were hidden underneath the surface, but in some places, they came near or ran on top of the surface, allowing people to tap into that enormous energy if they knew how to.

The Lescarians knew them as Dragon Lines, others called them Earth-blood Veins and in Baylon they were known as Ley Lines. The rare places where two such lines crossed each other were known as a Node and held even more power. There were a few places where more than two Lines crossed, and these were called a Junction or a Nexus.

These were extremely rare, but from my place at the window, I could see huge amounts of both magical- and Vis-energy flowing through the valleys surrounding Mount Kunlun, crossing each other at the place where the fortress was built, creating two Ley Line Junctions placed almost on top of each other. One was magical, while the other was Vis Vitea.

It was an incredible sight and I admired it for a while, until a slight disturbance caught my attention. Normally, magic couldn't and didn't interfere with Vis, but right where the centre of the two junctions overlapped, the flow of Vis temporarily took on a shape that was suspiciously similar to the ones inside me, before it returned to normal as the flow continued.

"Oh, sweet goddesses." I mumbled to myself, as I realize that the legend about the Peaches of Immortality might be true after all. With magic involved, all bets were of.

The sound of a woman laughing softly brought me out of my speculations and made me turn around. Less than ten paces away stood the Queen Mother of the West. Light skinned and dark haired with red lips, she was even more beautiful than when I had seen her in the audience chamber. She wasn't alone though. On each side of her stood one of the biggest Snow Leopards I had ever seen. As Snow Leopards weren't uncommon in the mountains of Lescare, I had seen quite a few of them, but these were the size of tigers and from the way they were watching me, it was clear they were here to protect the woman.

"I'm honoured by your presence." I said and bowed.

She gave of a dismissive motion of her hand. "Don't be, Bai Bao. I'm Xue and like the woman Sun Wukong and you came to rescue, I'm just a lowly handmaiden. The disguise you saw earlier was a safety measure."

"Rescue might be over-dramatizing it." I chuckled. "But I get your point."

"Good... oh, if the cats bother you, please don't hesitate to say so. I can always have them relaxing in a corner."

"They don't bother me." I answered truthfully. For some reason unknown to me, cats of every kind loved Mentats, and I couldn't think of a single case, where a big and otherwise healthy cat had attacked a Mentat.

Extending my mind, I briefly connected with the Snow Leopards. They both visibly relaxed and one lay down by the woman's side, while the other ambled over to me, gracefully accepting a scratching on top of the head.

The woman's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "I see you didn't get your name for nothing. They have never done that before."

The Snow Leopard grunted, strolled over to a rug, and laid down.

"I'm not a danger and they know it." I said and changed the subject. "The Queen Mother said that she wanted to talk with me, but I assume you have taken over that duty."

"Indeed, though from the look you had when you turned away from the window, I guess you have already figured out most of what I'm here to talk about." Xue gestured in the direction of a table with two chairs. "Can we sit down?"

"Of course."

My mind was still reeling from the discovery of the pattern inside me, and I had trouble concentrating on what she was saying, since most of what she said was steeped in Lescarian mythology. To make it worse, the new pattern made the Vis inside me acted strangely, making me dizzy.

However, I wasn't dizzier than I could see that her dress was made of the finest silk and clung to all the right places, leaving no doubt that Xue was a curved and well-shaped woman, which in my present state of mind was a distraction I didn't need.

I suddenly realized that Xue had asked me a question and was waiting for an answer.

When she didn't get one, she shook her head. "You're not listening, Bai Boa."

"You're right." I admitted. "My mind isn't really working."

"As I was saying, it's the effect of the Peaches." She said patiently. "They balance the Yin and Yang in your body."

I blinked a few times, as I translated what she had said from Lescarian mythology into Baylon power-theory in my head. The Lescarian believed there was two different types of Vis Vitea. One female type, called the Yin, and one male type, called the Yang. However, according to Baylon power-theory there was only one kind, but it did run in different energy lanes in the body, since men and women are designed differently.

In that way of thinking, balancing the Yin and the Yang meant having an equal amount of energy running through both male and female energy lanes. A feat that was impossible or at least had been, until the Peaches of Immortality had created what looked like female lanes pattern inside me. Now it was possible, but there wasn't really any flow through the new energy lanes yet and I guessed the energy nodes had to be opened before that could happen.

"Not yet," I said slowly. "The energy is there, but it was created by the peaches, and it's not really connected to me... yet. However, since the Queen Mother said that it only worked for the wise, I guess it's up to me to figure it out."

She smiled, revealing her perfect teeth. "I cannot tell you the answer, but I'll will assist you in any way possible."

"So, it's a test." I determined.

"Yes." The smile disappeared. "But a test with only two outcomes: If you can't balance the forces you will die. If you succeed in creating a balance, you will live for a very long time, but be sterile. With that amount of Yin in the body, it's simply not possible to produce children."

I nodded slowly. For most other people, that would have been a major problem, but I was pretty sure that the Mages on Baylon could come up with a solution for that, so the main focus would be to survive the test.

I drank some of the tea, while working on the problem. A quick opening of the nodes took a lot of power, but by being in the middle of a Dragon Line Node, power was present in abundance.

The next step was focusing and channelling that power. A task that, like surgery, was a lot easier to do on other people, than doing on yourself. However, Xue had already promised to assist me, and I had little doubt that she was a skilled Vis user. That meant, she was the focus.

Suddenly it dawned on me how it could be done, and I had to suppress a laugh. I doubted it was something that happened often here.

Xue did notice my amusement and lifted her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"You're the focus, the Dragon Line node is the power and success will depend on my skill in handling the energy you channel."

The eyebrows lifted even more. "I'm impressed. It normally takes a few days, before people discover that." She paused and added. "If they ever do."

"It's not like there's a lot of options." I said dryly and paused before saying, "I'm just not sure how to tell you the next part."

"Just say it." She said, watching me curiously.

"As the focus, I'll have to channel from you and as far as I know, that can only be done using the technique used to gather Vis."

"Correct."

Looking her over, I slowly said, "I use Art of the Bedchamber."

She looked at me with an expression of sheer disbelief on her face. "You want to share pleasure with me?"

"Yes, but more to the point, I need us to share pleasure. I can't think of any other way to make this work." A complication drifted into my dizzy mind. "You're not married, are you?"

Still looking slightly stunned, Xue giggled as she shook her head. "The men I meet are normally too much in awe with the Queen Mother of the West to dare make any suggestions regarding sex or marriage." She stood up from the chair. "I'm not a virgin, but I'm afraid I don't know much about the Art of the Bedchamber. It's not an Art we practice here," She looked at me with a little smile. "but from what I've heard about it, I'm looking forward to try." Her dark slanted eyes studied me for a moment. "After you have had time to meditate and eat some food." Her smile widened. "Channelling and directing life energy aren't something that should be done, when you're tired and hungry... and neither is sharing pleasure."

Seeing the wisdom in her suggestion, I agreed.

----------

After a fulfilling meal, I sat down to meditate and when I came out of the trance again, I discovered that somebody had carried a large bronze bathtub into the room and filled it with hot water.

At least, I assumed that it was hot when it got here, but by now, it was lukewarm, so I extended my will and heated it up, before undressing and getting into the tub.

The water felt heavenly, and I yawned when the effect of having been awake for more than a day suddenly hit me and made me dizzy.

Shaking my head to clear it, I mustered just enough self-discipline to get out of the bathtub, dry myself and then stumble to the low, but soft looking bed, where I let myself fall into the covers. A moment later, I was asleep.

------------------

A voice softly calling "Bai Bao!" woke me up.

Still feeling slightly dizzy, I opened my eyes, looked in the direction the voice was coming from and discovered a worried looking Xue standing a few meters away. She was illuminated by the light from two oil-lamps, but the rest of the room was dark, meaning I had slept most of the day.

On the plus side, she was a gorgeous sight, as she stood there dressed in a long peach and gold coloured silk kimono. Her black hair was beautifully arranged on top of her head, held in place by golden hairpins and decorated with peach-coloured flowers. Most of her beautiful face was hidden in the low light, but somehow her dark slanted eyes reflected the glow, making them glitter like stars on a cloudless night.

When she saw I was awake, the red lips parted in a smile. "Good... you're awake. For a moment, I feared you had drifted into a coma."

"Not quite yet." I managed to say and sat up in the bed. I must have slept like a rock because I hadn't even noticed that someone had covered me with a blanket, while I had been sleeping.

Xue eyes grew wide and then I felt a spike of lust from her as she suddenly giggled. "It looks like you had good dreams."

Unsure what she meant, I looked down to where her eyes were focused and discovered that I had a morning hard-on that made a tent out of the blanket.

Looking at her again, I shrugged with a smile. "If that is the case, I have good dreams most nights."

"Oh..." She hesitated for a moment, but then asked. "Are you hungry? There's a light meal waiting for you. It's just bread, fruit, and cheese."

I got the distinct feeling, that she had been about to ask something else, but had changed her mind in the last moment.

"And when did you plan on starting the ritual?" She added before I had time to answer the first question.

Looking her in the eyes, I said, "I would like something to eat first, and we need to get to get to know each other a bit better, because your mind isn't ready for this and without a completely willing partner, the Art of the Bedchamber doesn't work." I sent her a smile. "So, let me get dressed and then we can eat and talk."

She nodded. I'll go get the food then."

The light meal turned out to be a delight, as we slowly ate and talked Vis Vitae and the different way, we looked at it. Then Xue wanted to know more about the Art of the Bedchamber, and I explained some of the basics to her, going into more details whenever she asked.

Most of those details were rather graphic and as we talked, I could feel her mood change from intellectual interested, to turned-on.

It remained the way for a while, slowly building until Xue stood up, walked around the table and seated herself gracefully on my lap with a playful smile on her face. "I think it's safe to say that both my mind and my body are ready for the ritual by now."

"Good." I said and kissed her softly, laying my arms around her.

She kissed me back, her lips and tongue dancing against mine as we became accustomed to each other. She tasted good, felt good in my arms and smelled even better.

Her breathing became heavier as the kiss grew more passionate and pressed her body against mine, responding to my touch as I explored her. Moaning when my hand found her small firm breasts and caressed them, the hard nipple pressing against the silk of the kimono.

My lips started to explore her ear lobes, neck, and upper shoulders. She smelled like the flowers in the palace garden.

Xue moaned and let her hands slide over my upper body, reminding me of two problems: We were both dressed and the current position with Xue on my lap seriously limited our movements.

Taking a good hold of her, I stood up with her in my arms and walked over to the low bed. I had planned to lay her on it, but Xue managed to get her legs down, so she was standing on the bed.

That turned out to be a good move. With her standing on the bed, we had the same height and could kiss and caress each other freely, which we did.

At some point, Xue stopped caressing me and somewhere in the back of my mind I was wondering why, when she broke the kiss, took half a step back on the bed and loosened a few strings of cloth, causing her kimono to fall of her body and pile at her feet.

She wore nothing underneath and there was silence in the room for a few heartbeats, as I admired her naked body.

Her skin was lighter in colour than most Lescarians and to my surprise, she had three scars running parallel to each other down from the left side of her ribcage just below her small firm breasts, going over her flat stomach to the right hip. As my gaze followed the lines down her body, I discovered another set of scars on her right thigh. Both looked like the result of an animal attack. Other than that, she had long lean legs for her height.

Xue looked somewhat embarrassed. "Sorry. I should have warned you about the scars."

I shrugged. "No need to be sorry, I'm just not used to see scars."

The expression on her face went from embarrassed to surprise in a heartbeat. "B-b-but you're a warrior. Surely, you must have seen a lot of scars."

"Not as many as you think... Our healing doesn't leave scars and can even remove them."

That information made Xue bite her lips and for a moment, she hesitated, causing me to ask. "Do you want me to remove your scars?"

"If you can and if it's not too much trouble."

"I can and it's not." I said lightly.

Healing scars was a minor Ars Mentalis trick and one of the first healing tricks I had learned. Mostly because it provided a good foundation and training for the more complicated healing tricks. For that reason, it was normally taught to all apprentices, me included.

"But it takes time, so it will have to wait. Right now, I just want to kiss you."

That brought the smile back to her lips, but at the same time, she lifted a hand. "Stop. You have too many clothes on compared to me."

"Good point." I chuckled and took my shirt off, while she lay down on the bed, watching me.

The smile was still on her lips, as she commented. "I think you're the biggest man, I've ever seen. Are everybody so tall and wide where you come from?"

"Believe it or not, I'm considered short in my home country." I said, returning the smile, while calculating the height in my head. "Most men are about eight cun taller than I am. The rest depend on how much physical training they got."

She nodded absently, obviously thinking about something, but her face changed when I added

I didn't inquire what it was but kneeled on the bed next to her and kissed her neck, sending a shiver through her body. "Ohhh"

I kissed and licked my way from the neck down to her breasts, where I licked around first one hard nipple and then the other one. She drew a long hissing breath whenever my tongue touched her breasts. At the same time, I slid a hand slowly up the skin of her hips, up the flat of her stomach, over the scars and around the other breast. There was another sharp breath as my fingers passed over her nipples, and moaned when I pinched them softly, while sucking gently on the other nipple.

"Oh, Sweet Goddess." She mumbled and then groaned as I did it again.

With a smile, I licked my way down her body, following the scar to her hips. My other hand found the unoccupied breast and she moaned as I caressed it, while running my tongue over her skin, licking in small circles from one side of her hips to the other side. She sucked in a hissing breath when I passed over the very top of her mound.

I moved one hand from her breasts down to her legs and ran my fingers over the soft skin of her thighs, using only my fingertips and nails.

Instinctively, she spread her legs, giving my room to lick up along her inner thigh toward her knee. Xue moaned loudly and her leg quivered slightly, so I moved to the other thigh and licked my way down almost to her crutch.

Again, she moaned and shivered, so I licked my way back up to the knee, switched to the other thigh and did the same as before, while caressing the leg with my hand, causing her to spread them even more. Sensing that she liked the slow approach, I repeated the process several times.

By the fourth time, she was moaning loudly and shivering all over with a mix of pleasure and anticipation. I paused and breathed deeply, breathing in the intoxication smell of aroused woman.

I wanted to taste it as well and moved between her legs, sliding my hands under her thighs, cupping her buttocks, as I took a few heartbeats to inhale the musky sent of arousal.

Like most of the Lescarian woman I had encountered, she didn't have much in the way of pubic hair and I could clearly see the slightly open lips of her pussy between dark downy fuzz.

Xue gave a long, drawn-out moan, as my tongue ran over her outer lips, opening them even more. The lick ended at her love-pearl, making her hips buckle and jerk when my wet tongue made a circle on top of it. Then I flicked my tongue over it a few times and lowered my head, so I could lick her lips again, sucking first one into my mouth and playing with my tongue on it, before I did the same with the other.

She tasted as good as she smelled. Sweet, tangy, and flowery all at the same time.

Her ass shivered as I licked, a loud groan coming from her throat. Releasing her inner lips, I took several long licks from the bottom of her pussy to the top, ending with a flick on the tongue on the love-pearl, causing her hips to climb higher as she moaned.

Instead of going for the love-pearl again, I teased her some more, licking and kissing the skin between her thigh and pussy. Then I kissed and licked all the way around it, hearing her catch her breath as my tongue brushed against the top of the love-pearl.

With a sigh and a shiver, she arched her back and lifted her hips against my mouth, as her hands found my head and pressed it against her crotch.

My lips closed around the love-pearl, and I sucked the tip of it into my mouth, letting my tongue dance and twirl on it. Slowly at first, but I gradually increased the speed and pressure of the tongue until Xue was constantly shaking all over.

Looking up at her from my position between her legs, I could see a flush spread over her face and chest, turning the fair skin a ruddy colour. The muscles of her belly began to contract in small ripples as waves of pleasure ran through her body with each lick I gave.

Letting go of her ass with one hand, I slid it over her skin to her pussy, running the tips of my fingers along the moist lips, before I gently inserted a finger in her, while giving her lover-pearl an extra firm twirl with my tongue and rubbed the tip of the finger against the internal pleasure point at the same time.

With a howl of joy, she exploded like a fireball, the muscles in her body quivering and jerking in time with the rolling waves of pleasure thundering through her.

I had expected her to channel the Energy as she came, but nothing happened, so I just kept licking her as she came, only stopping when she tried to get away from my tongue.

Her whole body was still quivering when I sat down on the bed beside her and gently ran my hands over her soft skin.

That made her open her eyes. They were slightly unfocussed at first, but after a little while, she looked right at me.

"That... was... divine!" She panted and sent me a brilliant smile. A heartbeat later, the smile turned into a look of horror. "Oh... I forgot the channel... I'm SO sorry."

The expression on her face made me laugh. "Not a problem. Are you ready to do that now?"

Xue nodded eagerly. "Yes... but..." She hesitated for a moment, before she continued, "but I don't even know if I can come again this soon and you're still have your pants on!"

"The Art of the Bedchamber doesn't require me to come." I said with a grin as my right hand slid down between her legs. "Just set up the connection now."

With a nod, she closed her eye and lay still for a moment, before opening them again. "It's done."

"Good." I said, sliding one hand up the soft skin of her inner thighs, while the other roamed over her slim, but curvy body, caressing her soft skin.

Biting her lips slightly, Xue spread her legs even more and I ran my fingers along the length of her moist slit, making her shudder.

Since I was sitting beside her on the bed, I lay down to rest on an elbow and gave her a long sweet, while continuing to play with her pussy, careful not to touch the sensitive love-pearl.

Xue moaned and placed her hands on my head, pulling me closer as we kissed passionately.

Her lips felt wonderful against mine and I rested my hand as we kissed for a while, enjoying the pleasures of the other's mouth.

Deciding to turn the heat up again, I broke the kiss and nibbled my way down her neck and shoulders, until I reached her breasts, where I gently sucked a nipple into my mouth, teasing it with my tongue.

Xue moaned at the treatment. A sound that turned into a louder groan, when I nipped it lightly with my teeth, and her hands on my head pressed my face and mouth firmly against her breast.

Since she held my head, it made it difficult to switch to the other nipple, so instead I brought my hand into the action again, spreading the lips of her pussy and teasing the entrance of her tunnel.

She was soaking wet and moving my hand forward, I let a finger slip into her.

Xue relaxed her grip on my head, as she whimpered and lifted her hips, so I moved my mouth to the other breast, giving the nipple the same treatment as its twin, while slowly moving the finger in and out of her.

With a moan and shudder, she wriggled her hips, trying to take in more of the finger, hissing as the ball of my hand pressed against her love-pearl.

"Fantastic." She mumbled and gently pulled my head up from her breast. A heartbeat later, we were kissing again, and I used the slight lull to add another finger into her. Her body stiffened with pleasure, and she groaned into my mouth, as I started moving my fingers back and forth, gently sawing them against the slight ridges along the walls of her pussy.

"Ready?" I asked in a whispers, as I found her internal pleasure spot and started to massage it.

Xue nodded with a groan of pleasure. "Yes!"

Instead of just massaging the pleasure zone, I started to pump my two fingers in and out of her pussy, making sure to hit the pleasure zone firmly with my fingertips, while the ball of my hand slapped into her love-pearl with each move.

Since she just had an orgasm and was extremely excited, I went to full speed right away, moving my hand as fast as I could.

Xue loved it. She screamed with pleasure, her body jerking to the rhythm of my hand, while her pussy contracted around my fingers.

I looked down at her, a smile spreading across my face. The tell-tale rosy blush had started to spread on her face and upper body, and I knew it wouldn't take long before she came.

Suddenly, Xue stiffened, thrust her hips against my hand, and let out a sharp yell as she came again, the muscles in her pussy spasm around my fingers.

With the release came an amount of Vis large enough to dwarf anything I had ever experienced before, and I barely had time to activate the correct pattern before the wave hit me.

Everything went white.

Somewhere in the whiteness, I found the correct energy lanes and wrestled with the flow of Vis, forcing it into the lanes. With the Vis came a wave of Ars Magica that forced the new lanes open, but as soon as the wave had passed, the lanes closed up again.

Knowing that I had little time to get this right, I created a loop between Xue and myself, effectively adding more magical energy to the Vis every time it passed through her.

The loop also made the wave faster and faster until a continuous stream of magical energy soared through my body and with that, the new energy lanes.

At first, the lanes resisted, but as the energy continued to run through them, they firmed up and suddenly I just knew they were there to stay as long as the Vis flowed through them.

The first part done, I turned my attention towards the second part: Getting out of the combined Vis Vitae and Ars Magica flow.

That proved harder than expected. It was like jumping into a fast-flowing mountain river: Getting in was easy, but to get out alive, you had to climb up a mountainside.

I tried to stop the loop between Xue and me, but that turned out to be impossible. Instead, I attempted to slow down the speed of the flow, which was somewhat more successful.

It wouldn't solve the problem, but at least it would buy me some time.

With the slowing of the flow, the whiteness slowly faded as I got my vision back.

Xue was still laying on the bed in front of me, shivering from her orgasm, while studying at me intensely. Watching her well-shaped body, I realized that one of the only ways to get rid of the excess energy in my body was to put it right back where it had come from.

When my eyes finally focused on her face, she smiled. "Time for more pleasure?"

"Yes."

"Good!" She said and turned around, revealing a small, but well-shaped butt. Then she got on all four and lowered her chest to the bed, making her cute butt stick up in the air in front of me and shifted her knees out farther to each side. Looking over her shoulder, she said, "I like to be taken from behind."

I nodded with a smile and moved closer. Letting my hand slide over the soft skin of her glorious butt cheeks. The skin was soft and smooth as silk.

She moaned, when the fingers danced over the lips of her soaked pussy and groaned, when I slowly inserted two fingers in her. The orgasms had relaxed the muscles a little, but it was still a tight fit and I didn't want to hurt her, so I used my fingers for a while, making her even more turned on than she was before.

Xue gasped when I ran the fingertips over her internal pleasure centre and pushed up with her arms, so she was on her hands and knees again. Her back arching down as I pulled the fingers out and arched upward as they went back in.

"That feels sooooo good." She moaned.

I added my thumb to the fingers, using it to stroke her love-pearl from time to time and causing her to moan even louder. The sound sent shivers down my spine, and I would have loved spending more time teasing her, but unfortunately, time was working against me right now.

With the other hand, I got my pants open, causing my stiff dick to spring out. Then I removed my hand from her pussy and spread her slippery juice over my dick, before I pushed forward with my hips. The head of my dick slid over the wet lips of her pussy and Xue yelped, when it bumped over her love-pearl, making her hips jerk.

I slowly retracted it, keeping the contact with her love-pearl. She shivered and moaned again, when the head left the love-pearl and slid up between her pussy lips, to rest at the opening.

Her hips shook again, and she groaned loudly as she pushed back against me, her opening stretching around the head of my dick.

She paused for a moment, but then pushed back against me again, causing my dick to slowly enter her.

"Careful." She panted. "You feel bigger than I'm used to."

Since it sounded like she wanted to have control over how fast it went, I stood still and ran my hands over the smooth skin of her back, all the way down to her fantastic butt and then back up to her neck. It felt good and Xue groaned as she kept the pressure up, impaling herself slowly, but surely, on my cock.

I moved my hands from her back around to fondle her small firm breasts. Xue moaned approvingly as I kneaded them, catching her stiff nipples between the fingers and gently squeezed them.

Her hips quivered, making her tight pussy vibrate. From time to time, the muscles in her pussy would clamp down ever tighter for a few heartbeats before they relaxed only to clamp down again.

It felt heavenly and I was enjoying it, savouring every moment of it.

Xue stopped pushing back and moved forward instead. Just enough to keep the head of my dick inside her. Then she rammed her butt back towards me, taking half of my dick into her in one go.

"Ohhhhh." She moaned and moved forward again.

This time I was prepared and pushed forward as she rammed herself back again, taking even more of me in. Xue gasped and did it again, sliding forward until I was almost out of her and then rammed back, taking more of me into her hot tightness.

"Pause." She hissed and stood still. "You turn... take it slow."

With a smile, I took over, moving my hands back to her hips and slowly moved my hips back and forth, being careful not to go too deep. She felt wonderful around my dick, and it became even better, when her hips started to flex and jerk. I could feel her hot tight pussy moving slightly around my dick as it squeezed it from time to time, becoming wetter and hotter as time went by.

Xue turned her head to look at me, her eyes full of desire and lust. "I'm ready."

Her hips moved in my hands, and I followed their increasing tempo as my dick went deeper and deeper into her.

Then she found a comfortable rhythm and kept it, moving in unison with me, as she moaned.

Looking down, my eyes followed the smooth lines of her back until it flared out into her amazing ass. The position also gave me a perfect view of my cock going in and out of her, glistering with juices. I enjoyed the sight and the feel of her pussy sucking my cock every time it withdrew from her, and the sliding feel as it went back inside.

Reaching around her, I slid a hand down between her legs, found her love-pearl and started rubbing it firmly, but gently.

That made her whimper and thrust her hips against me harder than before. Then she moaned when her movements almost made my dick make circles inside her.

It felt wonderful, but we, or me at least, only had so much time, before I needed to release the energy trapped inside me.

With that in mind, I increased the pace, luxuriating in the silken feel of her pussy, gripping my cock in a tight, wet hug. Her juices dripped down on the fingers playing with her love-pearl, adding lubrication to the circles I was drawing.

As before, a deep flush started to spread over Xue's shoulders, and her breathing was becoming ragged, interrupting her moans.

Suddenly she yelped, convulsing as she came. Her hips were jerking wildly, going up, down and sideways, massaging my dick and pushing it deeper into her.

The feeling was driving me closer to my own orgasm. Lost in the sensation, I tightened my grip on her hips and fucked her, using long hard strokes that took my dick almost completely out of her, before I slammed back into her.

Xue howled with pleasure as she came again, easily drowning my groans.

For a heartbeat, I stood still, focusing on the energy inside me, while Xue was still coming. Her hips jerking and flexing, adding more pleasure to us both with each move.

Even with my mind occupied with directing the energy flow, my body still reacted and before I was completely finished directing the flow into the correct lanes, I could feel the orgasm burn through my body as I came in her.

The energy flow followed my semen as I filled her, roaring back into her body with enough force to break the loop between us. For a heartbeat, I feared she would overload, but then the energy left her as it should, and I turned my attention towards the energy in my own body.

The new lanes had opened and were stable. So far so good, but due to the quick arrival of my orgasm, not all of the absorbed energy had left the body and that was a problem.

Fortunately, my race was built to handle energy of all kinds, so it wasn't harmful, but if any human had done such I sloppy job as I just had done, they would have been seriously hurt. Not exactly a good way to finish great sex.

It still needed to be used though, so I spent some time weaving the energy into a healing pattern and then let it loose on Xue, pulling my dick out of her at the same time. She collapsed onto the bed in a moaning heap as her hips continued to jerk and twitch.

The energy spiralled around her body for a while, erasing the scars on her skin, before disappearing into the flow Xue had created as the focus.

With a sigh of relief and exhaustion, I let myself fall on the bed next to her. Now I had done everything I could do, the energy in my body felt right somehow and only the future would show if the new patterns really had the effect the Queen Mother of the West had told us.

Closing my eyes to relax, I fell asleep.

The dream blurred, flickered and disappeared as the darkness came back.