Chapter 6
All I have to go on is the lore from cultivation novels, and the biggest problem with that is; well if I am just being honest, they are fictional creations based on an author's imagination. While I am, however, am not living in a novel, a trope which I had always hated upon reading. I now found myself having to hope that it was true, because if I am a character in a novel my life will no doubt continue to get worse. The amount of hell that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life will no doubt be close to pushing me to the edge of what a human can deal with both in body and mind, all for the author's sick enjoyment. The only upside will be that I will no doubt find myself exiting this hellball with an amazing build. As he has no doubt a complete understanding of how to deal with the energy of this world, which is now flowing through me. In real life, everything is completely different from what the ivory tower academics get the time to leisurely write about. They get to craft every aspect to perfectly power up their chosen hero, going over every little detail of his journey, so they can push him to the bounds of his abilities before driving him past it. I wonder, just for a moment, if I should wait and see. Force the universe to act and illuminate the path I should take. It has crossed my mind before when things have been too hard or too easy in my life. Do I really have free agency or am I just a puppet for some greater being, shoved around for their amusement. Stopping the hamster once again I pause it before he can start pulling up bits of my life to confirm or deny one of my most thought queries.
Getting back to my current predicament I think back to my favorite novels. While most cultivator series have had some things in common, they also all had their unique aspects. So trying to figure out my way through this without crippling myself was going to be hard. Honestly the only thing worse, would have been finding myself in a system universe, and using those thousand of assumptions out there to try and come up with the perfect character sheet!
I had already decided that I wanted to upgrade my Qi channels and meridians. But how? That was going to be the hardest part. Most cultivation systems either had the Qi channels as something physically cutting through the cultivators body, with the core being a physical gem in their center. This core held the Qi ocean, holding on to the energy to either contain it; or aspecting it for the cultivators use of casting techniques, or spells if I want to be crass. Alternatively if the cultivator was a body cultivator, he would use the energy to level up his blood, muscles, tendons, bones and skin to be able to hold greater energy and perform superhuman feats, before eventually reaching god like abilities.
The other cultivator system would have the same functions but the Qi channels, meridians and core would be metaphysical, not actually part of the body but overlaying it in another dimension.
Having gone on a tour of my body multiple times now, having to move along with the Chaos before sending it rocketing back out of my mouth. I still had yet to see any place that I would consider the core. Focusing on my center diaphragm area, I followed the Chaos around everywhere, but was only able to interact with it minimally, mostly indirectly by controlling my blood to force it around it. Making another circuit around my body I just let my conscience float through around and through, not thinking, floating like I was on a lazy river. Trying to keep my mind as blank as possible I stopped trying to interact and ‘see’ what was going on and just floated and felt the beat of my heart.
THUMP!
THUMP!
As my heart continued its pounding, I felt the speck of Qi that my conscience had latched onto, like an intertube. I felt it continue to make its way through me, pushed along through my blood by the incoming energy behind it. Floating along to where I was sending the Chaos back out, I put all of my effort into nudging it to stay in and taking another circuit. I was just barely able to keep it from vomiting out in the torrent that was leaving me. As I continued on my next circuit, I realized most of the pressure, that was forcing the Qi around the blood flow, was coming from the incoming Order Qi that I was breaking down. So, if I had any hope of finding my core, I was going to have to shut off the tap for a bit, and just work with my own internal energy. There was too much external movement clouding everything up. Letting go of my little chaos raft, I did my best to try and zoom back out slightly, like when you go from focusing on a single letter on a page, to looking at the whole paragraph.
Looking at my body, I focused on the point the Order was entering my lungs. Looking where it was breaking down into Chaos, before it was then propelled through a river of my blood to its ending. Where it was driving back up through the center of the Order, drilling a hole right through its middle. It was like looking up at an iceberg falling into the ocean that is me. Only as the iceberg is hitting the ocean, it is melting after making it only partly in; and instead of splashing down in a tsunami, it is sending a jet right up the middle. Perhaps a horrible analogy, but I don't have a better explanation for what my mind is interpreting.
How do I stop an iceberg from falling? It seemed like an impossible task, yet at one point I had obviously done it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have found myself now in the position I was in, had I not started meddling and randomly poking buttons looking to eliciting a reaction.
Everything started with the first moment of intense desperation that opened up that quarter inch. If I hadn't had the desperation that had broken through the walls holding me. I would either be trapped with my mind either aware and insane; or I would be blissfully ignorant, missing out on this lovely vacation that was lasting lifetimes. Waiting to pop out when the ball opened back up. Either way this shouldn't be happening, and if I was going to go back to the status quo. Then I needed to be careful to keep some Chaos inside of me, lest I find myself in what should have been instead of in what now was.
What should have been was stasis, trapped in amber waiting to pop out (hopefully) when the ball opened once again, either transformed like a butterfly or more likely, just popping out as myself. If I was going to transform into a beautiful butterfly, then I was going to have to go back to the status quo and instead of poking buttons randomly I was going to have to manipulate them with understanding. Most novels had your body and soul as inviolable to external forces, so if I operated on that logic first, I must have been able to send out the tiniest external force to unlock the first bit of Order, breaking it down into Chaos. Following that thread of thought along, either I had continued to move the Chaos around myself, using it to continue to break down the Order, snowballing it until it had reached my open mouth. Finally allowing the Order a channel into me, or the Chaos had broken down the order on its own without my help. Either way, I was going to have to close off the opening above me, locking it back into the original order barrier, at least temporarily, so that it stopped washing the Chaos out.
Going closer to the monstrous iceberg that was crashing into me, I tried to put myself right where it was breaking down, and hold myself there. At first, I kept getting kicked out in the Chaos wash, but I kept focusing on my need to be there, this was my body and I was all of it. This was my body! This energy had no right to move me around in it.
No that wasn't it, it's not a matter of right or wrong. Because at the end of the day, might and force will always win; and if I use that argument, then I would need to become mightier than the iceberg crashing in. That couldn't be how I broke my finger free originally. Before, there was desperation and I had reached a realization unknowingly. That realization had to have been along the lines that I was incapable of being held. So I just need to focus on thoughts like that and feel and believe them.
This is my BODY! Nothing else matters, focus on that concept. Hold it in your head. You are lord and master here. You aren't being invaded by this Iceberg, you have torn it free from the universe and you are consuming it, breaking it down and spewing it forth when you are done with it.
A slight shudder.
So again I roar it forth unto the universe: “THIS IS MY BODY! I WILL CONSUME YOU AND TAKE WHAT I NEED!”
Again the monster continues to crash back into me. Again I shout it forth, trying to capture the emotion that got that slight reverberation, again and again I shout forth my defiance to the heavens. Isn't that supposed to be how it goes? The MC is supposed to defy the heavens until he conquers them, and makes them his own. Focusing on that, I continue to feel myself getting brushed back farther into my blood.
Latching onto a different bit of Chaos, I let it take me around and around again, as I pondered what I felt. Confused as to why my demands were being unmet, yet the Order was still being turned into Chaos, breaking down and continuing to be released into my body. Coming back to the beginning, I sent the mote around again, mindlessly, while I continued to ponder. Around, around and around again, each time as I got back to the beginning, the mote tried to fly out on its momentum and I nudged it back into the river as I tried to understand. I had felt something, I was sure of it. So why as I screamed out my defiance. Did it seem like the universe pushed back worse?
Again I came back to the beginning and as I started to send it back around again effortlessly it hit me. Power doesn't come from volume. The scariest people aren’t the loudest. The scariest beings are the ones most certain in their superiority. Little dogs are the uncontrollable yappers, big dogs are calmer, for the most part. They don't yip and yap, they don't have to. A whisper from an emperor can move armies. A whisper from a conspirator, certain of their power, can remove an emperor. You can shout at the ocean to stop all you want to, it will ignore you. And yet if you walk out into the surf it will flow around you.
“stop”
Just that simple statement was all I needed. This was my body and here, at least, I was me, nothing else mattered. Maybe I couldn't control the world, I couldn't escape this prison. But here, in this body, nothing else mattered. I was in charge.
“stop”
And it did, the Order remained outside my mouth but the Chaos still continued on its circuit.
“stop” I commanded once again and the Chaos shuddered once before then continuing on its path once more, and I found that I had run up against the limits of my power rather quickly. When you go out too far into the surf, the waves will knock you under. The Order started crashing back down but again I focused on it slightly and said again. “Stop.” And it did. Okay well baby steps are still forward momentum.
Focusing on the Chaos. I decided to experiment just a little bit. “Speed up.” This it did effortlessly, no longer being forced through by the Order. The Chaos doubled its speed, now spewing back forth out into the Order. As my veins began emptying of the energy, instead of sending it out into the mountain holding still above me. I started to circulate it, having it go around again, holding on to it, keeping it contained in my body.
With no more pressure pushing into it, the Chaos bounced around, now contained by my own internal Order barriers. Circling through my circulatory system effortlessly, not because it was forced onward, but merely because that seemed to be the nature of the energy. This perhaps might have been why I was able to stop the Order hanging above me, as it was in line with its nature. While I remained unable to stop the Chaos with my current understanding, only able contain the energetic Qi, not lock it back into Order.
Around and around I went. Searching for anything that might indicate I had found my core.
Around and around endlessly. Bouncing.
Bouncing through again.
Opening my mouth, I let another half of the Chaos out, feeling even less pressure internally.
Around and around, the mote I had attached my thoughts to went, still bouncing along.
Opening again, I let the remaining Chaos go, only holding onto a singular mote. Yet I still couldn't find anything. Confused, I decided to try something else. As I came back around once again to the beginning. I looked at the iceberg still hanging down over me unmoving. “Come.” I stated, and a mote broke off, this mote was bigger, however it seemed like Order Qi was more like a brick at its most basic point, compared to a pea size bit, that the Chaos I was attached to remained. It floated over to me and as it grew nearer, it suddenly shot towards the Chaos, which itself in turn bulleted into the Order. Continuing the rest of the way over to me, the Order brick turned into a globe. As the Chaos sent itself around the interior of the Order brick, bouncing around the interior, punching it out until it smoothed over the interior, giving it equal space to move in any direction.
Letting this new, dual mote, of singular order and chaos loose into my bloodstream. I attached myself to it, and let my heart pump it around as it would, giving it no direction. It went around fully until it made it back to my heart. There it seemed to catch itself in an eddy, where it swirled around the heart a couple of times, before being sent out again. Again it made its way around my bloodstream, before once again being caught in the eddy in my heart, where it swirled around before again being kicked out randomly. This time I let it go while trying to maintain my focus where it was. Eventually the mote once again made its way around, and while it circulated in the same point like there was a whirlpool there, before it again eventually got kicked back out to make another trip around the body.
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I sent my conscience floating over to where the invisible whirlpool was. It didn't seem to be affecting my blood, so I waited for the mote to reappear on its journey again. This time I tried to compress my thoughts down to a smaller entity than the globe, I needed to figure out where this whirlpool was pointing. This seemed to be the only way I could find what I figured was either my core or a meridian, depending on lore. As the Order mote’s new house-size beach ball came hurtling towards me, with its baseball mote of Chaos bouncing around inside of it. I saw the baseball hit a point on the house size ball, and like a magnet, that point stayed facing a singular point in my body, despite the ball rotating around the tornado-like vortex.
Immediately I dove for that point. Diving through the heart I went underneath it, where I ran into a speck of blackness. Overjoyed at the progress I had made, I tried to dive into it, looking to examine it closer, only to find myself repelled as I got near it. Again I dove for it, only to once again bounce off as I grew close to it. Pushing slower this time, instead of trying to use speed to force myself closer, I started feeling a force repelling me. Deeper I forced myself down, with the force seeming to grow exponentially stronger the closer I got. Inching deeper and deeper, I did my best to force my way close enough to touch it, but as I got closer the force continued to increase until eventually I shot away.
Flummoxed, I tried calling the Order and Chaos mote back over to me, to see if it would react differently. Gasping, I felt a sharp pain in my heart, as I felt it try to break through to get to me. Stopping my pull on it, I went back to it instead. Effortlessly sliding through the wall of my heart I focused on the point where the combined mote was hovering at, ignoring the blood rushing around it with my command to maintain its place. I tried telling it to go through again. Again I felt the pain in my heart and I stopped once again.
Getting closer to the globe, I focused on my heart walls and slowly sent the mote towards them. This time trying to send as slowly as I could, and as it started trying to push its way through the walls of the artery. I saw the barriers that had been containing the Qi earlier start to stretch, and as I saw it stretching, I felt the pain pulse in intensity with me.
Backing off, I realized I was coming quickly to a point of no return. Before I had pressed random buttons, desperate to escape. Then like many long running tv series, I had been finding myself forced to constantly fix the mistakes I caused with my own desperate flailing. Now I was going to either have to deliberately do something stupid, in the belief that I would gain power from it; or I was going to have to leave it alone forever. No longer theoretical, I had found the button I believed I needed to push to gain actual power over the cosmos. It's easy to say you want power. Now I was finding that I might need to risk my life for it. The pain was telling me that I was risking destroying my heart in my experiments to understand. At this point, with my level of understanding, I could maintain the status quo and wait for release. Or I could risk death and continue on.
Wavering, I chose to back off. Taking the mote with me, I sent myself around the circulatory system until I arrived at the little toe of my right foot. As the least important part of my body, I decided if I was going to experiment, it should probably be here. Pushing the mote into the capillary wall, I felt a speck of pain and pulled it back. Wanting to try just using the Chaos, I tried commanding it out of the Order it had been locked into and found that I couldn't anymore.
So instead I called out to the mountain hanging above me. I called a handful of Chaos into my system, and waited patiently until it had made its way over.
When they arrived, I focused on keeping them in the area. While they moved around as energetically as toddlers, I was unable to force them to focus on a singular spot, no matter how hard I tried. No matter what happened, they kept bouncing off of the internal Order walls of my cells. Sending them on, I called on some Order bricks to come down to replace them. When the bricks, which had not yet turned into globes by an internal chaos source arrived. I sent them into the capillary wall, this time once again feeling a pain that the Chaos had been unable to cause on its own. Pausing again, I held the Order bricks steady, blood flowing around them, until the Chaos motes made their way back. Immediately upon coming up, they were drawn to each other like magnets, until each brick became a globe, with the excess chaos bouncing around endlessly.
Hmmmm’ing to myself I tried pushing two of the globes together… and nothing happened.
Unperturbed, I held an orb out and sent a second Chaos mote into it… it entered and the globe promptly shattered into jagged pieces, yet only a single chaos mote remained. As the pieces fell down, I felt a sharp pain in my toe, as they cut effortlessly through the capillary wall. Fortunately the cut seemed small enough that the blood cells weren't able to get out. Although the walls began bulging out with their integrity somewhat compromised. Sending the remaining Chaos motes on except for one I decided to try the inverse of the experiment. Calling down two motes of Order, while I waited for them to arrive, I moved slightly farther down, instead of remaining in the tip of the toe. Upon their arrival the Chaos mote immediately zoomed together with an Order brick and formed a globe after a beat. Forcing the other Order brick to combine with it, it felt similar as to when I had tried to approach the black hole, however this time I was able to eventually overpower the pressure and force them together. At first it tried to maintain its globe shape, but eventually it compressed back down into a brick and something oozed out, covering it. Dripping off, it fell onto the capillary wall and again I felt pain; this time a burning sensation sprang up from my toe, as little circles appeared in the capillary walls instead of jagged tears.
While I had no doubt come up with two novel new ways to get through the walls of my heart. I still had yet to figure out any way to empower myself with these forces. Neither one on their own, was able to force through the walls of my circulatory system. When I combined them, it seemed like I would be able to force the new greater entity through, and tear a section open. When I tried using one force against the other party to overpower and destroy the other I ended up with secondary substances devoid of energy that could make holes in me like I was butter.
Well, with only one last logical experiment to go, I moved down to the base of my toe and prepared to kiss it goodbye if things went the inverse of what I had planned. Calling down three motes of Order and Chaos I first formed two Globes and while keeping the remaining individual motes separated from the other. First, sending the excess Order into a globe, as the liquid came out, I used my new command over my body to hold it steady, separate from everything. Repeating the process with the excess Chaos mote, I held the jagged pieces of broken order together and when I was sure I had them all. I mixed the broken down Chaos and Order together to form a paste.
Expecting it to glow, grow together, or at the worst explode and blow my toe off. I grew confused when they just mixed easily together, but did nothing else except float there in my bloodstream. Holding it motionless with my will was easy as it showed no sign of wanting to do anything else. Letting it drop into my capillary wall, I lightly smiled, as I finally found what I hoped was success. The capillary walls absorbed the paste and I didn't feel any pain as it disappeared into the walls. Calling the remaining Order and Chaos mote over, I quickly let them combine and pushed the globe into the newly empowered wall. It stretched out slightly before rebounding and sending the globe rocketing through the other wall in a burst of pain.
Smiling at the success, despite the pain from the unintended consequences. I quickly got to work on the long process ahead of me, and reinforced all of the blood walls in my toe. Knowing that blood needed a way to get nutrients to the muscles, I held off on moving on to the rest of the body. Going back to the tip where the jagged cuts were now healed up I called a combined orb over and sent it rocketing into the wall pushing as hard as I could I couldn't break through.
“You see, this is why you double check, before applying experiments to all of your body." I told myself. Quickly forming the respective acid and knives I sent a speck of each into the walls, this time I had to strain myself, but I was able to break through and while the knife left a tiny slit that would let nutrients through without letting the wall burst; the acid instead chewed through a tunnel that the walls pressure was able to keep closed. Confident now that I wasn’t going to cripple myself I set to work repeating the process all throughout my body.
Ending up back at my heart, I left off empowering the rest of my muscles while only focusing on the circulatory system. Still nervous that I would find out that upon escaping this ball that the world hadn't been upgraded with this higher energy source, I didn't want to leave myself crippled upon exit. Your veins and arteries are just glorified rubber hoses, containing the blood as it moves through you. But with my heart I was considering upgrading the tissue, I was worried that the arteries would tear off, when I wasn't being held motionless.
Decisions, decisions.
Tapping an imaginary toe, I decided that having to eat more was probably a better problem to have, than possibly having the arteries and veins rip off of one's heart, in an explosion of internal bleeding. So I got back to mixing the paste and started empowering the cells of my heart.
With one last cell to go I hovered right over the spot that had started it all. I had built my channels and strengthened my heart. Now I had to decide if that speck I had found was a meridian, a core or something else. Also if I was willing to put a hole in my heart to send energy through to it…
Remembering my resolve, and knowing that a core needed to be expanded as far as possible, while meridians usually needed an endless stream of energy to break through. Either way I was going to need loads of energy, so I let the mountain begin collapsing once more into me, sending the Chaos Qi flying back through in a torrent. Taking a moment, I shot over to the mountain where I saw that the Chaos was flying back up through the center. Looking to where it was recombining with the Order to once again fall back down, in an effort to form a never ending mountain constantly falling down into me. One mystery solved. I focused on taking some of that stream of Order and driving it inwards, not wanting to unbalance myself with a single energy. I rotated it around keeping the Chaos separate from the Order, twisting it around like a rope with my blood as the center. Refusing to let it combine, as I completely filled my system almost to bursting. Then I cut off the mountain again temporarily while keeping the braided energy flowing around through me.
Calling over a singular brick of Order, I took a deep breath and sent out a quick prayer into the universe. Then I stepped over the line that only hindsight would determine was the difference between Wisdom and Foolishness. I sent the brick hurtling into the single remaining, unempowered cell, directly over the black dot I had found previously.
It destroyed the cell utterly.
Immediately, the two types of Qi started getting sucked through the heart wall in a vortex. Following them in, I thought I would be seeing them be sucked into the speck, but instead I was seeing them combining to form an ever increasing globe. With the Chaos motes being pressed deeper into the center around the speck but not entering it. I immediately deduced that I was forming my core, not breaking through a meridian. Looking closer, it seemed like two motes of Order would combine with one Chaos mote and form a globe. Confused as my experiments seemed to indicate this would cause them to break down and create an acid. The globes were spinning around joining with other Order globes. The individual Chaos specks continued bouncing around in the center. This seemed to be maintaining the balance, stopping the globes from breaking down their interior Chaos into an acid, by giving the Order a secondary force to act upon. The Order globes continued to join together as more and more energy came pouring in. The individual globes were joining together into what I was assuming was my core, forming a bubble of two part Order, one part Chaos in the individual cellular globe and One part Chaos surrounding the black speck bouncing around in the center pushing the combination globe out. Surprised at the lack of pain I was feeling, I could only open back up the source of Order and Chaos, as EVERY series I had ever read agreed that the largest core you could build was the ABSOLUTE most important part of any aspiring cultivators foundation. Apparently the universe was finally throwing me a bone, having everything happen on autopilot instead of needing imput from me.
As the mountain of Order continued to break down and pour in, the new combined globe just kept growing bigger and bigger. At first it looked like a balloon blowing up, and as it continued to grow I grew more nervous that I was about to explode my chest. Yet, I still wasn't feeling any pain, I grew confused as most authors agreed that increasing one's power to the next level should be painful. Also, I was blowing up a balloon in my chest, before when I sent a single globe intowards my heart, pressing on it slightly, made me think I was having a heart attack. As the globe started reaching the size of an actual balloon and I still didn't feel any pain. I could only conclude that upon breaching that last cell I had entered the metaphysical spot in my center that was my inner world.
With a mountain above me eagerly breaking down to its separate parts in its anxiousness to be consumed, and armed with the knowledge that bigger is better in the cores as with life, I smiled and got to work, sending more of the energy right on in.
More and more of the mountain was consumed outside yet it never seemed to diminish as I continued to feed the endless appetite of the black speck. Although none of the Chaos was pushed into it, instead the motes continued to rotate around it, bouncing out again and again, forcing my core to expand continuously. Now of a size able to surround my actual body, if I had been able to bring it in from regular space, I rubbed my metaphorical hands together in glee, as I wondered if I was creating a pocket dimension I would be able to carry my pack in upon exiting this hell ball.
Bigger and bigger it continued to grow until it reached the size of a car.
Now a truck.
Now closing in on the size of a city block, part of me started having doubts. But too many series that I had read, had an inner world as normally a midgame or endgame point for cultivation. So no doubt starting off with it would be something I would have to hide, lest I rouse the jealousy that would get me killed before I could become a threat.
Now the size of a small town, I continued to let it build marveling at the perfect roundness it was forming.
As it grew to the size of a decent sized mountain, I finally felt a shudder. Cutting off the flow from the exterior. I watch the walls slowly harden as the interior chaos flew out of the center in an explosion finding its matching globe. Every speck entered a globe and flew around with its twin, faster and faster until one speck from each globe flew into an adjoining one all at the same time. Faster and faster the leaving specks rocketed through the globes forming a mountain of blindness that would have no doubt have burned out my eyes, had I been looking at them in my my physical body. Eventually it grew dim and I looked on at what had been created inside of me.
Apparently locking itself into a matrix, it looked like the excess Chaos had combined with the secondary Order mote of the globes. They now formed interlocking tubes between all of the globes, while the remaining Chaos motes now moved through the tubes, surrounding my core in a soft glow of light, keeping the walls of Order stable while being able to bounce endlessly throughout the entirety of the core wall.
Again I felt a shudder. Yet looking around everything seemed to be stable here.
Turning the mountain back on, I let the energy flow into me, not wanting to fill up the mountain with tiny marbles of the combined energy, I kept the flows separate as they entered. Again as my core began filling up, I felt another shudder.
Oh! That's right, for too long I had been stuck in my inner world. I forgot the whole reason I was anxious to power up, was that there was a hell ball imprisoning me.
Either I had finally drained too much energy or it had decided to open on its own.