Shin Ren takes in a long, slow breath, meditating carefully. Beneath him is a sharp spire of stone, one of the many in this section of the weird terrain his master took him to. For all the many plateaus and strange spires, there are places where the stone turns almost to spikes, their sides smooth and crystalline as all stone is, here. It takes considerable focus to keep his mind quieted, his body still, and the slight amount of Qi he’s pushing into contact with the spike consistent to ensure he doesn’t slip or get stabbed in the glute.
It’s peaceful. It’s a challenge, sure, but he’s meditated in worse spots before, and it’s reassuring, getting back to basics like this. Ever since he made peace with his heart demons and touched upon the Dao of Flame, progress has rocketed back. His master was right, in that respect, though apparently keeping the heart demons delayed whatever tribulation was intended for him. Instead, he’s spent time building his power back.
His core is larger now, its outer shell more dense and purified. The pieces that no longer served him, that belonged to and created his demons, belong to them, their metaphysical aspects held by them now, and in the space that removing those pieces cleared he’s built something new. It’s hard to know precisely what the pieces are; perfect self-awareness is not a skill almost anyone can cultivate. Still, it feels different, Lighter, yet broader, as if it’s expanded without weighing on him, and reforming it, rebuilding into its shattered pieces, went like a pleasant dream of self-recognition.
And from there, a new joy: with his heart demons now symbiotic, rather than parasitic or self-destructive, his ability to absorb Qi has skyrocketed. Rather than being cast about randomly whenever his demons pulled in Qi, cultivating semi-independently, and the only way to control them was to starve their meridians and avoid any cultivation himself, now there’s… not quite balance, but closer. With three “cores” cultivating instead of one, his Dantian pulling energy and his demon-altered meridians pulling in their own additional flows from it and adding to his circulation of Qi, he can absorb nearly twice as much energy as he could before, even when only meditating casually.
It was easy to fill his core back up the first time, forming its second layer. His third layer originally took him weeks, his fourth one months. This time, experience and a flood of constantly-circulating energy made it take seven days between both of them.
He lets out a breath, focuses his energies, and pushes energy from his core out and into his heart meridian, where the second and more personal of his demons resides.
Slowly, as he circulates, he begins to emit flame. It hurts, the heat from it stinging him, singeing the simple robes he wears, and rather than the flame he generates, pure red with hints of the purple flame he’s pursued for so long, it flickers into being around him as crimson and bloody orange.
Eventually, after perhaps a quarter of his Qi reserves are diverted into that whirlpool within him, the flame flares properly, melting off of him and reforming as a pool of napalm-like flame in the air beside him.
From that flame, like a vision from hell, incarnated back into reality and flesh, steps the Corpse Aflame.
She barely looks human, what was once a burnt out husk of meat and bone and carbon re-ignited into something like a pyre, dripping flame like heavy blood leaking out of wounds, wreathed and clothed in brilliant red and orange colors that warp the air around her and sting against him, just a bit. Where once her eyes were like runny eggs oozing down her blackened skull of a face, now they are lit from within, like there are candles in place of the back of her sockets, glistening a burnt white against carbonized flesh and bone. The white of that inner flame is reflected in that which emerges from her chest, a spiral of flame frozen in motion, like a piece of colored glass, one point of its spiraling lines extending through the Corpse Aflame’s chest like a dagger or sword blade.
She looks back at him, the world warping in her presence, and says nothing, bleeding napalm onto the ground far below and standing on her own flames.
“Let’s try this again,” Shin Ren says, trying to make his voice authoritative but not commanding. “Fly out straight ahead, but slower this time.”
She says nothing, tending towards speaking only when she has to, but she does move in the indicated direction. The first time, she exploded forward, a conflagration in motion- this time, she walks, a stumbling, stuttering series of steps, one after the other, across liquid flame that drips from her.
She makes it a hundred steps… then a hundred and twenty… and then about a hundred and fifty, before he feels the edge of an invisible boundary.
For all that they seem to think independently of him, they’re still pieces of him, still spawned from his Qi and soul. There’s a limit to how far away his heart demons can get before they reach a point where they need to start burning exponentially more Qi to remain manifested.
The Corpse Aflame dissolves into napalm and choking smoke, the edges of their ash floating back towards Shin Ren. Barely any of the Qi expended in the manifestation makes it back, but some does, bringing him back up to around four-fifths of his total. They’ll all be spending a lot more fuel in combat, of course, but it’s an encouraging sign overall.
Sighing, he drops from the spire, letting himself fall past the dozen or so other spikes that surround his perch on the way to the ground.
As he lands, he finds Qu Haolan waiting, idly scritching under the chin of one of the strange, lizard-like creatures that populate the land around them.
“Finally done dripping fire everywhere? Sure that there’s nowhere else you’d like to go and tar?”
Shin Ren bows respectfully, making sure he goes to the right depth and holds a fist in his palm. “No, master. It’s more than enough to learn my limits, and to learn more of what might be possible.”
Qu Haolan huffs, but nods. “Good. I can’t say I’m an expert in heart demons, but most of what I know about them speaks to keeping them quiet or keeping them gone entirely. I can’t say I’ve met someone with your particular path, so my advice to your growth in that regard shall be limited. I can’t help but notice, however, your growth. I’m assuming you’re cultivating faster?”
Shin Ren nods. “Yes, master. My heart demons work with me now, and are both boosting my circulation of Qi and absorbing some on their own to add to my shared pool. I’ve managed to rebuild nearly half my core already, though I’m certain that the breakthroughs I’ve experienced under your tutelage are the main reason for such.”
“Hmm. Good. And the Dao of Flame?”
“It is still foreign to me, but its comprehension progresses, master. I can summon some aspect of it, and transform it, but its nuances are lost to me.”
Qu Haolan nods. “That’s to be expected. Most Dao’s are, in truth, a collection of many different truths about reality, and some pursue complete understanding of each individual piece before mastering the whole. Others view each concept as distinct and unique, requiring only comprehension of itself.”
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“Which do you believe to be true, master?”
Qu Haolan smiles and gives Shin Ren a long look.
“Don’t patronize, boy. Flattery will get you nowhere. You are a cultivator; to cultivate is to pursue one’s own path towards the Heavens. My path is not yours; teaching you to walk and telling you where to step are two very different things.”
Shin Ren nods, bowing a bit in apology, which seems to mollify whatever irritation or amusement Qu Haolan is feeling. “I understand, master. As best as I can, perhaps. I believe that, considering how easily my foundation was shattered with my prior arrogance, and how different my flames can be through the touch of my heart demons, that I should pursue more than a single path to comprehension.”
Qu Haolan nods, and shrugs. “If that is your choice, then so it is. You’re not one for the easy path, it would seem, even with whatever advantages your ‘Empire’ has given your generation. All the better, really; your tribulation still awaits you, and it’s not one to be taken lightly.”
Shin Ren frowns at that. “How do you mean, master? I thought my tribulation would strike when my heart demons were purified. As it is, I didn’t think it was still… pending?”
Qu Haolan huffs, but this time stands from where he was sitting, stretching languidly. The lizard-thing scurries off to join its fellows the moment it is no longer being pet, crawling halfway up one of the spires and beginning to dig for grubs and snails once more.
“In your master’s magnanimous generosity, I’ve managed to hold it back a while, but when you emerge back into the world, I will be more than happy to relieve myself of that burden and allow you to survive or perish on your own merits.”
Shin Ren says nothing for a moment, mouth falling open as if to speak… and then closing again as he recomposes himself. “I’m… I’m sorry, master, did you say that you’re holding back my tribulation? Is that… a thing you can do?”
His master blinks, looking at him in confusion. “Why wouldn’t it be? We are within my Domain, boy. The Heavens are spiteful and mighty, but to carve a Domain into the world is to usurp them, as is the right of any true cultivator. Surely you would know of this? You’re approaching the Nascent Soul realm, knowing about a Domain is essential to developing within it.”
“Master, I know of Domains. By empowering one’s self, a space that embodies the principles and Soul of a cultivator is expressed upon the world, but they are techniques. I have never heard of one holding back a tribulation. Perhaps an Imperial Domain, secured by formations in the first ring, but not one manifested by a person rather than by anchors and formation experts.”
Qu Haolan says nothing for a while. At first it seems like he might just be incredulous, but that shifts into a more thoughtful expression as he ponders his words. Despite his master’s confidence, Shin Ren, in the few months he has known his mentor, has not found him to be an impulsive man, and when he speaks, it is when he is certain of what he says. Instead of speaking, he waves a hand, indicating for Shin Ren to follow, and turns to begin walking from the spiked spires that characterize this portion of the landscape.
They walk for nearly an hour in silence, Shin Ren meditating on what his master might say and making sure to keep his Qi intake balanced as they go. Qu Haolan guides them on a much calmer and longer walk than their arrival- rather than leaping and using Qi platforms to move tens of miles in minutes, they move at a mortal’s pace, step by step. From the spikes, they travel uphill along one of the many flowing canyons of smooth and gem-like stone that make up the terrain, walking alongside a small stream that burbles and sings little melodies in its echoes against the rock. The canyon eventually gives way to a larger, more sweeping plateau, a central and pristine stone from which many of the canyons pass around or emerge from in small rivers, water slowly dripping… from directly above?
Shin Ren looks up, trying to see the cloud or shape that’s forming the water. The Qi saturation of their environment is tremendous, it’s true, but it shouldn’t be enough for it to form water without a formation or a water-tainted source of Qi.
There’s nothing. The sky above is clear, and falling from about fifty feet above him in a perfect, unbroken line, as if poured from a tea spout, is water.
Qu Haolan waits until Shin Ren looks to him.
“The world holds many wonders, boy, and there is much we do not know,” he says. “There are places so strange they defy understanding, realms and landscapes so beyond what a living being could survive that they can only be glimpsed by the mightiest among us. There are, in fact, places in the world that look quite a bit like this one, where water may manifest and carve away at stone over generations, and where strange beings may frolic and grow.
This is not one of those places. This is my place. We stand within my Domain now, and have for the months you have been here. I have meditated within this domain for time far beyond what I believed possible, and the world has changed, but this is not the world, this is me, this is mine, and it cannot change unless I will it to, or change myself to be unrecognizable.”
There is a long, unbroken silence as the thought sinks in.
“In my time, a Domain was more than a technique or weapon. Perhaps it still is in your time, to some extent, but it was a manifestation of all that one is, made into a world around oneself, a place where one’s Soul and self are one and the same. A Domain is not a weapon, boy, no matter how lethal it may be.”
“This… master, I don’t know how this is possible. Domains are… they’re strange, they’re unnatural. They operate by rules that follow no…”
He looks up at the water, pouring silently and gracefully down from clear skies.
Qu Haolan nods. “Indeed, the laws of a Domain are not the laws of Heaven. In one’s Domain, such things are usurped, and the chains and filth of the gods is cast aside in favor of new creation. However, it is not uncommon to paint one’s Domain with the colors of Heaven, if only so that one may invite another into their self, or breathe freely, or create resources one might bring out. My Domain has long been a place of reflection and power, and it took me… much longer than I’d even realized to alter it enough that it could support its own life.”
The old monster raises a hand, and from all around them there is a whispering, slithering sound as thousands of claws scrape lightly against stone. At his will, a circle forms around them as hundreds of the reptilian-goat things that populate the landscape surround them, all of them perfectly still, all of them with their eyes trained unerringly on their master’s hand.
“I sought to overcome my enemies and detractors by creating a Domain near-singular, possessing the qualities to support not just visitors or transplants, but true life born from itself. I succeeded, only to find that in my pursuit, my cultivation has left me separate from the world as it changes, as your Empire rose. There have been rumors before of those who became lost in their Domains, never seen again, and… it is in part for fear of how close to this I may have come that I brought you to me. If you had not nearly killed yourself at the doorstep of my seclusion, I may have stayed here, alone, far longer than I have suffered already.
So no, Shin Ren, your tribulation cannot reach you here. Perhaps if it were my tribulation from the heavens it could shake this place apart and climb in here to be shamed by me, but you are far below the heights I have reached, even now as you heal once more. But it will find you, boy. So long as the Heavens exist, they will strike and cast down and attempt to violate the growth and identity of all who seek to challenge them, who seek to better themselves, and I will not let you hide behind my skirts forever. I will leave this place, and soon, though ‘soon’ to me may yet be in weeks rather than days. I have delayed my return long enough, and when I emerge, this place will come with me, once more kept within my self, a place where I do not intend to leave you free to roam.”
The weight of his words, of the fact that Shin Ren has been in a manifested Domain for months now, and the generosity of the statement is not lost. Shin Ren turns to his master and bows, as deeply as he can without kneeling and pressing his head to the earth.
“Your student is honored by the protection you have offered, and humbled by the grace with which you have bestowed it.”
Qu Haolan gives a short laugh, but nods in return. “I am glad of it, boy. My debt to you is not small, even if it was no gift which brought me from my seclusion but rather opportunity. It is good to repay it by correcting the ignorance knocked into that thick skull of yours. And… I admit, it has been good to see someone growing. Your cultivation, and your friendly demons, have reminded me of how vast the world is. Let it be known that for this, at least, there is no debt between us, save that of master and student.
Now come along. I prepare once more to leave this humble realm of mine, and you still have growing to do before you can handle what the Heavens have in store for your creative method of cultivation. It may not rival my own power, but I can feel it skitter across the edges of my work, and you are not yet fit to survive it.”
“Yes, master!” Shin Ren says, smiling wide. In a week, he managed to reclaim two lost stages of his core. If he has weeks left, he cannot wait to discover how far he might grow now. Let the Heavens shake their fist at him; he’ll shake one right back, and make sure one finger is higher than the others as he does.