Chương 57: Shaping Exercises

Rowan In the background, Damion began aiming shots of Metal qi at Mikael. Silvester continued to scribble in the dirt. Now that Rowan was looking closely, Silvester wasn't aimlessly doodling but writing barely legible qi inscriptions - like the kind that had been on Clodde Bastin's Fire qi dagger. The teen scowled fiercely at his own work, scrubbed the dirt clean with a fist, and began scrawling once more.

"Are you ready?" asked Rowan. Silvester flinched and looked up, as though he hadn't noticed Rowan standing over him.

"For what?"

"Mikael asked me to help you with qi exercises." Rowan could hardly believe that Silvester had prioritized practicing qi inscriptions over paying attention to Mikael. If the core disciple hadn't pulled Rowan away, he would've continued to observe him guide Damion, as even watching from the sidelines could give a person insight.

"Don't bother," said Silvester, returning to his scribbling.

"I don't intend on competing in the tournament."

"Really? Why not?"

"I prefer academics to tussling in the dirt." Rowan crossed his arms. Right, Silvester had the best grades in their class, but his Qi Sea was D-Grade. He had learned about that from Decatour, who had overheard a conversation between Silvester and Instructor Sutter, and used that as proof that merit students didn't belong at Righteous Mountain Sect. Not in a gossipy way. But as a fact. As evidence. No wonder Mikael asked Rowan to help Silvester.

Before finding the bloodstone, Rowan had almost managed to form a D-Grade Qi Sea himself - and that was with a qi system actively working against him. If Silvester didn't have any innate issues, then a D-Grade Qi Sea meant that his Qi Sense and his qi control were very poor. It was to be expected. These were skills you had to start learning while young, and Silvester hadn't come from a cultivation family. Rowan sighed and sat across from Silvester in the shade of the tree.

"You still need to learn qi control. You can't cultivate by writing qi inscriptions all day."

"Didn't Elder Cloris ascend to Qi Refining through his understanding of poetry?"

"Yes," said Rowan patiently.

"But it was a fortuitous breakthrough that he never expected. There's also the legend of the Oyster Maiden who, overnight, went from being a street singer to an immortal because she dreamed of the tree of immortality and ate one of its peaches. You can't rely on one-off moments to cultivate." Silvester didn't look convinced.

"There are many paths," tried Rowan, quoting his father, "and they all lead to the Dao. But those that are well-travelled are by that fact well-paved." He remembered what his father had told him, once, about the Dao. It had always stuck with him. If the Dao is the endless sea, then paths are the boats. Sure, someone can jump into the sea themselves and swim uncharted waters, but they will quickly drown - or get eaten by dangers lurking in the depths.

It's said that although there are countless scriptures, in the end, they all fall into three-hundred and twenty-four paths. The most seaworthy are the elemental arts. Grand ships, like divination or fate and even poetry or music… no cultivator has been able to board these ships. But every cultivator feels their waves as they pass them by in the night. Rowan's path was Wood - specifically, Spring. Silvester was still in the first layer of Qi Condensation. He hadn't selected a path yet.

That meant he couldn't practice spell arts.

"I'll find my own way, thank you," muttered Silvester. There was something defensive in the lines of his shoulders, how tensely he held himself.

"Well, tell that to Mikael then, so I don't get in trouble."

"Mikael…" Silvester winced. So, none of Rowan's profound words had swayed the teen, but a reminder of their teacher had done the trick. Then, Rowan had an idea.

"Follow along, won't you?" He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he stood up and pulled out his sword, and began to scratch familiar shapes into the mud.

"You see this?" He pointed at the first image. A simple cube. His mother had preferred to do this on the beach, but when she grew sicker most of his lessons were drawn with a thin brush in splotched ink.

"It's a cube," said Silvester.

"What's your point?"

"Qi can form unusual shapes - the first step to qi control is becoming familiar with the way qi can look," said Rowan, whose patience had worn thinner.

"Hold the shape of the cube in your mind." He scratched another, smaller cube, jointed along the furthest edge of the first one.

"Now try your best to remember this shape. Which edge the second cube is connected to, the distance from either vertex of the smaller cube to the corresponding vertices of the larger–""Vertices?"

"That's what the corners are called," said Rowan. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I see…" Rowan paced around the new drawing a few times.

"Have you memorized it?"

"Yes? But what is this supposed to–" Rowan ignored him. Mikael said to teach Silvester qi control. There wasn't a lecture he'd ever heard in the sect that was nearly as helpful as this exercise.

"See this vertex? I'm going to draw a sphere next." Rowan scratched out a circle with the sword. Even though he was using a sword, and drawing casually, the lines were still one hundred times smoother than anything Silvester had been sketching.

"This is the central slice of the sphere," Rowan said, feeling the need to explain.

"These rounded lines represent the outer limits."

"Have you memorized it?" Rowan asked eventually. Silvester nodded. Rowan pulled qi in from the apertures on his hands and sent a qi blast into the mud. The energy pulsed outwards in a wave, cleansing the ground of shapes entirely. Silvester jumped back, aghast. Rowan handed him the sword.

"Now draw the first shape." Silvester was clearly unaccustomed to handling a sword, and Rowan's qi sword was far heavier than the sect's training blades despite how slim it looked. After a long struggle, Silvester produced a cube about the same size as the original image. It was the worst drawing Rowan had ever seen. The sword's weight couldn't account for all of it. Silvester drew like someone who had never drawn anything before in his life. But Rowan was pleased that Silvester, at least, was listening to him now.

"Now draw the second shape," he said patiently, "but mirror the position of the second cube."

"Mirror?" Silvester echoed in quiet outrage. He gave Rowan the sword back and began poking at the mud with his fingers again.

"Along this face," Rowan said, pointing.

"What."

"Imagine you're holding a mirror up to that side of the shape, and draw the second cube where it would appear in the mirror." Lee, who had been watching the whole time, finally spoke up.

"I don't get it either." Silvester didn't speak, glaring at his scratched lines instead. After a few moments, he worked out where the cube went.

"Is this right?" he demanded. Rowan nodded.

"Now draw the sphere centered on the furthest vertex of the larger cube from the original image." Now Damion was watching as well, staring intently. At some point, Mikael had paused whatever he had been lecturing about to observe.

"It should be…" Silvester murmured, as he pointed to a corner of the smaller cube.

"That's the wrong one," Decatour said, completely sure. He crouched over the mud, and pointed at his choice.

"It's mirrored."

"It is not," snapped Lee.

"He picked the right one. You weren't even paying attention to the original image." All three of them looked up at Rowan, demanding the answer. Rowan pressed a palm into his forehead.

"That's the wrong cube. It's the opposite corner of the larger cube. The furthest corner." In truth, he'd gotten it wrong the first time too. He had a good excuse, though. He'd been five years old. And Mom had drawn the second image from a different perspective. He chose not to draw it that way because he'd always thought it had been unfairly difficult for a first exercise.

"So it was a trick question," said Silvester, his arms folded. The tip of his boot dug into the mud.

"Also, what was the point of this game? I don't feel better at controlling my qi." Mikael was now standing over the muddy ground with a speculative look.

"Did you come up with this, Rowan?" Rowan shook his head.

"I learned it from my mother."

"Are there more of these puzzles?" Mikael asked. Rowan shrugged.

"Hundreds. I think I remember about half of them."

"I was told the late Lady Brangaine wasn't a cultivator," Mikael said, after a long silence.

"What's this supposed to be?" Lee asked, finally sick of being curious.

"This cube," said Mikael, pointing to the larger one.

"Represents your latent qi pooled at a receiving aperture. The smaller one represents the external qi you're drawing in." He turned to Damion.

"What do the spheres represent, Decanter?" Decatour stared at the diagram, perplexed.

"Further proof that Old Sutter's exams are completely pointless," Mikael said.

"Loafer, what are the eight trigram dispositions?" Lee jumped, not expecting a question.

"Uh, Heaven. Earth. Fire and Water and Wind and Thunder. Mountain? Mountain and…" Lee squinted.

"Mountain and Lake." Mikael pointed at Rowan.

"Explain to your fellow disciples why the spheres are important and how it relates to the trigrams." Rowan scratched his head.

"To be honest, I have no idea, Senior Brother."

"Oh." Mikael looked taken aback.

"Alright, then explain what those spheres mean to you, then." Rowan nodded.

"They are the easiest places to grab the qi. The first sphere represents the location when the qi is outside your body, and the mirrored sphere represents the location when the qi is inside of your body." Mikael sighed.

"There's nothing wrong with that explanation," he decided.

"I suppose this is kind of esoteric and academic. The trigrams are, as you know, commonly used as shorthand for the eight cardinal directions. But directions are relative, which makes this flawed as a way to orient yourself. There are apertures all over your body, and they all open up in different directions. The 'south' of this compass is 'heaven', the governing relation. So the place where you most easily manipulate your qi is always 'south' or 'heaven'."

"Oh," said Decatour rather softly. He pulled out a bright green jade slip, and pushed his qi into it, clearly leafing through it.

"What does the confusing sutra say?" asked Mikael in a satisfied drawl.

"As the gate is passed, move from heaven to earth in natal journey. Cross the divide. It does not conceive but it expends as it grows, and becomes a man in quiet spirit. That is the Metal of the soul," said Decatour.

"It was an annotation on the breathing technique." If Ensouled in Wood had been written in such a manner, Rowan would have crippled himself. Regardless, out of intellectual curiosity, Rowan decided to have a try at translating it.

"Pass ambient Metal qi through your receiving apertures, and move it towards the Spirit Root - pushing, rather than passively letting it flow through your pathways. And then when it's gathered in your Spirit Root, convert any latent Earth qi into Fire qi before you send it to…" Rowan balked.

"Honestly, I have no idea." Mikael shook his head.

"Now I've seen some abstruse annotations over the years, but referring to the path from Spirit Root to the heart meridian as 'growing from a child to a man in quiet spirit' might be one of the worst." Mikael rubbed a spot of mud on his robes.

"Keep practicing amongst yourselves. I need to get going. I've been invited for tea with Halfmoon House." He paused.

"Do you think this is an assassination attempt?" he asked the group of them earnestly. When he only received blank stares, he sighed.

"Helpful as always."