I couldn’t sleep. It was a strange experience. I’d had temporary difficulty falling asleep before, everyone experienced that at least once in their lives. But never once in my previous life had I stayed awake for three straight days, laid down, and after two hours of staring at the ceiling, been forced to conclude that it just wasn’t happening tonight.
I knew it wasn’t impossible, that my cultivation hadn’t removed the need for sleep entirely. I’d woken up in this body initially, and I’d slept after my long binge-reading session. Perhaps I was just too rested? Maybe I’d used up my sleep quota for the next month in a week? Or perhaps it was the lack of a blanket. Elder Hu’s home was beyond sparse, and despite an exhaustive search of both his two shelving units and his storage ring, I hadn’t found a single blanket, or even a sheet. It just wasn’t the same, laying on a thin straw mat with a spare robe awkwardly piled on top of my chest. I felt like a corpse awaiting burial, covered with whatever was at hand.
I sat up. It was disconcerting, being so unmoored from the demands of biology. Normally, when I awoke in the middle of the night, I would drink some water. Perhaps scarf down a granola bar, or take a piss. Now, there was nothing. I’d eaten, with Su Li, and during my taste testing for the rice, but I hadn’t felt anything I would call true hunger since awakening as Elder Hu. Thirst was even stranger. A constant companion in my last life, I’d always had a mug of tea, or thermos filled with ice-water sitting by my desk as I worked. Now there was nothing. No urge, no pull towards it. The closest I’d felt to thirst since waking up had been after eating that oatcake, when I’d felt like it would be nice to have something to wash the last clinging bits of dense cake off my molars. Then I’d discovered that even my tongue was improved by cultivation, now strong and dextrous enough to simply reach the very back of my molars, and press hard enough to wipe away even the most stubborn of food residue. Elder Liang’s tea had been nice, but I’d drunk it because it tasted good, not because it offered anything my body needed.
While I was panicking, it had been easier. I’d blindly jumped from one interaction to the next, stumbled along trying to understand my surroundings. Planning lessons, mapping out conversations, reading random scrolls for context, it had made an excellent distraction. Now, with no lecture hanging over my head, and a full two days before my next scheduled meeting with Su Li, the strangeness of my new body was hitting me in full. If I had nothing to do, then I was stuck sitting with nothing except my thoughts to distract me.
I could see now, how cultivators forgot how to be normal human beings. It was so easy, without all the small distractions of mortality, to let your latest obsession consume you. It would be so easy to work for a week straight. To regard anything that interrupted that focused existence as a distraction. To remove such distractions with violence.
I needed to find something to do. A full night of this listless existence would be… Not hell exactly, but not pleasant either. I could try to meditate, I’d occasionally practiced before, in my life that was. But I’d usually kept my sessions under twenty minutes. Almost always under an hour, except rare occasions where I used it as a substitute for sleep that would not come. I wouldn’t have said I was good at it, or even certain I was doing it correctly. I thought I might have experienced the first Jhana once, but that could just have been sleep deprivation, I was pretty jet lagged during that session.
And I was afraid. I knew cultivation as an act was adjacent to meditation. I knew that qi deviation was a risk, if you did it wrong. Cultivating was something new to me, something I didn’t understand beyond the most superficial level, with life or death consequences. I was quite simply afraid to poke at mine, to spin it backwards and start oozing blood out my ears or something. I’d have to overcome that eventually. It was one of my most potent advantages in this strange new world, and to allow it to stagnate forever would be idiotic. But I wasn’t going to advance a realm in short order, I was already in or past core formation. So it seemed like something I could leave alone for the moment.
My reputation here was founded upon personal power. My ability to kill things was apparently the source of my value to the sect. I couldn’t do that any more, not at the level Elder Hu had. One day soon, I would need to throw myself into battle, hopefully against an opponent far beneath me. I needed to know where my limits lay, how much weaker than Elder Hu I was. Because if I was called upon by the sectmaster to do Elder Hu’s job, I needed to know whether running was my only option.
But until I found a foundation establishment spiritual beast I could use as a disposable benchmark, I was stuck on that front. Su Li couldn’t tell my skill from his, but I couldn’t risk sparring with my peers. Even an inner disciple might see through my facade, if they used a sword.
I couldn’t do anything to advance my own cultivation. But Su Li’s, that was another matter. A reputation as a teacher who could help their students leap over the dragon gate was valuable, but someone I could actually trust being powerful enough to matter was priceless.
As sparse as my cultivation knowledge was, I’d gleaned a fair bit about the mechanics of the very earliest realms from my reading in the repository. Qi Gathering, or Qi Condensation, the names seemed to be used interchangeably, was the process of ingesting qi, cycling it, and turning it into innate or true qi. Scrolls disagreed on how many stages the realm had, some claiming as few as three, others as many as twelve. They all measured progress the same way, by the quantity and density of innate qi the disciple commanded, but some of them simplified the realms into broad categories like ‘wisp, gas, and liquid’, while others, specified incredibly specific substages based on how the gaseous qi reacted to being cycled in certain ways. The latter manuals rather reminded me of recipes for hard candy, with and how they specified things like the ‘hard ball’ and ‘soft crack’ stages of molten sugar in terms of its behavior when dropped in water.
Despite all the differences though, the process described was the same. Get a little bit of qi inside your body. Move it in a way that resonated with the natural world, and the qi it produced. Draw in said natural qi. Spin it around in their chest or stomach until it lost whatever made it ‘lunar’ or ‘wooden’, and instead became aspected to the cultivator themselves, a process that often took hundreds of rotations through the body before the new qi settled in the dantian. Then repeat ad-infinitum, until they reached the next density threshold. This small nugget of true qi would eventually both begin changing and improving the cultivators body, and allow them to command larger and larger amounts of natural qi. The result of this convoluted process, was that even though the majority of Qi Condensation manuals focused on cultivating aspected qi, almost all of them resulted in the cultivator accumulating neutral true qi.
I still wasn’t clear exactly how spirit stones worked, but from the sheer number of warnings in various manuals about how inefficient and potentially dangerous it was to rely solely on them, I wasn’t planning on trying to feed them to Su Li in large numbers. Plus, I suspected the several hundred stones in Elder Hu’s ring represented a dangerously large portion of his total liquid wealth.
If I truly wanted to rocket her progress upwards, I needed some combination of a place rich in lunar qi, an object containing a great deal of crystalized lunar qi, or a formation designed to trap and accumulate lunar qi. The first, would likely require me to negotiate with people, at least within the sect. I doubted any natural fonts of lunar qi within the sect itself were unclaimed, and if any belonged to me, I wasn’t aware of them. But the second and third, I could at least in theory purchase.
How hard could it be, for a wealthy powerhouse like me to find a suitable lunar treasure for someone in Qi Condensation? It felt like tempting fate, just asking that question. But it was a plan. Vague, and lacking in details, but something I could pursue. And any forward momentum was better than sitting here in the dark, alone with my thoughts.
I rose, and belted on my sword. Then I walked out of my house, there were no other preparations to make, I slept with my storage ring on. It felt strange, going on a trip without worrying about car keys, or phone chargers, or where and what I would eat. It was convenient, but it didn’t help with my creeping sense of being unmoored from mortal life.
I had two days. For a mortal, that wasn't a lot for a trip. 30 hours of wakeful activity, most of it would be taken up by travel. For a powerful cultivator, so many of the things that constrained a mortal's time meant nothing. I could easily run at 30 miles an hour, I could probably do it indefinitely. I didn't need to sleep, or stop for meals, that left me a full twenty hours to run each way. That meant I could visit anywhere within a 600 mile range, spend several hours there, and return with time to spare. And that was a conservative estimate of my running speed, what I knew I could keep up.
A 600 mile radius circle covered what, a third of the continental US? Here, that probably meant an entire kingdom. I could leave the sect, disguise myself as a wandering cultivator, and find or buy what I needed without having to interact with anyone who would know me. And if I was lucky, I might even find some aggressive lesser spirit beasts to cull along the way.
But first, I needed a map. I had no idea where the sect was located, or where the nearest real population center was. And that meant my journey started with a trip down the mountain.
I crossed the first plaza at a sedate pace for a cultivator, a fast walk that would have been a full-on jog for a mortal. Disciples hung about in small crowds, especially around the paper-covered pillars I suspected were some sort of mission bulletin boards. A hundred eyes followed me, but not a single pair of feet approached me. I'd been a little worried, after that lecture, that I'd made myself too approachable, but it seemed that between my public feud with Elder Li and my stunt with the chicken I was still safe from needing to engage in small talk with disciples.
Once I left the plaza, I let loose, launching into a full-on jog down the mountainside. My hair, restrained only by a thin strip of leather, fluttered wildly behind me as I flew down the slope. My feet navigated between rocks and logs with effortless grace, as I danced between trees and over boulders. As the slope steepened, I started spending more and more time in the air, propelled as much by gravity as my own muscles. It was glorious, I fell twenty feet downwards, landed on a single foot, and to my cultivation-enhanced ankles, my bodyweight might as well have been a feather. With a single flex of my foot, I rocketed off into the air again, flying down the mountainside.
It took all I had, not to burst into wild laughter. It just felt so good, to run unbound by the limits of mortal flesh, steady and untiring as a machine. It brought to mind a random bit of trivia from cyberpunk, the idea that it was partially the very power and efficacy of cybernetic limbs that slowly ate away at people's humanity. Being free from human frailty made it harder to emphasize with those that still suffered it. Easy to feel superior, to feel other.
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Were most cultivators basically just spiritual cyberpsychos? Addicts to the process of our own growing transhumanism? It seemed like a gross oversimplification, even ignoring how cyberpunk as a setting played fast and loose with biology and psychology alike. But the idea struck me as something with a core of truth to it, something to toss around on sleepless nights like these.
I would, I think, all things considered, prefer not to slowly grow into a monster.
It took a bit over a quarter of an hour to reach the base of the mountain the first plaza rested on. For an outer disciple, or a mortal, that climb could easily have been the better part of a day, especially going upwards. I still wasn’t completely clear on the geography of the sect, beyond everything on that being part of the grounds, and the little town I was heading towards being one of the gates that connected it with the outside world.
They called the little town Dusk. Because it was the edge of the Night. Everyone here pronounced that word with the metaphorical capital letter, when talking about the environs of the sect. I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, considering we still had daytime here, even if the sun was perhaps a little less bright than it should have been. Clearly, there was more to it than just a little dimness, considering our sect was named for the phenomena.
In times like these, it was very convenient that the sect was half-nocturnal. It must have been two in the morning, but as I approached the town, it was a veritable hive of activity.
It cut a cozy sight, even from a distance. Most of the buildings were small compared to those in the sect proper, the highest a mere three stories, a full story shorter than Elder Liang’s monster of a compound, and not even half the eight stories of the repository. Despite being the only structure for miles around, the buildings were clustered close together, almost like people huddling for warmth. The flickering orange light of oil lamps seeped out from every open door, illuminating the narrow alleyways between the structures. Mortals and disciples alike scuttled between buildings like ants, haggling, carousing, and working. It reminded me a little of the night markets of Florence, even if all the outward trappings were different. It had the same vibe of congenial harmony atop a ruthlessly commercial undertow. Just replace tourists with disciples, kitschy knick-knacks with petty luxuries. I had no doubt the mortal merchants here were doing very well for themselves.
I liked it quite a lot. It felt familiar, and far more homey than the ascetic quiet of the sect itself.
Slowing to a sedate walk, I entered the town. There was no wall, no checkpoints or guards. You could just stroll in. I imagine there was probably a single inner disciple lurking somewhere, tasked with overseeing security for the whole place. I kept to the shadows between buildings as much as I could, a halfhearted attempt at avoiding recognition.
Eventually, I found the store I was looking for. Chao’s Provisions was a general and travel good store that I’d passed while I was shopping for ingredients for my fried rice. I’d stuck my head in, mostly to see if they had any dried spices, but been impressed by their selection of general mortal travel goods.
The front door screeched loudly as I opened it, which I supposed was really just as good as a bell.
“I’ll be with you in a minute!” A man shouted from the back. The store was devoid of people otherwise, crammed full of tents and packs, racks of boots and shelves of dried meat. I occupied myself browsing the boots. It was curious, seeing racks of them, when every cultivator I'd met so far preferred slippers. One particularly beautiful pair had phoenix designs up the calf wrought in red thread. They were also locked in a glass case. I wondered if they were self-heating or something, to merit the additional security.
“Elder.” The shopkeeper greeted me, performing what was either a very shallow bow, or a very deep nod. “I am honored that you found my store worthy of remembering.”
I acknowledged the man with my own, much shallower nod. He looked about fifty or so, a bit portly, with the sort of horseshoe haircut of a man beginning to go bald but unwilling to surrender.
“I’m looking for a map of the lands surrounding the sect.”
“Around this entrance?”
That was a curious way of framing it. Was that why people spoke of the Night with such awe? Was this entire sect a secret realm, or pocket dimension?
“All of them, if you have them.” I replied.
One of the shopkeeper's eyebrows rose. Shit, perhaps that was the wrong thing to say.
“My apologies, this small traveler has only entered the Pathless Night through the Dusk Gate and the Deep Woods, and the latter is far too dangerous for this one to endeavor to map. I have plenty of maps of the Qin Empire and its neighbors, though I cannot guarantee the borders with the Kingdom of Shan will be accurate, given how rapidly territory has been changing hands between the two of late. What scale were you interested in?”
“At least a thousand li out from the Dusk Gate. Two or three if you have it.”
“The full national then, that’s about 3000 li. Let’s see… You, you, not you…” He muttered as he plucked a series of scrolls from the cubbies behind the counter. “Take a look at these.”
Three maps were spread out before me. I immediately knew which one I was buying. One was colossal, fully three feet in either direction, hanging off the counter. It was gorgeously detailed, but I’d have to lay it out to look at it properly, which seemed like a nightmare to keep clean. The other maps were more reasonably sized, but one was bare-bones, with just the major cities and roads marked.
The third, was just right. Beautifully illustrated, with both geographical features and a wealth of settlements and landmarks.
Spread on the dark wooden counter before me, was a new world. Or at least a small piece of it. The Dusk Gate let out in a nation marked as the Qin Empire. On the map, it was marked simply as a village titled ‘Dusk’ with no further annotation. No roads reached the village, but several crossed within an inch of it, both above and below. Convenient, that we were just off the major highways.
Other sects were not so unceremoniously marked. In the capital city of Xianyang, a city so large it merited a small drawing, rather than a dot, the Heaven-Piercing Spear School was noted as a subscript. One mountain was marked the Glass Flower Sect. A small pagoda icon in the middle of nowhere was marked the Temple of the Transient Vessel. Apparently, we were either far smaller than these other sects, or very focused on our privacy. I somehow doubted that most maps on the Qin Empire side of things would have Dusk marked on them at all.
Of the major sects, the Glass Flower Sect seemed the most promising for yin arts. A general yin focused school would no doubt have what I needed. But it would also be in higher demand. It was also risky, just going by the name. If they cultivated pure yin, or glass qi, or something more esoteric; they might simply not have any interest, and thus any demand, for lunar treasures. Lunar and umbral qi might be the exclusive domain of the Pathless Night. So, Xianyang it was. A capital city that hosted a major sect had to have a massive market, or at the very least information brokers who could point me in the right direction for a second trip. And I wasn’t married to the idea of a lunar treasure anyway, I just needed anything that would help Su Li reach Foundation Establishment in months, not years.
I checked the scale. 1400 li, roughly three li to a mile. That was what, 450 miles? Well within my range, with time to spare.
“I’ll take this one.”
“For you, honored elder, four taels of silver.”
I had no idea if that was expensive or not, but it definitely wasn’t expensive to me. I still hadn’t counted everything in my storage ring, but I had thousands of taels of silver, and hundreds of spirit stones of varying sizes and colors.
I handed over the money, grabbed the map, gave the shopkeeper a nod, and left without another word.
It felt like a waste, traveling across the country for something that we probably had here, just to avoid having to ask where our treasure pavilion was, and how it worked. But time and distance meant very little to me now, with my wide open schedule. Five hundred miles wouldn't kill me, using the phrase contribution points when our sect called them merits just might be the first step on the road to ruin. And knowing more about the outside world wouldn’t hurt, when it came time to either do my duty, or run from it.
A change of clothes, a fake name, and I’d be good as anonymous in the outside world. With a little luck, any misunderstandings caused by my lack of knowledge wouldn’t echo back to the reputation of Elder Hu.
The Dusk Gate was easy to find. Seven great pillars of wood had been set into the earth at the edge of Dusk, entire trees stripped of the branches and bark and used as fence posts. They stretched high into the sky, towering over the village itself, blending into the darkness of the night sky until you approached them. The seven pillars weren’t connected. They weren’t a gate, but a boundary. On one side, there was the sect. On the other, a foreign sky. As I stared up at the heavens, two moons looked down at me, each with its own constellation of stars.
While the side of the village adjoining the sect was unguarded, the same wasn’t true of the side exposed to the mortal world. Seven disciples, one inner, six outer, stood guard, staring out into the night of the wider world. All of them carried their weapons openly, spears and swords, supplemented with a pair of bows.
“Elder Hu.” The inner disciple greeted me.
I nodded at him, and kept walking. He didn’t stop me.
For the first time, since I had arrived in the body of Elder Hu, I stepped out into the wider world. Stepping through the boundary was like pressing your hand into a pool of water, only to discover that there was air underneath the thin film of the surface. There was something there, something dividing the two worlds, but it was thin as gossamer, only noticeable when you touched it. I shivered, certain that as I had seen it, it had seen me. I didn’t know how, but I knew. It didn’t stop me either.
The moment I stepped through, the sounds of disciples talking in the bars cut out. The smell of fried dough and spilled beer disappeared. I could see the sect, the seven pillars, the village beyond it, and the seven disciples guarding them, but that was it. It was like looking into another world at the bottom of a pond.
I wanted nothing more than to poke and prod at it for hours. It was so far outside of my understanding of how a world could work. But I couldn’t. Elder Hu wouldn’t. So I kept walking.
There was no sun to find north by, but apparently anticipating this exact problem, there was a single signpost just outside the Dusk Gate. It was an unmarked pole, with four spokes pointing off, marking the cardinal directions. They weren’t labeled, but one was painted red, so I assumed that was north.
Doing my best to memorize the location of the gate, I wandered off into the wider world.
Despite it all, I was smiling. One day, I would step beyond the role of Elder Hu. I would never be the person I was just a week ago. But one day, I would be strong enough, safe enough, that I could be me again.