Chapter 3 - World of cultivation
This light that he was seeing behind his eyelid seemed to hide something within but Leshy’s mind could not pierce through the brightness of it. It felt that the mystery was as close behind as if on another side of the wall made by a paper sheet. However, if there is no mean to break such a thin wall, the secrets behind will remain hidden forever…
Blood was starting coming not only from the mouth but also from Leshy’s nose, ears, and corners of eyes. His body was also becoming more hot, to the point when it was increasing the temperature of the room.
Due to the constant twitching of his muscles, the wound on his side reopened and a new a strong wave of pain hit Leshy’s consciousness. That pain however worked on Leshy as a bucket of cold water.
“I refuse to die like this!” he yelled and forcefully opened his eyes. Then something strange happened - what appeared before him was not a kitchen in the cave but the same strange world that was filled with darkness.
The world gave a sense of deep familiarity with Leshy as if it was there throughout his whole life. In the middle of the vast darkness, a was a sphere of blue light floating a few meters above the ground. The sphere was full of dots of light that seemed to want to break out.
Those lights or energy inside the sphere were bouncing to the wall faster and stronger with every second faster and it looked that it won’t take much longer until the sphere explodes.
Leshy had a premonition that if it explodes inside that would be the end of something important to him beyond words.
After watching the energy in a sphere, Leshy realized that there is a connection between him and that energy inside. He could even influence the energies trajectories and speed with his thoughts. However, it took a lot of focus and mental effort to affect just a few out of a thousand energy dots inside the sphere.
Once they were under his control he made them run circles inside, without touch wall which was lessening the burden on the sphere’s borders. Leshy thought that once all of the energy become under his control it would probably prevent the sphere from exploding.
Without any better idea, he desperately started to command mentally all of those specs of energy to start flowing in the same direction. He imagined a whirlpool and was trying to make the energy to imitate its flow.
He quickly noticed that all of the specks of light seemed to be somehow connected. Dose dots of energy he controlled, upon impact with the ownerless ones, made them sometimes join the whirlpool.
This way more and more of energy started to flow in the same direction but if he lost a focus for even a second some of the dots of energy become unruly again spoiling much of the effort.
On the outside, his body was still twitching and blood starting to run from his nose as well, but he no longer started to get any hotter. Seeing the light of hope Leshy continues to take over the energy.
The image was much calmer then what was happening in his inner world as his mind becomes a battlefield between chaotic energy and Leshy’s mental power. Dominate or explode was a stake of the fight!
The battle continued however a noticeably changes to the energy started to occur - the ones that were under some control of Leshy, begin to merge together. At first, the changes were miscellaneous but soon more and more dots were coming together becoming something like many small floating ponds.
The best news was that most of the chaotic energy that collided with ponds started to be absorbed by it, increasing the size of the pond. Leshy was also becoming more proficient in detecting the energy’s paths and influencing how they move.
The ability to operate the energy felt as if he suddenly had an additional sense and his brain was not used to operate it. It would take a lot of time, effort and many tries before the new sense could be used as efficiently the “old ones”.
The energy inside Leshy started to become one and was either slowly condensed into the energy pound or just left Leshy’s body. After a few hours, the process finally stopped and in the vast darkness of Leshy’s inner visualization, only a small drop of energy could be seen but it was surrounded by brilliant light.
Leshy winked his eyes and opened them finding himself back in the cave. Then he closed his eyes, trying to visualize back that strange place and instantly he was back in vast darkness next to the pond of energy.
The place right now was very peaceful and he could feel it belong to him and no one else could possibly access it.
“Is this my inner world? I wonder what is the use of the pond here? So many questions and so little answers” he sighted mentally
He returned his consciousness back to the cave and realized that he still could feel that strange energy. Most of the energy in the room was now slowly circulating in the area of his stomach giving him a warm and pleasurable feeling.
That sensation was however constrained to only that lower area of his body as he could not detect much of energy anywhere else in his body. As an experiment, Leshy commanded some of the energy to move to his right hand.
After a while, he succeeded and a tiny bit of energy started moving upwards, giving a very delicate, tingling sensation. The energy firstly reached his arm, then forearm and finally, he could feel it in his fingers.
Then he started to circulate it back and suddenly the energy got lost. Leshy released a breath and notice his temple was all covered in sweat. Circulating energy inside was not only a hard task but it seems that a proper passage for that energy needs to be developed.
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Also, the energy level in this stomach was a bit lower after the experiment.
The event of swallowing the goblin’s core took a moment to describe but in reality it a very long time had passed. Leshy looked outside and realized the sun was already at dusk.
“What! I remember it was before noon when I woke up - it seems I spend whole day and night in that strange world” thought Leshy
“So it is my second day in this strange world and I almost died twice already.” He smiled bitterly cursing his bad luck ”What a scary place”
He stood up and was immediately surprised that various injuries on his body were not hurting as much as before. After closer inspection, he noticed that most of the wounds were already closed and the one on his side looked as if it was at least 2-3 weeks old and being partially healed as well.
“That’s unexpected. Maybe that strange energy is responsible for this miracle. I also feel much more refreshed, as if I had a great, long sleep“ thought Leshy
He could feel that there was also something different about his body. He felt stronger and his muscles seemed to have sprung to it, ready to burst with great power. Even when he was in his peak condition back on Earth he never felt this strong nor were his moves as fluid and agile as now.
“Now we are talking! I am really curious how much stronger I am now.” happily said Leshy
Leshy decided to firstly eat as he was very hungry and ate more than ever in his life, significantly lowering the available food supplies.
After the meal, he wanted to go to the direction from which goblins came. In the end, he knew nothing about his surroundings and the cave he was in already proved not to have any means to escape. It would be far too dangerous if more of those creatures crawl in here.
He also was starting to get thirsty as there were only a few mouthfuls of water left in canteens - one found on the goblin and the other which was part of the equipment from the kitchen.
“Before going for reconnaissance I should check out looted items,” thought Leshy while putting all of the items in his possession on floor. His small collection was made of two knives, spear, scroll, few torches, and strange telescope. He picked the telescope and look thought it - it had a magnifying effect but besides that, it seemed quite ordinary.
However, the scroll turns out to be much more useful. What Leshy thought at the beginning to be text about some yoga practices, was actually a description of what is qi and how it is being cultivated. That included information on levels of expertise in qi cultivation, the most basic method of exercising the energy and various tips and tricks.
Leshy got very excited and started reading that scroll with eyes wide open and heart pounding with joy
“Magic! It is genuine magic that exists in this world and is as common as breathing!” he screamed full of anticipation.
Based on what was written in the scroll, Leshy started to have a basic understanding of qi. It explained that there are many types of energy in this world however all of them are made up of qi, which means that qi is the smallest building component.
The qi comes from nature and may have different properties based on the environment it originates from. For example, hot places like for example volcano may produce a fire qi, forest on the other hand usually generates an earth qi. However, the type of qi makes almost no difference for those who did not manage to awaken spirit roots.
But what is a spirit root?
The scroll also explained about cultivation system in this world. The first step for every practitioner on the road of cultivation is to learn the ability to detect qi. Once he is able to do it, the second step is to absorb qi from surrounding and open 8 meridians.
In the process of opening meridians, new cultivation paths in the body are being open by qi which in process nurtures flesh. Thanks to that the more meridians are open the stronger physical person becomes and can also store more energy.
However, opening meridians is no easy task as there are bottlenecks to overcome, especially after 3,5 and 7 meridians. To breakthrough, those bottlenecks not only a huge amount of qi is required but additional insights must usually also be achieved.
Once all 8 meridians are opened, the spiritual roots can be awakened. Only by then one is being cold a true cultivator and steps on the path to pursue immortality. Opening each meridian grants an additional 10 years of living, while awaking roots makes one live to around 300-400 hundred years.
Awaken spirit roots, enables refined qi in the body and learning more advanced techniques that will utilize that energy. Sort of like spells in fantasy work.
However, that is just the beginning of a long and tedious path of cultivation. There are quite a few stages of advancement in the cultivation system with the first one being called qi gathering stage.
Qi gathering stage is made of 12 layers and those with newly awaken roots are categorized as first layer practitioners. In order to move the next layer, one has to increase the amount of qi in his body and breakthrough to the next stage. Each breakthrough refines the body and improves the qi quality by a bit.
After qi condensation there is Foundation Building Stage, Core Forming, followed by Nascent Soul Stage and Dominant. However, the scroll does not offer much explanation of the other stages besides qi condensation.
It only mentions that after each of the stage one becomes many times more powerfully due to a breakthrough moment called qi baptism and the changes in the nature of the qi inside a spirit root.