(Author: Hello! This is the last of the six chapters I wrote before I started college again last week. I like posting short side projects and seeing how people react to improve my main. I think I have another side story in my USB drive somewhere.... just kidding, but the part about only having written six chapters before college was true. My main story has a schedule but this one is random with more than one chapter per release. Sorry but my main story is scheduled as I focus on the story and the third book is more difficult to write. Enjoy.)
----------Chapter 6: Violent Qi Stage-----------------
"Where are we going?" Elgar asked as he and Caius had left the capital three months days ago and were currently riding a carriage inside a forest. While his great grandfather rode on the carriage, Elgar had to follow behind with the weights on his wrists and ankles. A thirty pound weight was strapped around his waist. These weights were really heavy metal bars that could be worn as bracelets and belts. Thus, no one would be able to see them as they were made from an extremely heavy metal and were very small.
Sometimes, his great grandfather would make the horse run, forcing Elgar to use The Great Roc Dance to catch up. The way to get into the third stage, the Violent Qi stage, was to constantly exhaust your body of all the qi. However, Elgar had an abundance of cold yin qi. He had to work ten times harder, than kids his age, to exhaust his qi. Every other day, Elgar was forced to walk only while transitioning between stances. Stomp with the right foot, rotate the right arm forward while pulling the left arm back. He kept practicing jabs and kicks. He would also thrust, block, and slash with his spear as well.
Caius wanted the stances to be natural, Elgar's body able to perform martial arts almost instinctually. Whenever they stopped. Caius would have Elgar practice his Qi Blast art on trees. Elgar would condense cold yin qi to his fist and make it explode outward on contact. Caius was also surprised with Elgar's tenacity. Most little children would have cried and complained. This boy was extremely focused on getting stronger to the point of near obsession. Elgar would also practice using the qi shield ability of the gauntlet he wore as Caius would randomly throw a stone. If Elgar was going how to wield hidden weapons, he needed to train his reflexes and awareness.
Before they left, Elgar was given three hidden daggers from the empress. They were as light as a feather but incredibly sharp and indestructible. Elgar would practice throwing the daggers on trees, making his own target in his mind. While he couldn't use elemental arts, it did not mean he could not utilize elemental essence. Elgar learned to fuse poison essence onto his daggers' blades, watching the trees melt from the acid. When he was a snake, his fangs were acidic. Thus, he could not just bite and wait for his poison to paralyze and kill his opponent. He had to be swift, always biting at a vital point. While he was a weak magical beast, he had to learn how to discern the weakness of others.
Absorbing poison essence, directly, was more beneficial but extremely difficult. One had to find a source of the element to absorb the elemental essence. Poisoned herbs were easy, but absorbing lightning essence and magma essence was slower as his neidan had to strip it from the world qi. However, his great grandfather said they were going to a famous place containing plentiful sources for both elements.
"That volcano!" Elgar cried, seeing his old home for the first time in seven years and how ever many months he was the empress's womb.
"You recognize it? Ah, of course, you're mother would have told you about it. That volcano is where the black lava dragon failed to ascend. We are currently in the eastern borders of the empire. This place is forbidden, on orders of the emperor. However, we are allowed here. You, because you are the fourth prince, and only a fool inviting death would stand in my way," Caius laughed. "Places where tribulation lightning fell always makes the land inhospitable due to the residue of lightning essence. Without a necessary treasure, or lightning element attribute; a Cultivator would die. Of course, some fools didn't believe the emperor's warning and died learned the truth too late."
"Why would people come here?" Elgar asked.
"People say the black lava dragon hid his treasures somewhere in the volcano. Probably an underground passage near the base. Many magical beasts at the first and second stage live here now. The best way to train is to kill magical beasts. Only through life or death situations will the basics me hammered into you and improved. Plus, magical beast cores are extremely useful for cultivation. While they don't improve it as much as spirit pills of varying caliber, magical beast cores contain a lot of qi. Many demonic magical ranked treasures, like your Lava Viper spear, usually become more powerful through killing and bloodletting. It is said that enough affinity with the weapon will allow you to learn the unique weapon art of the demon lord that created it. According to legend, demonic magical ranked armor and weapons require many demons to make it," Caius shrugged as he said, "However, there's no real way to confirm it as humans rarely chose to wield their armor and weapon. The result is the same: killing makes you stronger. Those experiences make you invincible. That is a fact in the Cultivator world. I have some matters to settle in the area. When you turn ten, find me in the port city of Bakda. We'll sneak you off to the mainland there. That gives you about two and a half years to train. A master can only teach you the forms, techniques, and when to apply them. It is up to the student to master and improve them. Your mother wanted to be here, but we can't alert the Firetail Clan."
"I understand," Elgar said, used to living alone and hunting with enemies everywhere in sight.
"This is a gift for you: an invisibility talisman. So long as you pour qi into it, you will become invisible. However, it does not block sound or smell. Take care when using it," Caius warned, giving Elgar a jade talisman. "Once you turn ten, go to the port city. By then, you still have two years until you turn twelve. After getting experience fighting magical beasts, you need to learn how to fight humans. Just leave that to me. It may sound harsh, but this is how the members of the Draco Clan train. Sheltered upbringing only strengthens you so far."
Elgar watched him leave after giving him a tight hug. He liked that human, his great grandfather. He taught Elgar how to use nature energy and many useful things he needed to know for the future. To a person that lived three evolutions with an obsession to reach the Immortal Realm, Caius was one of the people Elgar would truly like and appreciate.
It may sound heartless, but he felt nothing for the Firetail Clan and his brother. They did not help him much and only helped him understand human nature a little more. His mother held a place in his heart as he never knew his own and she did care for him a great deal.
Elgar stared silently at the volcano as he left the forest and entered a blackened field. Occasionally, lightning sparked from the ground. Elgar narrowed his eyes as he saw several pools of magma on the ground. He didn't know how dense the qi in the burnt fields had so he began cultivating on the outskirts of the field. As he sat down and chanted, lightning and magma essence draining into his body quite easily. Elgar was ecstatic. Caius was right! The area was thick with lightning and magma essence.
Elgar could feel a lot of world qi build up in his Spirit Lake, storing nature energy and elemental essence. After an hour, Elgar felt confident that he would not be affected by lightning and magma in the area. Letting the cold yin qi strengthen and shield his body, Elgar finally stood up and entered the field where he met his tragic end. As his great grandfather gave him enough for to last one year, he did not feel the need to hunt magical beasts right away. Right now, his heart ached to return to his old home. He spent ten days walking to the volcano, not daring to fly on his Lava Viper and risk getting hit by the sparks of lightning as they were attracted to metal.
As he reached the summit of the volcano, he finally took out Lava Viper and had it expand so he could stand on it safely. Using his cold yin qi, he made his descent slowly. He was not confident in flying great distances, or fast at all, but levitating up and down as something anyone could do. As he stopped two feet above the lava below, he couldn't help but cry. Before, he could simply dive in and bathe in it as if it were a hot spring. Now, he would burn with just a drop of lava touching his skin.
He rubbed his eyes as he entered a large tunnel. Dragons were prideful creatures, powerful creatures by nature. They had a sickness of lust for three things: gold, magical treasures, and power. Elgar might have been obsessed with power the most, but he could not deny his nature and collected a hoard of gold and other treasures before he had entered hibernations. He had been strong enough to wipe out entire nations, both testing himself and greedy for gold and treasures.
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He remembered sleeping like a serpent hatchling as he coiled his serpentine body around it. He was a magical beast. He was not part human and could not use magical items to store his gold and treasures away, not like demonic magical beasts. That race was an abomination, comprised of both demon blood and magical beast blood.
"I have to find it," Elgar thought, as the tunnel became a labyrinth. He had made the false tunnels that would collapse if one moved too fast or were unstable and released lava if broken. He could not control the earth and needed some way to protect his precious hoard.
In a way, the tunnels were extremely cold and extremely hot at times. Sometimes, he flew over a ravine of lava. Other times, it was so cold, he would rest and absorb the world qi to replenish his spent energy. After two days, he had successfully arrived at his old home, a large empty space nearing the mantle of the planet. He was no longer directly under the volcano either. The clearing was countless miles long, but the hoard was not. Why? It was because he had once been many miles long and needed space to coil around his treasure, melting the walls to expand his home.
"Ah," Elgar cried, as he leapt of Lava Viper and stood in front of his hoard, proof that he had once been one of the mightiest beasts on the planet. How low he had fallen. How weak he had become. He knew the humans were different, but he lost far more than he had expected. He could not eat raw meat. He could not tear apart even boulders with his hands. Even lava burned him. Seeing his hoard, the emotional pain overwhelmed him.
Then, he suffered physical pain as his nine orifices bled. His ears felt as if they were being ripped out and regrown countless times. He choked and coughed out his blood, black impurities mixed among it. His nose seemed to feel like it shattered like glass as his sense of smell heightened. Most of all, his eyes burned. Oh, how they burned. He fell on his butt as he clutched his head with his palms, the back of his heel thumping on the ground as he tried to withstand the pain. He had finally broken the bottleneck to the third stage, the Violent Qi stage!
In the imperial library, Elgar had read a book that said, "There are no benefits without great sacrifice. The fates dictate our greatness, but we must suffer for it. Even heroes must suffer tragedies to rise above all others. The body is born with qi but not with the ability to harness and condense it in one's body. The Cultivator forms and refines qi in his Spirit Lake, but the Violent Qi stage is different than all others. One must suffer emotional pain and trauma so great, his qi is riled and allows his body to undergo a metamorphosis.
There are two such times. One, when a Cultivator of the Refining Qi stage undergoes emotional pain to enter the Violent Qi stage. The other, a Cultivator at the Earth Severing stage entering the Sky Profound Realm at the ninth stage! There is no change without pain. Cowards who use spirit pills to forcefully enter the third stage will be forever stuck at the eighth stage! One must know pain to overcome it. One must suffer to learn to endure and appreciate the benefits. This is the way of human cultivation! There is no escape and no bliss on the road to immortality."
Slowly, Elgar's body was covered in a cocoon of ice mad of cold yin qi. Elgar had fainted from the pain, but he did not die as his body and will was strong. He was obsessed with immortality and underwent harsh training to get to the volcanic region outside his home. When the cocoon broke apart, Elgar's body had changed. Elgar had grown taller, his muscles and bones expanding as his organs became stronger and full of vitality. A patch of his black hair had become as white as snow due to the influence of the cold yin qi. His eyes had turned into the color of the lava, one able to see a tribulation lightning of a myriad of colors if looked upon closely.
As if the Heavens were apologizing for his tragedy, his body had grown immune to lava and burns. It all had to do with the cold yin qi becoming stronger and entering a new level of affinity with his body. He would never feel hot or cold again. It was a benefit of those who had innate talent in hot yang or cold yin energy instead of neutral talent in absorbing the world qi as it was.
Realizing the changes in his body, Elgar roared to the skies. To others, it was an ordinary change for those who were talented enough to have cold yin or hot yang qi. To Elgar, it was much more. It was as if a piece of himself had been restored. He didn't know how much time had passed as he wept on the ground. He recovered his wits and stared at the hoard, dividing it to decide which ones to hide in his storage ring and which ones to store in his storage bag.
In his storage ring, he had his nature and element manuals, his food and drinks, the invisibility talisman, the mithril coins, and the mysterious adamantine coins. He also put a few hundred gold coins. Most of his gold coins his mother gave him were already in the storage bag. Then he started distributing his dragon hoard. He put two thirds of the gold in his storage ring as it would be a disaster if someone stole his storage bag in the future. Gold was useless to Cultivators, but he still had a piece of his draconic lust for it.
As for the magical treasures, most of it was useless. There were many weapons and armor, but none with unique effects like his spear and studded gauntlet. All they offered was high defense. He did not want to depend on magical treasures and stored the useless ones in a separate storage ring he found and put it on his hand. His Draco Clan ring was turned into a necklace as he found a white silver chain. It was unique as people could not tell it was a storage ring. The one in his dragon hoard was of inferior quality. He decided to call his dark purple ring with the white silver dragon crest, Draco Ring. That way it was easier to distinguish that ring and the other storage ring.
His best loot was the abundance of spirit pills and magical beast cores. Those magical beast cores could be exchanged for more spirit pills as they would impede progress past the Qi Scouring Realm. He knew there were humans called alchemists, based on his past readings in the imperial library, who would pay a hefty price for them. Thus, he stored the ones he thought were the rarest in his Draco Ring and the rest in the storage ring he wore on his hand. He found some books and manuals, most of them useless as he could not learn the nature and element arts. Those also went to the junk storage ring. He cared a lot more if that one was stolen instead of the storage bag as he could sell the contents for more useful items.
His storage bag was a façade of his true treasures. His junk storage ring contained magical treasures and herbs he would sell. No one would think a child carried two storage rings anyway. A Cultivator would be considered extremely rich to even own two. After all, even his dragon hoard had only one storage ring. The many storage bags had no value as those were manufactured by many powerful clans, sects, and academies. The craft of making storage rings was lost even before he had been born as a snake magical beast.
However, he found nothing else of worth in his dragon hoard. His harvest was already beyond great. Especially since he broke through to the third stage. In a couple of years, he would enter the fourth stage. His talent in cultivation was more difficult because of his neidan, but his the advancement of his foundations more than made up for the slow progress. He strung the baby dragon tooth he found on the white silver necklace that held the Draco Ring. Now the necklace looked like it was a dragon necklace as he shrunk the Draco Ring to make it seem like a piece of metal used to string the necklace through as it held the tooth.
He spent some time using a tough magical beast fur strand to loop it through the tooth and connect it to the ring. Now he wore the Draco Necklace and no one would be all the wiser. After all, dragon teeth did not have any value, even to alchemists. It was the bones and bone marrow that had tremendous value. He put it on his neck and stared at the empty hollow that was where he had once slept and contained his hoard.
"I guess this is what humans called 'moving on.' I reaped whatever I needed from this place. I have until I turn ten to kill magical beasts and gain experience fighting as a human. I don't think I'll ever come back here. It was a nice time of my life. To live here while I was one of the most powerful in the planet, it's sad to leave this place," Elgar sighed, bowing once before leaving the volcano with a sense of acceptance in his heart. He would find the bodies of the dead Cultivators who failed to enter the burnt field and loot them. Then, he would begin his training.