Qi Like Tar

It simply wasn't possible. In his entire life, Paike had never heard of anyone skipping stages. They were essential, required parts of the steps of cultivation. One thing had to come before another. It was like trying to run before you could walk. Or maybe that wasn’t even impossible enough. It just didn't happen.

His dantian needed to be expanded more before it could contain enough qi to compress to reach the next stage. That was just how it worked. A law of the universe.

He carefully checked over every piece of his spiritual body, finding all sorts of damage but nothing impossible to fix. He slowly got to mending, feeling how his qi moved. It was just as slow as ever, but had far more potency. Every single mote of qi held exponentially more power than he had even a few minutes ago.

There were several questions he had; the most important one was, how did he even have enough qi to condense? He should have had to expand his dantian once more to get into late cultivation, and then stretch it to its max for peak, before he even had a theoretical amount of qi in order to condense it into the next stable form.

He couldn’t solely chalk it up to his strange lack of talent. The way that qi reacted to him was slow, but he hadn't seemed to lack power.

After Paike was satisfied with his state, he stood up and began to slowly venture into the cave. It was time to see how that ancient spirit reacted. He was curious to see what it looked like with his new sight. Every few feet, he'd stop and stare at all the qi swirling around him, amazed by the beauty of the world and its pervasiveness.

Maybe he would find answers.

He would sometimes find a flow of qi and bend it into a loop or create a character with it just to see how it reacted. It was interesting to just leave them hanging in the air as he left the weird property, preventing them from just flowing and dissolving back into their natural form. If a sister tried to do this on her own, the characters would only stay as long as she was focusing on it. Otherwise, they would just dissipate back into the wind, flowing away like water.

For him, it took... it took him several moments to form the qi, but it stayed there, hanging in the air. A message for whoever came here and saw it. It would be an interesting way of leaving hidden messages, he supposed.

But he did return to his previous form after some time. At one point, he stopped and waited for about five minutes. The character he wrote was beginning to blur, might be only readable for another ten. Every time he looked at the qi, though, a thrill of excitement would shiver through his spine.

He was a Topaz cultivator. He was the first Topaz cultivator of their class. The fact that he even made it to Topaz was a heaven-blessed miracle. But the fact that he was also doing it so quickly... it was beyond his and any of his teachers' wildest dreams.

Although, as he came back down to earth, he had to reevaluate. With his age, it felt more like he was catching up. Most cultivators of any real talent at fifteen years old, like him, would at least be in late Topaz. And those who were truly talented would already be Emerald.

Paike had to keep moving, though. He couldn't take any of the environmental qi into his dantian to refill it. It was too damaged and would probably take him a few days before he could actually cultivate again, so his use of qi had to be economical. The good thing was that his qi went a long way, so if he was careful, he should survive.

Stepping around the bend, Paike saw the large cave. In the center was the spirit. This time, though, with his sight, he could see it radiating its power. Having a better sense of everything, Paike could tell that this was not a simple Topaz spirit, and he was pretty sure it wasn't even Emerald. It was something higher. He had no idea.

The fact that he had survived even an encounter with it was shocking. Either the thing had been merciful and less angry than it actually had seemed, or it was already weakened and damaged somehow. The fact that it was even here, that something this powerful was an insurmountable danger to any cultivator in the outer sect. Maybe even the inner sect. The elders shouldn't have let it be near the sect.

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It was their duty, and one of the reasons the great sect system had been so successful, after the imperialism purged the warring sects to end the Time of Chaos. A stable and safe place to get battle experience for the youngest members was their entire purpose. That had made sure every cultivator had some loyalty to the empire.

The mountain and the woods on it were carefully curated to provide challenges to Ruby and Topaz cultivators. But anything that was much more dangerous was usually a bound beast, part of a hidden trial, or a lucky opportunity. This was neither.

He should report it to the elders, and they would likely remove it. But... but it was the only source close to that strange aspect of qi in him. There was something more about it that he still couldn't grasp. Some connection to the stars, not just the earth. And he wasn't ready to give that up.

This thing had clearly been here for a while and hadn't caused any real problems, so Paike backed up to where he was just before the bend so he could see the spirit, and he sat down and began to study it.

*

After most of the afternoon, Paike had not made much progress, and he was starting to think that this ancient spirit, wasn’t going to do anything. The only thing he discovered was that this spirit was not actually the cause of the strange aspect that had colored his qi.

After studying the flows for hours, it was clear that the spirit was absorbing it, not emanating it, which he figured did make sense. The spirit, while powerful, was probably not more than a mid realm beast. It was probably nowhere near the level that would be required to embody an entire aspect.

That came much later, though, and Paike had frustratingly never been able to get a straight answer on exactly when that would happen. Most of his teachers would tell him that thinking about higher grades was a waste of his time. Instead he should focus on what was in front of hm. Making sure his foundations were solid was the best way to ensure there was a path for him. Thinking about later realms was a near guarantee to not advance to the next one.

In many ways it was decent advice. The attrition rate for each realm was so high it was nearly incalculable. Of those not trained in the great sects almost none would even get past Early Ruby. Paike supposed that might be because those with talented families were stronger cultivators and would be sent here or the truly blessed like Guan Li would be given scholarships.

Rather than continuing to observe the sleeping ancient spirit more, Paike slipped into meditation. Right now he had no ability to cultivate. He couldn’t even replenish his qi, nor improve his qi channels or physical cultivation. Everything was too new to be improved and needed time to settle. He needed to consolidate, but first, he needed to recover. His physical cultivation was now lagging significantly behind, and he would have to spend much more effort on that in the future. However, hopefully, the resumed physical cultivation classes will be beneficial.

So instead, he took a tiny bit of qi left from his qi channels and began to bore a hole through his spirit, connecting it to his heart. This meridian was complex and painstaking. After starting, he had to take two of the meridian carving pills he had received as a reward, which greatly sped up the process. He had been planning to save these for later, when adding more meridians became much more difficult, but this meridian was special. The way it twisted and curved was precise and slow, and with his method of creating them, it was quite painful. Still, he persevered.

This cave, even though the qi was not able to actually nourish him, felt right, as if he was centered, and this helped him maintain focus until the meridian was formed. He began to circulate the tiniest energy he could into the three different techniques from the art, Acknowledgment of Worldly Matters.

He briefly activated Unshakable in His Faith and found that it helped insulate him from a slight passive fear effect the spirit was giving off. It was just the basic suppression between realms as one clashed with something too powerful to handle. The fact that it was lessened, though, was nice. He needed to remember that this was applicable for that, even in something so essentially basic, not just complicated attacks. It really seemed like the technique was even more flexible than its creator had said in the book.

Unmovable in His Convictions froze him in place. Not entirely, but he could feel himself locked in at a certain point in space and time, unmovable. Even if a horse charged into him, he would be fine and would not shake. It was also one of the quickest techniques he possibly activate. If he combined that with his Transient Shield Formation, then blocking with his own body afterwards. He felt that he could be like a turtle god, practically unmovable or indestructible.

As he got up and turned around to head out of the cave, he activated Unstoppable In His Goals. The wind ruffled his hair as he shot forward. He had underestimated the effect of the technique powered by his newly improved qi. He overshot the mark and slammed into the edge of the mouth of the cave and smashing through the rocks as if they were nothing more than dense foliage.

The shattering of stone clattering around the cave entrance made Paike look over his shoulder and begin to beat a hasty retreat as he felt the ancient spirit roar shook the ground.

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