The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

The heavens roared and the world shook around me. The bolt of lightning crashed through my body, and I could distinctly feel the ground underneath me cracking from the force of the strike, as the power passed through me. I could feel the surge, like a million hot daggers poking in my stomach, all trying to claw their way out. Immediately a powerful pulse of pain shot through me and I found my sense of self separating from myself, watching the events from a distant place as I focused all my attention on absorbing the power from the tribulation lightning before it seeped into the world around me.

My core greedily sucked in all the heavenly Qi, feeding onto it, as if it was the nectar of the gods. In some ways, it truly was, and I drew in the golden Qi, pushed them together till they formed droplets of liquid gold that I flowed through my core. The roots of the divine tree sucked up those droplets, a deep seated hunger rising from the tree as it began to demand more and I worked hard to condense the surging tides of heavenly Qi inside of me into those droplets of pure, distilled energy and life. Unfortunately the heavenly Qi did not simply sit around while I worked hard to convert it, and neither did the tribulation just end as I felt more and more power gathering around in the heavens, preparing for the next strike.

From experience, I knew the next one would be even harder and so I began to use some of my attention to try to heal myself. That was a surprisingly difficult task. The moment I let my attention slip even a little on the torrent of heavenly Qi inside of me, the pressure began to threaten to rip me apart from the inside, and so I had to force my mind to work two separate processes in tandem without dropping either. It was more mental juggling than I’d ever done but I found the process shaping my mind as well, like my spirit was a blade and the process of cycling Qi a whetstone upon which I grinded my focus more and more. But time was finite, and even as I found myself getting lost in the process, the heavens were coming down to judge me, and so another strike of lightning landed down on me, this one even more powerful than the previous one.

My nerves erupted, catching fire from the blinding strike. Or at least, that’s how it felt. I could not tell, my mind entirely occupied with the task of healing my injuries and recovering while also trapping and converting the flood of power that had just entered my body. It felt and was quite literally a bolt of lightning zapping around in my spirit, trying to wreak havoc. I drew on it’s strength, drew on the power that flooded me and began to absorb it. The world fell away from me by this time as I fell into a rhythm.

I pulled in the energy, converting it into those golden drops as I would nourish the divine tree with it. I would use some to heal my body, as the force of life seeped into my bones and flesh, turning me into something more, and letting me withstand the next strike. I sharpened my spirit on the whetblade of the task, the heavenly Qi surging through my mind and spirit, expanding it from within.

And then the next strike of the heaven would come down, and I would be closer still to the brink of death, as the process began anew.

I quickly lost count of how many times this happened, of how many times I inched closer and closer still to oblivion. My mind frayed, and each little moment of distraction nearly cost me everything, and then I would return, and clarity would give way to the liquid of life itself, and I would find the path ahead.

The process continued, as I sank into the depths of a deep trance, the world fell away from me, there was just me, and the heavens, and the power they bestowed upon me. Though I did not think in this moment, in a subconscious way, within a deeper part of my spirit, the part where people did not think in words or feelings but truths, in knowing one’s reality and the world to be what it is, that part of my spirit began to notice the changes. I was being forged, quite literally. My body was growing, molded into a vessel which could harbor this power, my spirit was being sharpened, able to control the authority, and my Qi was being expanded, feeding into the divine tree and nourishing it with life.

And yet, as I did this, I soon felt a strange resistance within me as well. It took me a few moments to realize what was wrong, and then I found it. I was unbalanced, the cycle of Qi and Gu had been thrown off. The heavens imposed their own path onto me, they made me walk onto the path that they knew of, but that was not my path was it? I’d already broken free of it once free, free of the chains of the heavens that seemingly guided the lives of all that lived under it, and so why should I let myself be chained again?

Once again, I did not think, but felt the truth of my realization, and so I reached into the bowels of the earth, till I felt the bones of the very world shiver around me, I felt the core of the earth and its pulsing power, roiling and burning with a deep rooted ancient strength that I’d rarely felt with such intensity. There was untapped Gu here, deep within the earth, thousands, no, hundreds of thousands of years of death leaving a mark onto the world itself. It remained there, resting, waiting, to mingle with life once more, and I drew upon it, letting it flood my body. I collected the Gu, formed it within my body and let it infuse me. I compressed this vast, seemingly endless pool of energy, as black droplets of power formed within me.

I collected them, letting them seep into the roots of the divine tree as well, and using the rest to reinforce my body. The forces of death and earth broke down the impurities within my shell, forced them to gather in droves as the forces of life burned through the waste, leaving only what was pure behind. The process continued, burning through me and my body, and I found myself hovering somewhere on the brink of the two stages.

With each strike of lightning, my body would nearly collapse, death surging in to take over and yet I would come back, pulling myself, together, rebuilding myself. Like layers of steel being folded, each part of my self began to be hardened, began to grow denser, and began to change into something new. Something powerful.

Something Divine.

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I found the Divine Beasts within my spirit resonating with the power, their own energies reaching out to me. The blessing of spring and the wrath of winter flooded me, the two seasons taking hold onto my command, they suffused my aura, one leading to the other, a duality of life and seasons represented within the singular that found myself becoming tied to the cycle that I represented.

And as they did, the liquids began to gather. The divine tree grew, changing, leaves sprouted from its branches, roots grew deeper into the earth. Seasons passed in this inner realm as the divine tree grew from the turning of the cycle of life and death, and soon I found the two liquids of life and death begin to swirl around one another.

I let them continue, let them flow around one another before mingling with each other, a flash of power erupted, so bright it seemed it could outshine the sun if let out. That power, unbridled fury of two opposing energies collided and I found my body spirit and soul on flames under its strength.

This was the final forging, I felt it deep within it, and I let the flames consume me. That collision of forces swirled and I let them form within the Duality, let them understand Genesis, and gave them Harmony. I gathered those flames, let it rebirth me anew into a new form, a new shape and a new era. The flames pulled inwards, that blinding flash of power gathered together as it came together, closer and closer still, till it was a burning sun inside of my soul and I let it diffuse through me, through my body, spirit and soul, and I found those flames erupt through my spirit rings, giving them strength, giving them authority, a newfound power that had not been there before.

And it was then, that I realized that the lightning had stopped coming, the process of forging was complete, but the trial I had been given was not. I understood this, as I felt the heavens above rumble and then, I felt the mantle of the mandate descend on my shoulders.

I felt the weight of it pressing onto me, and I found myself nearly crushed into nothing. The weight was unbearably hard, and my breath stopped in my chest, my heart freezing under the pressure as I strained to carry the burden of entire empires. My mind burned with flames as I saw flashed, the strength of emperors, of all who had come before me, I found their spirits gathered here, forming the will of the heavens, as I realized a facet of yet another truth.

I didn’t realize when I began to scream, I simply screamed from the burden, as it poured into my spirit, as it flooded my body, as it entered my spirit, as flashes from thousands of years of history came and went, the lives of so many, of time and scale so vast my own existence, my own path felt like nothing, like mere dust in the wind. My spirit was eroded, my mind frayed as if I’d lose my sense of self, of all I was, but as the world began to drift away, and I started to forget who I was I found another viewpoint. One from beyond my self, one watching from somewhere within, and I found a balance within that perspective.

I took a breath, forced myself into it, and forced myself to establish a flow. In and out. In and out. The surge of the spirit came and went, but even in these vast expanses there was a patter, a harmony and cycle that established themselves. Empires rose and fell, life and death came in pair and it was only in the midst of two, that the world existed. In the now, between the past and the future, in the interim that was eternal yet transient. That was infinite and momentary. It was all and nothing, it was the ebb and the flow, the rise and the fall, and in the nothing in between there was something and in that something, I found harmony, and I found balance.

I felt the mandate of the heaven burn within my soul as I looked upon it, looked upon the power given by the heavens themselves as it pulsed through my body, and I accepted it, accept it into my spirit and soul and let it permeate my sense of self.

The world fell from my grasp as I became all that was. My sense of self expanded as I looked at the world at large, at the empire all around me, I felt the rumblings of the earth and flow of the winds, I felt the currents of the ocean and the melting of glaciers, I watched the empire in its entirety, the world in all its beauty and felt it pulsing against me, in this moment of eternal nothingness.

But the moment would not last, it could not, for eternity had an end too, and this one ended as I felt the divinity of the heaven reach to me, and begin to change. I felt the heavens twisting, felt the touch of true power, of untold capacity at my fingertips, and as I touched upon it, I felt something deep in my soul as I realized the truth of the Divinities.

They sat upon this mantle, upon this eternal and transient divine, bound my chains, bound my oaths, they borrowed this strength to their own immortality, to hold down the cycle, to hold down their ascents and the path which was ordained, I gasped as the truth of the heavens crashed onto my shoulders and I realized that I could not, would not, be able to change this world, change the heavens and accept this divinity. Not as things were.

No, no the only way to do that would be to break those chains, to free the immortal that had been caged into this mortal lands. I felt it now, understood it now, in this moment, what choice Lord Zhou had made. I felt it tugging at my soul, demanding an answer.

I panicked, and pulled back, because I knew the consequences. If I broke those chains, if I freed the shackles that made the Divinities what they were… it would be no different than condemning them to death.

Not a true death, that I understood, in a vague distant way, but that truth was hidden from me still, but it would be a death in form and physique, in the last semblance of mortality that permeated them, and though it would be a boon, it would also be a curse, and a burden I could not accept, a choice that was not my own to make.

And so I pulled and tried to search for a different path. The mandate of heavens burned against me, demanding me for an answer, but an answer I could not give, the forces of power that had reforged me would collapse without one and the tribulation would never end till I found something, and so instead, I reached out to the mantle and gave it this.

The mortal shell would be the prison of one’s choice, but death would free the immortal soul within.

And as my words snapped into place the commandment sealed onto the mandate, I didn’t realize just what kind of path I’d set forth for myself and this world as a tenuous balance was formed between the two forces of nature around me.

But the answer was sufficient, it was within my path, set within the course that I charted and the mandate of heaven had accepted it, adopted it, and so now it would be so.

Without fanfare, I found the new power surge from within, the words I had spoken iron law on the nature of reality as the tribulation clouds dispersed. I felt the power inside of me rise like a tide, a new authority now adorning my spirit and divine power now nestling in my core, waiting to be freed of its chains and let lose.

And so, I opened my eyes, as the new Emperor of this empire.