Druidic Cultivation | Fifteen

Longest chapter since the Prologue, enjoy.

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“That’s my little Ash’er! I’ve known you’d be amazing since your birth, my little firecracker.” Feng Jiao’s mother ruffled his hair as his sisters played around them. Although his sisters were only six and four years old, they too were excited for Feng Jiao. Their village had only been established two generations ago, by Granny Xiaoke’s mother, and Feng Jiao was the first grade eight talent that they’d had. When one considered that they were not descended from a noble bloodline it was even more impressive.

“Jiao’er, Jiao’er, did you bring your favorite sister Chu’er any candies?” His little sister, Feng Chuju, tugged at the hem of Feng Jiao’s shirt. In the little girl’s mind, if everybody was smiling and happy that meant it was a holiday and holidays meant sweets. Although he had no sweets with him, Feng Jiao had only himself to blame for spoiling his baby sisters in the past.

“No, I don’t, baby sister. But we have a big feast tonight, so make sure you and Lie’er are clean and presentable. Go and wash up, both of you are sticky, if you wash up really good, I can get you some sweets at dinner.” Both little girls looked dejected when told to go bathe, but the promise of sweets perked them up quickly and they raced out of the tea room with their chubby little legs carrying them as fast as they could.

Feng Jiao continued his conversation with his mother, starting with the journey there where he saw all sorts of new sights like trees that mountainous towering trees and walls that scraped the clouds. When he described the smell of the foods that lined the streets of the city his mother smiled, reminiscing on the last time she lived close enough to a trade hub to have so many exotic spices and meats. Like her son, the mother was a big advocate for delicious foods but the types of meats and spices they used in the big cities were too expensive and distant to frequently get at their little mountain town.

When he told her about his new friend, Feng Jiao’s mother’s grin was wider than he’d ever seen before. Although she never pestered him to hang out with children his age growing up, Weifeng Xue had always been concerned about her son preferring to spend time in the garden than playing. Naturally, since Feng Jiao had only mentioned his friend in passing, she bombarded him with questions relating to her. After all, this girl was her baby boy’s very first friend and she needed to vet her.

Weifeng Xue was astonished when her son mentioned that he’d met this girl, named Duan Cao, on the trip there when he slept beside her in the female caravan. Of course, this was only the beginning of her surprise because when Feng Jiao started explaining the process, he used to court this new friend, his mother turned a special shade of red. Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that her sweet baby boy, the boy who almost never talked to other children and looked like a reserved young woman, would be such a womanizer!

Feng Jiao, of course, was oblivious to his mother’s thought process and assumed she had turned that shade of scarlet, the same that Duan Cao often was, because she was impressed with his friend making abilities. Although it was not a muscle that he’d flexed often, he was finding it to be very fun and far too easy. His mother did not have the heart to explain to him what he was doing and considering that, as he’d told her, this little miss Duan had invited him back to the carriage with her, he was doing little harm. Let children be children, that was her philosophy. 

After recapping his mother on the events of his trip to the Willow Mountain City, Feng Jiao ran off to clean himself as well. Usually, he would run off to the backyard of their manor and start pumping water for a bath, drawing it from underground into buckets that he would then pour into a bronze tub for heating in bathing. Today, however, he allowed his sisters to use the tubs and ventured off into the forest that was behind their home.

Although the thicket had been beat down where the village was built, the mountain that they lived on the foot of had long since been overgrown with tall trees and various beasts. None of these beasts were too dangerous, the strongest being equivalent to a Mortal Sculpting stage cultivator and even those lived on the peak of the mountain. Although Feng Jiao had been explicitly forbidden from playing in the woods as a kid, he’d obviously not listened to that.

Since his rebirth, he’d always felt a keen connection to nature, even if his ability to snatch away Qi from the plants in his surroundings had just reawakened. The woods behind his manor felt more relaxing to him than the stone hewn walls of civilization so he often found himself adventuring through the brush. A long while ago, he’d located the river that the fishermen worked and followed it up stream to the waterfall. 

That was where he set his goal for that day, intending to bath and decompress from his long trip. Although for most people it was a fun little field trip, Feng Jiao had found the entire process to be mentally taxing. It wasn’t even so much as making friends or the stress, just being surrounded by so many people all the time often pressed down on his shoulders and made Feng Jiao feel weary. 

Feng Jiao set off for the waterfall, stopping only to find the five-foot length of wood he’d carved into a staff at the age of seven, and enjoyed his trip through nature. His purpose was dual-pronged, he wanted to bathe but he also wished to attempt his first breakthrough. As he ventured through the forest, he attempted to pull Qi from his surroundings, both from the air with the assistance of an incorporeal Aideen and from the plants around him. 

He discovered that there were some limits to his ability to harvest the Qi from the plants, confirming a theory he’d had. He could forcefully drain the weeds and grasses, as well as a few of the younger bushes, but when it came to the towering trees and thick hedges, he had issues. As a prior tree himself, he knew that these trees had a will even if nobody else could sense or acknowledge it. He could, should he wish, forcefully drain a small sapling but that would both kill the sapling and mentally drain Feng Jiao immensely. 

“This young junior apologizes to the trees of the forest for his rudeness, I was only intending to test a new ability of mine and did not intend to cause offense.” Feng Jiao paused to bow the tree he’d been attempting to drain the Qi from. Although it likely did not understand his words, he hoped the tree would understand his sympathetic tone and bow. It wasn’t that Feng Jiao feared the trees of the forest, but he wanted to have amicable relationships with them. 

For the next six months, Feng Jiao planned on spending time in the forest cultivating and making continuous breakthroughs as his cultivation stabilized. Whereas he could likely effortlessly drain a tree in the future when he was more powerful, he was not at that stage yet. Thus, Feng Jiao intended to befriend a few of the goliath trees and attempt to coax them into volunteering him Qi the same way the plants in the Feng Family Garden did. Those, he assumed, were thankful for his constant care and weeding, so they volunteered him Qi. 

The tree did not respond to Feng Jiao because it was a tree and trees do not speak, obviously. Feeling just a little bit silly, Feng Jiao finished his journey into the forest and found the river bank which he followed upstream to the waterfall. A couple hours later, Feng Jiao heard the roaring sounds of water crashing down from the heavens into the basin. The water there was thick within the air, scattered by the constant crashing, and rainbows could be see fleeting between the branches. The trees opened to reveal to Feng Jiao the yawning mouth of the river, filled with large smooth boulders that were constantly polished by the water.

Feng Jiao knew that he would be crushed if he stood directly beneath the waterfall, so he selected a large round stone that protruded from the water surface not too far away. After removing his shoes and top, Feng Jiao pounced from the shoreline swam over to the rock with his staff still in hand. After removing his top, it would be obvious to most that Feng Jiao was, in fact, a man. Not only did he lack the breasts of a woman, he had well-toned muscles rippling just below his skin, criss crossing across his back and arms. Then again, many would take him for a muscular woman because of his soft skin, flawless white complexion, and narrow shoulders.

This isn’t what Feng Jiao was thinking about at that moment, however. After reaching the stone that he’d selected, one that was scarcely large enough for him to fit both feet upon, Feng Jiao began to stretch his legs while balancing on the wet smooth stone. He used his staff as a counterweight as he alternated between his legs and did one-legged squats. His goal was to perfectly center his balance before attempting to connect his first meridian back to his diantan.

Feng Jiao had long since filled the meridian to its capacity with Qi while traveling back from Willow Mountain City but had elected not to breakthrough on the journey back. Although he knew that his martial spirit was higher than a grade eight like it’d been assessed at, Feng Jiao did not know what grade spirit would be required to cultivate that quickly. He didn’t worry about people finding out that Aideen was higher than a peak-grade eight spirit, but he also didn’t know if it was even possible to cultivate as quickly as he did without his ability to drain the grasses of their Qi. At least, not without medicines and pills, which he obviously didn’t have.

After centering himself in a half squat on his right leg, with his left leg making a triangle with his foot touching his right thigh, Feng Jiao began to control his breathing. His breathes slowed until one would think that he wasn’t breathing at all and had somehow died and frozen in that position. Feng Jiao, however, didn’t realize how slow his breathing had gotten. He’d long since cast his awareness internally, focusing upon the thin barrier that separated the meridian in his legs from his diantan. 

Feng Jiao could feel the Qi within his Locus Meridian, the meridian that went from both sets of toes to the hips, overflowing with Qi that was thrashing back and forth. He could also sense the thin membrane of spiritual energy that naturally separated the locus from his diantan. The membrane formed in the womb as a natural mechanism to prevent babies from absorbing the cultivation of their mother and stunting their own growth. The same logic prevented the humans of this world from interacting with the Qi before their bodies developed to the point that they hit puberty, the stage of growth that would release enough growth hormones to combat the effects of cultivation. These years were also the best to cultivate, the hormones helping to leap past stages of cultivations that one might bottleneck at when older. 

Although he could feel the membrane would be dissolvable, Feng Jiao started to probe the other side of the spiritual wall as well. He found, much like he was expecting, a much thicker and difficult wall to break from the diantan’s side of the membrane. Although it was better to fill the meridians before connecting them back to the diantan, both because it was easier and strengthened the meridians as well, Feng Jiao felt like it was possible to push out of the diantan to connect other meridians using the brute force of Qi already collected in the diantan. 

Surely there would be some fools who did this to quickly advance their cultivation, forcing open the other meridians with medicines to make leaps and bounds in cultivation stages, Feng Jiao was not one of them. He found it stupid to eat the egg and regret the chicken later, it was much better to wait for that egg to hatch so that one would have even more eggs, and eventually chickens as well. It did not make sense to seek the immediate and forego the future. 

As Feng Jiao’s breathing had slowed down, so too did the Qi within his locus meridian calm and collect. The vibrating feeling that he’d been tempering by overfilling the Qi during the walk there slowed to a still as the calm before the storm approached. In that moment, a mortal would be unable to hear Feng Jiao’s heartbeat. He’d entered a state of stasis, completely still and devoid of thought.

Then all hell broke loose. Feng Jiao took a large breath and his heartbeat sped up, becoming so fast that a mortal would still have trouble hearing it. With each heartbeat a wave of Qi smashed up against the barrier that separated his locus meridian from his diantan, slowing dissipating the spiritual wall that had been in place since his birth. Feng Jiao knew that if he didn’t manage to erode it away during this attempt, the membrane would swiftly regenerate at a breakneck speed. He wasn’t worried about it though.

An hour later, the barrier dissolved. At first, only a pinhole was opened, a hole so small one would be unable to see with their eyes. Afterwards, the Qi began rushing through the pinhole and eroding at the barrier from the inside and out. Like a paper that caught fire, the membrane rapidly burnt away to nothing as the Qi began rushing through the locus meridian into is diantan and back again. Like a desert lakebed experiencing rain for the first time in years, his diantan absorbed a vast amount of Qi and only returned a small amount for circulation. 

Feng Jiao’s eyes snapped open at last and his breathing returned to normal, along with his heartbeat, as sweat poured out of every pore. If one was observing the beautiful young boy at that moment, they would see a grin extending from ear to ear. He’d successfully taken his first step on the path of martial arts.