The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

Endless dark surrounded me, infinite and unending. A familiar sight. I opened my eyes, feeling an innate connection to where I was standing. My spirit, and my dantian. Space seemed to lose concept in this place, directions seemingly meaningless. Yet despite that, I could tell where to turn and look to find the anchor of my spirit.

A giant golden spirit ring circled in the dark abyss of my spirit, flashing golden light into its surroundings. Around the gold, was a silver ring, humming with a quiet thrum. The Two Laws. The Two Truths anchored into my very soul.

I looked back down, at the darkness again. It had once been a home for me, a terrible and cold one, yet home nonetheless. Faint memories swirled in my mind. Just how long had I spent in here? The entire period of time felt like a distant dream lost to the waking world, only there in quiet whispers that echoed at the back of my mind, and yet I found my heart ache as I stood here, watching the ruins of what had once been my entire world, now barren and empty, with only darkness in my path.

I paused. No… not quite just darkness. I looked in the distance and saw a light shining from somewhere far. I squinted my eyes and found a gate in the darkness, opening up a path as if leading somewhere new. I walked towards the light, as it slowly began to grow closer. Time moved in a strange manner here, immaterial and unperceivable. But I was familiar with the ways of this place now. The world here was my spirit, and I had spent a lifetime mastering it. The trick… was to get into that state of blissful focus, where time was eternally stretched, and yet just a single moment.

And so I did. I walked, and walked, and the world around me shifted, bending to my command. I believed I was moving closer, that the path was taking me to my destination, and that the darkness beneath my feet was as solid as the earth I stood on.

That was the good part about being ignorant. You didn’t think to question the logic of the world, or remind it that it’s supposed to not work like it is.

I stumbled, for the briefest of moments as the thought made my certainty waver, but I focused will. I stood on solid ground and nothing else. The darkness turned solid again, agreeing to my thoughts.

The key was to not think about it. Which was harder than it sounded, but I managed to keep my eyes on the light, and move forward, paving my way through.

The time it took me to reach the plant felt like an eternity that had passed in a blink and there I was, as I entered the gate made of light, into a flashing bright world.

I closed my eyes for a moment, blinded by the brightness of the place. After settling myself for a moment, I looked around. The walls… no, reality itself, was a pure white here. Covering me in all directions, just like the darkness had. But here, the earth was not, in fact, made of desperate hopes and pleas. It was, in fact, solid, and to undo it would require more willpower than I had to give.

But my sight was quickly shifting to the tree inside instead. Unlike the projections that came out of my spirit when I channeled Chi in large quantities, this tree was… small. Barely taller than me, and white glowing white petals that rustled in an unseen wind.

It’s roots intertwined with the ground beneath it, giving it substance with the irrevocable certainty that only a tree could have.

I ignored the usual strangeness of spirit places, as I reached the tree, brushing my hand against one of its leaves. A light glimmer covered the plant, but other than that, there would be almost no way to tell it was special in any other way.

“Have you finally come to your senses and decided to relinquish your power to us, and become a vessel of our will?” a voice spoke to me. I knew who it was. I didn’t even have to look.

I snorted. “You wish. I’m not here for you.”

“We should have known. Such sense is not to be expected of children such as you,” the spirit replied.

“I liked you better when you were Ki. Ki was nice and kind,” I replied.

“She was but a mere fraction of our self. Our nature is neither kind, nor gentle. We merely are.”

“I know,” I replied. “But it still won’t hurt you to be nicer.”

“Do you ask the hurricane to be gentle? Or the volcano to not burn? It is foolish to as this of us, and you know it, but still you do so anyway. Perhaps we were too hasty in picking a new vessel,” the tree shivered and shook for a second.

“I’m happy to give you recommendations,” I replied. Somehow I meant that. There were more suitable people to this task than me.

The spirit went silent at my words.

“That was a joke. I’m not abandoning you,” I said, sensing a strange emotion rising from the spirit.

“We do not need your consolations, child. It is not your loyalty which we worry of.”

“Then, what is it?” I asked, looking at the tree. It shook gently, but did not speak for a while. I frowned. “You’ve been keeping something from me for the very beginning. You told me the cycle of the world is broken, that death and life need to be reunited and the rebirth of souls restarted. But you never told me what broke the cycle in the first place. Or who,” I said, my voice rising. “What’re you so afraid of?”

A wind blew past the tree, it’s leaves shaking.

“We once had another vessel. One far more prodigious and gifted than you. He, too, was a child lost from your world, moving through the cracks in the primordial Qi of the beyond and arriving here. And he was blessed. We had developed the child, grown with him,” the tree said.

“What happened to him?” I asked.

I felt eyes settle onto me, their weight heavy. “He lost his path, when he learned the truth. He rejected it, abandoning us as he left.”

“What’s the truth?”

“We cannot say. You are not ready. Not yet. And… your Path is incomplete, and weak. If you were to learn the truth… your spirit would cave under it’s weight.”

“Right, and you’re afraid I’ll lose my Path as well?” I asked.

“We do not know. You are… different from that child. Less gifted in many ways, but more in some. We did not guide you like we guided him. You found us on your own.”

“Thanks? That feels a little insulting somehow, but thanks,” I said, before putting my hand on the tree’s branch. I felt the chi flowing under it, a gentle stream of energy that pulsed with the beat of my heart.

“What’s your name?” I asked, looking at the tree. “You should have one, right?”

“We do not have names, child,” the spirit said, and for a moment, I could see the silhouette of a giant creature in front of me.

“Really? That’s a shame,” I said. “Names are important. Surely, you know that too?”

The spirit seemed to hesitate.

“We do not have any name… but the people have called us many names of their own. The silver dragon, the ancestral spirit. but, if we had to pick, we would be called Xuanwu,” the spirit replied.

“Xuanwu,” I said, the world rolling off my tongue. “That’s a nice name.”

The spirit did not speak for a few moments, before finally replying. “Child. We know your nature. You wish to stand as equals with all who you meet. Whether they are beneath you, or above, you see eye to eye with them. It has given you a kind of gift that few others possess. But… do not think you can you can talk to the other Divine Beasts. The Azure Dragon, or the Black Dragon will both crush you mercilessly. They are not creatures you can make friends with.”

I frowned at the spirit’s words. “Why? And who are they?”

“The two other divine beasts, that children of Heaven and Earth who have been quarreling over something neither of them remember any longer. And our misfortunate siblings.”

“So… all of this is happening because… of a sibling fight?” I asked, slightly taken aback.

“If it can be called such when the siblings are two gods of unparalleled power, then yes. But it is not that simple. And we have already spoken too much,” the spirit said, before withdrawing into the tree.

“Leave us, if you are done. The remnant you came to seek is beyond this place. A path will show you out,” the spirit said, before settling back into the tree.

I tried to reach out, but found the spirit unresponsive to my proddings and words.

Letting out a sigh, I turned around and saw another gate leading the way out to some other place. I walked out the gate, into the darkness once again where the world was held together by mere hopes and dreams. But this time, there was something here.

My eyes widened in surprise as I found a piece floating in the darkness. It was barren, and breaking apart, but the home I had once formed still existed here.

I walked closer to the place, gently stepping on the earth, holding it together by an exertion of my will to stop it from crumbling into nothingness, as I looked around.

This was the place I had created. A home for myself, and a solace in the eternal darkness. I looked at it’s sad state, as a bitter smile rose to my face.

“Guess this is as good a place to start as any,” I said, sitting on the ground and crossing my legs, as I closed my eyes.

My awareness spread out into the dantian I was residing in. The darkness spread around in a vast expanse, filled with Chi to the brim. It swirled and circled, moving perfectly at my command. The last time I’d been in an inner world, I had been unaware of Chi, but now that I was, I could sense the little patterns moving through the dantian.

Letting out an exhale, I reached out to the vast expanse of energy. My will travelled through the Chi, like a ripple through an ocean. The Chi stirred, responding to me. It swirled and began to move.

The technique the old man had showed me, I utilized, guiding my Chi to follow my will. I focused, trying to think of a place. Many memories came in, my room back in the sect, but the image soon faded, my lab in Taizhou was next. The Chi began to react, burning brighter, as I felt the energy stirring, but the vision faded, the Chi settling back down.

I sat silently, trying to think of the place that was solely me. The Chi began to swirl, moving at my will as an image began to appear. A room with a large shelf filled to the brim with all the books that I’d ever want to read.

I felt a sense of contentment. My place. A place solely for me. I imagined it, and willed it into being.

The walls of my dantian shuddered, as the darkness began to crumble away. Chi swirled, flowing around in torrents. The ground paved itself beneath me, the walls forming with white tiles, shelves stood next to the wall.

The world around me continued to shudder, before turning calmer a moment later. I opened my eyes, and found a piece of reality existing around me now. I stood in a library, a giant one stretching tall up into the skies. Up above, at the top, the two spirit rings of my soul shone with the shimmer of the two Laws.

I looked back down, glancing at the books. As I picked one up to look at, my eyes widened in surprise.

I remembered these. These were… the books I had read during y childhood. A vague memory came to my mind, of a woman’s figure sitting by my side, reading through a book that was more complicated than what a six year old should’ve been reading, and yet my attention was captured by it, and I found myself sinking into the brand new world it showed me.

The memory faded as I closed the book, and I could remember a lot more than I had just a moment ago.

I looked around myself, at the vast library, realising each piece of it, was a moment from my life I had lived at some point. And not just the one life either. But all of it.

A strange emotion filled me, one I couldn’t quite place, but somewhere between a great sense of pain, and then relief and happiness. I had regained a piece of myself here, once more.

Taking a deep breath in, I smiled. I had a task to complete.

It was time for me to steal an entire world’s worth of knowledge, for the sake of science.

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