What is Mana? A great question to ponder at length.

Mana. Qi. Life Force. Focus. Chakra. Spiritual Energy...

Regardless of the name the many civilizations and people over the eons gave it, it all concerned the same mythical spark of life, the energy that fed the Soul, the basis for all magic.

This energy, this Qi, could take on many different forms and functions depending on its structure, concentration, type of manipulation, and environmental abundance. Cultivators used it to strengthen their bodies and their Souls, the core of any living being that could interact with this freely available energy everywhere in the world.

[But where does this Qi come from?] It was a question I posed to the Elder teaching us the basics. We were out in the open, sitting on a soft grassy lawn, listening to the lecture.

“But Disciple, you already know the answer.”

I do? How come I don’t remember it then?

“Everything is a cycle, life, and death.”

The cryptic words of the Elder were such a pain in the ass. Why couldn’t he explain it in simple terms?

“Isn’t Qi just dead Souls?” One of the outer disciples rose his hand as he said so. His words sparked a bonfire in my mind, realization hitting me like a brick-loaded truck.

“That’s nearly correct.” The Elder nodded with a soft smile and continued. “When a living being dies, the Soul leaves the body and disintegrates, returning to its most basic, stable form. We call that form Base Qi or just Qi for short.”

That… That made so much sense I couldn’t believe it never clicked in my brain. I was absorbing Souls and growing my own, manipulating Mana, or Qi, on a grand scale, and never realized it. It just went to show how different points of view could cloud our judgment. But that realization just brought more questions.

[But why do the Souls dissipate? And how fast does that happen, esteemed Elder?]

The Elder looked at me. I think he was a bit annoyed I was interrupting his lecture, but he answered nonetheless.

“A Soul cannot survive without the protection of a physical body, without containment, and it just falls apart. As for how fast it happens, it depends completely on the realm of Cultivation. A weak Mortal will dissipate in mere moments, while someone at the Golden Core Realm will take around an hour to completely disintegrate. Note that these are generalizations though. Nothing is set in stone.”

Interesting. Then if we advance along this train of thought…

[Does that mean that resurrection is possible? If the Soul can be put back inside the body?]

The Elder pinched his glabella and sighed. “Generally the answer would be no. Once the connection between the body and Soul is severed it is not possible to recombine the two. However, there exist some artifacts that can capture Souls and then forcefully bind them with a corpse or an object. Just keep in mind that such things are rare, and even if the binding is successful, there will always be some damage, mostly in the form of memory loss and Cultivation decline.”

Fascinating! I always wondered about such things. Well, at least I knew for certain there was no afterlife or reincarnation. Everything had an end, as it should!

But wait… If Souls die… where do new Souls come from?

[Forgive me, Elder…] I rose my hand again, another question in the chamber, ready to be fired. [If all Souls decompose… where do the young Souls come from?] I know, I know… It was a lot of questions on the first day, but I really wanted to know.

“There is no Soul without Life, and there is no Life without a Soul.”

More cryptic words from the esteemed Elder. He basically just said it was a chicken and egg problem. Much knowledge, such wow.

[Yeah, but if Qi just keeps increasing over the millennia, does that mean that Souls just come into existence from nowhere? Or is there something that gets depleted in return? What if it’s-]

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“Enough!”

Ops… The Elder appeared quite angry.

“Sit down and shut up, Disciple! It’s the first day, for Heaven's sake! Learn the basics first at least, before you go reflecting upon the deep nature of the world!”

[… Sorry.] He was probably right. I should learn to Cultivate at first, everything else could wait.

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The lecture went on for a while, and we came to learn many things about the first Realm of Cultivation. The Foundation Establishment.

The short of it was, we had to refine our Souls once to officially step onto the sacred Path. But then we had to refine it nine times more… Or was it nine times in total? I wasn’t really paying attention. Anyway, there was a nine in there somewhere, and Cultivation should get progressively more difficult, but I could worry about that later.

First things first, we had to meditate to open our third eye, or Magic Eyes, as I liked to call it. A few of us have already achieved it on our own, so we went on to the next step, which was detecting our own Souls.

I could do that as well, but I pretended I couldn’t so I wouldn’t stand out too much. I was already in a small group as is.

Secretly I paid attention to those that were still working on detecting Qi manually. Many of them were successful in about an hour, while most needed two or three. Both Alyx and Chity took less than two hours, while Che took just a bit over that.

I still remember when it took me an hour to achieve that, so really, I wasn’t so different from these guys. I just had more experience.

The entire day was spent sitting in a lotus position, listening to the Elder’s advice, and training. Towards the evening, it was finally over. Many stomachs were already rumbling in protest, demanding to be filled.

And you could guess where the majority went to get their fill. That’s right, the overpriced restaurants and food stalls!

I could see some of the Outer Disciples fuming at the high prices, but they were hungry, so they paid nonetheless. Not me though! My friends and I still had some meat stored back at the camp. It might not be as mouth-watering as that of professional chefs, but at least it was free.

And when everyone becomes broke, we would instead feast for cheap!

We chatted as we ate, heating the leftovers over a small fire. We made a stone fire pit under the canopy and sat there, relaxing.

It was an interesting, but long day tiring us out, and so as the sun went down, so did we. We each went to our separate homes after saying goodbyes and went to rest.

I took this opportunity to finally focus on what I was meaning to do for a long time already.

I took a minute to steady my breathing and calm my excited mind as my body completely relaxed. I sat on my bed, legs crossed, and hands on my knees.

Fully mindful meditation, begin!

My consciousness sank deep inward when in my mind’s eye, my Soul emerged in all its glory. It was black as always, only now streaks of fiery red and orange ran through it, like a layer of cooling cracked magma.

At the edges, I noticed a thin, nearly invisible layer of dark crimson that was, instead of a smooth surface, jagged and wrinkled like old skin. The telltale signs of corruption. It was odd since it wasn’t there after my resurrection, but then I remembered a few animals died around me over the last month or so, so that was probably the reason why.

I focused my mind on it, mentally cutting it off with extreme precision. Soon my Soul was in pristine condition for the first time since… Well, since I could remember.

In the Before, a part of it was always corrupted as I was involved, personally or not, in much death and destruction. I never had the opportunity to truly begin my Cultivation journey, until now.

I focused my mind and did what I had to do. I hugged my Soul, took control of it all, and squeezed.

The mist-like shapeless thing collapsed on its own as I did so, almost as if it was just waiting for permission to do so. I was slightly confused, I’ll admit. Was this supposed to happen? I remember the Elder said there should be resistance, so perhaps I should squeeze more? I gave it a try.

I focused my mind and mentally squeezed again. The second time I for sure felt something before it collapsed in on itself. Its size decreased and its density increased.

If I was forced to explain the sensation, the best I could come up with would be that it felt like slightly squeezing an extremely airy ball of cotton. I seriously doubted this was what the Elder meant by resistance.

And so I tried again.

And again.

And again…

After the fifth try, the Soul didn’t simply collapse anymore but instead required some effort to push it into a smaller shape, now taking a form of a rough sphere. It still wasn’t too much though.

After the seventh try, I already had to struggle, and it took me a good amount of effort and mental energy to complete… whatever I was doing. Compressing my Soul and whatnot. I was not really sure.

My ninth attempt ended in failure. My Soul became simply too dense and small to squeeze any further. Perhaps I had to grow it a bit further so I could complete the nine… refinements?

Wait, this doesn’t sound right… Oh, shit! Did I forget to refine my Soul and skipped the first step, going straight to compression?! But it felt so natural doing it, I completely forgot that it was supposed to be in the second realm, the Spirit Accumulation!

… Did I just mess up my Cultivation foundation? Fuck.

I opened my eyes and released a helpless sigh. I was too excited to begin and mixed the order of things. Or did I? What did refinement even mean?

My Soul felt pristine after I cut out the tiny corrupted chunks, so maybe it was fine? Oh god, I sure hoped so. Wouldn’t that be a disaster if I waited so long to begin Cultivating only to mess it up on the first day? Talk about irony!