Before Xu Long could say anything he found himself sitting on Old Wu’s right shoulder who promptly started walking down the north path out of his mother’s garden waving his free hand above his shoulder.
“You do your thing Li, Xu Long and I will get straight to it.”
Xu Long could see his mother stifling a laugh as he threw her a final helpless look over his shoulder, then he saw her mouth “good luck” as she waved goodbye.
“Don’t worry kid, before a certain age it will do more harm than good pushing your body too hard…That being said, I will be pushing you right up to that line, so prepare yourself.”
Xu Long looked down at Old Wu’s face that was sporting that grin that he was starting to hate. “You’re enjoying this a little too much, old man…”
Old Wu started laughing, “no, I am enjoying this just the right amount.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh, “fine, you win Old Wu, can you at least let me down, I feel ridiculous up here.”
Old Wu, seeing that Xu Long had resigned to his fate, grabbed the back of his shirt with the hand whose shoulder Xu Long was sitting on and put him on the ground next to him, looking at him with a slight grin still on his face, “ok kid, have it your way, let’s start with a warm up. I want you to get to the courtyard in front of your room as quickly as possible, if I see you giving anything less than everything you’ve got you’ll get one of these.”
Just as he finished talking Old Wu disappeared from Xu Long’s sight, then he felt a stinging in his right ear, he put his hand over his ear as he looked back to see Old Wu smiling, holding his middle finger with his thumb apparently ready to flick his ear again. While Xu Long was looking at Old Wu incredulously he heard the old man say, “why aren’t you running yet? Did you want more?”
That lit a fire under Xu Long, who took off at a sprint, ear still throbbing and red. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Xu Long knew the valley like the back of his hand. He knew where he was, he knew the direction he had to go, and he knew where he could take a shortcut and where it was better to stick to the paths. All that wasn’t enough to save him however, as he lay panting on the ground of the courtyard both his ears now red and throbbing in a dull pain.
“Not bad kid, I hope the pain in your ears serves as a reminder, when I say everything you’ve got, I mean everything you’ve got.”
Xu Long, still breathing hard, moved his head to the side to scowl at the old man smugly looking down at him.
“Come on, stand up.” Old Wu said while waving his hand and materializing a weapon rack. Once he saw that Xu Long had dragged himself to his feet he began, “ok let me explain how the next 6 months to a year of your life are going to play out. We will be focusing on one weapon at a time, I will teach you some basic forms, you will drill those forms until you are reasonably competent, then we will spar, when I am satisfied, I will teach you more advanced forms to practice and the cycle will repeat itself. Finally, when I am satisfied with your handling of the weapon overall we will move on to the next weapon.”
Looking at the slightly overwhelmed Xu Long, Old Wu smiled. “Come, we will start with the spear.”
The following three days were somewhat of a blur to Xu Long, he spent the first day and a half repeating spear drills ad nauseum, while Old Wu circled him correcting even the most minute deficiencies with his form or flicking his ear if he slacked off even a fraction. Then the sparring began and Xu Long had to admit that it was not what he expected given what his ears had suffered the day before. Old Wu’s strikes never hit, they would always stop uncannily close to their target but they never hit, his mistakes were pointed out and corrected with endless patience, in fact the only injuries he suffered in the three days were to his ears on the first day. By the second day, Xu Long had internalized that under Old Wu’s tutelage pain wouldn’t come from failure or mistakes, only lack of effort.
On the fourth day he was awoken by the smell of tea, not just any tea, his mother’s favorite. As he opened his eyes grogally he could make out his mother sitting at the table in the center of the room.
“Good Morning Long’er.” She said, smiling at him as his brain started slowly operating again after such a heavy sleep.
“Good Morning Mother” He sleepily replied, sitting up and stretching his sore arms above his head. When it suddenly dawned on him. “Is she going to be alright? Can I see?”
“I have every confidence that she will survive, however, you will not be able to set foot in my garden until the procedure is finished.”
“Why not?” Xu Long prodded as he got out of bed and put on his robe as he walked over to take a seat across from his mother.
“In short, it would be very detrimental to you, to explain in any detail will require a foundation of knowledge that you will be learning over the next few years.”
Seeing that he understood she reached up and gently brushed his still slightly red ears, instantly healing any residual damage that had yet to heal. “I see Wu Zhong is still a fan of that particular motivator.”
Somewhat at a loss as he felt the dull ache that he had gotten used to over the last few days disappear at a touch from his mother. Rubbing one of his now perfectly fine ears he replied, “it’s fine, I figured it out pretty quickly, that was just lingering from the first day.”
Taking a sip of tea and smiling at him with a hint of pride, she changed the subject. “Now that I am somewhat free, your schedule will be changing going forward, your mornings will be spent with Wu Zhong continuing as you have been, while your afternoons will be spent with me as I stuff that clever little head of yours with as much knowledge as you can handle.”
“Today, however, is just you and me. I’m sure you have many questions from everything you have experienced over the last few days, so today I will answer them. But before we begin I need to make one thing clear, at the end of the day, I will not lie to you and I have no secrets from you Long’er. There is one caveat to that, however, which is your age and when you are ready to know certain things. For instance, before the day you jumped from the waterfall, you lived a relatively carefree life in the valley and now you are being inundated with what I imagine can feel like an overwhelming number of revelations. Basically, what I am saying is that it is no coincidence that you were tested and are only now being introduced to all this information after having passed.”
His mother paused, Xu Long looked at her thoughtfully, “I tell you all this so that you understand why I withheld this information from you. In all honesty I did not expect to be having this conversation with you so early.” When she saw her sons look change from thoughtful deliberation to a confident little prideful smirk, she had to pause a moment to collect herself lest bitter memories resurface. “All that being said, ask away.”
Stolen story; please report.
“How strong are you and Old Wu and can I become that strong?” Xu Long blurted out the question that he had held in for days now.
Smiling as though she could see through everything in her son's mind she began,”In order to answer both of those I am going to have to give you a very superficial description of some very complicated concepts that we will be spending a lot of time on in the coming years, understood?” After seeing her son nod, she continued, “Cultivation is the process by which all humans acquire strength, fundamentally, it is the process of absorbing the natural energy of the world, otherwise known as qi, and refining it to make it a part of you. It is a long and difficult path to walk, along that path there are six distinct levels or states of being, these are commonly referred to as major realms of cultivation. As an aside, there is technically a seventh but we will get into that later. These realms are respectively named Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Soul Amalgamation and Dao Seeking.”
“To answer your first question, I am a Soul Amalgamation Realm cultivator and Old Wu is a Dao Seeking realm cultivator.” Seeing her wide eyed son staring at her with mouth agape she took a pause and a sip of tea. When she thought he had composed himself enough she continued. “As to your second question, I can not answer it. Cultivation is a deeply personal and often solitary endeavor, others can teach you and provide guidance, but ultimately how far down the path you walk is entirely on you and whether you have the will.”
As Xu Long was chewing over his mother’s words in his head, he started to daydream about wielding the kind of power he imagined that his mother and Old Wu could wield based on the fraction of it they had shown him. When he looked over at his mother and saw the amusement in her eyes as she sipped her tea, he coughed into his hand and decided to deflect.
“When can I start?”
“I can feel your eagerness, but I am afraid that I will have to disappoint you, you can not start for years at minimum. In fact that brings us to the point that I said we will get back to, the seventh major realm of cultivation. I mentioned that it is ‘technically the seventh’, that is because it is not strictly necessary if one wants to cultivate, and is largely considered a luxury. It is called the Body Refinement realm, it is something of a pre-cultivation realm that, as the name suggests, involves sculpting the body into as perfect as possible version of itself. This process can not be started until you have reached puberty, not that people have not tried to start early, but it has been proven time after time to only be detrimental in the long run.”
Looking more than a little disappointed Xu Long asked, “when can one start Qi Condensation?”
“That is based on the maturity of the spirit, which is a rather nebulous term, I know, but in practice it means that on average most people will be capable of beginning cultivation proper at the age of 15 to 16.” Seeing the look in her son's eyes when she said “most”, she shook her head. “Even if you are one of the outliers capable of beginning cultivation at an earlier age, it is strongly discouraged, especially for boys. You have to understand Long’er, Body Refinement is simply taking your natural human body and making it the best it can be. At the end of the day you are still fundamentally the same as any normal non-cultivating human, what the cultivation world calls mortals. When you start to walk down the path of cultivation, however, it has a transformative effect on your body, one of the most pronounced of which is the slowing and eventual cessation of aging. Any short term benefits that you receive from starting earlier than your peers, of which there are few, are not worth a fraction of the price you pay in complications arising from messing with your formative growth period.”
The disappointment in Xu Long’s heart only grew, ten years seemed like a lifetime to a 6 year old. “Why especially for boys?”
“Boys tend to enter puberty later than girls and develop more slowly. When I said 15 to 16, that is largely a gendered gap with girls generally beginning at 15 and boys at 16. This distinction is, however, not set in stone like waiting until the mid teens to begin cultivation, boys that enter puberty early can begin at 15 and girls that enter puberty later can begin at 16. Ultimately it is a distinction that does not matter much at all, eventually the difference a year makes becomes so vanishingly small as to become completely irrelevant.”
As Xu Long was hanging on his mother’s every word and mulling over everything she said, he suddenly had a thought after listening to his mother dismiss a year of time as if it were insignificant. “Mother, how old are you and Old Wu?”
“I am a little over 900, as for Wu Zhong I am not entirely sure, I know that he is under 10,000 as that is the upper limit of longevity in this realm.”
Xu Long’s brain short circuited for a moment, 10,000 years didn’t seem like a real number to him, he couldn’t conceive of it, but learning that his mother who could be mistaken for his older sister was 900 years old was astonishing.
“Hey, don’t give me that look, I will have you know that I am incredibly young, those who can reach Dao Seeking before 1000 come around once every 50,000 years.”
“I thought you were in the Soul Amalgamation Realm?”
His mother waved her hand. “That is merely a technicality, I will reach Dao Seeking before 1000.”
Accepting his mother’s brazen words, that would probably be considered hubris or lunacy to anyone else, Xu Long moved on. “What is the Dao?”
“You remember earlier when I said I would give a superficial explanation that I would be fleshing out for you in the coming years? Well, when it comes to the Dao, all I can ever give you is a superficial explanation.
“The Dao is sometimes referred to as The Path, or the The Way. Each individual’s Dao can be thought of as a confluence of primarily their comprehension, but also their motivations, their experiences and their personality, essentially who they are. When I say each individual’s Dao, I mean just that, it is unique to each cultivator, even if cultivators appear to be walking down the same path on the surface, that is merely an illusion, no one can ever truly see the depths of another's Dao. That is the main reason why I told you that cultivation is a deeply personal and often solitary endeavor, because no one can dictate the path you choose and your conviction to walk it, even if they tried it would only be a hindrance.
“Having said all of that, you should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the final realm of cultivation here being called Dao Seeking, ultimately your entire cultivation journey can and should be thought of as Dao seeking. Granted, when you are young and inexperienced your Dao is malleable and many paths lay before you, but you would do well to keep it in the back of your mind, and always pay attention to what your heart says about decisions that lay before you.”
Xu Long could feel himself getting overwhelmed, he was excited beyond imagining about the vast world that was being revealed to him, slightly upset that he was nowhere close to actually being able to touch and experience it, but most of all he was feeling overloaded with information and yet did not want to stop consuming it. He closed his eyes and started trying to control his breathing like his mother had taught him.
When he opened his eyes he wasn’t sure how long he had been like that, his mother was still sitting across from him waiting patiently taking the occasional sip of tea. “I have one more question, Mother, then I think I need a break.”
Smiling at him, “that is fine Long’er, you passing the test at such an early age has its benefits and its drawbacks. On one hand you are very young to be exposed to all this, on the other you have a great deal of time to slowly absorb all that is being presented to you.”
He nodded his head, took a breath and then asked the question that was pressing on his mind. “You alluded to something a couple of times today. You mentioned the cessation of aging but then that 10,000 years was the limit of longevity in this realm. Then later you said that Dao Seeking was the final realm of cultivation here. What happens after Dao Seeking?”
“Transcendence.”
A serious look on her face, she continued. “That is not a realm of cultivation, more like an event. When a Dao Seeking Realm cultivator feels that they are ready, they must choose whether or not to continue along their path. If they choose to take that step then they must face a Heavenly Tribulation. It is essentially a test for which there are only two outcomes. Either you pass through the tribulation and ascend to the Immortal Realm to continue your path, or you die.”
Letting that sink in for a moment. “And before you ask, I can not tell you much, if anything, about the Immortal Realm, other than it exists, and its name is warranted.”