The Tower of Emnu

Aaron opened his eyes slowly and looked up to the hazy outline of the great master. He felt almost a bit bloated with this much Qi in his dantian, but his mind felt finally settled and calm and ready for this. So he asked:

“What do I do?”

“There are many different techniques to break through in the Qi Refining realm, billions of generations have taken different approaches to it after all and I would love to say that all techniques are of similar validity but sadly that is not the case. But first, before we start it would be prudent for you to remove your clothes.”

Aaron blinked, opened and closed his mouth and frowned.

“Why?”

“Because a true breakthrough will force your body to expel impurities and transform your body. It will make you stronger, more resilient and more attuned to Qi. I am not exactly sure why these impurities are expelled in the early stages of cultivation. But it has something to do with the basics of body cultivation, of how Qi that resides in the body transforms it. But why that happens at an accelerated rate during a breakthrough I do not know, it was simply never my area of expertise.”

“What was your area of expertise, if I may ask, great master?”

The old ghost paused and Aaron felt his eyes study him intently before the soul answered.

“My expertise is music if you can believe it. I have had many lives where I traveled the world and played music, where I lost myself in the art of expression myself in the beautiful tunes of song and dance.”

Aaron actually snorted in amusement and apologized quickly for it. “Sorry, but you are a musician? I...I don’t even know how to process this.”

“Indeed, I spent many lives just creating and playing music. I have had many names during that time. The Sage of Song, The Singing Blade, The Flute of the Nine Peaks. But it is not truly music that fascinated me above all else. It was Qi and the melody of it that fascinated me, that captured my heart and my soul. You could say I am now an unrivaled expert in the art of harmony, melody and Qi in itself. I could not explain it to you because there are no words, no expressions to tell you the cosmic beauty of an orchestra playing the tune of existence. But I was its conductor and I miss hearing its tune dearly. The only thing I can hear in this tower are my fellow prisoners and the song that you Aspirants play for me.”

“You can hear my Qi?” Aaron asked with raised eyebrows.

“Oh yes, I can hear your Qi so very clearly. It is steeped in violence and driven by the hunt, by the pursuit of more. It is a Crescendo that never ceases. But I can also hear the stable beat of the Heavenly kata and the flowing melodies of freedom inherited from your Wind Steps technique. They all amplify and harmonize together so beautifully.”

“Okay...”Aaron said with a small chuckle. “But what does that mean?”

“The great master is unrivaled in the art of combining techniques to amplify them. It is why he wants to chose what you learn for now, so your foundation is beyond compare and you have the best chance to climb the tower.” Mei said patiently and the great master nodded along with a smile.

“Indeed, but we have gone off on a tangent, I wanted to teach you a technique you will use to break through into the second Level of Qi Refining. The technique matters a lot and while there are intriguing techniques that never stop and eventually create a dantian as wide and deep as an ocean, I think the best variants are not those who strive to go as wide as possible, but instead I think the best technique for you is one that increases not just the depth of your dantian, but also the quality of it.”

“Okay, that sounds great. Lets begin.”

“Your clothes first. All of them if you please and it is best to have either a bath to wash yourself off or at least some cloth to rub the residue off your skin. I can’t smell anything anymore, but I know it is quite a distinctive and unpleasant smell.”

“Right.” Aaron shrugged, stood up and stripped out of his clothes. He put them neatly next to his backpack and searched for some of his half destroyed outfit he could use as a towel of some sort. That done he sat back down cross legged and looked up towards the great master.

“Good, close your eyes.” Aaron did like he was told and closed his eyes. He instantly fell back into a comfortable meditative state.

“Tell me about your dantian, tell me about how you perceive it.”

“Its like a cave filled with fog, made out of Qi. At first it was empty, but the more I filled it the more dense it became. Its almost soup like now and it reaches up to the ceiling of the cave. In the center is a spot that glows and where the Qi gathers. The Qi has started to move, to roll around the center and I wonder what happens when the center gets even more concentrated.”

“Ah, how would you describe the center?”

“It looks to me like the pictures people imagined about how stars are born.”

“Excellent. Then I know just the technique for you. This technique is called Starbirth, which is an apt name for it in my mind. In the center of your dantian, where the concentration of Qi is the highest, feel for the point where the Qi amasses and forms a denser spot than anywhere else. Go there now, concentrate on it, can you feel it?”

“Yes, I can feel it. My Qi revolves around it.”

“It does indeed. This spot is called the core of your dantian. It is where in the far future you will form your golden core. But that is not important for now. Just know that it is the metaphysical center of your dantian.

Tell me how your civilization thinks stars are born, please.”

“I think they believe Huge gas clouds condense because of gravity and eventually that huge mass of matter ignites when the heat created by the pressure of gravity becomes too much, then it blows out all the heavier elements until the star is mostly hydrogen and helium.”

Aaron paused and already he could see the similarities to his dantian. His Qi was in a diffuse form of gas, of fog and there was a denser center around which the fog revolved.

“More or less accurate. You are going to do something similar now. I will explain it to you in detail and you will try to do it only after I told you the entire procedure, alright?” Aaron nodded.

“First you start to pull your Qi into your core area, this will require a lot of willpower and the speed of this depends on how good your Qi control has become. The goal is to pull all of the Qi in your dantian into your core, focus it and then hold it there with all your might. It will feel like holding on to a bomb with threads of hair, but I am sure you can do it. Compress the Qi as much as you can and then when it is impossible to hold on, let it go. When you do, your Qi will explode outwards.”

“Like a super nova?”

“Yes, it is an explosion of some sort, a metaphysical super nova if you will. Think of it like charging up the Qi and making it more dense and concentrated before that pressure unleashes it violently on the dantian. When this explosion happens you want to follow the Qi with your mind and imagine and feel how the Qi melts away any resistance, how it washes away the borders of your current dantian. Eventually the energy will get weaker and fade away until you will be left with only the gaseous remains of your Qi. If you can, try to pull it together a second time and repeat the explosion. But it is likely that too much of your Qi will have been expended during the first explosion.

Do you understand that so far?”

“I think so. Start by pulling all Qi into the center of the dantian, compress and squish it together until you can’t anymore and it explodes outwards. Follow the super nova and imagine it melting away any resistance until it doesn’t anymore. Then repeat the process?”

“Correct, calm your mind and breathe deeply, only start when you feel ready. A breakthrough in this realm is not dangerous for you or those around you yet, but that will change with time. Never break through into another level or heavens forbid a new realm without being absolutely calm and collected.”

Aaron closed his eyes again and concentrated. His thoughts flowed like a tranquil river and he felt like he was ready. It was the same feeling he got before he would dive down from a cliff. You took a deep breath and then you went for it.

Aaron went into his dantian with his mind, with his whole being and was in an instant surrounded by the highly energetic nebula of his own power. He could move, agitate and command it like he could the back of his own hand. That was what cycling the Qi had done for him and he had cycled all of his Qi. His dantian was full, the nebula, the fog of Qi was thick and all encompassing. He moved inwards until he had reached the center. The core spot of his dantian. He took a deep breath and then he began. He started with the outer edges of his Qi and pulled them inwards. He imagined it like drawing a breath. Everything moved towards him, towards the core. Aaron drew the Qi from all around him, while trying to give his mental command to his entire dantian. It was difficult. Some Qi just existed there, its inherit inertia too much and he had to nudge it. But if he did so some other part of his Qi that was already moving slowed down. All around him the Qi condensed, the fog grew thicker and thicker. But this was not going to do it. Aaron imagined a sphere of his will surrounding his dantian and then constricting itself.

It behaved like a solid wall for his Qi as the ball of his focus constricted the energy all towards the center. This image worked far better than just coaxing stuff to come to him. Slowly but surely everything aggregated, coalesced to something else. The core thrummed with power as the concentration of Qi rose. The nebula grew thicker and thicker and the closer Aaron got with his mental sphere that shrunk around the Qi, the more difficult it became to keep the image stable, to control it. The Qi inside of his dantian started to move violently, tried to expand again, but it just burst against Aaron’s sphere. Still it slowed it down considerably and Aaron felt the strain on his mind. It felt like mentally wrestling a bear and he knew it would get worse. But Aaron was a patient man. He waited for a few moments until everything felt more stable and then he pushed again, constricting the Qi even further. The core glowed with light, the Qi coalesced there so thick it felt almost solid. Aaron grunted and pushed, squished the ball of force he had created together and with it his entire Qi. The core pulsed with latent energy and the burst against his sphere of focus became more and more frequent the more he concentrated his Qi. Smaller and smaller. The sphere already surrounded the core and in it was a roiling and boiling mass of unstable energy that longed to get out. But Aaron was not done. He grabbed the ball of force and squeezed it as hard as he could. Compress it, concentrate it. His entire being was just that one thought, holding his own power in place. It was his power, it should obey him, but it more and more did not. It felt more and more volatile and Aaron gave it one last squeeze before the Qi literally exploded.

The massive wave of Qi was so dense and concentrated Aaron was washed away by it, he did not even have to do anything. Releasing his focus felt like being released from a headache and he flew with it for just a moment before the walls of the dantian closed in. Aaron imagined the wave of Qi he rode like a super nova, like the last hurrah of a dying star. It would melt through anything. The wall of his dantian vanished as his wave crashed through it and Aaron just followed it while he kept on imagining the wave expanding without resistance, uninhibited, melting away anything in its path. Aaron felt something give, felt something crack and disappear, but it did not feel bad. It felt like shackles had been thrown off him. Like weight was lifted of his metaphysical shoulders. The wave of force and Qi slowed down and eventually the resistance of the outer edges of his dantian made it stop. Aaron felt for his dantian, felt how vast it was now and he imagined his giant ball of mental force again. Slowly shrinking around his new dantian, grabbing all the leftover Qi floating in a diffuse mist in his dantian. Like a reverse wave his focus crashed back into the Qi and concentrated it. Forced it back to his core. But the Qi felt so incredibly heavy now. His focus was not the same anymore. His concentration started to waver. But Aaron’s will clamped down on all of that and kept going, kept pushing until he had once more a ball of force. But no matter what he did he could not force it to the same small globe of Qi it had been before. Aaron grew tired, grew exhausted and with all of his might he squeezed once more, before he released the Qi.

The second explosion was tamer, its speed not so overwhelming and the ride on the wave much more relaxing. Maybe it was because his dantian was bigger now. But Aaron was exhausted. He barely could focus on anything and he just imagined his Qi washing away the walls of his dantian and as they crashed into them they ate through it slowly until they stopped and Aaron was catapulted out of his own dantian.

He awoke with a headache and he groaned. His whole body felt hot, exhausted and sticky. Like he had taken a bath in honey or something like that. He had collapsed on his back, his legs half crossed, his body shivering. He opened his eyes and blinked away stuff even on his eyelids. He closed his eyes again and grabbed for the nearby remains of some of his clothes and rubbed his face with it. Only then the smell really hit him. It smelled like nothing he could ever describe. It was an intense, disgusting smell of waste and refuse and he gagged slightly.

“Congratulations, you are now in the second level of Qi Refining, young one. And you managed two pulses of Starbirth, impressive for the first time. I applaud your resilience and will.”

“Oh god, what the hell is this stuff?” Aaron gagged and groaned and there was chuckles and laughter all around him.

“That my young student is what we call Impurities leaving the body. Go ahead and clean yourself, before we all have to seal off our sense of smell.” Sylus laughed from the side and Aaron grumbled and rubbed himself off. The thick dark substance was as sticky as honey and felt disgusting all over his body. He did his best with his improvised towel and grabbed for some more of it. His old armor really got the worst of it and he rubbed himself off with no dignity whatsoever. It did not feel like he had just had a breakthrough, but like he had just humiliated himself in front of the whole class. Aaron knew he was blushing. He was embarrassed especially at the poses he had to get into to get every spot on his body moderately clean.

After 5 minutes or so he was finally done and noticed that the gunk was stuck in his hair and he spent another few minutes trying to rub it out. Cursing he grabbed for his waterskin and dumped half of its content over his head, washing it and leaving a big black puddle underneath him.

“Make sure to clean that up, yeah? This is our home for now.” Sylus quipped, still laughing at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I will. Damn this stuff is disgusting.”

“Well then it is a good thing its not inside of your body anymore, right?”

“I suppose so. Is that going to happen to me every time I break through from now on?”

“Yes, it is an inevitability unless you would spend the time till your next breakthrough suspended in the purest Qi. Which is impossible of course, especially in this Tower without any Qi whatsoever. The process the Fiend-god art uses to create Qi creates a lot of impurities so this process will stay with you for a long time.” the great master said, stroking his illusory beard. But even he had a smile on his face, Aaron was sure of it.

Aaron moped up the whole mess he had created and was left over with the stinkiest, most disgusting rag he had ever even imagined. Usually Aaron was not squeamish at all, he had cut up bodies before after all and once you accidentally cut into someones stomach, not much can phase you. This shit though was positively vile.

“Can I put this somewhere? Please tell me there is some sort of magical garbage chute somewhere where I can get rid of this shit.”

“No, but we can just burn it. Go visit Illyria or Modestus they both have Qi flames that will get rid of that quite quickly.” Aaron blinked at the great masters words and shrugged.

“I have no idea who those people are.”

“Ah yes, last time we were under a little bit of a time constraint and you have not properly introduced yourself to the rest of our fellow Prisoners. Please, go ahead and distribute the manastones you brought. One per cultivator, just like you agreed to.”

“Fine, but I’ll start with one of those two you talked about. I will not carry this stuff around for any longer than I have to.”

“Understandable, please go ahead and visit Illyria then, she is in the outer most cell to your left.”

Aaron grabbed the pouch of manastones and hung it back on his belt before he walked slowly over, the stinking remains of cloth and impurities held as far away from his face as he could.