Quietly, Xing Zheng sat down at the peak of his mountain in a lotus position. Slowly and methodically he cycled his mental energy, gathering the neutral Qi of heaven and earth before converting it to the Azure Sword Qi that the sect sword style was named for. By holding that energy in his dantian the mental energy within became more and more saturated, quickening the gathering of Qi. This process was neither slow nor fast as the complicated Azure Sword qi was hard to control for someone of Xing Zheng’s level as such he needed to maintain a decent level of mental energy to contain it.
After three hours Xing Zheng’s dantian could hold no more qi and his mental energy had peaked. Holding the storm inside of him Xing Zheng took the briefest moment to reflect. At this moment the culmination of 140 years of struggling would either bloom and set him on the path to everlasting life or the energy he had worked so hard to painstakingly gather would erupt leaving no trace of him left. Suddenly every wound, every cut on his body burned with an angry sting, the scar under his eye screamed with phantom pain.
For a moment Xing Zheng was back inside that arena, the multitude of small wounds screamed in pain as the raindrops fell upon him, and his brother prepared to cut him down. In that pain lay the bitterness he had felt towards his family, the self-loathing he had for his lack of talent, and his despair in the yawning face of reality. When he felt that he could no longer hold on, that the weight of a hundred years would crush him, a single thought pierced through the torrent of emotion.
It was the memory of a gentle smile, on a face he had almost completely forgotten, a gentle expression that spoke of calm patience. At that moment the memories seemed to flow away as the pain became as normal as the ever-present sound of rain. Compared to the eternal rain of the world and the apex of martial arts, how could mortal memories compare?
A promise had once been made to the man who held that smile, to reach the martial peak and find out what stood there. Smiling at the thought, Xing Zheng allowed the feelings to wash over him. The downpour threatened to wear away even the sturdiest mountain however, Xing Zheng was no longer a mountain, he was the rain itself.
For how could rain wear away itself? With flowing ease, Xing Zheng grasped hold of the Qi looping in a circle inside his dantian and then in a burst refined as much qi as he could in a moment overflowing the limit he could hold, plunging over the cliff and starting his ascension to Qi Condensation. An explosion of physical pain wracked his entire body while the violent energies surged inside of him, pressing the walls of his straining dantian to the limit.
The physical pain was like nothing Xing Zheng had ever experienced in his over a century of life, his mind was swallowed whole by it. At this moment Xing Zheng heard only the softest patter of rain akin to the quietest thing he had ever heard. Slowly the patter grew louder and closer, rising ever higher. Xing Zheng felt like this storm was something that had always been there, he had simply been forced to be a silent observer of it.
Born to never feel the true freedom of the storm's wind, the journey from heaven to earth, the raindrops experience, and the true vastness that encompassed all of the storms. Suddenly, the walls between Xing Zheng and the storm shattered, he was the wind, he was the rain, the clouds. He was everywhere at once and also only in each place, the awareness of each raindrop as a whole and as individuals.
Xing Zheng understood what needed to be done as he pulled on his Azure Water sword pulling it into his now thrumming dantian and pushing the qi that now gushed into him through his refinement technique. Heaven and earth qi thrummed as it was converted to Azure Sword qi and pushed through his body weathering at a blockage that existed between his dantian and the outside world. Slowly with the patience of the rain wearing away all things, Xing Zheng battered the edge of the loop, formed by his cycling technique, against the blockage.
Each thrumming cycle of the loop of qi and mental energy grew more powerful, chipping away pure black impurities and allowing small amounts of qi to wisp through. After what felt like an epoch Xing Zheng finally felt a surge of pain and from his seven orifices flowed pitch-black bile and blood. Outwardly the stench was enough to make him wretch however, inside of his qi channels Xing Zheng could feel the power flowing in through his forming Qi Condensation meridian.
Before attempting this breakthrough his master had informed him to pay special attention as his meridian was opened. Most rogue cultivators that achieved this level missed a vital opportunity during the process. During a Qi Condensation breakthrough if awareness could be maintained it presented the chance to inscribe the meridian with a technique, spell or even the core of a formation. This would double the effectiveness of the inscribed technique while halving the energy cost. In this case Xing Zheng chose his cycling technique as his master had instructed him to.
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If this opportunity was missed there would be no chance in the future to inscribe the meridian simply leaving the future strength of the cultivator weakened by that much. Most rogue cultivators who lacked a master to teach them this did not know whether to laugh or cry when they learned of this fact!
This was a crucial step and Xing Zheng took the utmost care in battering his looping energy against the meridian and slowly using the edge to inscribe Dao runes into it. These Dao runes represented his accumulation in his cycling technique and once fully inscribed would keep the technique always active within his newly opened meridian, passively gathering qi and divine sense. Inscription complete, he finished the final step moments before the meridian was fully cleared and formed.
Pushing with full strength on his Azure Water Sword, compressing it with a refining technique as he inserted it into the center of the meridian, tying it to his cultivation base. This sword would now be his vital treasure and be able to be stored inside his body when not in use. This opportunity to bind a vital treasure was another chance that was missed by most. Even cultivators who had masters to teach them the techniques to bind vital treasures would most of the time lack a treasure of sufficient quality to bind to their foundation so fundamentally. It was in times like these that Xing Zheng could not help but sigh in awe at the fortune he stumbled on in the form of his powerful teacher.
Finally, a shockwave blasted out from Xing Zheng as he burst to his feet from his sitting meditative position. The sheer physical power of the movement formed a hemispherical void in the rainfall hundreds of kilometers in radius. Like all things the void was quickly washed away by the rain and soon it was replaced by the humming of the air as the clouds directly above Xing Zheng condensed to a point. Steeling himself Xing Zheng sent out the set of defensive array flags with some spirit stones to power them. Next he summoned his sword in front of him, slowly drawing it from the sheath as he gathered all of his qi, preparing to resist the wrath of heaven
The first bolt of heavenly tribulation lightning slammed down into the defensive barrier-breaking through the center of it as Xing Zheng wove 100 sword phantoms at different angles into the lightning strike. With a sizzling of the air and a thunderous explosion the bolt was directed a few degrees to the side and left a crater on the western side of the mountain 500 meters deep. Xing Zheng grimaced, according to records the lightning would double in strength with each bolt culminating with the fourth and final strike being eight times more powerful than the first. By the estimates of his newly condensed divine sense that sword technique had taken about 5% of his current energy reserves.
He needed to conserve as much Qi as possible while making sure to not suffer a crippling injury in the process. Although Xing Zheng was processing these thoughts at great speed due to his cultivation base the second bolt still came before he could think of a way to further lessen his energy usage. This bolt looked more like a pure beam of cylindrical power the width of a man's arm than a lightning bolt. The raw power of the heavens poured down on him as Xing Zheng used 150 phantom sword strikes from his ‘10,000 Drops Birthed from the Sword’ technique attempting to disrupt the bolt's power and direct it to the side.
Searing pain lanced through his body as the bolt landed 100 meters away from him drilling a 1000-meter-deep crater and sending a shockwave that almost knocked Xing Zheng over. Only the power of the defensive formation strengthened by Xing Zheng’s qi had allowed the ground under his feet to remain solid. Xing Zheng mentally checked his Qi reserves and felt he only had 85% left, he had only used 8% in that attack but the execution had been sloppy causing the redirection to land too close to him. Even with his meridian inscription constantly activating his cycling techniques, there was simply far too little time to accumulate a meaningful amount of extra power, at least with his unfamiliarity with using the newly formed power
With his current level of skill, the Qi gathered had all been used up to strengthen the formation. Quicker than even the second the third bolt arced through the air, this time a pure column of white heavenly wrath as thick around as a tree. Xing Zheng focused and marked 200 points for his phantom strike, carrying out the technique with a fluid grace that far surpassed even the most powerful mortals' capabilities.
The phantoms were shattered like glass under a heavenly hammer and the bolt passed through them and destroyed the defensive barrier instantly. Xing Zheng quickly executed 50 more attacks, half of which his sword physically contacted the bolt with qi imbuement causing those strikes to be far more powerful. The bolt lanced down straight through the mountain with such momentum it drove a straight line through before detonating far below.
Air boiled as the very heat that had come from the strike shredded Xing Zheng’s robe and charred the skin on the right half of his body. He could barely feel his right hand which was now a charred mass of flesh tightly gripping his sword. Being a newly ascended Qi Condensation cultivator Xing Zheng could still move his arm with these injuries however, his movements would be impaired significantly. Menacingly, the final bolt gathered in the air, coiling in a circle of power instead of attacking as soon as it formed like the previous bolts.
Xing Zheng calmed himself and raised his sword in front of himself in salute to the heavens. Steam boiled as the bolt fell forming a carriage-sized pillar of heavenly energy formed solely to stop Xing Zheng from starting his journey. This was the moment, the final step. Would this be the start of his path or the end?