Shang heaved a sigh and flopped on his back. He was drenched in sweat and his hands were shaking from exertion. On his back, the sky above warped and twisted. The normally white fluffy clouds contorted into monsters and demons in his delirium. His chest heaved up and down as he gasped for air. Finally, he'd done it. Two weeks and six treasures later and Shang had finally opened his last meridian.
He had always been told that opening the twelfth meridian, the meridian of the mind, was not a matter of pure effort. Some insight was required on the nature of qi. When he mentioned this to Rue, he’d only scoffed.
Insight. Don’t make me laugh. Those provincial bumpkins wouldn’t know insight if it slapped them in the face.
Shang felt his cheeks heat in embarrassment. The mountains he called home were known as backwaters for a reason. Every cultivator dreamed of escaping the low qi density basin, but few were successful. An overwhelming feeling of shame rose in Shang. Did the elders he looked up to his whole life mean so little?
As they moved away from the drainage basin, the aura density gradually improved. Two weeks of travel with little sleep and constant cycling left his body at odds with itself. His body had never been more…complete, the qi ran through his systems unimpeded, yet, he was bone-achingly tired. His muscles ached from head to toe and his brain pounded against his skull, screaming for rest. Now, finally, he could sleep. He had done it. All twelve meridians were open. An achievement beyond his wildest dreams. Shang let his eyelids droop closed.
Whew! We are almost done with the first step, Rue said cheerily. Good work human!
Shang’s eyes shot open. “Wait what? That was one step? And what do you mean by almost?!” To his surprise, he still had enough energy to yell.
Your first step will end with the creation of your core. Then, you’ll be out of the Foundation stage, Rue said slowly, as though speaking to a child and not a smart one.
“What exactly is a core? What does it do?” Shang asked.
You should really pity me human. My infinite patience knows no bounds. Otherwise, I might throw myself off the cliff at the impossible task of being your master.
Shang waited for the insults to end. Too tired to even react. Rue coughed loudly inside his head, obviously not happy with his lack of response. A core is the most important part of cultivation. It is the center of your cultivation system and is the center for qi purification and transformation. Without a core, you are nothing more than a set of interconnected tubes. Only with a core does your spirit become grounded and you get to harness the different essences of qi. Sadly, you have to stay as you are for a bit. This place does not have the right aura and we are in need of some more…materials.
Shang’s head lulled to the side, his mouth slightly agape.
Stop that! I can tell you’re falling asleep. I’m inside your head. You can’t hide anything from me. There’s no time for sleep!
“Are you really expecting me not to sleep for 300 years?” Shang grumbled.
Not if I can help it. Now, drink that bottle with the clear liquid.
Shang grabbed blindly at the bottle. He didn’t even think before guzzling it down. He readied his body for the worst. A certain potion had turned his whole body pink. Another had made him cry tears of blood. He was ready for anything. The liquid was tasteless but left a cool feeling as it slid down Shang’s throat. There was no pain this time. No strange reaction. Instead, he felt immediately refreshed. His exhaustion-fueled delirium faded and his mind cleared.
He began to cycle again while breaking camp. He no longer needed to be in a meditative stance to cycle. With some effort, he could cycle while completing menial tasks. As he clipped his expanse bag to the belt of his robes, he wondered again at its construction.
“Where did you get all this stuff anyways?” Shang asked, gesturing at the bag and the treasures inside.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Rue huffed haughtily. I didn’t spend all my time spying on you. You humans spend most of your days doing nothing at all. I had to do something productive in my free time. Shang muttered a small thanks. He wasn’t ignorant of how much Rue had given him. The spiritual treasures alone were worth more than all of FuJia village. If only Rue wasn’t such an ass about it, he might find it in himself to be sincerely grateful.
What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.
Shang ignored him. He packed up the rest of his belongings, getting ready to set out once more.
They had been traveling steadily south for the last week. Shang had initially insisted on heading east to HuTang city, towards the shadow tiger sect. But Rue had laughed in his face.
How cute, a couple of weeks of practice and you think you can take down the top sect on the continent.
So instead, they continued south at Rue’s suggestion. The terrain slowly changed beneath their feet, the rocky ground giving way to grasslands. At night, when they made camp, Rue would lecture as Shang ate and cycled.
Now that your meridians are open, we can finally get on with training. As you know, the three basic manipulations of nascent qi are expulsion, deflection, and containment. Expulsion is as it sounds. You are first collecting nascent qi from the environment and expelling it from your body. The speed, shape, and strength of the expulsion can be fine-tuned. It is possible to be able to expel qi from your body and use it like another limb, even at the Foundation level.
First, you gather qi in the palm of your hands. It’s much easier to visualize that way. Then, once you feel your channels reaching capacity, you push that qi from your palms to your fingertips and outside your body.
Shang struggled at first to build enough pressure behind his expulsions. He needed to maintain energy in his palms, preventing the qi from escaping in a slow trickle. The larger the pressure, the stronger the blast. With that in mind, he tried again, this time resolving to maximize the pressure in his palms to his utmost limit.
It took him a few seconds to build up the requisite energy. When he felt his control cracking, he let go of his hold on the mass of nascent energy mounting inside him. In a burst, the energy left him. He felt his channels stretch and retract and his limbs quiver as the qi left his systems. A blinding flash of white light streamed in a beam away from him. Shang squinted his eyes at the brightness.
When the darkness reclaimed the night there was a steaming hole the size of a hog hewn into the edge of a large boulder. His mouth was open as he walked forward to the boulder that resemble a small hill. He could see clear through to the other side. The boulder must have been a few paces thick. He'd blown a hole through a damn mountain. He trailed his fingertips along the edges of the blast. It felt warm to the touch and faint wisps of steam trailed off into the night air.
Rue gave a low whistle. A mighty attack indeed. Against a boulder. It took you five seconds to build up that blast. Good luck hitting a blast like that on a moving target, or better yet, staying alive long enough to use it.
Shang felt his elation dim at Rue’s words. His eyes stuck on the boulder. He couldn’t imagine he was capable of doing that, but Rue was right. He needed to practice speed and control. Shang stood, planting the soles of his feet on the ground. One foot was slightly back for stability, and he tried again.
Control this time. Power with no control is a hammer is a sword without an edge, good for wacking but not much else. You are not aiming for crude strength. You are aiming for perfection. You owe me at least that much.
"Haven't you heard the saying about the two types of perfect people in this world?" Shang asked through gritted teeth. He didn't pause to let Rue answer. "Those who are dead and those who have yet to be born."
Oh? Well, I'll give you the choice of which one you'd like to be then.
If Shang thought his sleepless nights were a thing of the past, he was sorely mistaken.
----------------------------------------
Rue watched the boy from inside their soul. That blast, the sheer power of it! He had known that the boy’s channels were massive. Their strength and elasticity were steadily built up by that torturous breathing technique given to him by his mother. It was not a technique taught to Foundation level cultivators due to fear of causing lasting damage to their channels. If it were only that, Rue would not have been surprised, but it wasn’t just his channels. There was something else different about his body.
Since he’d entered the boy’s body, he’d felt that something was off. He’d noticed something was different about the boy after years of observing him, but now that Rue was inside his spirit, Rue could sense it clearly.
The world energy reacted to him unbidden. When the boy practiced his forms, Rue could sense the wind essence warp and shift around him. When he started their nightly cookfires, the flames flickered up to meet him. But this was not a technique. Without a core, he wasn’t capable of controlling essence, and Rue could tell the boy was not acting consciously. The qi just…responded.
Hmmm…something to ponder. Rue had offered the soul pact with the boy out of boredom, curiosity, and mostly, though he hated to admit it, guilt. He’d created it with little hope for the boy’s success, but maybe, he was in for a surprise.