Druidic Cultivation | Forty-Three

Jiao opened his eyes and found his surroundings unfamiliar. Blinking a couple times to try and clear his vision, he found himself lying on his back and staring at a marble ceiling of some sort. Jiao attempted to shift onto his side and found that nearly every single muscle group in his body decided to go on strike at the same time.

“Ugh,” A grunt of pain slipped from between his lips and, before he knew it, somebody was attempting to drown him in bed.

“Drink, drink some water Jiao.” Duan Cao, one of Jiao’s friends from home, was frantically trying to murder him with water. When he got over the suddenness of shaky hands force feeding hm water, Jiao realized that he was actually very thirsty. As the water slipped past his chapped lips and down his dry throat a cool sensation spread from his chest throughout his body. 

Two entire glasses of water later, Jiao cleared his throat and was able to shift himself into a sitting position. He found himself fancy looking room with two beds, both of them occupied. Next to his bed was Cao, looking worse for wear. Her eyes had deep lines under them and her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in days.

“What’s going on, Cao’er? Where are we?” Jiao’s body slowly started to respond to his inputs again so he queried their current situation while he stretched. At the moment, he couldn’t remember much about what happened before he passed out. Amidst the cracking of joints and grunts that slipped from his lips after a good stretch, Cao began to explain what happened.

“We’re in a inn room. You passed out after beating down that sneaky woman in the martial tourney and you were bleeding everywhere. Elder Nufang paid for you to be transported here until you were better and a healer has visited twice now. You’ve been sleeping for six days already… Are you feeling okay? Do you need more water?” Jiao pushed her hands away before she could waterboard him any further.

Through a series of questions and answers, Jiao found out that his father and the rest of the newly awakened kids from the Crouching Grass had already returned home. Tactfully, neither of the two mentioned the fact that Duan Cao had obviously been sitting at his bedside for nearly a week but he did find out that Elder Nufang assured the two girls they’d been going to the sect with Feng Jiao. Speaking of two girls, Jiao found out that the other occupied bed was a lightly snoring Wang Jing. 

Just as he was being told about his rock collection being tossed out by the city guard, thankful that he’d kept his favorites in his ring, Elder Nufang Mudan came barging into the room. Upon seeing Feng Jiao sitting up and holding Duan Cao’s hand, something he was doing to both console her and prevent her from drowning him any further, her eyebrow perked up.

“Good, you’re finally awake. Congratulations on your victory in the male bracket, obviously you only had to fight once after exposing your opponent as a cheater. Ahem. When you two are finished up come downstairs and eat, I’ll be waiting for you.” Cao’s face flushed red as Elder Nufang left the room, the closing door finally rousing Wang Jing from her sleep. She looked over at the other two kids in the room, lightly snorted, then rolled over and closed her eyes once more.

“Alright, thank you for catching me up, Cao. We should probably get ready to go downstairs.” Jiao tossed the blanket which was covering him off only to be momentarily stunned. Looking down, Jiao realized he was wearing a silk robe, colored green so dark it was nearly black, with light green vine embroidery. The fabric was really nice, if a bit feminen, and seemed to be a very high quality.

The issue was, it wasn’t Feng Jiao’s robe. As his face passed through a couple different expressions, Cao saw him staring down at his lap and realized his dilemma. Her face colored a dark red and she rushed to explain.

“Your clothes were burned up by that weird fire thing you did, as were Bai Fu’s. That’s the reason she ended up getting disqualified. The robe was a gift from Elder Nufang and she said she’d outgrown it a bit and you could keep it…” Cao’s voice trailed off as a Feng Jiao squinted his eyes. With a headache oncoming he acknowledged that it was definitely a female’s robe but fit rather well. Apparently, Ms. Nufang hadn’t always been as well endowed as she was then, he thought to himself.

Brushing aside the question of who dressed him, Jiao started thinking about the ‘weird fire thing’ that Cao mentioned. His memories of the fight had been slowly returning since he awoke and he could remember a feeling of his blood being on fire. With a start, Jiao remembered the sensation of his meridians and channels cracking and imploding. 

The blanket was thrown across the room and landed on Wang Jing’s bed, for which she mumbled a thank you and integrated the blanket into her rest, as Jiao sat straight up and entered a meditation position. Duan Cao was startled by his quick movements but, after seeing Feng Jiao cross his legs and close his eyes, settled down with a heavy sigh. 

Sending his sight inwards, Jiao did his best to picture his energy pathways within his body. In the past, Jiao was able to get a vague image of his meridians and Qi channels but was never able to see them clearly. This was an ability that came after a cultivator managed to forge their spiritual body in its entirety. After they finished awakening.

To his surprise and slight concern, Jiao was able to clearing pull up an ethereal image of himself in his mind’s eye. A slightly glowing and transparent Feng Jiao made itself known, likewise sitting lotus and meditating. Jiao could see several thick lines of light racing around his body, up and down various channels that looked almost like dried riverbeds. Jiao immediately took this for what it was, Qi circulating through his meridians. 

His dantian appeared to him like a cloud of loose gases, slightly cloudy and tinged red and orange. The tempestuous gas moved around in a swirl as it slowly compacted, occasionally releasing a wisp through one of the nine entry ways in order to circulate and refine it. The pattern seemed vaguely familiar to Feng Jiao and he eventually recognized it as the Qi cultivation technique that Aideen had taught him six months previously. Up until this point, Feng Jiao was only able to complete it partially.

This was no longer the case, however. During the battle with Bai Fu, the friction between his Qi channels and meridians seemed to have weakened the spiritual constructs to the point that the Qi was able to mix. Being a creature of Yang, Aideen had taught Feng Jiao a very specialized version of Qi cultivation that allowed for him to not only produce and refine Qi, but to flavor it with Yang and therefore increase its potency and strength. The miscellaneous ether and formless Qi that Jiao had been absorbing from the air during cultivation had been refined through his meridians and shifted to a Yang alignment before being stored in his dantian.

It wasn’t exactly rare for a cultivation technique to ‘flavor’ Qi into a specific element but many cultivators choose not to use those techniques. Although the Yang Qi was more powerful than neutral Qi it was likewise somewhat limited in its applications, all good things had a downside afterall. For example, with Yang being a much more robust version of the Fire element, Feng Jiao would find himself hard pressed to use any water hallowed techniques. 

This was a trade-off that all cultivators who choose to specialize had to make, and many did. In all honesty, elemental cultivation techniques were very rare. Most martial spirits were unable to communicate with their hosts as well as Aideen and Jiao did and of those that could most would not have a cultivation technique that was compatible for humans. They would just attract Qi and allow the human to store it according to whatever technique they possessed. 

Aideen was different as, in her ancestral memories, some of her kin had been able to take human shape in the past. The cultivation techniques they developed were passed to her via her inheritance and she then passed it to Feng Jiao, something most beasts would never do. As proud creatures, many martial spirits that were powerful enough to develop an ego would end up slightly resenting their hosts.

Either way, through a series of events Feng Jiao ended up with a Yang Qi cultivation base in his dantian. Within is Qi pool, the one he formed six months previously based on his own knowledge of magic from his last human life, he had stored only Wood Qi that he siphoned off plants. In this sense, Feng Jiao was unique as far as he knew, possessing two different sources of Qi of two different elements. 

The friction caused the two different energy pathways to crack and then melt into each other, leading to a Qi combustion that probably should have ended his cultivation career then and there. Once again, however, through a stroke of luck Feng Jiao ended up benefiting from the violent reaction. The Wood Qi was consumed by the Yang Qi, causing the translucent flames that burned away his clothes and, nearest he could tell, all the impurities that had built up in his pathways. 

He knew from Aideen’s explanation of Yang that it wasn’t just violent and destructive but also soft and constructive. Jiao’s cultivation technique led to his Qi trending closer to the healing side than the burning side so, as his two different pathways went through a chain reaction of microexplosions and melting, the Yang Qi was also sealing up and healing his pathways behind itself. He ended up with meridians that were almost twice as wide and deep as usual for his level of cultivation. 

Not only that. The chain reaction had the added effect of blowing open his two remaining meridians and connecting them back this dantian. Feng Jiao followed a strain of Qi as it rushed around his various meridians all the way into his skull, where he was startled. His Qi pool had been displaced, leaving Feng Jiao searching frantically for his storage of Wood Qi. Although he hadn’t really understood the specifics between having two different elements of Qi just yet, he knew it was an advantage and didn’t want to lose it. 

He found it moments later, located in his chest cavity between his lungs. Not only that, his dantian seemed to have shifting from his navel upwards several inches, located right above his stomach. He hadn’t realized right away because he was too starstruck by the image of his spiritual body. His Qi pool was nearly empty of Wood Qi due to it being burned through and consumed during his battle but his dantian was nearly filled to capacity. 

Opening his eyes, Jiao started to contemplate the after effects of his deviant cultivation base. He’d heard about deviating cultivations in the past and they usually had negative after effects, punishment from the heavens for pushing through cultivation levels too quickly. Jiao could only resolve to take time before progressing and try to stabilize his cultivation base where it was there and hope for the best. 

Pushing himself off the bed, Jiao walked across the room and ripped the blanket(s) off of Wang Jing. The three children washed their hands and faces in a basin before heading downstairs like Elder Nufang had told them to. 

Jiao had no way of knowing if he’d just experienced a boon or a bane but, either way, Jiao was going to make the best of it. Stairs creaked quietly below his feet as he descended with a smile on his face.