Chapter 1

Tan was five years old when he became a cultivator. Specifically, that was when he bound the spirit of the wind into his dantian, blending his physical body with the spiritual plane and becoming more than a mortal.

Of course, he couldn’t really claim credit. His father had done all the hard work.

His father was the one who had captured the wind spirit, his father the one who had tamed it, his father the one who had carefully constructed the ritual that allowed Tan to bring it into his body. Most of this had been happening while Tan was completely unaware of what was going on. His father had left for a journey for two months before his fifth birthday. Missing his birthday party, even.

But the stone that he had given Tan upon his return made up for it. It wasn’t just a stone, his father told him, but a magic stone, and if he kept it on his body all of the time he would become a cultivator.

So Tan had worn the stone around his neck for two months, and he had begun to hear whispers.

“Who are you?” the voice had asked.

“I am Tan. Who are you?”

“I do not know that I have a name,” the voice answered. “I am … young and old, I think. I have had memories before but I do not remember them. My pact-mate must have died and took them to the other world with her.”

“I’m sorry. It’s sad when someone you know dies. My friend had a fever and died and I cried,” Tan told the voice. “Can you play with me or are you stuck inside the stone?”

“I can play with you,” the voice answered, and a sudden wind blew in his face. “Try to catch me!”

And so Tan had spent hours chasing the wind.

If he was being honest with himself, Tan had been a little disappointed that his father had missed his birthday and only given him a rock, but after the rock started talking to him he forgave his father and admitted that the present was a really good one. Maybe good enough to make up for missing his birthday, but don’t do it again!

His father had laughed and told him that eventually he wouldn’t need the rock anymore. That eventually he would be the thing that the spirit was bonded to, rather than wearing it. He instructed Tan on how to make that happen.

So every day, for between five minutes and twenty, sometimes two or three times a day, sometimes more, Tan would cultivate.

For a five year old, he was very diligent.

He would sit with his magic stone pressed against his belly and he would envision it giving off vapor, and he would envision that vapor being breathed into his body. Then he would envision it going from his lungs into his belly, right behind his belly button.

“Are you sure you want to become one with me?” the spirit had asked.

“Why wouldn’t I? I want to do magic, and you can give me magic, can’t you?”

“My former pact-mate had a difficult life. I do not remember the details, but she lamented her choice to become a cultivator,” the spirit informed him.

“Well I don’t care if you make my life difficult as long as we can do magic together,” Tan assured the spirit.

“Are you really, really sure?” the spirit had asked.

“Yes, I’m really really really sure,” Tan answered.

“Okay,” the spirit had said. “Let me show you what you’ve been doing wrong.”

And suddenly, Tan didn’t have to pretend that the stone was giving off vapor. He could see it. He could feel it. He quickly held the stone where his father had told him to hold it, he quickly inhaled the vapor, and he quickly envisioned it settling in his dantian, behind his belly button.

It took a long time. Longer than any of his longest sessions that he had done so far. When his father realized what was happening he rushed over and began scratching symbols in the dirt around Tan and the stone. He carved a full formation within minutes with a simple hoe, and when the circle was complete he too sat and began meditating. Chanting.

Suddenly there was even more of the vapor coming out of the stone, and it was even easier to inhale.

“Your father is a powerful man,” the spirit said. “Maybe you will be too, when you grow up. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Tan couldn’t stop. He knew that this was his one chance to get magic for himself, and that if he failed the spirit might escape and run away. Either way it was coming out of the stone that day, and there was no way of stopping it anymore.

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The vapor pooled around him. He didn’t have to breathe it in anymore, it was drawn into his dantian all by itself. He kept trying to direct it, but suddenly he lost control and it squirted out of his belly along lines that he hadn’t realized were there but had always been there.

He collapsed and began crying as he was suddenly engulfed in pain. He began sweating profusely, and the sweat was black. His father observed for a moment, then broke the magic circle he had drawn with a simple hoe and picked up his oldest son, hugging him despite the impurities that were leaking from his body.

“Good job. The pain will pass,” his father had told him. “It is weakness leaving your body. When there is none remaining, you will be a true cultivator.”

The burning fever that followed was the worst that Tan had ever endured, but he endured it in his father’s arms, and that made it alright. When finally it did pass, his father took him to the stream and they bathed together, as they often did, and washed away the black sweat that had gotten on both of them.

Tan wanted to try out his magic right away, but as soon as his father had helped him dress again, he promptly fell asleep.

He slept for three days, and when he awoke the world looked different. He could see the wind in a way that he hadn’t been able to before. Like colored shapes in the air, constantly moving and swirling and mixing with each other.

“This is your magic now,” the spirit had said.

“How do I control it?”

“I don’t know. Ask your father.”

Tan had run to the man and told him what he could see, and his father had laughed as he hoed the field.

“I think you’re still a little too little to do anything too much with your power,” his father had told him. “You’ve bonded a spirit, but the spirit needs to be nurtured yet. So go up on that hill over there. I’ve drawn you a circle. Sit in the middle of the circle and stare at the colors in the sky and will them into your lungs, and then into your dantian, just as you did with the spirit from the stone.”

“And that’s magic?” Tan had asked.

“Its the first step to getting you strong enough for true magic,” the man had said. “Once you can draw in all the color in the sky, then you’ll be the strongest air cultivator in the world.”

Tan had rushed to follow his father’s instructions, but paused, turning back. “Father, can you do magic?”

“Of course. But I’m not aligned with the air,” his father said.

“What sort of magic do you do?”

“Earth magic,” the man had answered simply.

“Can I see?”

“Go to your hill and I’ll show you,” his father promised.

So Tan had run to the hill and found the circle cut into the ground – probably by the same hoe that his father was wielding now – and he sat on the mat that was placed for him. And he waited for his father to show him magic.

The hill under him suddenly lurched and it shot up five feet. He gasped in surprise and then laughed. His father had been telling the truth, he really was an Earth cultivator!

“Practice your cultivation now,” his father called from the field. “Do it as long as you can keep focus, and when you lose focus, go play with the other children.”

Tan frowned, because they lived an hour’s walk from the village. If he ran he might make it faster than that, but it was still a long journey for a boy of five years old. But he did not question his fathers instructions, and so he drew the colors in the sky into his dantian for twenty or thirty minutes – it felt like hours – and then he ran off to play with his friends.

It was as he was running that he realized his body had changed. He was much, much faster than he had been before, and he did not grow winded. He did grow tired, but he never ran out of breath.

He grinned, and as soon as he found where the village children were hiding, he challenged them all to a race. And he won.

In the games that followed, it quickly became apparent that he was now as strong as a fifteen year old. When the other children had asked him what had happened, he had told them everything, and the village children had rushed to his father to beg their own magic stone to begin their journey of cultivation.

The man had scratched his nose.

“I’m afraid that there aren’t enough spirits as mighty as the one I gave my own firstborn son to simply hand them out like they were candy,” his father had said. “I hunted that spirit for two months and trapped it in the stone that I gave Tan. I’m very fond of all of you children, but none of you are my firstborn son, and I am not willing to do that for each of you.”

The village children had been dejected at this pronouncement, but the man mollified them as he continued.

“However, there are countless lesser spirits that you could bind to yourselves. If you are serious about it, then you must prove it to me. Give me the most valuable thing that you possess, and I will give you a spirit stone with a minor spirit, and I will teach you how to draw it into your body.”

“How much are they worth? My parents will gladly pay whatever you ask,” one of the older girls said.

“They are worth the most valuable thing that you possess,” the man had said. “I do not care what your parents possess. I am not asking for them to make a sacrifice on your behalf. I want you to identify the most valuable thing that you yourself possess, and I want you to give it to me. And whatever it is, I will either break it or spend it or make it worthless. And I will give you in exchange a spiritual stone and teach you to draw the spirit into your body.”

“And then we’ll be strong and fast like Tan?” one of the boys asked.

“Yes. Not as strong or as fast, but you will be cultivators and you will be able to draw from the power of the earth. Or you will find that you have wasted your time and will never be anything but a mortal. I cannot promise that you will become a cultivator with the spiritual stone that I give you. I can only promise to give you a spiritual stone and teach you the method of drawing the spirit into your body. The rest must come from you.”

Many of the children ran home to take him up on his offer. Tan had gotten roped into doing his chores, but with his newfound strength they were not as onerous as before. He worked quickly, and when he finished his father sent him back up onto the hill to cultivate.

While he was there, he heard a voice in his ear.

“I hope that you continue to find wonder in our magic,” the spirit had said. “By the way, I remembered my name. I am Zephyr. It’s nice to meet you, Tan.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Zephyr,” Tan had said. Then he had cultivated for an eternal thirty minutes before running off and playing with his new powers.