The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

I stood in the darkness. A familiar sight by now, one I had grown to take comfort in more so than anything. But this time it was vicious, like the unending darkness that wanted to eat at my existence itself.

Looking around, I picked a direction on a whim and began to walk through the dark. Time passed in this strange state. I did not get tired, I did not feel hunger, but I did get bored. Even as I corrected the slight change in my steps to not run in circles, the eternal darkness did not relent. I continued to walk, so long as my will held, reaching out with my spirit to anything that would hear.

Where was I? This was not a dream. I could not sense anything here. No Qi, no Gu, not even any Chi. There was truly nothing here. Even with the force of my will, I could not tell if I walked forward or not. My own Chi illuminated my body to my sight, yet only I existed in this place. Nothing else could be seen.

“Alright, intimidation tactics succeeded. Now come on out,” I said to the darkness.

Nothing.

I began to walk again, before that too grew tiresome. “Seriously, where the fuck am I? Did I die? Is this what death is truly like? That can’t be it, right?” I called out. By now, I had grown accustomed to the lack of sound. Even my own voice felt faded. I expected it to echo but there was nothing for it to touch, and so it simply vanished into the void.

I sat down on whatever there was to sit on. Perhaps merely the manifestation of my own sense of needing a ground, or a physical space I could not see. Taking a seat, I began to meditate.

There was no Chi to gather here, so I simply began to cycle mine, focusing on my breath.

Time passed in a daze as I continued to meditate.

Five thousand eight hundred and twenty seven cycles… Five thousand eight hundred and twenty eight…

I lost count many times. So many, that I lost count of how many times I had to begin anew. How many times I screamed at the darkness, or shouted, or ran until I gave in and simply closed my eyes.

Nothing had worked. Nothing seemed to. This was eternal torment.

As I sat in the dark, my mind wandered from one thought to the next, when suddenly I created a ball of water in my hand to drink from. I was not thirsty, but the craving had arisen anyway.

As I drank the water made of Chi, it took me a moment to realize something.

I had created something.

The only thing that existed in this darkness now, was me, and the few drops of water that had faded away. But even for a moment, they had been there.

It was like my world had changed.

I created more water, letting it flow out of my body and form from the Chi in my core. After the water, came earth. It rose and flowed, forming the ground beneath my feet. Lands sprawled across me, and I created a pond. Laughter echoed in the darkness now, pure joy filling me at watching the earth and the water.

But I wanted more. There needed to be more. And so I filled the world with air. Taking a breath, I felt a breeze upon my face, and tears spilled from my eyes at the sensation. Slowly, with each drop of water, each pebble, each grain of sand and dirt, I created a new world.

It was not a large one. My Chi had limits. But it was mine, and mine alone. And so I began to build.

***

Time passed by. I had grown accustomed to counting, so I knew it had been three months since I started as I finally finished my project. Though even that felt like forever ago now.

A home remained in front of me, a manor around a garden with a quaint pond within it. It was a modern construction, white ceilings, glass windows with a precision no human hand could craft or create.

I looked into the glass paned windows and saw my face reflecting back. I looked different now. I decided to cut my hair. It was short, and messy, as the blade had been a simple sharp rock. I had not been good at creating metal at the time. Eventually, I’d made a shirt for myself, and some jeans, slipping into them with a familiar comfort that I’d missed for quite some time.

Now I walked around my garden, watching the little fish swimming in the pond, pleased and happy to be alive. Just like I was, to see them there. In my garden, plants and flowers blossomed, filling the air with fragrant scents as I walked amongst them, feeling a strange sense of contentment and joy.

But there was one place. One place that made me happier than any other. I walked for a while, to a section of the garden kept separate from the rest before reaching the place where all my friends were.

“Hey Labby,” I said, raising my hand.

The statue made from earth did not respond, but I smiled anyway as I pet Labby’s head. There were others who were nearby, and one by one I greeted them all as I made my way around the garden. It would be rude to ignore my friends, after all.

When I was done, I walked back into my house, before taking a seat on the sofa. There was a TV on the wall, mounted, and I picked up the remote as I began to watch a movie. The devices should not have worked; after all, they were empty inside. But they did nonetheless, as this world was mine, and I dictated what the rules were.

I continued to watch the movie, sitting in peaceful comfort as the hours clicked by. The clock slowly moved through the day, before reaching near the end of the day.

“Damn, did not pay attention to the time,” I said, getting up as I walked to the kitchen. Idly, I prepared something to eat. A simple sandwich would suffice for today. Taking my snack, I munched on it, walking around my home before reaching my library.

Looking inside, I felt pleased looking at the rows of books. Unlike everything else, this library was what had taken me the longest time to create. Each book, each page, and each word had to be created from memory.

I was grateful for the near perfect recall I had in this place, allowing me to fulfill the task, even though I wasn’t sure what purpose I was creating and preserving these books for, just looking at them made me feel better.

A cracking sound came from nearby, and my good mood began to fade. I clicked my tongue, walking further into the library until I stood in front of a mirror with cracks. There was one person beside me in this place. A person who should not have been here.

Gu Jie watched me from the other side.

“Why do you keep making noise?” I asked.

“Because you refuse to listen,” Gu Jie replied, looking back at me with his piercing gaze. “Wake up, Lu Jie.”

“You know I have tried. There is no point. I don’t even understand why you exist here, or what this place even is. What’s so wrong with trying to be happy if I must be tortured eternally here anyway?”

“We can’t just give up. There’s a war we need to fight, and our path we need to walk. Will you just abandon that?” Gu Jie asked me, as the mirror shattered, and he stepped out of it.

“Why don’t you go ahead and fight it in my stead then?” I said, turning back around. I had grown tired of hearing this. Hearing his words, as if I did not wish to return. As if I did not know the false lies I clung to.

“You know I can’t. I am Gu, you are Qi. Only together is our path complete,” Gu Jie said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I ignored him, as I had for a while now. The first time I found Gu Jie, I had rejoiced. I had someone to talk to at last. A real person, instead of statues. But soon, our talks grew sharper. He remained relentless in his pursuit, while the time took a toll on my spirit. I had tried many things. More things than I could reasonably count. It had been two weeks since I had given up, and I failed to find the strength to try again.

I walked to my bedroom, where I knew he could not come. Even in this place we had our boundaries. Perhaps due to mutual understanding, or perhaps merely something that existed as whatever remained of our two selves’ individuality, but this was my sacred place.

Walking into the room, I lay on my bed, closing my eyes, as I let sleep take me.

***

I walked around my town, as the children gathered around me, calling my name. I laughed, pleased by their presence as I picked one up in my arms, before I took them into the skies.

My world had grown with time. First my home, then others, and eventually I had learned how to create people. And so I had. Gu Jie had left me a while back, and we had lost the Chi our union had formed. But I had not given up.

One by one, I filled this barren wasteland with life. I had created a sky, a sun, mountains, and now the valley that surrounded us was our home.

My steps were slower now, more paced. I had grown older, though by how much I could not tell. The child in my arm shrieked in joy as clouds flew past him. I smiled, letting him roam through the skies with my arms.

But then the boy shouted, and not in joy any longer and I soon realized why. The void drifted beyond this valley, the end of our world that led to the unending dark. I slowed down, turning away but the child had seen the dark, and so he cried.

Gently, I covered the boy’s eyes before erasing the memory from his mind. A simple task, as he soon calmed down and I descended upon the earth.

The children laughed as they watched me come, begging to be the next one to ride on my shoulders. Just as I was about to pick another child, an alarm rang in the darkness.

The adults moved out, weapons drawn as kids quickly rushed back into their moves. “Leader, the dark beasts arrive!”

I nodded, stepping forward. Qi burned in my core, as I took to the skies watching the rows of mindless beasts rolling in through the void. They wanted to take my home, the place I had built from the very earth that it was founded upon. I would not let them.

Fire erupted from my hands, as it burned through the beast. My men ran, fighting with their weapons. Explosions shook the ground as we fought the rising tides.

The battle raged for weeks, my people died but so did the beasts, yet the tides were stronger this time.

As I stood amidst the battlefield, cutting through a behemoth, my eyes met my other half, looking back at me with a quiet gaze.

“You!” I screamed, anger flooding me as I felt a betrayal I could not describe.

“We have waited too long. A false world, and a false prison. Today, we break free.”

I ran, rage taking me over as I fought my other half.

Qi and Gu raged against one another, as flames burned the world to the ground. Everything I had made, everything I had created was turned to Ash as I fought within the void.

No words were exchanged any longer. Nothing could be said. We simply fought, until only one of us remained.

The darkness shook from the battle, the collision of two energies cracking the world. Light seeped into the darkness of my soul as I felt something give way.

Our battle stopped, as both of us watched the world around us beginning to collapse. I heard a voice whose words I could not make out, but they spoke to me. Calling me towards it.

“What is happening?” I asked, as the ground tore itself beneath my feet.

“I don’t know,” Gu Jie said, before turning towards me. “But perhaps we can escape now.”

My eyes met his, and I found hate and anger burning within me. Yet, even as I did, the desire to return was greater.

I took Gu Jie’s hand, as two became one once more.

My memories, my emotions, they were one again, as they were meant to be. Chi formed at my fingertips, as I reached into the crack, grabbing the edges of reality itself as I tore them apart.

A gap was here now, one from which light poured through.

I took one longing look back at what had been my home for an eternity, before I slipped through.

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