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Chapter 10: "Lightning in a bottle."
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While the task was simple, and the metaphor just as easy to imagine while meditating. The act of actually moving the divine lightning qi was exceedingly difficult. Shae knew from the old monster's criticism that her control was lacking, but to see it so starkly was annoying.
However, even through her failures there was progress. Merely attempting to interact with the lightning qi caused it to arc and react erratically, sparking along the inside of her qi channels and burning through her body to cleanse its impurities in a jarringly painful way.
After exhausting herself on the first day. Elder Ghon suggested she try some more normal cultivation. No elemental qi incense this time. Just scraping the scraps of qi from around the mountain's, or trying to move the mountain's qi itself. Both were equally frustrating tasks, but neither caused her direct harm. She thought she was able to do much more than with the lightning, even if it felt like uselessly straining muscles and squinting at dust in the air.
Going back to the lightning, her various mental images of batteries, tesla coils, high voltage towers, and tiny bottled lightning storms were all blasted away and destroyed by the powerful divine force. She even considered trying to form wires or other things from metal qi, but assumed that would simply lead to more damage from destroyed qi, or at worst, metal shrapnel flavored qi.
A small breakthrough came when she began experimenting with multiple mental images. At first she could only maintain two, which were the same image. With them she used one as a lightning rod, then had the second scrape a tiny bit of the passing lightning. It held for long enough that she could move it further down her channels and spread out the cleansing.
When she managed more, if she created too many, they were destroyed too easily, or the survivors held too little qi. Too few and she simply felt she was being inefficient, the single survivors not holding a lot of qi either. The bolts of lightning springing from the massive storm in her arm still lashed out. They damaged the flesh around her shoulder, and on one occasion, nearly paralyzed her when it hit near her spine.
She had to prioritize efficiency. She could only sustain so much abuse throughout the day. She disliked the divine cleansing, even though she knew the areas that were struck became thoroughly cleansed, slowly spreading the cleansed area out from her arm. Cleansing was her goal, but the lightning was so blunt and brutal it felt awful to let it have its way.
Her mental lightning containers morphed and changed slightly every time, as she sought out the ideal vessel. A can full of batteries became jars, then those jars were filled with storms made of static coated balloons, and this varied iteration continued throughout the days. The true breakthrough came not from technology and electricity, but divinity. The lightning qi was divine, and she had been ignoring that aspect. So she drudged up iconography from Earth religions past and present. She knew very little of this world's varied religions, so she used those from her old world, and it worked.
Variety was the key, small glass jars, filled with light or storms or sci-fi movie props. All were plastered with religious symbols for, who she was certain were, false gods. A litany of sacrilegious little trinkets to carry real divine power.
Shae had never been particularly religious in her past life. A bit spiritual, perhaps. Yet, she did not feel guilty. With the gulf of time and distance, both real and spiritual, between this life and that one, she felt no remorse for her little heretical jars.
Finally, the day came. "You have a method now? Something that is working? You have certainly been leaking enough toxins for it." The old monster asked one morning, nearly a week later.
"Yes, Elder Ghon. I can move.. maybe half a lightning strike of qi, the rest is discharged and cleanses my shoulder or side."
"Half? I have absolutely no way of knowing what that means. Though that seems the opposite of our goal, no?"
"Ah, right, the half gets split up into little jars, so I can spread it around, hmmm, about a dozen parts right now."
"Jars you say? Well, if it's working." He shrugged. "The practice alone must be working well, and improving your control. That was much harder when we started, yes?"
"Ugh, yes, so much harder, Elder. I couldn't grab any of the power when it lashed out at me. It would just burn every mental image away." Shae grumbled.
"Mental images? Ah, yes, I suppose that is a method some try. A cure for the curse of knowledge, some jest." He forced a light chuckle.
"Curse of knowledge? Ah! You mean like giving the qi too many ideas, like you warned me about. Yes I suppose that is it exactly, Elder."
"Yes and divine lightning qi would be one to have plenty of its own ideas, quite hard to break it out of that, so I heard." Shae nodded along, commiserating. "Well, if you are ready, I am here to observe. Throw some of that lightning at your Dantian and see what sticks, as your saying goes."
She frowned at his flippant language, but couldn't hold the stoicism so she broke into a smile. "Right, ready!" She exhaled to calm herself. "Just a bit to start." Then pulled her legs into the lotus pose to meditate.
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While she had done most of her early meditation laying in the bed, the old monster quickly corrected her posture once she was healthy enough to not need the rest. His primary concern was that she would continue to pass into slumber while meditating, a dangerous thing when she would later need to perform specific movements with the qi to match her cultivation manual.
Once in her calm mindscape. She summoned a few more than a dozen jars. Some would be used as bait, and thus lost to the lightning strike. She approached cautiously, examining the expanded area, she focused on her side, along her ribs where the edge of the lightning strike zone had expanded to. She thought it best to keep the distance traveled by the jars short, so this location was best.
She baited the lightning out by drawing a line with the jars, bridging the gap out of the storm. The majority of the jars formed a ring near the middle, and as the lightning passed, it flowed out like a spider's web to arc between the jars, much of its potential trapped inside. She flinched at the strike, something she assumed her real body would do as well. She never managed to not flinch at a strike.
Quickly she moved the jars away, along her qi channels, down her side towards her Dantian. Because she only needed a few, she tossed half the jars along the way. Shattering them against the sides of her qi channel. The stored lightning arced out and cleansed its way to her skin where small black dots of toxins formed. She barely noticed the pain from these smaller strikes, they still hurt, but were nothing to flinch at.
As her mental apparition reached her Dantian, she flexed it, sharpening the edges in defense of the oncoming assault. The jars smashed across the thin glassy surface, she was surprised to still feel no impact from the lightning. She had expected at least a little from the divine qi.
True, she could have simply emptied the jars and reused them. Yet, smashing jars was such good fun, and she didn't have a mess to clean up as the jar fragments simply faded out of existence.
The small sparks raced around the surface of her Dantian, bouncing along like runaway rubber balls that kept forgetting which direction they should be going. As she stepped back, to see the larger whole, she realized this was going to take forever. Unlike the other types of qi, which had been more like gasses slowly spreading out, or water and sandy earth for those two types. The lightning was not covering a lot of ground. If this was like the other elements, there would be one specific spot the qi needed to be to get drawn in.
So, with the encouragement of the lightning not hurting her, she went to fetch another batch. Another dozen plus jars were summoned, winnowed down to an even dozen and transported along her channels. She threw a couple away again, before deciding not to deplete her supply, she might need much more of the qi to find lightning's matching symbol.
Her grouping of jars had spread out, the first few reaching her Dantian, the last few still near her side when something changed. One of the arcing bolts struck a thin line and lit it up, suddenly all of the lightning had a target. The sudden pull was immense, the remaining arcs in motion changed direction in unison, heading for the strike zone, as they neared, some grounded early, lighting up more thin lines with a brilliant white gold, and the pull increased. The jars she carried shattered, the sparks working their way through cleansing her skin halted and reversed.
Shae had a sudden premonition, she saw the path she had inadvertently created and already felt the pull reach into her right arm, to the small storm still remaining. She tried to act but it was too late. Solid lines from the tip of her fingers to her Dantian lit up. Tracing through her qi channels along the path she drew for it, then along other paths, ones that were just a bit shorter, a bit more direct.
Her Dantian, receiving this impact of qi, did not shatter, did not even tremble. Instead the entire surface lit up, not with esoteric glyphs and symbols, but with thin lines. Mechanically precise, circles outlining the whole sphere, like the lines on a basketball, multiplied and overlaid, then made only atoms wide. They pivoted slowly past each other like the circles of many gyroscopes set to rotate against each other.
Fearing what the formation would do, Shea reacted by changing her mind. Whatever this formation was supposed to be, it wasn't hers. She didn't make it, she wasn't in control. But the divine lightning qi is hers, she worked for it, it is in her body, she owns it. She would not let it simply disappear.
When the second larger bolt began, this time from her right leg, Shae had made up her mind. Her Dantian pulled at the massive storm in her leg, untouched by her since her tribulation. The mental switch clicked over just in time. The surface of her Dantian shifted, a large circular opening in the pivoting golden lines formed, and the bolt of heavenly lightning qi directly entered her Dantian.
Her body spasmed viciously. From the first bolt, her arm jerked out, and again at the second. With her balance disturbed, she was already tipping over when her leg kicked out and her back arched. The old monster rushed in to aid her, catching her falling body fast enough that an observer might have suspected he had been ready for this.
He gently restrained her twitching form. Quickly repositioning her on the bed. He actively prevented her from injuring herself further, but he would withhold the use of his healing talismans until her loss of control passed. After a short breath of time, in a gap between spasms, when he thought she might hear, he spoke just a few important words.
Within her mental landscape, Shae's mind was nearly blank. The trauma had sent her physical body into shock, but her mind was also struggling. The heavenly lightning qi was completely contained by her Dantian, but its effects were not. Not just pain, but judgment and wrath. Each arc of lightning that struck the inside of her Dantian was an impact of imposed guilt and regret, a reminder of how she had defied the heavens, and of how attempting to contain the divine lightning qi was a mistake.
This only fueled her rage, and she pushed against the imposition. This qi was hers. She had earned it, contained and controlled it. She felt no guilt for her actions, no regret for she had not made mistakes. She had made decisions, and she would live with them, without regret. What divinity was this? What kind of heaven to only lash out with pain and wrath? Who would accept divinity that chose only judgment and wrath?
It was then that she heard the words, "It is heavenly qi."
The words rung with truth. Qi not just of divinity, but of heaven. And now it was hers. Her heaven. What was her heaven?
Like flipping a switch. The qi changed completely. Gone was the wrathful red and the judgemental gold. Gone was the guilt and regret. Now there was only peace, serene calm, and bright golden light.
As Shae passed into the dreamless sleep of exhaustion, her Dantian was filled with only clouds and golden light, shining out from some hidden source within.
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