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Chapter 68: "Contemplating Comprehension."
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Shae was disappointed. She knew attempting the monk's ritual was a long shot, and that it might not even work. She knew Nurse Joi might not want to participate. Yet, she was still disappointed.
She promised to apologize to the woman. Based on the woman's eagerness to leave the formation, it appeared that Shae's actions could have caused Joi to rush and maybe forcefully complete her enlightenment sooner.
The formation had come as quite the surprise. From the faint sense of his qi, she could tell it had been Doctor Cho who laid out and activated the qi barrier. She also promised that she would thank him thoroughly.
That left her alone with her qi, and with her thoughts.
She decided to do something she should have been doing during her previous enlightenments. She would contemplate her enlightenment. Previously it had been a mad rush just to absorb the qi. Yet now, with the formation in place, she had time.
Progress.
It is a real concept supported by the heavens. Titles and ranks were not just about power, but the work the individual had put into their personal progress, into their path.
The heavens would eventually recognize that progress with a tribulation, and the extant power served as reward for overcoming that tribulation. Even if the reward was only progress to the next stage, that still had great benefits: longer life, deeper qi reserves, and many other things that Shae only had hints of.
Those around them recognized that progress with formal titles. Even a fallen cultivator, whether through failure or death, was still recognized by their grandest title, and their chosen Daoist name. Brother of Perpetual Reflections was an immediate example of that. Elder Ghon would still be Elder even now, even if he lost his core and died of his condition.
This was a particular revelation to Shae because she had assumed it was solely a power move. To force those you believe are lesser than you to acknowledge your power with every sentence they speak to you.
Simply making a false assumption wasn't enough for the realization to become an enlightenment. It was the fact that it was tied to the heavens. That the heavens recognized progress, and so those under heaven should recognize it as well.
Even her own titles were related to the heavens. Wise because she aided the enlightenments of others. Heavenly because she survived a tribulation.
This was also closely related to her previous contemplation about the golden parts of tribulation qi and what it meant. She had essentially just settled on recognizing it, and enlightenment qi, as being progress.
With these thoughts the flow of qi above her pulsed stronger and felt like more opportunity. While she didn't consciously know she had delayed her enlightenment from a few nights ago. She did remember that she ignored one during the canyon battle.
So I shouldn't be surprised that it's here now. She accepted it wholly, the flow of divine qi doubled, maybe tripled, and joined the swirling mass around her. She smiled internally and continued to contemplate her past revelations.
Her mind wandered back to the battle, landing on the most emotional moment. The one she hadn't been prepared for. The mind numbing static-filled horror of seeing her friend motionless. Her gut wrenched and she forced herself past it. Apollo is alive. She forced herself to breathe and relax.
Parts of the woman's words came next,
> "Our path is about control ... The heavens want us to... challenge it... Yet, it isn't upset by our progress."
She made the words echo in her mindscape. Like she was really hearing them now and not just remembering her senior's silent message. Apollo's voice fluctuated through a blend of her past voices, not quite able to settle on just one.
Punishment. She remembered. We challenge it and it punishes us? Something about that still felt wrong. I made a wrong assumption with anger, so perhaps the others should be seen in a new light too. Punishment, test, and progress. Test feels flimsy. 'We challenge the heavens.' She repeated the line. Ah! The word is right there.
We challenge the heavens. It meets our challenge in kind. Sculpting the difficulty to that of the challenger. That is the test, the whole tribulation is the test, it is the challenge.
The punishment, then, is failure. As the saying goes, 'Failure is its own reward.' The heavens are not upset for the challenge, they are probably more upset over our failure. Failing the challenge simply becomes the punishment. She was repeating herself, to herself. Yet the words felt good. There was a simple elegance to the explanation that was forming in her mind and she needed to feel it out.
Progress then... is gained from success. The progress of simply having overcome the tribulation. Possibly the progress of gaining more insight from it. In my case, harnessing some of the lightning qi.
She smiled to herself and felt her face twitch with sleepy muscles, her meditation had suppressed most of the gesture. She didn't let it bother her; didn't even need to actively let the sensation pass by. There is a refined elegance to the tribulation's challenge, a simple barbarity as well. Like challenging someone to a duel. You won, or you lost. It's that simple.
She pondered applying that simplicity to the other aspects of heavenly qi. Sure, you understood something to obtain enlightenment, or you didn't. You were guilty of whatever inquiry, or not. She nodded but knew she hadn't fully comprehended them in the same way. She would need to contemplate them later. Now was the time for progress.
And what literal progress have I made? She wondered. Certainly some. Yet, on the scale of similar cultivators? It feels like very little. Most of the cleansing I've done was during physical labor, not intentional cleansing. It's not even close to matching the tribulation's cleansing.
She sighed at the progress seemingly lost. So much of the divine qi I've collected was spent chopping logs and fighting off that curse.
Not wanting to wallow, she let her mind wander out of itself. To feel her surroundings and body. She was staggered.
Qi pressure and density greater than that of the mountain, greater than most she had felt, poured down onto her. She gasped and the qi filled air stung her mouth and lungs. The sensation passed in the next moment, but came again when she next inhaled. I think it's burning me, then healing almost instantly because it's divine qi.
Enlightenment qi poured into her channels through her acupuncture needles. Saturating her channels and increasing the density of her personal qi within. Her qi felt like a thick golden honey, yet moved faster than wind. It rushed around her channels, slammed into the bends and bruised them. Only to have them healed in the next moment from the enlightenment qi flowing in its wake.
Crap, I've been absorbing it too bloody slowly. She watched the chaos, sensed the walls of the formation bulge outwards, and similarly felt her own body strain and ache. The sensations were a cacophony of pain and relaxation. She now knew that the divine qi had done far too much to maintain her mental state through the heavenly downpour.
The only outlet was her Dantian. As qi passed by it the small opening she had left vented a sputtering froth of thick gold qi into her inner space. The gold poured down into her Dantian. Some caught the outer ring of enlightenment qi. Some sparked off to the other rings, but most poured into the center of her qi planet unhindered, just as molten metal cutting through fog would be. She could feel the center was quickly growing heavy. Not solid, not likely liquid, either. Regardless of how her qi felt, she denied the possibility that she could already have liquid qi. What good would it do for me now, anyway?
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She reached for the mental lever to widen the hole to her Dantian, to accept all of it from around her. Yet she hesitated. What progress had she made? How could she accept this fountain of recognition for so little cultivation progress made?
Then her exposed skin and eyes started to burn worse than her lungs had, and she reflexively threw open her Dantian.
Like her memories of the geyser rushing into the air: the thick fog of enlightenment qi spewed from her channels into her Dantian, followed closely by her honey-dense personal qi. It rushed into her as well, still mainly entering through her two pierced acupoints, rushing just as much until it all suddenly slowed, like the pressure had vanished.
She mentally scowled in confusion, the pressure outside was still there, it still flowed in through her special hairpins, pooling in her channels. But there's nothing forcing it to cycle through my channels, she realized with a little scrap of horror twisting her guts.
Forcing her own qi back out of her Dantian seemed a slower option so she began manually forcing the divine qi to cycle, pushing and pulling it through her with more effort than she had needed in a long time. The now ultra-dense qi ball she had been holding outside her body drew her attention as it jumped towards her from the barest touch of her intent to absorb qi.
It was much faster than her reaction. Like a tissue paper getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner: as soon as it was close to her spiritual tools it arced with gold and red lightning and was in her channels, raging along. She stopped it from all blitzing into her Dantian. Reserving it to help her cycle.
She literally and mentally gasped for breath. The shock had broken through her meditation, and forced her to recenter herself before she could continue.
Breathing steadily again, she began to notice this qi was different from the qi she had just held. It was more full of anger and rage, like her old red qi was. While the golden-honey felt completely different. It had been soothing yet crisp, with a spark of energy like a good cup of coffee. Hmmggh! Haven't had coffee in so long. She took another breath to let the craving pass, acknowledged, yet not stuck in her train of thought.
Huh. But this old stuff does feel so much like my old version of what the red qi was. It's acting like it's stuck with that anger. She gasped at her own words, not just like, that is exactly what it's doing. Elder Ghon's old comments about 'giving qi ideas' came back to her and a lot of what she was told seemed to click into place. Things she already knew, but only intuitively understood. Qi can have so much information packed into it. It can hold more than just ideas, but Dao, and those are not even slightly simple.
It was a personal revelation; perhaps like a little enlightenment of its own. Yet if she received more of the divine qi for it, she couldn't tell.
The tingling pain in her skin was beginning to fade and she relaxed with it. Allowing her qi absorption to slow as well. She quickly found the nagging question of an unaddressed thought which she had begun earlier. What was to show of her progress?
Comprehension was certainly progress. Understanding and refining one's qi was progress. Experimenting with various practices was some small progress, as was strengthening her mental focus. But still, it nagged, what did she have that could show her progress?
Intellectually she knew she was being silly, letting the question get to her more than it should. I have made progress, I have. I don't need to show it. Then she remembered that her cultivation couldn't be sensed correctly. Ugh, even if I did make progress, would anyone know? Am I going to need to cleanse to perfectly white skin just so people can tell I've finished?
The enlightenment qi was doing a great job keeping her relaxed and healthy. Yet, being told to be calm was not the same as actually being calm. Still, it was enough to let her get a few reasonable thoughts in. To take a few breaths and actually start to calm down.
She forced her thoughts to battle the spiraling anxiety. I will get through cleansing. I will get to core formation, eventually. As long as the shield isn't stopping me from progressing, it's an advantage, right? Do I need the external validation of everyone knowing my stage? I don't. I really don't. Probably.
The angry demigod qi she had refined outside herself still raced through her channels, and she finally felt it actively bump her emotions. Brother chucker! It's this shit! She considered just throwing it all away. Yet it was so dense, so powerful, and had consumed a not insignificant portion of her enlightenment to get that way.
With intense focus and the last dregs of her enlightenment, she worked through her comprehension of tribulations again. Using her mental focus and intent to convince the unruly qi that it should be fundamentally different. The heavens are not angry, not wrathful. You are the challenge, that which proves one greater than what's expected of them.
It fought back, in a way. Looking like it would change then rolling back to how it started. She had to make several attempts and had to drag out a drop the dense golden-honey form of her qi that was stored deep in her Dantian. Just removing that one drop was difficult: it felt so heavy.
The globe of qi in her Dantian was now packed with layers of different density qi. The similar ones rolled around and into each other, slowly converting neutral qi into her personalized form. With the density of the centermost qi making it almost feel solid. It wasn't, of course. It wasn't even liquid yet. She could tell from the single drop that it still wafted and wavered like a gas. It didn't even have any surface tension like one would expect from a liquid. Should it?
While the dense qi was clearly powerful, she could also tell why people didn't refine it this dense immediately. It was much harder to use, and once in her qi channels it was hard to stop and control. It regularly bounced off the outside corners of her channels whenever they changed directions.
Focusing back on the angry qi. She broke down her explanation into smaller and smaller increments. Eventually finding more detail in her intuitive leaps than she even knew was there initially.
The last dregs of her enlightenment lasted much longer than she expected. It became clear she had misunderstood the remaining density because her reference point was set much too high by the chaotic overabundance.
She drained the neutral qi from the area as well. Pulling in whatever was inside the shielded formation setup by Doctor Cho. And with that the angry qi finally converted to a red-gold syrup. Still not liquid, she chided herself for thinking of it as one. The qi wasn't perfect, she felt it still held more of the anger and direct challenge like the wrathful lightning had. Yet, it had absorbed the drop of golden qi, suggesting it was close enough that she chose not to be worried about keeping it.
She brought it into her Dantian but didn't immediately toss it into her personal qi planet. Hmmm, she hummed and looked at the state of her ringed planetoid. It had grown again, as had the rings. Yet only the ring with the tribulation qi and larger bolt of ribbon-lightning had remained stable. Likely because it had previously held the most qi.
The enlightenment ring was now spread out like a massive nebula. All of the cat's eye marbles were hard to find. Half of the warning marbles, which she now knew were better named challenge marbles, were scattered into the nebula, the other half had dropped into the dense globe.
She drew those out first and set them into a tight ring to keep them out of the way, then added her new glob of red-gold challenge qi to it, they are a matched pair, she figured.
Organizing and finding the parts of the enlightenment ring. The two ribbons and the cat's eye marble of elder Ghon's enlightenment made her realize she might have missed an opportunity. She stopped and immediately focused outside herself. Trying to form the memory of this enlightenment into a physical object. Or metaphysical, probably?
She felt the qi around her swirl with her own, but nothing happened. She was clearly missing some part of the equation. One or more features of the mountain incident that had allowed her to do it so effortlessly.
She sighed and returned to her Dantian to clean up the mess caused by the influx of enlightenment qi.
Once gathered, she felt disappointed. It seemed like there was less than what she had in Flame Well. Though, I did use a fair amount of it to refine my qi. She looked at the central globe, and most of it probably merged with that, since I wasn't controlling it so closely. Hmm, that's probably what's supposed to happen, yeah?
She hesitated before returning to reality. Taking the time to look her metaphysical self over and ensure there was little damage to her flesh or channels. Ensuring that she had absorbed and stored away all of the divine qi. She kept a small amount in her channels, of course. The thinnest of her personal qi and the neutral qi absorbed from her surroundings. Presumably, it is packed with elemental qi types as well?
During the closer inspection she found divine qi trapped in corners rarely observed. Then more contained in her acupuncture needles. The acupoints were raw like fresh skin, as were the channels and points next to them. She winced at the memories of pain caused by the rush of her dense qi. The enlightenment qi seemed to function as a fairly potent pain suppressant. Not eliminating it, but allowing one to work through it, yet somehow doing nothing to prevent memories of the pain. Perhaps that is why so much more is possible with enlightenment qi? That is rather dangerous, though.
Her fingertips tingled as though they had circulation cut off for the past while. If she focused on them, so did her eyes and other patches of skin. She narrowed it down to only her uncleansed flesh that had been exposed during the event, but it was uneven, like a sunburn. She groaned in anticipation for what she would find on walking up. Assuming I don't just pass out immediately.
Remembering the wave of exhaustion caused by focus use: she wound her qi use down slowly and waited for the wave of soreness and the edge of darkness that would overtake her.
It wasn't what she found first. Instead she could taste the air, stale and dry. A crust of dried spittle at the corner of her lips was rough and uncomfortable. The same crusty feeling was at the edges of her closed eyes, like she had woken from a long sleep. Twitching the fingers on her left hand, she felt tight skin and more dried crust. Her right was mercifully free of restriction and she raised it to her face.
"Stop," rang out the commanding voice of Nurse Joi.
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