I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for my day off. Jia and I had slightly different schedules so while she was already gone, off to perform her sect chores, I had the day to myself to do whatever I wanted, and I had a mission; reach the body training realm.
I got dressed and made my way down from the peak. It was a chilly autumn morning on Dou Can, much different than the ever temperate climate inside Setria 9. I was excited to see what winter would hold for me when it came, it was exciting to think about! I made my way down to the main sect compound and approached my first destination; the treasure pavilion. I needed sect points in order to afford body cultivation and other techniques and treasures so I decided I should turn in my tier four monster core for sect points.
I walked through the large, rough hewn, wooden doors of the treasure pavilion and was in awe at the spectacle inside. Myriad treasures lined the walls, all glowing bright blue to my qi sensing glasses. The sheer number of treasures I could see just from where I stood boggled my mind.
“Oh ho ho, it looks like a new outer disciple is visiting my treasure pavilion for the first time today.” The voice of an elderly man sounded out from behind the counter at the far end of the pavilion from where I stood. I walked to the counter and smiled at the old man.
“Hello elder, how are you today?” I asked, trying my best to be respectful.
“Oh ho ho, I’m no elder, dear. I’m but a lowly servant of the sect, but you flatter these old bones. I’m having a wonderful day now that you’ve arrived. Seeing all of the new disciples in the sect fills this old man with joy after all. Now what can I help you with, you’re new so I can’t assume you’ve come to buy any treasures.” He told me.
“You’re right, I am new. What should I call you sir? I’m here to trade in this monster core for sect points please.” I told him, pulling out the tier four monster core from my pocket.
“This old man’s name is Meng Tian, and oh ho ho that’s quite the treasure you have there. It isn’t every day an outer sect disciple brings in a tier four monster core, and the core of a qi devouring python at that! At the going rate for monster cores within the sect, and the relative rarity of the core of a qi devouring python, and because I like you, I’ll give you ten thousand sect points for that monster core."
My eyes widened and I balked at the number given my Meng Tian. That was an insane amount of sect points for me right now.
“Thank you, Meng Tian!” I said, a bright cheery smile on my face. I handed over my sect token and he held it on to a stone tablet next to him as he loaded my sect points onto it.
“You’re welcome, dear. Now are there any treasures you wish to buy?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No, not right now, but I do have a question. Do you know which peak has a place to cultivate my body with earth qi? And which peak is the nourishing peak?” I asked.
Meng Tian chuckled and pointed out the nourishing petal peak and shaking petal peak to me on a map of the sect. With my new destinations in mind, I left the treasure pavilion with a wave to Meng Tian and left for the nourishing petal peak first as it was closest.
I enjoyed the sights as I made my way up the mountain to the top of the peak. This petal seemed to contain a much higher abundance of plants and trees on their peak than any of the others. The diversity of plant life astounded me, and it took me longer than normal to make my way up to the top of the peak. I asked a nearby disciple for directions to their body cultivation building and they led me to a building that reminded me of a towering tree.
I paid the guards out front for about half the day worth of body cultivation and they deducted the points from my sect token. I went inside and was led to a large central room whose size seemed much too large to fit in the building. In the center of the room a towering tree of massive proportions sat, talismans and formation plates surrounding it and wrapping around it on strings. Its branches spread out to the higher levels and provided places for cultivators to sit and cultivate upon. On each level I could see the entrance to a bath house located within the building for cleaning up after cultivating.
There were a fair number of cultivators cultivating within the building that I could sense and after thanking the attendant for leading me to the room I found a secluded area to begin cultivating.
Cultivating wood qi into my body made me feel like I was a tree. Being nourished by the ground and feeling the sunlight streaming in from above filtering through the leaves of the grand tree nearby me. I felt the qi changing my flesh making it stronger and more resilient. Then my viscera was next, then my muscles, my bones, and my marrow were all changed. I awoke from my cultivation and felt stronger. I felt like a stalwart tree, unwavering and resolute. I could feel myself approaching the precipice of the body training realm. Only one more element worth of body cultivation was needed.
I cleaned myself up in the bath house provided by the nourishing petal peak and made my way out of the building.
“You’re out sooner than expected. Hand me your sect token.” One of the guards prompted me upon leaving. He held my token to the stone edifice next to him and gave it back to me.
“I’ve refunded the sect points you didn’t use.” He told me. I smiled at him and thanked him. He blushed and told me it was no problem.
I made my way down the mountain and over to the bottom of quivering petal peak. In opposition to nourishing petal peak’s lushness, quivering petal peak was almost entirely bereft of plant life. In lieu of plants, large boulders and rocks dotted the mountain as I climbed up. It reminded me of a wasteland depicted in the books I had read back on Setria 9.
I made it to the top of the peak and had a disciple point me in the direction of the body cultivation building. They kindly led me to a large building built more like a large box than a building. It was made entirely of stone and had boulders and rocks surrounding the entrance as decorations. A solitary tree made its presence known off to one side.
I paid for the rest of the day worth of body cultivation, planning to reach the body training realm and training my earth qi as much as I could for the rest of the day.
The attendant inside led me to a large room, similar to that of nourishing petal peak’s cultivation room. Where the latter had a towering tree in its center, this room was littered with more boulders and rocks than I had ever seen in one place. Some were stacked on top of each other, some were formed into man-made rock formations like arches, and others in some of the corners had divots and holes in them as if they had been used as target practice by body cultivators testing their strength.
The attendant led me to a secluded area near a few piles of boulders and one towering arch of rocks. As I sat down to cultivate, a bulky, body builder looking man walked over to me carrying a rock. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
“You, girl! You’re the girl from the admissions test that had a decently high strength score. I’m glad to see you’ve come to cultivate, it’s important to improve oneself as much as possible!” He said while flexing his muscles at me. Then I remembered who this was. This was Fuan Ji, the boy with the twin-branch steel spirit root. It made sense he was here to cultivate, steel being a combination of earth and metal spirit roots.
“Hi Fuan Ji, yeah, I’m here to cultivate earth qi today! It’s nice to see you.” I told him with a smile on my face, he seemed nice so far.
“It is nice to see you as well Astra. You impressed me with your strength during the admissions test. How far along are you in your progress to the body training realm? I’m cultivating my muscles with earth qi, but I’ve completed my training with metal qi last year.” He told me. That was impressive speed. He must have been cultivating since a young age if he was able to fully cultivate metal qi to the highest level before the body training realm.
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“I’ve cultivated all of my elements except for earth qi to the highest level.” I told him, a little embarrassed.
He looked at me with wide eyes before full on belly laughing.
“That’s mighty impressive. You must be a body cultivation genius to train this much in such a short amount of time. I look forward to testing my body against yours one day Astra, how about coming over and finding me when you’re done training for the day, and we’ll have a little competition of strength?” He asked.
That sounded kinda fun, and at least he didn’t call me a monster like Jia did when she found out my cultivation speed.
“Sure, I’ll come find you when I’m done!” I told him cheerily.
He left me alone to my cultivation then and I cultivated the earth qi around me. As I cultivated, I felt like a boulder, unmoving and stalwart. Unaffected by the wind nor the rain. I felt connected to the earth in a way I had never felt before. I felt one with the planet, one part of a greater whole.
I cultivated my flesh to become one with the world, then my viscera, my muscles, my bones, and my marrow all became one with the earth. As I finished cultivating my marrow, I felt I was missing something integral to reaching the next realm.
I thought back to my experiences cultivating all of the different qi types and formulated a hypothesis. Instead of focusing on just the earth qi around me, I pulled in all of the qi surrounding me. Each element could be found somewhere in the area around me, even within the earth qi cultivating building I was in. Though the qi was sparse, it was enough for me to pull in. I pulled in all of the elements around me and was vaguely aware of the small vortex I was creating around my body from the absorption of qi.
I felt inside myself as the qi suffused first through my flesh, then through the rest of my body until it suffused through my marrow. Once all of the qi suffused through me I felt it hit a barrier of some kind. I pushed against the barrier with all of the qi I had gathered. I pushed and pushed against it, sweating at the strain until I felt something give way. Suddenly all of the qi that was suffusing my body was absorbed into the various parts of my body, nourishing it. Then the pain came. An all-encompassing pain that had me screaming out. I fell to the ground, unconscious.
When I awoke, I found myself surrounded by worried looking disciples of various ranks. Some of the older looking disciples were smirking with a knowing look in their eyes, some were wincing with that same knowing look in their face. Fuan Ji was there as well, a worried look on his face.
“Astra, how are you feeling? You screamed quite loudly out of nowhere.” He told me, reaching out a hand to help me up despite my gunk covered state. He wiped his hand on the ground after helping me up, but still looked worried.
“Thanks for worrying Ji, I don’t know what happened. I think I finished cultivating my earth qi completely but when I used all of the elements of qi to push against this barrier within myself and surpassed it, all of a sudden my entire body was in this terrible pain.” I told him and everybody around.
Instead of Fuan Ji responding, a middle-aged man came up to the group and clapped a few times.
“Congratulations disciple!” He told me.
“That pain was your body being changed by the qi within you that you have cultivated. It means you have truly reached the body training realm now!”
I gaped at him.
“Is it going to hurt like that every time?!” I asked.
He laughed for a time and nodded his head.
“Body cultivation is one of the most difficult methods to cultivate oneself. It is not for those with a weak heart, but worry not, the pain should be less at each subsequent breakthrough. Do you need guidance on how to cultivate from now on?” he asked. I nodded and he beckoned me to follow him. He led me first to the bath house where he waited for me to clean myself up and emerge before continuing. We walked around the edge of the complex as we talked.
“The initial cultivation to the body training realm is straightforward, as you know. Suffuse your body with the qi of the necessary element until you have suffused each part of your body in order from flesh to marrow. Once you reach the body training realm; however, the method changes. Instead of suffusing your body with the elements, you’ll find each part of your body now becomes a vessel that can hold qi within them. As you know, while body cultivators do not use traditional spirit cultivation, we still have access to qi and cultivation techniques. Now that you are in the body training realm, instead of taking qi into yourself and containing it within each part of your body in order to cultivate, you’ll now need to condense the qi within each part of your body until that body part has become filled with qi. Then you can move on to the next part of your body.
Once you’ve filled each part of your body with the condensed qi of your elements, you’ll be able to push past the barrier into the body forging realm. Do you have any questions?” He asked.
I thought about it for a little bit.
“That sounds remarkably similar to the qi condensation stage of traditional cultivation. But traditional spirit cultivation has many more stages than body cultivation does right?”
“That is correct. While it can be said that the body training realm of body cultivation is similar to the qi condensation or foundation establishment stages of traditional spirit cultivation, that isn’t entirely true. The true correlation is much more nuanced. Someone at the peak of the body training realm would be closer in power to a peak golden core realm cultivator than a foundation establishment realm cultivator. You’ll find that once you’ve cultivated your body to halfway through the body training realm, you’ll be able to exude the same amount of power as a lowest stage golden core realm cultivator.” He said.
“So, it’s more like two realms in spirit cultivation for one realm in body cultivation?”
“That is correct, Astra.” He told me. I smiled at him.
“Thanks for explaining all of this to me sir!” I told me. He smiled back at me.
“Of course, young disciple. It's not every day that someone as young as you breaks through to the body training realm. It’s quite the achievement. Will you stay here and continue cultivating for the rest of the day? I’ll waive the body cultivation fee for you and have them refund you when you leave as congratulations from the sect for your accomplishment.
“Thanks! I’ll take you up on that offer, I want to kick start my earth cultivation and see how far I can get.” I told him. He smiled and waved to me as he left to go tell the guards his orders.
I went over to find Fuan Ji cultivating with a boulder still in his arms above his head.
“Hello Fuan Ji.” I told him
“Ah, Astra, I see you have finished your talk with instructor Qian. Are you ready to have that competition? Though I feel it may not be fair any longer as you have reached the body training realm.” He told me.
“Of course! And don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because I’m stronger than you now.” I told him, a smirk on my face. He smiled at me and laughed heartily.
“Ha ha ha! Challenge accepted, Astra!” He said.
We walked over to the part of the room where people could test out their strength and stood in front of a large boulder with myriad holes and divots in it.
“I’ll go first.” Fuan Ji said, walking up to the large boulder and taking a fighting stance. He coated his body in the silvery steel qi and punched out at the boulder. A loud crash resounded through the room and when the dust settled, a foot deep fist sized hole was left in the boulder. I clapped a few times and cheered Fuan Ji on.
“Woo! Good job Fuan Ji!” I said. He smiled at me and motioned for me to approach the boulder. I walked up to the rocky edifice in anticipation. How strong would I be now? I had access to both body cultivation and spirit cultivation, should I use both? No, I should just test my body this time.
I walked up to the boulder and took a strong stance. I reached inside myself and coated my body in the iridescent qi of my myriad elements. I felt how the qi suffused my body, making every bit of myself stronger. I was overflowing with energy and power, and I punched out faster than even my own eyes could register. A overwhelmingly loud crash resounded out across the room interrupting the cultivation of each person within. The dust took some time to settle, but when it did a veritable crater was left in the boulder’s face. The crater was at least my size in height and width.
I looked back to find the gathered crowd of people all gaping at the boulder in shock. I chuckled, a little embarrassed but still proud of my new strength.
I imagined how much stronger the punch would have been had I also used my strength from my traditional cultivation and marveled at how strong I had become.
After leaving the earth qi body cultivation building, I got my refunded points from the guards and made my way back to flowing petal peak and to my dorm room. Jia was waiting for me when I returned and I excitedly told her all about the events of the day. She hugged me when I told her about breaking through to the body training realm and congratulated me.
After I finished my story, Jia told me about her day, though it was less exciting than mine.
“Actually, Astra, I was thinking about something today.” She told me. I quirked an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to go on.
“I don’t have a lot of sect points, and I don’t want to ask you to pay for me to enter body cultivation, so I was thinking we should go on a mission soon.” She told me. I smiled at her and agreed.
“Let’s go find a mission on our next day off chores then!” I told her.