Chương 6: "Now you learn what real pain is"

Ch 6: "Now you learn what real pain is" It took a few moments for him to work out how to do it, but then Zhen directed his qi in thin streams towards the weak points in the blockage. He could see the flaws. His goal wasn't to wear it down anymore but rather to exploit its vulnerabilities. As he pushed, the first crack widened, but at the same moment, a twinge of something flared through his abdomen. He kept going. Compared to the burns and blisters he had earned at the anvil, this mild discomfort was nothing.

Yet that was just the start.

As the hours passed, the pain intensified, and sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cool night air. The blockage was starting to yield, but as he pushed into it, the risk became clear. Attacking the blockage in his spirit gate in this way was tempering it like a piece of steel. If he slowed or stopped, it would harden. The damage to the blockage would heal, and it would end up stronger than before he started. If he failed now it would be significantly harder the next time. Zhen refused to let that happen.

He redoubled his efforts and drove his qi deeper into the cracks, widening them from within. The pain magnified, and Zhen started to drift.

"Breathe. Meditate. It's the only way you will make it through." Shuo's voice drifted over, thin and faint, as if the old man were calling to him from a distance. Zhen obeyed the command, ignoring the undertone of fear in the old man's voice. His muscles seized, and he clenched his jaw against the agony. But beneath it all, the blockage started to give way. The fault lines spread and connected, forming a network of fractures. He gathered everything he had and drove it into his core. The blockage shattered.

Pain tore through him, and his back arched involuntarily. His eyes flew open as a deafening crack split the air. Brilliant white-blue lightning stabbed down around him, impossibly close. The bolts filled the clearing and the lake, but never touched him. With an energy that made him shiver, the air crackled, and the taste of metal flooded his mouth. In the strobing light, he glimpsed Shuo, his eyes wide with shock. As quickly as it had come, the lightning vanished.

The night returned to stillness, though the smell of scorched earth lingered. The only evidence of what had happened was a circle of blackened soil around Zhen and the afterimage of the lightning still burning in his vision. The pain began to recede and left Zhen gasping but triumphant. He had done it. Qi flowed through the newly opened spirit gate by itself. This was entirely different from using Elementary Pulse. That required constant effort and concentration.

While it undeniably brought more qi into his body, this flow moved on its own and qi gently entered him as it synchronized with his heartbeat. The pain ebbed away, leaving Zhen with a clarity he had never experienced before. As he looked around him the blue-black of the night had deepened, but also sharpened. The moonlight shadows revealed layers he had never seen before. Against the sky, the tree line resolved into individual leaves. He took a breath, and every scent stood out.

Beneath the metallic smell of the lightning scorched earth, was the mineral tang of the lake water, and the green-sap smell of the forest. When a bird called in the distance, Zhen could pinpoint its location and hear both its song and the soft rustle of its wings. The pebbles pressed into his fingertips with sudden sharp detail, and he shivered as the pockets of cool, damp air from the lake clashed against the heat of his skin. This heightened sensitivity was part of what it meant to be a cultivator.

The qi flowing through his newly opened spirit gate enhanced every sense. It was overwhelming yet exhilarating. The movement of the qi within him brought him back to himself. It moved differently now. Before, he had guided it through just a few channels, but now those meridians had multiplied. Up to this point, he had been pushing his qi through the main arteries of his body, but now he could access a finer network of veins.

More than that, within him there were dozens of spirit gates still to be unblocked and a further wealth of new meridians beyond. Most remarkable was the gathering warmth below his navel as qi finally accumulated in his dantian and started to push it out and expand it. Shuo had been right that his blocked Qihai spirit gate was holding him back. The sensation transfixed him. Zhen blinked, bringing his awareness back to his surroundings. Shuo was frozen in place.

The old man's face looked almost ghostly in the moonlight. Zhen couldn't help the smile that crept across his face.

"It opened." Shuo took a step closer, scrutinizing him.

"How? Cultivators train for weeks, sometimes months, to accomplish what you just did. Most people never manage it." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. The question, and the controlled anger in Shuo's voice, made Zhen pause. The honest answer was that he had done it by using his ability to see flaws. But his parents had drilled into him since childhood to never reveal it. He didn't know Shuo nearly well enough to break that trust. Zhen shrugged, affecting nonchalance.

"I just ground down the blockage like you said. Persistence, I guess." Shuo's eyes narrowed to slits.

"You're lying." His voice dropped to a dry rasp.

"That's not possible." The old man took another step forward, then stopped abruptly. The color drained from his face as understanding dawned.

"You saw a flaw in the spirit gate, didn't you? You found it and exploited it." Zhen had no idea how Shuo had worked that out, but silence seemed the safest course of action. When Zhen didn't answer, Shuo began to pace, his movements agitated. He struck his own forehead with his palm.

"I should have realized when I first felt you use qi. You spotted flaws in the iron. That's why you were poking at it with your qi." He spat on the ground.

"And I didn't put it together." The waterfall's roar filled the silence between them. Zhen's newfound sensory acuity picked up Shuo's racing heartbeat, and the slight tremor in his hands. Shuo whirled toward him.

"Do your parents know?"

"Know what?" Zhen kept his face carefully blank, but his enhanced senses betrayed him as his own pulse quickened. The old cultivator's face hardened. He closed the distance between them faster than Zhen had ever seen him move. Shuo's hand shot out, gripping Zhen's shoulder with surprising strength.

"The Eye of Xiezhi." His voice was a growl and the way he said the words made it sound more curse than a blessing.

"Don't play games. Do your parents know you have the Eye?" The fact that whatever he was doing had a name made Zhen pause. He had always thought of it as just a peculiarity of his vision, a blacksmith's eye for detail taken to an extreme. But Shuo spoke of it as if it were a known quantity.

"I don't…"

"Don't lie." Shuo's grip tightened.

"If you had the Eye then surely Gang and Mei Mei wouldn't have been such idiots as to keep it from me. This is bad." Zhen swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. This was dangerous ground. His parents had never called his ability by a name, but their protectiveness suddenly made more sense. More than that, he had been ignoring the signs that suggested that Shuo and his parents knew each other. Hoping it was all in his head. But the way Shuo was talking suggested they knew each other all too well.

Shuo gave Zhen a shake and his eyes bored into him.

"Answer me. Does your family know what you are?" Shuo's grip loosened as he released Zhen and backed away, his eyes never leaving Zhen's. Then he turned and resumed his pacing, his hands twitching at his sides.

"Never mind. Focus. Who knows isn't important right now," he said, his voice returning to its usual dry rasp.

"The chances of anyone noticing and being able to get here quickly are low. If it's been a secret this long, it will keep a little longer." The old man stopped abruptly, his face set with resolve.

"We leave at dawn. But first, we consolidate your breakthrough to avoid making things worse." Zhen gave Shuo a confused look.

"Wait, what? Leave? I'm not going to leave." Shuo closed his eyes, his chest heaving. When he looked back at Zhen, the manic light was gone, replaced by a brittle professionalism.

"You're right." Shuo's voice was flat.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. For now, we need to ensure you step onto the path of cultivation the right way. Setting up a solid foundation is what matters now." He gestured to the sandy shore.

"Take a seat and use Elementary Pulse." Zhen didn't trust the rapid about-turn for a moment. But Shuo's urgency was real. Whatever danger he was dancing around, consolidating the breakthrough seemed reasonable. He kept his eyes on the old man and began to use the meditation technique. The change was striking. Where he had previously struggled to sense and direct the qi energy, now it responded eagerly. The pulsing technique drew in energy.

"Good," Shuo said, circling him with critical eyes.

"Now you need to push qi through the Qihai spirit gate to ensure every last part of the blockage is removed. The gate must work at full efficiency. Removing any fragments later will be much harder." Zhen directed the flow as instructed, feeling the warmth of qi scouring the freshly opened gate.

"The same goes for all the new meridians you now have access to," Shuo continued.

"Saturate them with qi otherwise they'll wither and collapse. They need to be nourished, and they're at their most vulnerable right now." The new network of channels branched through his body. He flooded them with qi, watching with the Eye as the energy nourished and solidified the paths.

"Good. Unlike other meditation techniques, there is a variation of Elementary Pulse that means the open spirit gate can vibrate and accumulate qi even when you're doing other things." Shuo demonstrated with a series of hand movements.

"While it's not as good as dedicated meditation, it will allow you to fill your dantian faster." Zhen followed the gestures, feeling the rhythm settle into his body. The qi flow became self-sustaining, a gentle tide moving in and out with each breath.

"With your first spirit gate open, you're now a true cultivator," Shuo said, a hint of pride breaking through his gruff exterior.

"Albeit one that is only at the first qi condensation stage but that is enough to gain you entry to the lowest rung of a minor sect." A strange mixture of elation and sobriety washed over Zhen. This talk of entering sects was heady stuff. Like all children, he had daydreamed of being a cultivator and casually wielding qi to the awe and adoration of those around him. He had crossed a threshold that those in his village would never approach. Yet that excitement was tempered by Shuo's pragmatism.

In the world of cultivators, he was barely a novice.

"Well, if that's it for tonight, shall we head back?" Zhen asked, feeling the fatigue of the breakthrough settling into his muscles. Shuo's expression darkened.

"No. With you using your Eye of Xiezhi to see flaws in your blockages, you should be able to open your spirit gates faster than normal cultivators." He paused and looked around the clearing.

"Given you've lit that beacon, we can't slow down your cultivation either." A chill ran down Zhen's spine.

"A beacon? What do you mean?" Shuo looked at him for a long moment, then turned away.

"Opening any spirit gates always puts strain on a cultivator's body," he said briskly.

"However, the more rapidly gates are opened, the more strain is put on the body, to the point that it can be deadly."

"I assume you're telling me this because you have a solution?" Zhen said, his voice steadier than he felt. Shuo paused, studying Zhen's face as if measuring his resolve.

"I told you tonight was going to hurt," he said.

"Unblocking your spirit gate was irritatingly easy. As your reward, now you learn what real pain is."