Back inside her courtyard home, Xiao Hong flopped onto her sofa, mentally bracing herself for a dive into the mysterious, profound, and surely enlightening memories of her predecessor's teachers expounding the Dao. She needed to learn to wield her Cultivation Base!
Nodding seriously, she pressed the metaphoric play button.
"... The amount of Qi flowing through the cross-sectional area of a Meridian at any instant is known as Qi Flux," droned a solemn-faced elder. He waved his hand, and diagrams that looked like the love-child of engineering schematics and the characters of some eldritch language etched themselves into the air.
"For a peak Earthen Origin Cultivator, the flux at a normal, unagitated state is known as the Resting Flux. As a Cultivator strengthens, this Resting Flux also increases proportionally, and so does the manifested Qi Aura outside their body…"
Xiao Hong: "???"
Manifested Qi Aura? Qi Flux? Resting Flux? What the actual fuck?!
She pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to shake away the stuff that obviously did not belong anywhere near a World of Cultivation and jumped to another memory snippet.
"…Remember, the Fireball Spell Art's lethality is governed primarily by internal pressure, not peak flame temperature." The elder with silvery hair stroked his beard, while above his other palm floated a ball of Qi containing writhing red flames, "The optimal damage requires balancing the shell's tensile strength against the internal pressure…"
Xiao Hong's eyelid twitched. Teeth clenched, she immediately slammed the stop button on that memory!
Tensile strength. The term alone was enough to send her cerebral cortex running, screaming for mercy. It was an old enemy - one that had nearly driven her previous incarnation to insanity!
She felt another headache brewing. This was a realm of immortals, right? Then why did it feel like she had opened a high school Physics textbook?!
With a dramatic groan, she slapped her mental 'Next' button and found herself staring up at an increasingly familiar elder.
"By Ancestor Bu NuoLi's principle, Zhenqi can be viewed as a fluid, therefore, the more Zhenqi you draw during Qi Circulation, the greater the pressure exerted on it is and the denser Qi deposited in the cells of your body will be."
In the elder's hands, Zhenqi pulsed, swirling as he coaxed it through a massive circular conduit carved into a slab of Spirit Jade. With each cycle, he siphoned more Qi into the channel, and the edges of the channel glowed brighter.
"And as you all know, the denser the Qi deposited in the cells during cultivation, the faster one's body evolves. And the evolution of the body is nothing more than Cultivation!
"… Similarly, the faster the Qi Circulation is, the denser the Qi…"
"Fuck!" Xiao Hong nearly flipped her Cultivation Mat! "Why the hell is Fluid fucking Dynamics haunting me even here?!"
She clutched her head in despair as terms like "Fluid Zhenqi", "Bu Nuo Li's principle", and "Qi Density" bounced around her brain like echoes of nightmares and vengeful ghosts of the physics tests she thought she'd left behind.
A traumatised look flashed in her eyes. This world didn't seem right!
Wasn't Cultivation all about those spiritual epiphanies? Wasn't Cultivation about the notion that aligning one's mind and soul with Heaven and Earth allowed one to transcend mortality through enlightenment of the intangible Fate or some such? Where one's Dao was a mystical path of self-reflection and introspection, of understanding the profundity of the world?
Why were there equations popping up now?
Terrible, terrible scenes appeared in her mind.
***
A man stood beneath an ancient tree, eyes shut in contemplation. He gripped his sword tightly, brows furrowing in utmost concentration.
The wind rustled softly, and a single green leaf detached itself, drifting gracefully downward.
Suddenly, the cultivator's eyes snapped open, flashing with comprehension.
"Eureka! The gravitational force acting on the leaf is mass times the pull exerted by the earth itself. But. The air itself resists the fall of the leaf, hence its slow drift down to the earth!" His face flashed as realisation dawned on him.
Booom! An unparalleled aura exploded with him as the centre, shaking the heavens and shattering the earth!
"Hahaha~! This Seat has finally broken through!"
***
Elsewhere, an earnest disciple sat solemnly beneath a waterfall, his muscles trembling under the powerful torrent.
"J-just a bit more. As long as I endure this, I will be able to break through. This pressure is just the perfect amount calculated by the Master! The force of the water divided by the surface area of my body is the pressure exerted on it. With this formula, I will be able to forge the most perfect foundation!"
***
"No, no, no! It can't be like this!" Xiao Hong shook her head like a rattledrum, feeling her sanity rapidly slipping away like a slippery fish.
She quickly cross-checked her memories. Sure enough, Qi Flux, Fireball Spell Art, and Ancestor Bu NuoLi's infernal Fluid Qi Principle were all taught by the same nefarious individual.
"Hmph! Blacklisted!" She would never attend a lesson by this man - he was destroying the sanctity of the Immortal Path!
Quickly, she rummaged for another memory that might have actual cultivation stuff. Fortunately, she found one and did not hesitate to dive into it:
"... Through Qi Meditation, one must find their Qi Acupoints…"
Xiao Hong sighed in relief. See? That's more like Cultivation!
Then, she continued reviewing the memory.
"... In the Earthen Origin Stage, one must thread their Qi through the QiHai, ShanZhong and the YinTang Acupoints…"
Xiao Hong: "..."
QiHai? ShanZhong? YinTang? What the heck were those? Why did it sound like a dim sum menu?
She quickly looked at another memory.
"...The Ren-Du Meridian Group is the first…"
Aight. I don't understand this either!
"Fuck it," she gave up! This Cultivation mumbo-jumbo was even worse.
So, she decided to jump to the very first memory. She didn't believe 10-year-olds knew more about science or Xianxia stuff than her: a person who has wasted ages on webnovels - er, dedicateddecades to understanding the Immortal Way!
After scouring through the old Xiao Hong's memories, she finally found the first 'Dao Lecture' given to the then newest cohort in the Sect. Her cohort.
"...For now, we shall focus on the Qi Acupoint." An elder in flowing white robes and a horsetail whisk at his waist, smiled. "Located right smack in the middle of your forehead - the 'Soul Gate,' also known by its far less glamorous nickname, the YinTang Acupoint."
The elder paused dramatically, tapping a child's forehead with exaggerated solemnity. The tap was so accurate, it reminded Xiao Hong of a certain 'tragic', red-eyed, clan-slaughtering bro-con!
"Cultivating this accupoint is a damned chore." the Elder said flatly. "It requires patience, slowly nurturing this Qi Acupoint over months and even years."
The elder cracked a smile. "Actually, you can imagine it as patiently filling a piggy bank with pocket money every single day, religiously dropping those precious copper coins in, dreaming of the day when you finally crack that chubby ceramic pig open. Smash it too early and you'll find yourself crying over shards of ceramic disappointment.
"Much like the piggy bank, we must patiently nourish the Spirit sealed behind the acupoint with Qi - until it has grown strong enough to break through on its own…"
Xiao Hong heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, something she understood!
"When the Soul Power is awakened, we use it to precisely guide our Zhenqi and form Qi Meridians within the body… In fact, it is somewhat like blowing your nose! Isn't breathing so much easier when your nose is clear?
"But, now, instead of your mother squeezing your nose until it hurts, just imagine having another, always clean nose! Isn't that freaking awesome?!"
Xiao Hong hummed to herself as she slowly retracted her attention from the memory. She raised her hand and subconsciously stroked her jaw - a habit from her old life, before jerking it back away.
She gave her new extremity a critical look before awkwardly bringing it back to her face. Stroking her jaw again, she felt the smooth and soft skin, and most importantly, the complete lack of hair.
'It seems I have no Fate with the Dumbledore-beard even in this life...'
Shaking her head ruefully, she brought her attention back to the issue at hand and dove into memories that explained Qi Cultivation one after another, slowly mapping out the so-called Immortal Path.
And honestly, it was quite fascinating!
Like any other boy, her previous incarnation had been utterly hooked by the idea of superpowers and superheroes. He had yearned to shoot across the sky like Superman and swing around in the city like Spiderman; hoped that he would reincarnate into the Xianxia World, cultivate Qi and learn Immortal Techniques; daydreamed about going to Hogwarts and learning Magic, calling Riddle a Noseless Baldie to his face… all until society bitch-slapped him into place.
And now, she was in a new life in the World of Cultivation, where achieving eternal life and supreme power were an actual possibility. Her fascination was only natural!
After a long while, she finally opened her eyes. She had the basic idea of what Qi Cultivation entailed. She clenched her fist in determination, Alright, my cute little Soul Gate. Get ready~! You're about to get pampered until you burst like an overfed piggy!
In the Cultivation room, she took a deep breath and sat down cross-legged on her Cultivation Mat. There was no specific reason for this pose unlike what the Xianxia novels of her previous life would have her believe. In fact, you can do whatever you want.
T-Posing upside-down to assert dominance? No problem!
Hanging from the ceiling like a bat? Works fine!
Lying on the couch like a potato? That's fine too!
Cultivation was never about poses - it's more spiritual. If you felt it was the right position, then it was.
Despite knowing that, she sat down cross-legged. Simply because that is what she felt she should do. And as a web novel addict, the cross-legged meditation pose was engraved into her soul!
A part of her brain sniggered, hehehe~ imagine Dual Cultivating cross-legged. Even the connoisseurs of Earth can't cook up a position as strange as that one.
Her cheeks turned pink. Dammit brain, not now!
Shaking her head vigorously to get rid of her intrusive thoughts, she closed her eyes and focused her attention inwards.
Soon after she started, a subtly minty scent wafted into her nose. Reflexively, she breathed in, filling her chest with a minty coolness. It turned into a refreshing breeze that spread out from her lungs, calming her thoughts.
Spirit Stabilising Incense. A name popped into her mind. The courtesy of Lin Fan's pampering.
Before she could begin cultivating in earnest, Xiao Hong first had to find her Qi. Surprisingly, this came easier than she'd expected, largely thanks to the old Xiao Hong's training and her unique circumstance of coming from a world with no supernatural powers.
One steady breath, then another, and there it was, coursing through her body. It was warm, like a sip of hot chocolate in the middle of a snowstorm that trickled down to your stomach, warming up your body. But, at the same time, it was different. This heat persisted, thrumming in her veins until it felt as if her entire being was glowing from within.
Breaths steady as a mountain, she merely observed, not interfering. Its flow was random, unhurried, and almost absentminded. A sort of slow chaos. But somehow soothing.
Amidst this flowing warmth, she perceived a fist-sized orb of condensed Qi nestled just behind and below her navel. From it, Qi rolled off in soft waves, like dry ice sublimating into gas, constantly replenishing the energy surrounding it.
The Dantian. Her memories supplied. The so-called 'Forge of Immortality' and the 'Crucible of Creation'.
It was the foundation of the Immortal Path and one of the most crucial aspects of Qi Cultivation.
It was so crucial, in fact, that half of the time you heard an old fogie ranting about "consolidating cultivation base" and "weak foundations", they usually meant the Dantian.
She traced the Qi radiating outwards from her Dantian in waves.
It gravitated towards specific points scattered throughout her body, sparking a tingling sensation not unlike pins and needles, only very muted. Rather than discomfort, it was more like little sparks of pleasant awareness. Each tiny pulse of energy around these spots felt as though her muscles and bones were quietly waking up.
Qi Acupoints. The newly gained knowledge supplied. They were special places within the human body towards which Qi tended to naturally gather.
Among them, two stood out with striking clarity: one at the centre of her chest, the Heart Space, and another between her brows, the Soul Gate.
The Dantian was also a Qi Acupoint - the most important one.
A slender, somewhat staggered tube of Qi connected the Heart Space and the Soul Gate to her Dantian in a continuous loop, skimming them tangentially before curving back toward the Dantian.
This was her first Meridian. But it was not her focus. Not for now.
A grin stretched her lips. This was real - she was actually feeling it. She had experienced it through the old Xiao Hong's memories, but experiencing the flow first-hand made everything that much more vivid. The feeling was completely different! It was thrilling, exhilarating!
Cautiously, almost tenderly, she "reached out" to her Qi, giving it a gentle mental "tug" - like a small child tugging at her parent's pants, trying to get attention.
It responded with the enthusiasm of a sleepy cat being dragged from its favourite sunny spot, reluctantly trailing behind her guidance up her torso and down her arm. Then, just as she tried to push the Qi past her elbow -
Poof!
- It escaped, slipping away like wisps of steam and merging back into the surrounding Qi.
But Xiao Hong wasn't disappointed.
The corner of her lips twitched upwards. In fact, she was positively delighted! It wasn't 'her' Cultivation Base, after all. So, a little difficulty should be anticipated - she half-expected the Qi to ignore her altogether!
Surprisingly enough, it was easier than she had expected.
Spirits lifted by the success, she focused again, reaching out to the reservoir of Qi - this time a lot more confidently. She guided it, and her Qi obeyed, rushing towards her hand.
She failed again, Qi dissipating just a few inches past her elbow. She tried again and failed again, especially at the wrist. Again and again, she guided the wisps of Qi forward, every attempt refining her control over Zhenqi.
Eventually, after who knows how many failures, her Qi flowed all the way into her hand. Her eyes sprang open, and she couldn't help a soft gasp of awe.
A faint golden aura flickered around her upraised hand like a flame dancing at the tip of a candlewick. Granted, it wasn't nearly as vast or radiant as Chen Ruoxi's earthy-brown cloak. But that girl was a Third Stage: Sky Spirit Cultivator. Be it the quantity or quality of Qi, Xiao Hong couldn't hope to match her. Not yet.
But that was fine. She hadn't even cultivated for a whole day! She turned to the clock and nearly choked.
05, 1st Month, Year 1589 of the Modern Era.
It was the next day.
"Eh?" Xiao Hong's jaw dropped. She blinked a few times and looked again.
Nope. It was still the same.
"I've been training for almost half a day without even realising it?!" She was flabbergasted. It'd barely felt like a few hours to her! "No wonder these Cultivators go into secluded cultivation for months and years. Doesn't feel as long."
After a few moments, she calmed down. She stroked her jaw thoughtfully as if she were some wise elder, "Should I get an alarm clock to wake me from Cultivation or something? That won't send me into Qi Deviation or something, right?" For a moment, she let her imagination run wild, picturing a shrill bell going off mid-breakthrough, followed by a lot of blood-vomiting (or flying body parts).
She shivered, "Let's not. I just need to keep in mind when and where I cultivate. That should be enough."
After a while, Xiao Hong tossed these random thoughts to the back of her mind. It was now time to get the ball rolling with some actual Alchemy.