It had been almost five years since I had been born into this world or this place. I still wasn’t exactly sure what this place was. There was cultivation, and one thing about cultivation worlds that I knew from stories was that they stretched on infinitely or close enough and death was around every corner.
I was in no rush to make hasty judgements. Unfortunately, I had been a hasty baby and a young child. My father, the honorable merchant Yuan Chen, had taken an interest in me, his seventh son of his fourth concubine.
Being a baby had been incredibly boring. So, while I had a safe and happy life with my mother, Yuan Wen, they had deemed me a genius. I wasn’t a genius, I just had memories of a college student from Earth, who had been working on his dissertation on using AI for traffic light control. It wasn’t glamorous, but I had high hopes it would land me a top paying job with its original research and applications.
Now I was in a medieval world, with its own rules, language, and culture. I had poured everything I could into learning to speak and read. If I was getting a second chance, I would not squander it. My mother had an allowance from my father, and she hired tutors, who rushed me through lesson after lesson, praising me endlessly.
I had died while in the college study mindset, so it was easy enough to keep that going for several years. Now that I had mastered the language, I had been looking into the various histories, curious of the geo-political situation.
It hadn’t taken long to confirm that yes, cultivators existed, and my father had a couple on his payroll to protect his caravans and home. He had a long-term contract with the Cloudy Moon Sect that controlled the Soaring Peaks province we lived in.
I didn’t know what kind of contract my father had since I was not allowed or involved in the business decisions. I had six older brothers who were involved in various aspects of the family business. While I was lucky to be born into an upper middle class family, I wanted power I read about in the legends.
The ability to fly and to command the world to my whim. Immortality, so I would never die again. The respect and admiration of all. That meant pursuing the path of cultivation. Anyone with ambition pursued cultivation in this world, and I was not without ambition.
So, I asked and pestered my current tutor for information on cultivators. It was all flowery prose, and it was impossible to determine fact from fiction, but the core themes remained consistent. I had been offered a minor reward from my father for my progress in my studies and had held off requesting anything until recently. I asked for permission to speak to one cultivator under employ.
He had been hesitant, but eventually agreed. My father warned me not to be offensive and to be on my best behavior. That was how I was currently kneeling outside the door I had knocked on, waiting for a response. It was clearly a power play and probably to test my patience by the head of security of my father’s estate. After ten minutes of waiting patiently, I heard a man speak up from inside the room.
“Enter.” I got up and slid the paper door to the side. An older man with a long white beard, wrinkles, and flowing blue and white robes sat on a cushion in the mostly empty room. I entered, slid the paper door shut and then kowtowed before this man.
I had learned in my etiquette lessons that cultivators stood above others. My father would deeply bow to all cultivators, even the ones he employed. They were the weapons of war and power in this new world. Their prestige and standing were above all others.
“Greetings honored cultivator. I am Yuan Zhou, seventh son of Yuan Chen and I ask to speak to you about cultivation with your permission.” I said, while keeping my head touching the polished wooden floor.
“A mortal child comes before me. A supposed genius. Your father requested me to indulge you. Raise your head.” I did so and remained sitting on the wood floor in the seiza position, with my legs tucked under my bum. He had not given his permission to speak, so I was respectfully silent while he stared at me. After a minute, he spoke up. “Speak child.”
“Thank you, honored cultivator. I have read many texts on cultivation, but their descriptions were overly flowery. I wish to inquire about the stages and how one progresses through the ranks of cultivation,” I inquired as politely as I could.
“A bold question. You seek instruction in the cultivation arts and understanding?”
“Yes, honored cultivator,” I replied with the hope he would become my master or tutor.
“Then a test of your intelligence. Since you clearly have the patience to cultivate.” I had been right, those had been tests. “Why do I, an honored cultivator, work for a mortal like your father?”
I contemplated the question. It wasn’t simple or easy to answer. The crux of the issue is why people revered as highly as cultivators would lower themselves to work with people they saw as beneath them.
The simple answer would be for money or a debt. But while that touched on the truth, it was too simple. I considered the man before me. I went for broke and displayed a bit of cheek or insolence with my answer.
“You wish to live comfortably as the years pass.” I noted his eyes widen slightly.
“Insightful and ultimately correct. I have reached the great bottleneck and will go no further than the Core Formation stage. Even after a thousand years, this Yi Rong wants to live his last days in peace. Now a child comes to disturb me.”
I remained quiet and kept looking at him and did not bow my head even when he glared. “You are bold and patient, two qualities that will be needed if you wish to walk the path to cultivation. Very well, I will instruct you, Yuan Zhou. For these are no great secrets to what you ask. Any mortal could find the information you seek with enough wealth.”
“Thank you, master Yi Rong,” I said and bowed my head. When I brought my head back up, Yi Rong immediately went into lecture mode.
“There are nine stages of cultivation. But your concern will be with the first four. For while every stage builds off the last, the first stage truly determines your future. Qi Gathering, Foundation Establish, Meridian Attunement, and Core Formation. For at the end of those four stages comes the first great bottleneck, where all are brought low, even geniuses and young masters with far greater backgrounds than yours.”
“I would say that ninety-nine percent of all cultivators never go past core formation. Of that remaining one percent, ninety-nine percent gamble at a serious attempt and cannot reach the fifth stage. One out of every thousand cultivators makes it beyond that point.”
“Everyone, including myself, believes they will get some luck, some hope, but it is the great bottleneck for a reason. The reason I explain this is so you understand the pain you will feel after a thousand years of work, for it all to be for nothing.” I gulped at this, but I was interested and truly curious. I paid attention like I would in a class that I liked by giving my full and undivided attention to the lecture at hand.
“The first stage, Qi Gathering, determines your future. The standard that all sects and people use is to advance to the second stage by twenty years of age and no later. One can advance later or earlier, but twenty years is the optimal time period to show temperament and focus.”
“Children rarely have the patience. Why waste resources on those who would be useless? So, while there are a lucky few, the sects wait and then recruit at twenty years of age all those that have made progress they have been deemed worthy.”
That was actually smart. After twenty years, the personality of a person would be settled, and the sects could look at their history of cultivation. How focused were they? You wouldn’t want to hire someone who played the equivalent of games on their phone all day and waste resources on them.
“The first stage is what you want to focus on. The goal is to collect motes of free-floating Qi into yourself. This is the divine energy of the heavens and the earth.” Yi Rong raised up one hand and I felt something weighing me down.
I thought it was just the occasional speck in my eye, but those specks I had seen growing up were the motes! There were only two in the room I could see. They brightened considerably for a moment and then faded to nearly invisible pinpricks of light I could see.
“They are invisible most of the time.” This was a reincarnation advantage! “But special candles, advanced techniques, and environments can reveal these motes. One merely draws them into their body and places them inside their astral soul, which overlaps their physical body.”
“Therefore, the stage is called Qi Gathering. The minimum standard of most sects is 80,000 motes and the average most people reach by the age of twenty is 100,000 motes. The elites and those truly focused would reach 120,000 motes without pills.”
That was a lot. It would be about 10,000 motes per year. “But those are sect standards. But Qi revealing candles are expensive. Ten taels would be the average price for one from the Alchemy Guild.” That was a lot. A teal was a silver coin, the upper currency of non-cultivators, and a thousand bronze coins made up a single tael. A laborer could earn ten bronze coins a day, so a Qi Gathering candle represented a thousand days of work. That wasn’t cheap at all.
“Now you see the challenge for people seeking to walk the path of cultivation. That many Qi motes are necessary, otherwise a person’s astral soul will collapse at later stages. Ask your questions.”
“What would be the upper limit on motes? Is there an upper limit, master Yi Rong?” I asked.
“Well, that proves you aren’t a demon in disguise. For no one with knowledge of cultivation would ask such a stupid question. The second stage, Foundation Establishment, requires one to align those motes to either their body or soul. To walk that path of cultivation. I walked the path of soul, as do most cultivators.”
“Aligning the motes takes time. So yes, someone could be stuffed full of resources at the first stage, but there is no way to use resources for the second stage. That is why sects have learned to see what people can accomplish on their own. If they don’t have the focus to gather motes, then will they have the focus to align them?” Yi Rong shook his head.
“While we can make the path easy, cultivation requires work. Once you align and place the motes inside your body, then you will move onto the third stage, Meridian Attunement. Meridians are points at the edge of your astral soul that draws in energy. The more motes you gathered, the more meridians you can support at a standard ratio of one to one thousand.” I was paying close attention.
“Once your meridians are constructed, you must form your core. Drop by drop and compress it. The great bottleneck.” Yi Rong let out a soft sigh. He stopped speaking, so I took that time to ask a question.
“You mentioned you are a thousand years old, master Yi Rong. Does each stage really take so long?” I asked.
“The higher you go, the harder and slower things are. People invent tricks and the sects keep their methods secret as well. But to align motes in the second stage, a genius could do 4,000 per year. If they had 120,000 motes from the first stage, that would take them 30 years.”
“A genius would craft 4 meridians per year. That would take them 30 years. But then the great bottleneck. Even with 120 meridians, one can only gather one drop of refined energy every 10 years in the Core Formation stage if they are a genius. You would need 100 to 1,000 drops. That is at least 1,000 years for the bare minimum requirement.”
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“While a person will live longer at each stage, it takes more and more perseverance and hope that you will beat the odds and make it to the end before you die. I probably have a decade or two of life left and I have only cultivated 63 drops and formed a liquid core. One needs a solid core that has at least 100 drops to advance to the fifth stage.”
“Many people look for advantages, try pills, and other things with limited success or they aren’t sharing. Core Formation is called the great bottleneck for a reason. Spend too long on the early stages setting up a foundation that would be amazing, and you will die before you even get to Core Formation. Rush, and you can’t cultivate fast enough.”
“Can’t you align the motes while you collect them master Yi Rong?” I asked.
“No. That is what separates stages. You cannot go back. Once you align motes, it will repel all other motes from you. You cannot draw them inside your astral soul. Once you craft meridians, you cannot move the motes that are aligned inside of you. Once you make your meridians and channels, they cannot be undone.”
“Each stage is a permanent change to your astral soul that can never reverted. People try different things, but those who veer from the paths that have been taken all perish. The sects make people study and write up a report on past failures and then they have lectures. It helps reduce idiocy by a large amount.”
“You are from the Cloudy Moon sect master Yi Rong?” I asked.
“Retired and yes. I entered with 100,000 motes so long ago and steadily worked my way up through the stages. Too low. Far too low, but I had thought I would overcome that hurdle with the time I would have in Core Formation. I wanted to rush ahead, thinking I could get resources that would help me later. The foolishness of youth.”
“But there is nothing. There are hundreds of people just like me, everyone thinking they would succeed where other people failed. Failure to advance to the next stage will mean losing your astral soul forever. I had guessed you were reincarnated or a demon hiding as a human child, but your ignorance proved otherwise.”
That didn’t sound good the way Yi Rong’s tone grew heavy there at the end. I didn’t let myself focus on that right now. If I showed interest, that could lead to trouble. “How does one go about taking these motes into their astral soul, master Yi Rong?” I asked.
“Simply allow them to intersect your body. Once inside, you will feel them. It takes some practice, but after the first couple, you will become used to it. Then you move the mote inside your body, and collect the next one, and the next. They will remain within you once you grab hold of them with your focus.” I nodded at this. That seemed easy enough.
“Anything I should avoid, master Yi Rong?”
“Do nothing with the motes. They will enhance your body to a degree. People like to talk about ranks inside a stage, but the difference isn’t that great. For every 10,000 motes, you would reach another stage. So, at 120,000 motes, you would be a 12th Rank Qi Gatherer.”
“But trying to use them or align them will lead to long-term issues. Just gather them up. If you get enough, the sects will invite you in.”
“Are there options besides the Cloudy Moon sect?” I asked.
“There are, but I would caution against that. While sects aren’t enemies, they are rivals and your father works for the Cloudy Moon sect and I am from there. But it is only a middle sect. To qualify as a sect, one must have at least a single person in the fifth stage or higher. They would be a low sect. They come and go like the passing of the seasons.”
“A middle sect like Cloudy Moon has the knowledge of past people who have climbed up to the eighth rank. Where the second great bottleneck occurs. Having an elder at that rank qualifies a sect at the middle rank.”
“A high sect would have a ninth or higher stage cultivator who has achieved immortality. I only know of two on the continent. The Blazing Sun Sect and the Imperial Sect, which has nominal control over all mortal affairs.”
“Sect life is harsh and cutthroat. Everyone is looking for an advantage and no one is truly your friend. Everyone is focused on cultivation and getting resources. That is why staying in a place where you are known and they know your father will give you some protection if you join,” Yi Rong explained. I nodded at this. There was no rush to make a decision. I needed to gather motes.
“Master Yi Rong, thank you for your guidance. May I seek your guidance in the future?” I asked.
“Sparingly, child. I wish to enjoy my last few years. Youth are in such a hurry, but I suppose you need that. I will also add that while your father is rich, he will not be able to easily provide candles or other tools needed to gather up motes of Qi. If you ask him, you must be prepared to sacrifice much.”
I nodded slowly at this. It made sense. Such an investment was more than college, and there was no immediate return. Even if I got into the sect, I would be at the bottom of the pecking order. It would take years and years to climb my way up. My father, mother, everyone I knew would pass away, then my siblings would pass away, and then their children.
“Thank you for your guidance and lecture, master Yi Rong,” I kowtowed to him.
“Take your leave, child, and let an old man wallow in his despair.” I said nothing, since there was nothing appropriate to say, and left Yi Rong’s room as my mind continued to go over all the possibilities and everything I had just learned.
I slid the paper door closed behind me as I left. A servant was waiting for me. “Your father, Yuan Chen, requests your presence in his office, young master.” I nodded at this and followed the servant. I knew the way, but they probably wanted to be sure I didn’t wander off and address any concerns the guards might have with me going to my father. One couldn’t just walk in and bother him or just talk with him.
That family drama seemed minor compared to what I had just learned. I paused when I saw a mote floating in front of me. It was hard to focus on a bright batch of blurriness. I reached out my right hand but it drifted away. I swung my other hand through the space quickly, but the mote moved upwards. My right hand swung through the space the mote tried to escape to and I felt something inside of my hand.
I focused on holding it there. “Young master?” the servant asked me.
“My apologies. I was just caught up in my thoughts.” The servant nodded, and I continued to follow them while focusing on the pin prick I felt in my hand. A little focus and I could feel that pinprick moving about.
Just another 119,999 to go before I turn 20 years old. I would need to do some math and look into getting as many motes as possible as quickly as possible. Starting the next stage earlier would give me a huge advantage.
The big issue was that these motes weren’t common. That was something I had noticed. Another reason I had thought they were just eye issues until Yi Rong had corrected me.
We reached the door to my father’s office. This one was solid wood and not paper to keep out the sound. The servant knocked on the door. “Enter,” my father said, and I entered the office. The servant stayed outside and closed the door.
My father was standing in front of his desk. I stopped a short distance in front of him and kowtowed as was polite since he was my father, senior, and had superior status compared to me, a child. I had breezed through the math and economic lessons from the tutors, but the language and etiquette lessons had really required me to focus.
“Rise, my son,” my father said in his deep tone. I got back up to my feet but stood with my head slightly bowed and my hands in front of me. The proper subservient posture when standing before a superior. “So, you talked with the cultivator, Yi Rong. Impressed him probably, since you spoke for so long. I would have thought he would have thrown you out for your impudence, but apparently, he likes you.”
“Yes, father,” I replied.
“Look at me, Yuan Zhou.” I looked up at my father. “Seventh son, a genius, I am told. Your mother clearly wasn’t exaggerating. If I say I would fund your cultivation studies, what would you say to that?” A lot of verbal traps were all over. But it was a cultural thing. To ask open-ended questions and let people hang themselves or showcase their brilliance.
It was not my preferred style of conversation, but I already knew how to answer. “I would thank you, father, for your generosity and thinking of my future. While I am confident I can meet the requirements on my own, I would ask for a small stipend to invest and gain the resources I need myself and an introduction to the sect on my twentieth birthday.” I could see him narrow his eyes.
“A stipend, you say, and an introduction? I have heard rumors that the heavens favor geniuses, but to hear a four-year-old child give such an answer is impossible. But Yi Rong did not strike you down, so you are no reincarnation of some past devil in the body of my child or a demon. A veritable genius, how perplexing. Hmmm.” I said nothing while my father looked at me.
“What gives you such confidence you can succeed?” my father asked.
“The heaven’s favor father and belief in myself. If I fail, then I will fail, and the failure will be mine. But if I succeed, then I shall enjoy the benefits of my success. I believe I will succeed without a stipend, but it will make my path easier.”
“Bold words, child. But for a child to say them… You are an oddity. If I support you on your path. I will give you three things and ask for three in return. Think carefully, for I will ask the heavens themselves to watch over the deal.” That made me hesitate. I didn’t know if the heavens were actual contract enforcers.
“Let me hear the offer first,” I replied, and my father grinned.
“At least you have some sense in you. A stipend of a tael of silver a month until you go to the sect on top of your living expenses for one favor this family can call upon you once you are a cultivator.” I considered the wording.
“I can agree to that as long as I can complete the favor and it won’t put my life at grave risk.”
“If you become a cultivator, then that favor will be worth far more unused and will protect this family for centuries. Many other families do similar things, but their children die, fail, or lack strength. But the rare few that hold on to that favor, well, no one would risk such a thing.” I am glad my father explained that to me since I would have never figured that out.
“The second thing would be an introduction to the Cloudy Moon Sect. I know a senior elder at the fifth rank who I could introduce you to, and he would bring you under his protection while in the sect. But I can make no promises to being taken in as an inner disciple.”
“In return, you would do the same thing for five more of my descendants if you become an elder in the sect.” That was an enormous commitment, but I could probably foist them off.
“I will not agree to anything now. When the time comes closer to join the sect, I will have an answer,” I replied, and my father gave me a nod.
“Very well. The third thing. If you require cultivation supplies, or more than a stipend, you merely have to ask, but they will incur debts. Cultivation is not cheap.”
“I understand, father. If I am ever struggling. I will remember your offer and kindness,” I replied.
“Well, let me see what you spend your first twelve tael of silver on.” My father went over to a chest on his desk and opened it. He fiddled around, and I could hear the clinking of metal. He came over and handed me a pouch.
“Open it,” he said, and I opened the pouch. “Count it.” There were twelve silver coins. “I am curious to see what you do, Yuan Zhou. That is more wealth than most people see their entire lives, but a drop in the bucket for a cultivator.”
“Thank you, father,” I bowed towards him and clutched the money pouch.
“Let’s see if the heavens truly favor a genius,” my father said. I bowed again, and he waved me off. I quickly left his office, clutching the money pouch tightly. My left hand quickly darted out, and I got another mote of Qi. That made two.
A guard gave me a look but said nothing while I just smiled and kept moving back to my part of the compound. I wanted money. Since I couldn’t work as a child, I needed to focus on business and investing, and it would lead to more money. But in reality, it was just an excuse to be moving about and collecting motes, not money.
The hard part was coming up with a business plan and making more money as quickly as possible. If I did something, I needed to do it properly and get more money and save up for the future stages. I would need to assess the situation first in town and put the money safely away. The pouch was too big for my child sized robe, so I just held it tightly in my left hand, against my chest.
I made my way back to the courtyard and rooms my mother, my younger sister, and I all shared in the family compound. She was only the fourth concubine to my father and the youngest, not even the head wife. As the seventh son, my position was also at the bottom. I had some favor, and my father knew me, but that was nothing.
“Foolish child,” my mother said with a sigh as I entered the sitting room. “Asking your father to speak to that old cultivator and then meeting with him. What did he say? What did you say?”
Yuan Wen was beautiful, but believed herself far more important than she really was. She was my father’s love bunny to put it lightly, and she was already getting older. Now her fortune and livelihood rested on me, her only son. Since her daughter would at best be married off as a favor to another household and she would be stuck in a forgotten corner of this compound aging into obscurity.
“We spoke of favors and cultivation. I turned down my father's offer for cultivation supplies and asked for a stipend instead,” I replied.
“Foolish brat! Bronze coins instead of becoming a cultivator. You are an idiot, and we are doomed,” she let out a dramatic sigh and flopped herself onto a nearby couch, resting her hand on her forehead. She was going full drama. My mother was not a drama queen, but a drama empress. It would work on a child, but not on me.
“Well, I plan to go into the city tomorrow and look at businesses to invest in,” I replied. I wasn’t about to tell her I got silver instead of bronze. She would take the money, waste it, and then blame me. Everyone would know it was her, but they wouldn’t say anything, since she was a concubine. She had no genuine power, but she also couldn’t be touched.
“Do what you want. You can take Ting with you. She was saying she wanted to get out of the compound for a bit,” my mother said tiredly.
“Thank you, mother,” I replied and went to my room. The first thing I did was carefully hide five of the eleven of the silver tael inside the scroll caps, of various scrolls I had on my bookshelf. The other six tael I hid in the dirt of a potted plant inside my room. I kept the last tael in the pouch and now that it had deflated, put it inside my robe.
I reached out and plucked another mote from the air. That made three. I smiled and quickly went over to my desk and the sand tray there. It was for practicing my symbol-based writing. I much preferred English and proper math over the nonsense that was used here, but when in Rome, be a Roman and all that.
It seemed even more important not to get labeled a reincarnation or demon. Both seemed bad, and it was something I would have to ask once I spoke with Yi Rong again. Looking at my sand tray, I began working out the math.
At 120,000 motes in 15 years was 8,000 motes per year and about 21.92 motes per day. That was a lot of motes. There didn’t seem to be that many about either. I had been looking for them and while I noticed some up high; they were all out of reach.
My range was very limited. I would need to move about more. Perhaps investing in some physical training to run around might be a good idea.