“Quite a special find. Well done, both of you. A spirit nurturing mountain, a wood-fire qi dragon and a metal-earth qi tiger, both properly raised and kept well balanced by the earth and water of the mountain. And each other, obviously.” Elder Duan stroked his long black mustache. Tian wasn’t particularly familiar with him, but he was apparently the one to ask about ancient qi spirits. There had been more experts on the subject in the Monastery before, but now, they just had to make do with whoever was left.
“Why are they growing so quickly?” Liren asked.
“It’s more like they are recovering their power. They were originally existences at the Heavenly Realm, quite possibly near the peak. The fact that they have survived so long is a testament to both the extraordinary quality of the sealing box and their fundamental power. It’s quite a good mountain too. Superb work, really showing the skill of a crafter moving with nature to create a wonder.”
Elder Duan’s hands kept twitching. He clearly wanted to pick up the mountain and fiddle with it, but the dragon and the tiger made that impractical.
“So we can’t refine them?” Tian asked.
“If by ‘refine’ you mean incorporate them into your bodies, you certainly can. You should! Though not the mountain, that’s a qi spirit nurturing tool, and quite precious. Don’t harm it.”
“We won’t, Elder. How do we incorporate them into our bodies? They seem pretty powerful.” Liren asked.
“Mmm? Not too bad at the moment, but yes, quite powerful. You would either need to let them return to full strength and use special arts to absorb them, or you could try to do it now. You would have to be in the Heavenly Realm if you waited, of course, and candidly, while we do have arts for merging qi spirits into one’s physique, they aren’t the best. It is a very stable option, however, and so long as you are confident about breaking through to the Heavenly Realm, it is what I would advise. We are immortals. We have a very great deal of time.” Elder Duan wryly smiled.
“On the other hand, no one can be truly confident about breaking through to the Heavenly realm, as a revelation can only be chanced upon, not sought. There are benefits to incorporating them into your bodies now. Your body cultivation would be pushed to an entirely new height, your qi would deepen and become far richer, insights into the operation of the world would become much easier for you… frankly, the benefits are so immense, they are hard to quantify.”
The Elder checked the excited flow of his words with a sudden jerk and a guilty expression. He raised his hands to try and calm the atmosphere.
“There are serious risks. The spirits are unstable, and still dragging in immense amounts of energy. There isn’t an art for incorporating them into you, not in this state. You would be relying on your body cultivation arts. Worst of all, us elders would be of limited use advising you. All of our knowledge about incorporating qi spirits is second hand from cultivators in other countries or learned from books. I don’t know of anyone presently alive in the Broadsky Kingdom who has done it.”
Tian and Hong shared a look. They both possessed extremely tyrannical cultivation arts, far beyond what they had seen others in the Sect using. It seemed… possible.
“Forgive me, Elder, but how could that work? My art takes the vital energy generated by my qi cultivation art and uses it to refine my body-” Tian spoke slowly but was cut off by Elder Duan waving his hand.
“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. All body cultivation arts have the same core principle, and it’s exactly what you are describing. Chaotic qi is refined into vital energy, then that vital energy is used to do exactly what vital energy does. It nourishes, strengthens, moistens, and refines the body, laying the foundations for the spirit to grow. The details of how that process works and what the final result looks like vary wildly.”
Tian and Hong nodded at that. Their arts were radically different, after all.
“But the core operating principle is the same. The qi spirits are, ultimately, qi. They are already quite refined and filled with special properties that can nourish your bodies. While they appear alive, they are not sapient. Their form and actions are more akin to expressions of heavenly law than real animals.”
Tian and Hong shared another speculative look. “What side effects are there, Elder?”
“No idea, I’m a supervising Elder of the Wondrous Crafts Pavillion, or I was. I just came because I know more about qi spirits than most. We create them for some of our highest quality products. Artificial qi spirits are never as robust as the natural sort, but they are far more suited to being used as an item spirit. And you don’t have to rely on chance to acquire them, of course.”
The elder’s fingers twitched towards the spirit nurturing mountain.
Liren stifled a laugh. “Elder, how about this? If you help us absorb the qi spirits, you can take the mountain as your fee.”
The Elder shook his head ruefully. “Ah, if only I could. My little bit of help is not worth as much as the mountain is. Still, what a good, sensible child you are for offering. How that old miser Hong Hua had such a smart granddaughter, I don’t know.”
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“You could borrow it for a decade or two?” Tian offered.
The elder brightened up. “Perfect! Let’s do that. I’ll even prod Old Nui to stand by for medical support. It should be fine to do anywhere, but we might as well be doubly safe and do it in the hospital.”
That, Tian reckoned, was the most sensible thing he had heard in ages. The elders were sincere, in his experience, but not always reliable. “Old Nui” was very likely to be Chief of Internal Medicine Nui, an exalted existence Tian had never met, and whose name was mentioned only rarely and with reverence by the Heavenly Realm doctors who were training him.
It should have been straightforward- simply grasp the qi spirit, run the Hell Suppressing Sutra, and be ready to counter whatever difficulties appeared. It was, in fact, straightforward. Except that Tian had neglected a few crucial facts about his present political condition.
The top two disciples below the age of one hundred in the Earthly Realm, presumptive core disciples and very nearly as certain to be direct disciples, were going to merge with powerful qi spirits. A genuine article fortuitous encounter, but fortune and danger went hand in hand. Clearly, no degree of preparation would be excessive. And while everyone doing the preparing was in the Heavenly Realm, they too had been Outer Court disciples, once.
Tian was horrified to learn the Inner Court, and even the Elders, were no less gossipy than the Level Tens, and after centuries of relying on themselves for amusement, no less bored. This was something new. A wonderful, exciting, challenging, project.
If it wasn’t for the time pressure of the constantly strengthening spirits, Tian was convinced they would still be building the perfect refining chamber a year from now.
As time was a factor, and the spirits were only getting harder and harder to refine, two senior crafters, an array master, two doctors skilled in the art of Air and Water, the rumored Medicine Elder Nui and Elder Duan, under the polite yet firm supervision of Direct Disciples Fu and Bai, were forced to restrain themselves with a converted hospital room. The hospital wasn’t particularly large, but it was well equipped. The absorption process would be as safe as possible.
“Just to confirm, Disciple Hong, you are taking the Tiger spirit, and Disciple Tian is taking the dragon?” Elder Duan asked. “Good. Yin for yin, yang for yang. You will refine the spirits as though it was merely a denser blob of qi, but expect unusual transformations during the process. Prioritize stability as you operate your body cultivation arts. Ready on the array?”
“All set.” One of the attending seniors nodded.
“Alright. Raise the array, and then the two of you should just open the box, grab the spirit you are after and start cultivating.” Elder Duan nodded sharply and stepped back. Pink-gold light rose from the precious ink painted around Tian and Hong, the spell seals and obscure symbols slowly waking and bringing dawn light into the hospital.
Tian and Hong shared a smile, then reached out together and opened the translucent box. Dragon and tiger continued their fight over the miniature mountain. They were more solid and vivid looking than he remembered, though no larger.
Truly a fateful encounter. Liren caught his eye as her hand closed around the tiger of metal and earth yin. She smiled, excited, wild, and… hopeful? He was pretty hopeful too.
Tian lifted the dragon to his mouth. There was a moment that tasted like a lightning storm and the smell of spring. Exuberance. Joy. Sheer, unmitigated joy. Laughing madly. He could feel his body shaking and thrashing with the wild, keening laughter. Smiling so wide, he thought he felt the corners of his mouth tearing, and it felt like something was tearing near his heart and he was laughing, laughing, laughing as Liren screamed like something dying beside him.
Tian lost track of things. He felt cold. He had been burning a moment ago, he was sure of it, but now he was shivering. He had never been so cold. He thought he could feel his marrow freeze.
Something was forced down his throat. He swallowed convulsively, and his body started warming up. Something else this time, a liquid. Needles were inserted. One, then ten, then fifty. Something was pressed on his forehead.
His fingers numbed. For some reason, he imagined them turning blue. For some reason, he imagined his remaining fingers withering and rotting away. Drifting into oblivion. He could feel his consciousness drifting away on the still waters of oblivion with his fingers and toes and memories of warmth.
Tian breathed through it, focusing his dwindling will on cycling Advent of Spring. He was used to dealing with extreme yin. This was just another time. He wouldn’t fall unconscious. He would put all his focus on cultivation, and that would be enough.
It took twelve hours for his condition to finally stabilize. When he recovered enough of his consciousness, he was able to finally see an exhausted Brother Fu sitting by the bedside.
“You are awake.”
Tian nodded, then lifted his hands up. They seemed too heavy. Fortunately, he had all the fingers he remembered. They flexed and wiggled at his command.
“I thought I lost them. Again. I’m sure I felt them freezing off, if that’s even possible.” Tian shivered.
“It is. Are you cold?”
“Yes, Father.” Tian felt very calm. Maybe it was all the cultivation, but he really didn’t feel like anything that happened warranted a strong reaction.
“We will need to increase the dosage on your medicine. Your body…” Brother Fu shook his head. “Liren is having a… similar reaction to what happened to you. We are still trying to figure out what happened. In her case… if you are ever cooking oil in a wok and it catches fire, don’t pour water on it.”
“No?”
“No. It explodes, then your house burns down.”
Tian nodded. “I won’t do it, then. But how is Liren?”
“Oh, Zihao!” Brother Fu shook his head. “Better than you, but not by much. Maybe it would be better so say she’s damaged differently. Rest. You will be staying here for a week. I’ll bring you some books. Maybe some plants for the room.
Tian thought he ought to smile, but for some reason he couldn’t quite grasp the emotion. “That would be nice, thank you, Father.”
“Do you need another blanket?”
“Mmm… I think I’m alright for now.”
Tian didn’t notice that fog condensed with his breath. His father noticed, and a despairing part of him felt it was fitting. Tian’s hair had turned a snowy white.