Druidic Cultivation | Nineteen

Our young hero is developing his own style of fighting.

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A tree trunk exploded into millions of splinters as a young man dodged a massive furred first. Most of the animals had long since fled this part of the mountain, wanting to avoid the two monsters who were doing battle at the break of dawn. It wasn’t often that one of the forest kings was challenged but, without a doubt, there was always collateral damage if one stuck around. Unfortunately for the many splintered saplings, they were unable to uproot themselves and flee with the birds and the beasts. 

The mossback gorilla who ruled this part of the forest, frustrated with his evasive prey, roared into the tree tops as he pounded his chest. He, a rank-five awakened beast, could not believe that a creature so small and weak looking could force him to this point. The last time he’d had this much trouble in a fight was when he claimed this land from the two-tailed lemur who’d ruled it previously.

The young man didn’t hesitate to strike out in that moment of distraction, bringing his long staff down swiftly and cracking it against the gorilla’s shoulder. The battle had been going on for nearly an hour and the human was being pushed to his limits as he fought against a larger and more advanced beast.

This young man was, of course, Feng Jiao. It had been nine days since he’d arrived back in the forest for his extended stint of cultivation and battle hardening and he continued to push himself further each day. He started by spending an entire day observing nature to draw inspiration for his fledgling martial arts. Although his clan had plenty of tutors and manuals for martial arts, none of them had spoken to Feng Jiao the way he wanted them to.

After spending a day in meditation while also absorbing Qi from his surroundings, Feng Jiao had ventured deeper into the mountain seeking opponents to hone himself against. For a week, he slaughtered his way deeper and deeper, pausing only to eat and sleep. The mossback gorilla he was currently engaging was his toughest opponent yet and forced him to break out all of his moves. 

After striking the ape in the shoulder once more, the enraged beast began to frenzy again. Punch after punch was thrown in Feng Jiao’s direction as the beast screamed with fangs bared for the world to see. Feng Jiao flitted between around each strike as he deployed the footwork he’d been developing. 

His movements were smooth but erratic at the same time, constantly shifting as if he were floating around the first. Feng Jiao called it Autumn Leaves in the Wind, a name that sounded a bit pretentious but very much matched the naming scheme of the manuals he’d read. It was beautiful sequence of movements that concentrated on flowing around an opponent's strikes, always ready for the wind to shift and blow right back at them. 

After dodging for a few more minutes, the ape once more left itself open to a strike and Feng Jiao whipped his staff around quickly. Like a willow branch snapping in the breeze, his staff descended from the sky and struck against the beast’s side, using its own momentum to increase the force of the blow. The gorilla finally staggered backwards as the bruises it’d been gaining since the start of the fight started piling up. 

In that same moment, Feng Jiao’s staff blurred as he employed his trump move, Ash rains from the sky. The young man used his staff to propel himself into the air above the gorilla and started raining down a flurry of strikes, coating the beast in bruises and lumps. Every inch of exposed fur was pelted by the staff not once, not twice, but several times. A breath later, Feng Jiao landed next to a pulverized beast and finished it off.

His staff extended out behind him before performing a full arc that landed upon the forehead of the beast, splitting it open and silencing the king of that part of the forest forever. For a while the only sound in that area of the forest was Feng Jiao’s heavy panting and the splattering of sweat that ran down his face and chest before slamming into the ground. 

    Eventually Feng Jiao was able to calm his pulse and collect himself before setting his staff to the side and sitting down in a lotus position. The faint image of an ember hawk could be see resting upon his shoulder, a place it hadn’t left since he entered the forest, as he continued to absorb as much energy from the air around him as he could. 

    He’d managed to convince the trees of the mountain, the real guardians of the mountain, to lend him their Qi by offering them the blood and organs of most of the beasts he’d slain, leaving out only what he ate. Since he didn’t intend to eat the ape he’d just slain, he removed the knife from his pack and prepared to slice into it. He first offered a prayer to the guardian of apes, whichever deity that might be, then sliced into the thick skin between its pectoral muscles. He cycled Qi through his newly opened telum meridian and effortlessly sliced from the beast’s neck all the way to its navel and farther.

    After confirming the beast was not at the level where it could form a beast core, Feng Jiao began disemboweling the ape and burying its offal and viscera beneath the roots of the closest tree that hadn’t been demolished in their fight. Although the trees could not speak, Feng Jiao could feel their approval and appreciation of his soaking the forest floor in blood. Just like in his last world, the trees and plants of this world were able to absorb massive amounts of residual energy and nutrients from deceased beasts. In exchange, the forest offered Feng Jiao Qi, rapidly speeding up his cultivation. 

    After connecting his telum meridian, which ran from his fingertips on his left hand to the fingertips on his right, to his diantian, his striking power had increased a dozen fold. He’d managed to open it ten days early, thanks to his constant cultivation and ability to commune with nature, and was starting on his next meridian already. Of course, the high quality Qi gathering medicines he’d been sponsored helped a lot as well. After connecting his locus and telum meridians along his spine, the next step was to start with the major pathways through his organs. Already he was collecting Qi within his hydrus meridian, the pathway that ran through his bladder and kidneys, piling it up for an attempt at dissolving the membrane that separates it from his diantian. 

    Constant combat had, somehow, helped his cultivation speed and allowed him to refine the Qi to a much purer state inside his unconnected meridians. That was yet another reason he spent his time constantly hunting, besides the obvious benefit of getting more attuned to his body and movements. Although the staff was a good weapon for Feng Jiao, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on one that suited him better. 

    So far he knew that he was good at open-handed combat and had an instinctive knowledge with the staff, so a polearm would likely be his choice. A spear wouldn’t work too well, due to his use of bashing and sweeping motions as opposed to stabbing, and a halberd sounded wrong as well. So far he was leaning toward a pudao or guandao, long staffs that transformed into blades part of the way through, but he wouldn’t know until he was given the chance to swing one around and practice. 

    Of course, the choice of weapons wouldn’t really matter if he could get his magic to function correctly on this world. Whereas things like ritual circles worked well enough, any magic that was formed without a formation didn’t form correctly. The Qi of this world was far more violent than the mana of his last and constantly broke the invisible runic shackles that needed to form for magic to work. 

    Feng Jiao theorized that this was the reason humans ended up following behind beasts in the bodily cultivation route rather than the magic system of his last world. All of that wasn’t to say that his knowledge of magic was useless here, it very much wasn’t. With his memories of runic formulas and magical theory he would be able to more efficiently use his Qi externally when he reached that stage. That wasn’t even mentioning the Qi pool he’d formed around his brain which would likely function similar to second diantian when connected to his meridians. Of course, he had no clue if the Qi pool would just drain into his diantian or not.

For now, the best thing that Feng Jiao could do was to develop his martial arts to their peak so that they could serve as a foundation for the martial techniques he’d learn later when he obtained the ability to externally manipulate his Qi, the Earthen Realm. Of course, Feng Jiao wasn’t even a third of the way through the Mortal Awakening Stage so he was nowhere close to that area. He still had to go through the Mortal Forging and Mortal Refinement stages afterwards, each of them being nine steps long. Only after refining his body to the peak could begin to step out of his mortal shackles and wield the energy of heaven and earth to its fullest extent.

Before leaving the clearing, Feng Jiao reached his senses out to the splintered and imploded trees that surrounded him. Each of them had been demolished by the firsts of the tyrant ape he’d slain and were not long for this world. As their avenger, they were thankful to Feng Jiao and more than willing to part with what was left of their Qi, oblivious that they’d been struck only because Feng Jiao had dodged the fist that impacted them. 

Feng Jiao drained the several dying trees completely of the Qi, finishing them off and making a large amount of progress toward filling his hydrus meridian. Whereas there were many steps between where he was and where he wanted to be, Feng Jiao was thankful for his ability to commune with the plants. The Mortal Realm consisted mostly of gathering Qi and refining it, after all. Feng Jiao heard a roar deeper in the forest, a challenge from yet another beast. With a wicked grin plastered onto his blood covered face, Feng Jiao stood and grabbed his staff before setting off once again.