The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

I opened my eyes, finding a warm blanket covering my body. My memories felt fuzzy, like my memories were coming from two separate perspectives colliding into one. I looked at the roof above me and heard the fire crackling nearby keeping the insides warm. There was something warm grabbing me nearby as well, and as I raised my head, I saw Labby sleeping with her head on the side of the bed I slept on.

As I rose, my movement stirred Labby awake. She opened her blurry eyes, rubbing them for a moment, before freezing mid motion as she saw me.

“Great Master!” she exclaimed, leaping onto me with a hug.

“Yeah, it’s me Labby,” as I grabbed her, stopping her from tackling me off the bed. Labby held me in a tight embrace clutching me as if afraid to let go.

“Labby missed you,” she said.

“I missed you too,” I replied, gently patting Labby’s head as I smiled. The questions swirling in my head retreated for a moment, as I simply soaked into the moment. A moment later a click sounded from the door and I saw the old man walk in.

“Ah, you are awake,” he said, walking closer. “We had all been worried for you. What happened?”

I looked at the old man, and then at Labby, who had refused to let go so far. “I should probably talk about everything with the Lord present.”

The old man took a look at me, and then gave me an understanding nod.

I nodded gratefully and decided to simply spend some time sitting in silence. I had a lot to think about.

***

My rest felt woefully short, but I didn’t want to delay things any further than they already had been. We needed to begin traveling, and with the snow clearing out rapidly as the sun shone down and temperatures began to rise once more, I now sat in a carriage with the Lord, and the old man seated across me, while we resumed our journey towards the capital.

“An assassination, huh?” the Lord said, holding his chin in thought. “We had expected them to take some steps. But this… seems too far too soon. Unless they have determined for some reason that you are a greater threat than what we think they know should indicate,” the Lord said.

“One powerful enough to put us all to sleep,” the old man added.

“You said the art didn’t affect you?” the Lord asked.

I shook my head.

“Curious. Do you know why?”

I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“You mentioned gaining a new insight at the final battle. What was it that you realized, my boy?” the old man asked.

I looked at the old man. “You remember how you told me balance wasn’t the answer? Well. I found the answer. The answer wasn’t balance, it was harmony.”

“Harmony, you say?” the old man spoke, thinking over my words. “The difference is subtle yet substantial. To be in harmony, to bring the best out of each other. A concept that goes beyond mere balance. It is a good answer,” the old man said, sipping his tea.

I nodded at his words.

“You’d mentioned that you split in two, and if so, who’s the you right now?” The Lord asked me.

I looked down at my hands, trying to answer him. “In all honesty, I no longer know anymore. The difference that had existed before has vanished somehow. The line is… fuzzier. I’m…” I trailed off. My own identity was similar to what the Third Law looked like inside of me. It was no longer a spirit ring with one part or the other clarifying which half I was, but rather, a fuzzy spirit ring with no clear boundaries like a corona around the sun of the inner spirit rings.

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“There is no need to find the answer immediately,” the old man said, looking towards me.

“We had always anticipated that a union like yours would require more than just reunification. Two lives, lived from two separate perspectives do not mix so simply and immediately. But it seems, you are closer now than you had been before,” the Lord added.

I nodded at both of them. I was certainly closer than I had been before. A lot of my identity now was… a jumbled mix between both my selves. No longer could I tell which one I had been, and at what times and where.

And in some ways, I had been both, everywhere and at all times. I didn’t think I would need to think over these topics once again, but it was definitely something that I had to work on sooner or later. This much I’d known from the start.

“Leaving that aside, we are thinking over the assassination attempt. It would be highly unlikely to be able to trace it back to the Alchemy Halls, even if they were indeed the ones who had initiated it. And any such accusations will simply be denied by them. What do you intend to do?” The Lord asked me.

I didn’t reply immediately, looking outside the carriage window instead. Life was starting to return to the lands, almost as if we were physically leaving winter behind. Greenery began to return as the sun shone brightly up in the sky.

“Trying to have them take responsibility for something like this will be impossible. That’s not my goal, and not how I intend to make use of this fact. Most likely, they already know that their attempt has failed, so they know that, somehow, I managed to survive the attempt. There’s a few options ahead of this for them. Either they continue till I’m dead. Or, they deny ever having made the attempt in the first place, while trying to politically push me to the wayside,” I said, looking back at the Lord.

“Does this not concern you? The way you said that makes us think you have a plan,” the Lord said.

I smiled at his words. “You’re starting to figure me out, my lord. I’ll need to switch things up a little.”

The Lord shook his head in amusement.

I continued. “But yes, I do in fact have a plan. It’s… kind of a simple one, really. The reason why the Alchemy Halls cannot coexist with me is because they want to be the ones in control. They want to safeguard their power base, and not let an outsider create a crack in their control. But— and I was thinking over this for some time- what if they didn’t have to?”

“Why not? Unless your plans have changed somehow,” the Lord asked.

“Lu Jie— do you intend to,” the old man’s eyes widened as he looked at me. I grinned back at him.

“My recent… change, gave me a new perspective. This one, I hadn’t been considering as much. To the Alchemy Hall, this is not merely a matter of power. This is a matter of pride. It hurts their pride if a young startup from nowhere begins to undermine what they’ve built over centuries. The fact that I even can, hurts their pride immensely. But there is a way to heal that pride. To coax them, to lure them in, by not showing them the stick they anticipate from me, but instead, the carrot.”

“How do you intend to avoid them from simply taking control of what you possess? Or of you, for that matter?”

“They cannot. I have made sure of that much. But they aren’t the only ones I’ll be working with either. I have some ideas I’m working on, but the primary one boils down to the most precious thing I have to give. My knowledge.”

“Your books,” the Lord breathed. “But you’d said—”

“I’d said I didn’t intend to become a sage, or hand them over to the empire as is normal. No, I plan to sell these. Sell them to the highest bidder, and there will only be five present.”

This time, even the old man’s breath was stuck in his chest.

“By the heavens Lu Jie, you intend to make the five great families fight?”

It was only through a great exertion of my willpower that I stopped myself from cackling out loud. Forcing myself to remain calm and collected, I simply smiled at the two older men seated in my carriage.

“I intend to give one book to each of the five families, including the royal family as a way to keep their powers in check. I will then join the Alchemy Halls as an official alchemist, but an independent one with ties to all five, and allow them to make use of the books via me. If they refuse, they lose the chance to utilize the knowledge and I have freedom to do as I wish. If they try to kill me— and even if they succeed— it changes nothing. The books remain with the five families as their property. The Alchemy Halls cannot fight all five.And lastly, if they do accept me, they get to claim that I was one of them, they get to reap the rewards while still being forced to comply with my authority. They also get to keep their pride intact, as instead of an upstart, I instead become a Sage who has joined their ranks, a matter of pride.”

The two older men simply looked at me, before glancing at each other afterwards. The Lord began to laugh, and the old man shook his head instead.

“Sometimes, you scare us Lu Jie,” the Lord said.

I did not reply to that, simply taking the cup of tea the old man had made and took a sip. But I felt no less relief either way.

I glanced outside the window once more, watching the grasslands pass us by. Three more days, and we would be at the capital, where the next step of my plan would begin.

It was time to leave my mark on the empire, once and for all.

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