Chương 22: Soul

It had been three torturous days. The pain radiating from his meridian pathways hadn't lessened, and he hadn't dared to use qi in any form. His body was still very weak, and spear training was out of the question, but at least his physical pain had abated. The elder had been away, but after discussing it with Minghao, they agreed that evening would be the right moment to use the pill Elder Chen had given him. He lay back on his bed, teased the pill out of the bottle, put it on his tongue, and closed his eyes.

The pill dissolved instantly, and he had the sensation of a mix of mist and cold liquid running down his throat. Somewhere along that path, he felt the components make the shift from his physical body to the world of his spirit, where the meridians and dantians made their home. As that happened, he felt the soothing cold of the pill enter his pathways and spread. The mist seemed to gather at his neck and lungs, where he had been most hurt; the liquid spread through his pathways and clung to them.

Tiredness swept through him; he couldn't resist and fell asleep right away.

When he woke up, he felt immediate relief. His body was still weak, and even without trying to use qi, he knew that his meridians were far from healed, but the all-encompassing pain radiating from his pathways had been reduced significantly. He rose and went looking for Minghao, finding him in the kitchen preparing breakfast. The retainer looked up from cutting peppers.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Much better, Minghao. The pill has certainly helped tremendously. Do you think it's all right for me to take a look?" Minghao thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

"Looking doesn't truly use qi, and the spiritual strain is minimal." Jianyi took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He started at his dantian, which looked as always. As he moved through his pathways, though, the damage was visible. Where they were normally translucent and nearly invisible, they now glowed an angry red, coated in a silver sheen he attributed to the Ancestral Pathway Preservation Pill.

As he neared his lung meridian, the damage grew more severe, and right before the gate, there was a rupture in his pathway filled with a more intense silver than the rest. He stared at the damage his failure had caused and had to take a few breaths to steady himself. Yet as he looked, he got the sense that things were changing. In infinitesimal increments, it looked like the rupture was closing. Not sure whether he was imagining it, he moved on to his neck meridian, where the pathway was also ruptured.

He would have to look again later, but his impression that the pill was working strengthened. Relief flooded through him—punctuated by the growl of his stomach. He hadn't had much appetite over the last few days, and that had apparently changed with the pill as well. Minghao laughed.

"You need to wait a few minutes, but then you can eat all you want. Afterwards, go to Elder Sun's study—he wanted to talk with you."

"First, let me take a look at your meridians." Jianyi was sitting in the elder's study and acquiesced. Elder Sun got up and placed his hand on Jianyi's back. After a few moments, he nodded and returned to his chair.

"You are indeed on the path to recovery. The damage was extensive, but Elder Chen's pill is a potent one. I suspect that in a week from now, your pathways should be as good as new."

"Really? That fast and fully healed?" he exclaimed excitedly. That was better than Jianyi had dared to hope. The elder chuckled.

"Yes. If you don't stress the pathways in any way, that's what I expect to happen. But that is not why I asked you to come. Your account of how something rose from within to nearly save you gave me much to ponder—especially in light of your unique situation." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The elder paused and tapped his desk with a finger.

"What do you know about soul and spirit?" Jianyi looked at the elder with wide eyes, feeling put on the spot.

"I'm afraid I haven't studied those in detail yet, so I only know the basics. I have to admit that the differences aren't quite clear to me."

"That is not unexpected. I don't want to recap all that you'll learn in your first term, but as it's important for the hypothesis I've formed about how you got your core card, I'll summarize briefly.

"The soul is who you are; it connects you to the Dao—across lifetimes. Its strength determines how well one can perceive the Dao, how much willpower one can project into reality, and is, beyond meridians, the biggest indicator for cultivation talent—though much harder to measure. It is also the vessel for the spirit.

"The spirit sits between your soul and your body. It's the home for your dantians and meridians; it translates your soul's power into the real world. In contrast with the soul, it can be strengthened through disciplined training. Cultivation, at its core, is the strengthening of the spirit and body.

"Do you understand?" The elder looked at him intently. Jianyi thought about what he had learned for a moment. He had to admit that in the past, he had used the terms soul and spirit somewhat interchangeably, but the elder's explanation resonated with him. He recalled the trial—and the saying they had memorized in school.

"I think so. Will shapes, Soul bridges, Wuxing infuses, Spirit welcomes. It makes a lot more sense now." The elder smiled.

"Exactly. A strong soul comes with the potential for a strong will. But it's up to the individual to use it, which requires discipline. The spirit is where your core card—and all others—find their home. The key point is 'Wuxing infuses'. It's not the Heavens or the Dao, but Wuxing. What is the fundamental characteristic of Wuxing?" Elder Sun looked at him expectantly. Jianyi did not want to disappoint. It was not the five elements. After a moment, he nodded to himself.

"Balance—the balance of all things. Without it comes chaos, and with chaos, the fall into the Outer Realms." The elder slapped his desk loudly, making Jianyi jump.

"Very good, my young friend! That was an excellent answer. Now, before we go further, describe what you found when you entered the trial." Jianyi remembered the trial as if he had just exited it.

"The endlessness of the Dao was all around me, but between it and me were the Heavens and, intertwined with them, Wuxing as a never-ending circle. Below me was my spirit in the form of a calm lake, and I was engulfed in a very dense mist." Nodding, the elder asked, "The mist was your soul. When you say dense, would you compare it to a morning mist?"

"No," he said, shaking his head, "more like a thundercloud."

"Mhh, that's what I thought. I'll have to meditate more on this, but I believe Wuxing senses the increasing imbalance in our plane caused by the Celestial Confrontation, and it needed a vessel to have a chance to restore balance.

"That vessel, however, could not be just anybody. It needed someone with a strong soul—a soul so strong that it could host a spirit capable of making full use of the potential of your core card. But not only that. It also needed a vessel with the discipline to make that potential a reality. And that vessel… is you." Jianyi struggled to process the implications of what Elder Sun had just said.

If true, it would cast him as one of the heroes from the stories—yet weak and only beginning to recover, he felt anything but heroic.

"Teacher, when I made the connections to Wuxing during the trial, the Heavens turned dark and furious—how could that happen if I had been chosen as you say?"

"Well, usually the Heavens and Wuxing are aligned; after all, the latter is an instrument of the former to implement its laws in the material realm. However, at times—though rarely—Wuxing enacts Heaven's laws in ways that conflict with others… and the Heavens do not take kindly to that.

"It's crucial for you never to remove your core card from your dantian, because if you do, you might grab Heaven's attention—and very few recover from that." Jianyi nodded and took the advice to heart.

"Now, coming back to how we started the conversation: what you felt during the failed attempt was likely your soul-empowered will rearing its head. You've likely never faced a moment that demanded you surpass the limits of what's normal. On that day, you did—and you saw that you could—but you surprised yourself, so it failed.

"There are two priorities coming out of that event for you. First, you need to unlock that deeper well of will and unify it with what you tap into daily. The good news is that your discipline will help with that. Second, you need to dramatically improve your qi control."

"How can I do that, teacher?"

"Mhh," the elder rubbed his chin.

"There is a whole domain of unlocking your soul-empowered will. Let's not get into it now, but at the heart of it is always meditation. There are many forms of it; start with the seated one and extend the time you spend on it. Let us come back to the details at a later stage.

"For the qi control, take this." He produced a metal band with a silver sheen and five large sapphires inlaid and connected via simple engravings.

"Wear it around your biceps, beneath your robes. It's just a toy, but don't show it to others. You are to train until you can connect with all five gems at the same time.

"Enough of this. I'll talk with Minghao to resume your spear training as of tomorrow. One hour of meditation and one hour of qi control training a day at a minimum, once your channels are recovered. You will also support me in my alchemy work as needed. Off with you now!" Slightly dazed by the abrupt end and the flurry of new tasks, Jianyi rose, bowed, and left the room. There was much to process—and, apparently, little free time left to do it.