“Listen carefully, small human child of indeterminate age. There are two vast oceans at either end of the world.”
“Really? I’ve never seen an ocean.”
“Irrelevant, and the oceans I’m referring to possibly aren’t real. The world is impossibly huge, and you live in a very, very, tiny corner of it. Neither I nor anyone I know of have personally seen the oceans at either end of the world. If the teaching parable attached to this art has even the least shred of truth, anything that lives in those oceans would kill me thousands of miles before I was even aware of its existence. Now, shush and listen.”
Voidcatcher cleared his throat. Even as a human, his adams apple protruded quite a way when he did.
“In the great Northern Darkness, also known as the Northern Ocean, also known as the Darknorth Sea, there lives a great fish. I’d suggest you think of a whale, but you don’t know what that is. So, big fish. Imagine the biggest fish you have ever seen. Got it? Good. This big fish that I’m talking about is thousands of miles long. We don’t know how many. It is entirely possible that this is a fictional fish, but given some of the things I’ve seen, I wouldn’t bet a single mosquito on it.”
Tian silently agreed. Once you saw a man in a shabby diviner’s outfit grind an entire region larger than your home country through ritual magic, you stopped using words like “impossible.”
“So this huge fish swims around in the Darknorth sea, doing its usual fish things. Eating, mostly. The point to remember is that it can exist there, which means the Darknorth Sea must be of a certain scale, a certain width and depth, filled with enough good things to keep such an insanely huge organism alive.”
Tian nodded obediently along.
“A very magical creature too, because it migrates to the Southern Ocean, at the complete opposite end of the world. And here is how. It transforms into a giant bird called the Peng- you have a question?”
“Phoenixes are big fish?!”
“Peng, not Feng. Written with a different character, but the similarity is not coincidental. It turns into a giant bird. The bird has a wingspan not much smaller than the fish, if it’s smaller at all. Thousands of miles across. When it flies, it stirs windstorms for ninety thousand miles in every direction, and it goes south on the monsoon winds. It might even cause the monsoon winds, or be the monsoon winds. It’s that big.”
Tian’s eyes bulged, trying to imagine such a thing.
“Here is the thing. In order to support the wingspan of such an enormous bird, like the kun, the peng requires a certain depth of air below it. It flies some ninety thousand miles in the air, so high, you could stand at the peak of the mountain and not catch even a hint of a speck of it. And it’s thousands of miles across!”
Tian’s mouth slowly fell open. How could such a thing even exist? But he was standing on a giant magic mountain talking to a giant magic toad that was stronger than his whole sect, probably, so it might be very stupid indeed to make assumptions about what was and was not possible.
“Now, like the kun, the peng might be mythical. But it might not, because there is a reason this parable accompanies the Vast Darknorth Art. It takes the cultivator as the kunpeng (that’s what the combined animal is called, by the way, the kunpeng), and their qi sea as the Darknorth Sea. And without getting into too much in the way of details, the sky over the Darknorth Sea is your shen. See where I am going with this?”
Tian had a certain suspicion, but wasn’t ready to gamble on a metaphor. “Your student is too stupid-”
“None of that!” Voidcatcher barked. “The only one who is allowed to call my students stupid is me! You don’t understand. Simple as that.”
“As teacher says.” Tian felt a sudden flicker of warmth.
“You impossible idiot. Pond scum could get that metaphor. Every day you don’t choke to death on air is further proof that some are too stupid to die.”
The sudden flicker was crushed under a webbed foot.
“Obviously, or at least obvious to anyone with enough sense to pour piss out of a boot before putting it on, to say nothing of those of us with enough wit not to piss in our boots in the first place, the parable indicates the scope of the “water” and “air” the art accumulates. It also describes how you should approach cultivating them, the mentality of it. The kun is heavier than the peng, so the qi sea must be dense, broad and deep. It’s doing all the eating too, so the qi must be rich with nourishing things. That means it can accept things brought in by other cultivation arts, natural treasures, all the usual good stuff. It can accept a huge variety of things, which is not usual.”
Tian felt like he was out of his depth, at the very least. All this talk about qi seas and skies, what on earth was that about? Qi was gathered in the middle dantian, the most yang spot on the body. Surely something dark and wet couldn’t form there, could it?
“I can see you overthinking it. Juniors always get hung up on yin and yang and the five elements and all that. Look, it matters, it’s foundational, but there is the whole rest of the universe you know? And that, too, is the dao. Yes, the heart is associated with the element of fire. Yes, it is yang. Yes, the whole meridian system and the dantians are considered yang. But if there was no yin or water qi in you, you would just die. Remind me again what you are training to be? Is it a pig feces eater? Sub-imbicile grade assistant to the third junior moron in the Pavilion of Losers in your fleabitten, lice-ridden, vole infested backwater sect?”
“I miss when he was negligent and condescending. It was a restful time.”
Tian cupped his fist and bowed apologetically. Again.
“I’m going to provide you a copy of the art with some notes, just so you don’t kill yourself over nothing. Drowning, as it were, in an inch of water. Sit down and still your breathing. I’m going to help you cycle the art a few times, just so you get a feel for it.”
Tian was stabbed with the memory of Brother Fu, showing him how to use Advent of Spring. He suddenly, desperately, missed the old man. But he also knew Brother Fu would tell him to be obedient for his teacher, so he sat down in lotus and steadied his breathing. Voidcatcher put a hand on his back, just behind his heart, and let his qi flow into Tian.
Who suddenly had to redefine what he had previously understood “Qi control” to mean. The ancient toad’s qi was almost undetectable. Tian found his qi cycling through the paths described in the book perfectly, seemingly without any intervention from him. On the one hand, he shouldn’t have expected any less. On the other hand, seeing it actually done with a casual thought…
He really had found an incredible teacher.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelFire; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Tian inhaled, drawing in the undifferentiated qi of the world. His lungs filtered it, ordering it. Tian noticed it felt “wetter.” Not all wet or all cold, but more so than before. The air fell down through him into his lower dantian. It was transformed into vital energy, though Tian noticed the amount of vital energy was only moderately more than it had been before his evolution to the Heavenly realm.
Before he had time to investigate further, his attention was pulled upwards as the vital energy reached his middle Dantian. The dense vital energy seemed to boil in the fires of the Crimson Palace, rising like steam to his upper dantian. He couldn’t follow what happened there, but Qi flowed in a cycle. It fell back down into his middle dantian, where some of it stayed. He could feel the rain forming a little damp patch in his heart, and knew that it would one day become a vast ocean. One that could support a fish a thousand miles long.
“We will run through it a few times, as the subtleties may… will… elude you. Ah, if only you had one percent of my dear disciple’s wit. Still. You have a good heart, and that is worth nourishing.”
Voidcatcher was right about the little details eluding him, had he been left to practice on his own. It wasn’t just about the route the qi took through the body. It started in the lungs with a very subtle manipulation of the vital energy within them to filter the incoming qi to bias in favor of water qi. It took his full attention to control. It seemed that qi cultivation would see him sitting in quiet meditation like everyone else. Then there was the transformation in the middle and upper dantians. Even if he couldn’t directly control shen, he had to control how the qi rose and fell.
The Sect Master really hadn’t lied. This could absolutely cripple or kill you if you didn’t know what you were doing. If the qi didn’t flow properly, or overloaded at a particular point, you could go into qi deviation, which might result in illness, madness or death. The float from the middle dantian to the upper, then the rain back down again, was especially ticklish, as there was a certain lack of control at the peak of the cycle.
“You have the hang of it now. I’m going to let you cultivate here for a bit longer, a week let’s say, or two, just so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you and young hero Hong aren’t in any danger as you start your journey through… what I am culturally constrained into calling the Heavenly Realm.”
“Teacher, since it bothers you so much, might I ask what you would consider the appropriate term for it?”
“Imperfect Human Realm, Middle Stage. Cultivating beasts would use a different term, of course, but it is similar.”
Tian felt his body freeze as the implication hit him. “The purpose of the Earthly, Heavenly and… final realm-”
“Human, in your case.”
Grandpa had been exactly right.
“The Human realm is to perfect the cultivator?”
“Basically. Well. ‘Perfect’ in a very specific, technical, sense. No two people are identical, so calling two people in the same higher realm ‘perfect’ despite their differences leads to a certain logical conundrum. When you reach the end of the ‘Human’ realm, you will understand.”
“How do I even reach the Human Realm? I don’t know anything about cultivating in the Heavenly Realm.” Tian asked.
“Lucky you are in a sect, eh?”
There was a long pause.
“Fine, fine, I’ll be a good person and explain it slowly. First is accumulation. Like in the Earthly Realm, you have to build up a certain concentration of qi within you. The density and purity of that concentration matters, naturally, as does the constituent elements of it. You are still building a foundation at this stage. In the Earthly stage, you built your body. Now you build your… call it spirit, or qi, or the version of your body that is the stuff that animates the universe.”
Tian rocked back. He imagined a ghostly overlay of his body, a being a mist and lightning.
“Strictly speaking, very strictly speaking, there is an upper limit to how much qi your body can hold. It is possible to overload your dantians and blow up your meridian network should the intake exceed your capacity in a short period. Long term, there is practically no such thing. When qi accumulation is steadily, safely accomplished, the body stores it… up to a point, but you would die of old age before reaching it. I know what Heavenly Realm humans tell each other, but you aren’t truly immortal at this stage. With your physique, a thousand or so years should be manageable. Others would have less, of course, and a rare few more. You are still on a clock.”
“Understood, Teacher.”
“And I only had to say it once. I am a genius teacher indeed. You will need to acquire things that will speed up your cultivation. Pills, natural treasures, formations, special locations, that kind of thing. Remember, you are adding things and purifying things, enriching and improving that energetic body. You will need variety. Different treasures add different unique traits, and naturally, they interact with each other. The more things you add, the more complicated the balancing process becomes. You will also need to defend yourself, and secure the tools necessary to acquire all these useful things.”
A lot of things started clicking into place.
“You are suddenly understanding your seniors better, I see.”
“I had always wondered why they were so mad about adventuring. And so… unreliable.”
“OH YOU HAVE NO IDEA!” Voidcatcher was so agitated he turned back into his giant toad form. “Some of the worst losses I ever suffered were in the Heavenly Realm. Good brothers and sisters turn on each other over a single herb, scammers are everywhere, crafters, alchemists, formation masters and the other skilled trades are all absolute vampires, leeches, marrow sucking creatures that will drain you dry of all your treasures and spirit stones. It’s hell!”
“Junior always knew merchants couldn’t be trusted!”
“Very true, very true! There is hope for you yet, young Tian. Listen, and learn wisdom from me. A fool goes into a merchant’s store through the front door, a hero enters the merchant’s warehouse through the roof. It’s not robbery to steal from a thief, and that’s what merchants are- thieves. All of them. In the Imperfect Human Realm, anyway.”
Tian nodded strongly. His teacher was clearly speaking the divine truth. He could feel Grandpa Jun radiating approval too.
“To escape that hellish stage, you need to reach that certain point of accumulation, then form your qi body. Once that is established, you embark on the great journey of shen cultivation. Which you don’t need to worry about for centuries, so ignore it for now.”
“Hah. Yes, Teacher.”
“The manual for the Vast Darknorth Sea Art has an explanation on how to condense the qi body. Here. A nice fresh copy just for you.”
A jade slip floated over. Tian looked at it. It seemed quite smooth, a fine, lustrous green, with a rather ordinary decoration of a fu dog at the top.
“Send your qi into it. Your shen will come along for the ride. You will see.”
Tian did so, and his head snapped back almost instantly. It was like reading a book without the intermediation of pages or ink. The words and pictures appeared in his mind directly. He withdrew his qi, and the images withdrew with them. It seemed he would have to memorize it the old fashioned way. Still. What an incredible thing.
“Right. That should about do it. I’ll send a leaf for Young Hero Hong. I’m quite sure old Merciless isn’t doing her any favors. It’s not in his nature.”
“Teacher, might I impose on your kind nature for one more minor thing? You mentioned that my acupuncture book is dangerously wrong. Could I trouble you for a book or some teachings on acupuncture so that my medicine dao will not be led astray by your inferiors?”
Voidcatcher’s giant eyeball rolled. “You lack the skills for flattery. But fine, fine, I’ll be a good person to the end. This is something that quack Earth's Blessings put together. Just pay attention to the mechanical bits, what to stick where and when. That much is right, if clumsy and written stupidly. The theory is all garbage. Sounds plausible if you don’t know any better, but it’s rubbish. Don’t mind the tear stains and the smudged autograph. I beat him up and made him cry when we debated at the Duke of Yao’s tea party… ah, but that’s still beyond you for now. Here.”
Voidcatcher tossed out an inch thick book printed on what appeared to be excellent quality paper. “Feel free to tell everyone you meet that you are his student, by the way. Particularly if you botch a diagnosis or kill someone during surgery or something.”
“Senior Earth's Blessings is dead?”
“No, I just hate the fact he dares to keep practicing medicine despite knowing what a loser and a failure he is. Especially since someone robbed his medicine warehouse while I was crushing him in the debate. He should have retired, or better still, reincarnated and gotten out of my sight. Any and all slander or disgrace you can bring to his name is merely correcting a public misunderstanding, not doing any wrong.”
Tian cupped his hands and bowed. He really learned so much from his teachers.