The Tower of Emnu

"I will first guide you through the Awakening, and I will require absolute silence." the soul said and Sylus raised his hands and then sat down, looking away from them. Mei, the elf, snorted quietly and then closed her eyes again, her face smoothing and loosing its edges.

"Sit down before me young one, ah I have never asked your name. Not that it is important, but I suppose since I am taking you as my disciple, I should know that much."

Aaron sat down on the floor and was once more reminded that he was naked and nobody had even cared. Not even the pretty elf.

"My name is Aaron Plane." he said.

"Aaron, what a unique name."

"Not really, at least not in my world."

"Hmm, I see. Cross your legs, straighten your back, yes like that."

Aaron sat down cross legged and straightened his back like he was told. It was uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

The ghost writhed and contorted on the other side of the light screen, it roiled and boiled inside of the hazy smoke that made up the visual component of the old cultivator's soul. It looked like rolling fire, like power building up. Aaron could feel the tension in the air, and he had goosebumps.

Then suddenly the smoke compressed and with a massive boom the old man slammed against the light screen surrounding his cell. The sound was deafening and it shook Aaron to the core. But the light screen did not budge, for a moment it looked like the attack of the old man had done nothing, but then cracks formed in the light screen, like in glass and a tiny bit shattered, before it rebuilt itself.

In that instant the old man sent out a tiny spark of fog through the opening. It looked like a firefly as it dodged between the iron bars and stopped in front of Aaron.

"This, my young disciple is a spark of Qi. It will form the foundation of the Fiendgod art. Swallow it and then close your eyes."

Aaron opened his mouth and the glowing wisp of fog entered his mouth. It did not taste like anything, but it felt like electricity, like power, like potential. It made him shiver in ways Aaron did not understand. If he had to describe it, it was like it touched his body and his soul. Even though he did not even believe in such a thing like a soul.

Well apparently Souls were a fact in this strange new world and Aaron felt the energy bead sink inside of his body, could feel it sear through his flesh. It wasn't entirely painful, it was just...different. It felt so otherworldly and strange, he had nothing to compare it to. It felt like it was transforming him, if he had to guess, because he felt different immediately.

Eventually the energy settled down in his guts? Somewhere below his navel.

"Close your eyes boy, then follow the energy. Feel where it settled down."

Aaron closed his eyes, his mind "feeling" for the energy. It was like concentrating on a specific body part of your body that would focus in your inner eye. It was surprisingly easy, he could feel, could see the energy ball in his inner eye. How a bead of pulsing energy had settled in his flesh, forming a space not really there and yet very real.

"This is your lower dantian, the foundation. It symbolizes your cultivation, it is the storage of the energy you have ripped away from the universe. It is yours and it will forever be that way. It is your power, once energy settles in your dantian it will always belong to you, never forget that.

Now feel the energy and let me tell you a story, let me bring you back to Aranack, the first Fiend god."

The old mans voice was a whisper, it entered his ears easily and it started to sound like chanting, his voice bending and stretching, undulating strangely until Aaron felt his body vanish, his consciousness entering the bead of energy inside of his dantian.

Aaron was a beast, hurried and beset by a thousand foes. He was bigger than an elephant and ran quickly on four massive paws. He was taller than trees, his steps leaving a trail of destruction. He flattened hills and jumped up mountains. His massive maw snapped at other beasts that pursued him relentlessly. But they were bigger, faster, stronger together. They came to eat him, to devour. They envied his power, his abilities. His blood. But he would not give it to them. They had almost eliminated his kind.

But he was Aranack, the lion god.

He could kill any of his thousand foes in battle, but he could not beat them all, before they killed him.

Aranack, Aaron, roared in indignation and tore his foes apart that tried to bar his way. They would pay, they would die. He would take them all with him, or as many as his prodigious strength would allow.

The fight was vicious and he was losing, no matter how many beasts he ripped to shreds or bit their necks. There were always more. His flanks were bloody and so he continued to flee and kill those who barred his way.

He would have died if he had not spotted something odd.

An anomaly, a rift in space and time.

These beasts lusted for his flesh, he would deny it to them forever more. With a vicious pounce he leapt into the rift, indignant that this was the end, but satisfied he would not let them win.

The space twisted him, it changed him, it ripped at his flesh and he healed while he hurtled through time and space. He saw universes die, saw them born, saw stars collide until he finally left the area between universes.

He was broken, he was dying.

He took a breath and opened his eyes. But there was no air. No power. Aranack found himself in a barren world. Rocky stone and dusty desert around him. Space was fragile here and a giant star ate clouds of gas so massive, nothing ever could compare to its magnificent beauty. But there was no power, only watered down, flawed wisps of tainted Qi.

Aranack despaired. Spacial rifts where everywhere, the airless planet or moon, or whatever he stood on was hell. But he had escaped, he would not die here. So what if this was hell? He would show these beasts the error of their ways and return one day. He changed his mangled body, he twisted himself. Only his prodigious healing ability kept him alive, while he tainted his flesh by absorbing the energy of this hellish world. The energy was so weak.

But his body was not, his blood was strong. His will was imperious, immovable, unshakable. He bent the tainted Qi to his will, his body absorbing it, purifying it. With a soundless roar he breathed in the formless energy.

Aranack was hungry, so hungry. He had found a way to gain energy, but at the cost of his own flesh and blood. He needed sustenance. Food.

But there was nothing, so he ate rocks, but they did not fill his stomach.

Alas he was lucky, or unlucky, for there were creatures living in the void. Even more twisted than him. They had felt him disturb the rifts they lived in and one after another they crept out of the breaks in space and time. Monsters defying imagination, dark twisted foul creatures. Living off the twisted and impure energy.

Aranack laughed, the moons surface warping under the sheer force his laughter before he pounced. His first bite of a void beast was disgusting, but it was rich in energy. He savored its flesh, drank its blood while he slaughtered the rest. For he was Aranack. First of the Fiend-gods, and he would devour all.

Aaron awoke out of his trance, he could still taste the voidbeast on his tongue, felt the Fiend-gods power thrum through him, as his body transformed the tainted Qi into pure energy, his body the catalyst, the origin of his strength.

Slowly he came back to himself.

He was not Aranack, he was Aaron, he was a human. And yet he could feel a trace of the might of the Fiend-god.

It burned in his stomach, its blood flowing in his veins, while a strange energy flowed through his body like liquid heat.

"Follow the energy, it is Qi, remember where it flows, how it flows. Follow the flow of the energy boy." The voice of the master said and Aaron did just that. It was amazing. The Qi felt so different, so powerful.

It took complicated paths through his body, but it always started and ended in his dantian. He noticed the bead of energy had melted and was dissipating with every rotation of his Qi.

"You are now a cultivator Aaron, first level of Qi Refining. Sometimes called Amalgation, Accumulation. To cultivate you have to absorb energy, for most cultivators it has to be Qi, but it does not matter to you. The Fiend-god art lets you absorb any energy, including mana. Once absorbed, this energy then flows into your blood where it is purified and you siphon the purified energy into your dantian afterwards.

Breathe in deeply, Aaron Plane, feel the tainted Qi, how week how feeble the energy. The same energy as Aranack tasted."

Aaron breathed in deeply, could feel the weak energy enter his lungs, flood his blood. There something miraculous happened, the energy rose, it fed of his blood, turning more and more into Qi. Then it spread out in his body, flooding his cells, who greedily absorbed it.

"Feel how your Fiend-god art changes the mana into Qi. This will happen all the time now. With every breath. Any energy you encounter will turn into Qi. It is why this cultivation art is so wanted. But the downside should be apparent as well."

"What is the downside, master?" Aaron barely noticed that he meant the master.

In a way that meant teacher, not anything else.

"It will not improve your cultivation, but your body instead. To use it for cultivation, you need to grasp the energy in your blood and lead it into your dantian. Once it is there, it will be entirely yours. Try it now."

Aaron breathed in deeply once again, following the breath into his lungs, feeling the mana mingling with his blood and turning it slowly into Qi. Then he tried to move the energy, willed it to follow his commands. But it was hard, so hard. It barely did what he wanted and most of it vanished on the way to his dantian. After multiple failed attempts he finally managed to lead a bit of Qi into his dantian. There the Qi floated around, it felt incorporeal, like a gas, feeble and weak and yet thousands of magnitudes stronger than mana. Automatically it started floating around the center of the dantian, forming a slow revolving mist.

"Have you managed to make some Qi your own?" the old man asked, patiently.

"Yes."

"Good, this is how you accumulate Qi. Once Qi is in your dantian, it is yours to command. To use in techniques or otherwise. In cultivation there are two ways to improve your Qi. By density and by volume. Your Dantian should be tiny, but through control you can enlarge it, can create more space for Qi and raise the total amount you can store. In the Qi refining stage there are 9 distinct stages, they all revolve around enlarging your dantian. Only then we will start and condense the Qi.

Have you understood this so far boy?"

"I...think so? How do I enlarge the dantian?"

"You take the Qi and use it to carve out more space. Its best done when your Dantian is full, as it will be easier then. If this was a cultivation world we would go into far more detail right now, but it is not. For now try to fill your dantian with Qi entirely by the time you return."

"Okay."

"I want you to cultivate for at least 3 hours every morning and evening. Not more and not less. The Fiend-god art will continuously improve your body automatically in the meantime by flooding your body with pure Qi. During cultivation I want you to lead Qi into your dantian and then cycle it through the Fiend-god Art."

"Cycle it?"

"Yes, remember how the energy first moved through your body? If you do that with your Qi, it will not only purify it even further, but also directly use the Qi in your cells to improve your body. By now you should feel the second downside of the Fiend-god art."

Aarons stomach grumbled.

"Hunger." he said softly.

"Yes, exactly, the Fiend-god art works by using your body's energy to enhance subpar energy to Qi, turning it usable and improving your body. But that requires a lot of energy. You will have to eat for at least 2 grown men. And that will get worse the further along the path of the Fiend-god Art you progress. It is also the reason why Fiend-gods are so feared and were hunted so fiercely. They would eat anything granting them sustenance and they are very hard to kill."

Aaron did not think that was that much of a problem, but it might be annoying to find enough food. He hesitated for a moment, remembering being the first Fiend-god, feeling so strong, so imperishable.

"What happened to Aranack?" he asked.

"He was killed by a great warrior." the old man said, stroking his beard. His fingers phasing in and out of existence.

Aaron looked incredulously at the soul.

"Ah yes, you felt its strength. Certainly, Fiend-gods are strong and very hard to kill. They also can survive almost anywhere. But their prowess pales to the upper ranks of cultivators. You can hardly imagine their power Aaron. Always remember, there is always someone or something stronger."

Aaron honestly could not imagine anything being stronger than the Fiend-god, but he had no reason to doubt the Masters words. If there really were many people who could kill such a monster, then he was really glad he became a cultivator.

"Now to finish my first lesson, there is only one way that you can absorb mana stones or beast cores directly Aaron. Never eat them, that would be foolish with your cultivation level. No. the only way for quite a while will be to bleed."

"To what?" Aaron asked, thinking he had misheard.

"Your blood has been turned into at least part Fiend-god through the cultivation Art you practice. So once you get something with a high concentration of Mana, you have to cut yourself and then press the core or mana stone into the wound. Your blood will then slowly absorb the mana and turn it into Qi. You have to endure the pain, draw the produced Qi into your dantian and at best cycle your Qi at the same time. It will require much practice to do that, but in the end it is the only way to cultivate quickly enough."

Aaron was incredulous. He was to wound himself and then press some stones into the wound? That sounded like torture not cultivation. While Aaron did not think he could not handle at least some pain, he was also not really fond of it.

"Will I not bleed out or something?"

"Oh no, you will find your wounds will heal extremely quickly. But doing so will make you hungry or cost Qi, if you funnel it to the wound. But I would not recommend that unless in emergencies. Qi is far more precious than food in this wretched tower after all."

"I...see. I can't say I look forward to that." Aaron said.

"Ah, well I think you will get used to it." The master smiled at him. "Now go to Sylus and learn the combat style. You will see why I picked it. It is quite suitable."