The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

Book 2: Chapter 61: Spirit Trial

The world changed around me, as I found myself standing in a white expanse, instead of the darkness that had been my world for so long. Already, I found my memories of my time spent in the dark starting to blur, like a dream that was slipping away from my grasp like sand the more I tried to remember it.

I felt my spirit, feeling an empty gap in where my cultivation used to be. I had been hoping that since I had been able to use Chi in the void, it had survived somehow, but I suppose I wasn’t going to be that lucky. I looked around, reaching into my spirit, as I tried to feel my body. I was… there, but not quite. Something was holding me in place, preventing my consciousness from joining my body. And I knew who.

“Show yourself,” I called out, and felt the Tree’s spirit turn its attention towards me.

“I’m back, the rent period is over. Time to hand back my body.”

“We had told you, we would take matters in our hand. You lost, your spirit gone to the void. Now it is not your role to change things.”

“You don’t get to decide what my role is,” I replied, standing tall against the giant spirit. I wasn’t going to be intimidated by a pair of eyes.

“Let us show you, the vision we see,” the spirit said, as I saw myself looking at the world from its eyes. I flew in the skies, looking upon the world, and saw the threads the Heavens kept to tie the fate of the lands within itself. The spirit moved, its power far greater than anything I had ever even imagined as the skies turned dark and lightning crashed down. Spirit warriors descended from the heavens itself, fighting against it, but none could stand in front of its might.

Chi flowed freely, like the world was its endless supply of power, fueling its strength as it drew upon everything around it, before using the energy to sever the ties of the world itself.

Overwhelming power, so much so that even seeing it myself, it felt somehow hard to imagine.

“This is what we can do, if you merely let us. You are a suitable vessel for our will, and with us, you can alter this world. Fix the cycle that has been broken for ages.”

I felt the spirit’s voice, shaking my spirit, and for a moment, I almost considered it. This was more direct, but it would speed up what I was planning to eventually do anyway.

Then, my eyes drifted down onto the earth. On the things below. I saw people, creatures, lives of things being extinguished, as was bound to happen when something with so much power moved with abandon.

“What about them? All those people? Mortals, Cultivators, all of them?”

“They are children born of a false world. We will give them a second life. From death, they will be reborn in a brand new world.”

The picture changed in front of me, as I began to realize what the spirit actually intended to do. It wasn’t merely the Heavens that it intended to destroy. It was everything. Everyone in the empire, all the demons, all the cultivators. And then it would bring them back through a new cycle of rebirth.

The spirit rumbled, pleased to see I understood its vision as it continued to move with torrents of power, fighting against the tides of the Heavens.

“No. No, I can’t allow that,” I told the spirit.

“It is no longer in your hands to choose.”

I felt my spirit being pushed back, a powerful aura trapping me in. But I wasn’t going to let that happen, I had just spent an eternity stuck in the darkness as a spirit, the games of this realm were something I understood now.

I changed my perspective, warping the world around me. Energy moved, changing and bowing to my will.

“This is my spirit,” I said, each world filled with my will as I pushed back against the spirit. The ground solidified beneath me, a world manifesting within me, my own inner world, one I had carved in the darkness now joined me here.

“You are not the one in control,” I replied, finding my words to be true. My will clashed with the spirit, as my body froze in the real world, stuck between two opposing forces and confused about which to obey. I pushed, trying to take over, but the spirit was enormous. Even in my own body and spirit, it’s power was vast enough that I could barely budge it.

“You are insignificant. Powerless. No cultivation remains to your name. Even if you were to return, what could you do?”

The spirit said, pushing back on me, and for a moment, I felt my will waver. I had lost my cultivation, hadn’t I? Even if I returned, my path may forever be lost to me.

Then, I shook my head. “No, my cultivation is not lost to me,” I replied looking at the spirit. “It took me some time to figure out, but time is what I had an endless amount of in the dark. My cultivation was never my Path. It was the change I brought in the world.”

The spirit regarded me. “Changes that you can no longer bring.”

“If you think that, then you have not seen anything I’ve done,” I said, stepping forward. “Thus far, I had been clinging so desperately to the concept of a dantian. A core, a cultivation. It was so heavily ingrained in me. That method of cultivation, that structure, so deeply entrenched that I never managed to realize whether that even applied to me any longer or not.”

I said, finding my will growing stronger as I began to push back against the spirit. “But the truth is, that’s no longer needed, is it? It’s why I lost my core when I had my first break through. It was an insight into my path. One I had not truly realized then, but now I know.”

I found the spirit’s form wavering, a dark shadow forming. I pressed my hand upon the creature, feeling it’s unending power beneath the surface.

“There is no core, no dantian, no mortals or cultivators in my Path anymore. Those are things made by the Heavens, by cultivators. They do not apply to the Path I walk,” I said, looking up at the creature.

“Isn’t that right?” I asked, smiling.

The spirit did not reply, simply letting out a snort.

I kept smiling, as I slowly began to draw upon the energy of the spirit. The circles within my spirit reformed, one after another, and I let The Second Law manifest into the world. The Law of dantians, the law of origin, of mortals and cultivators.

“The Second Law of Cultivation: Genesis of Chi.”

I felt Chi flood my spirit, as I opened my eyes. I flew up in the skies, an endless well of power flowing at the tips of my fingers. The spirit rumbled within my core, as I drew upon its power and looked up at the skies.

“Hey there old enemy,” I replied, as the lightning in the heavens rumbled once more. I let the Chi flow through my body as I took off into the air, power flowing seamlessly around me.

Lightning struck down upon my body, but I merely willed it to return to where it had come from. The Heavens shivered, striking at me endlessly, yet the attacks were meaningless at this point. I moved with a single purpose in mind, reaching up into the skies, beyond the heavens themselves as I reached out to the source of my power. The village, the core of my strength, and I drew upon it.

The strength flowed, the chi bolstering me, but it wasn’t enough. And so, I drew upon more, on the forests, on the grasslands, the rivers, the mountains, as my spirit began to expand across all of the seventh peak. The heavens roared in grand tribulations yet the change was unending and inevitable.

I let the Seventh Peak join me, under my spirit and command, as I moved to grab onto the threads tying its fate.

“It’s time to be free,” I said, as I drew upon the Second Law. Chi swirled within me, as the cultivation of every spirit beast and cultivator began to flow into me. The heavens cracked under my fingers as I pulled, and like threads snapping, I felt the Heavens shatter apart within my grasp.

The world shook beneath me. As a Divine Tree manifested in the sky. I looked down from above the clouds, and beneath me, was a brand new world.

***

Mo Lin sat within her chamber, sighing. The past few days had been so terribly boring for her. There had been tremors and shakes from some kind of battle, and everyone was terribly afraid and just hiding. She was so bored! She wanted to go out and play with her friends, run around in the fields. Just do anything. Not sit here at her home all day. The cultivators had been running around all day on the Lord’s orders as well. Her father was too low ranked to be called, but even he had been worried all this time.

Something about really powerful enemies. She didn’t really understand what the problem was. The Lord was really strong, so why couldn’t he just beat them up?

Sighing once more, Mo Lin looked outside her window at the skies. Sometimes she would catch sight of the powerful cultivators fighting in the skies, their battles generating bright flashes that captured her eyes. If her mother spotted her watching she would get scolded, so she had to stay quiet as she did.

To her excitement, she noticed someone this time as well. A person flying up into the skies, as lightning danced around it. Were they having a tribulation? She couldn’t tell from this far. But she envied them. Her father was in the first realm, but her mother was a mortal, so Mo Lin had not awakened any Qi. She had dreamed for years of awakening something, but no power had come upon her, no Qi to cultivate. Ultimately, she had accepted her fate that she was going to be a mortal just like her mother, yet the dream had refused to die.

She wanted to fly in the skies and shoot fire from her fingers as well. To cultivate and reach strength, and roam the empire. It sounded like so much fun! But the only thing she was allowed to do was sit in her room quietly and do nothing.

Mo Lin turned away, pulling her eyes away from the window. Watching the battle would not help, she would only become more envious, and that served no purpose for her. Silently, she sat in her chamber, looking down at the dolls her mother had sewn for her when she had been younger. One of them wore a blue dress and had a blade, a female cultivator, just like what Mo Lin had dreamed of herself becoming one day.

“I wish I could be like you,” she told the doll in her hand, looking at it in silence.

Then, the world around her changed. She felt… something pass through her. A sensation she could not really describe, but she knew something had happened. She looked outside the window and saw the clouds had cleared as a giant glowing tree now hung in the skies.

Mo Lin’s eyes widened, as she saw wind brush the leaves of the tree, and a storm of light-leaves began to fall like glowing snow all over. One of the leaves flew around, before landing onto her forehead.

A warmth flowed into her, and Mo Lin felt something stir in her abdomen. She looked down at her hands, and saw a faint thread of energy flowing around her palms.

“Mooooom! I awakened Qi!” the girl shouted, rushing out.