Druidic Cultivator | Chapter 3

End day one of the new book venture, decided on the temporary name above, please suggest something better if you've got it.

The next three years of Feng Jiao’s life went by in a flash, with no events of interest happening to the young boy. He’d developed well, standing slightly taller than other boys his age, but had a girlish figure. He knew it was deceptive because he’d gotten in his fair share of fights with the other children and usually came out on top, his thin and wiry frame holding a lot more strength than one would assume. 

His complexion remained smooth and unblemished, a beautiful pale shade of white like porcelain, and his hair grew out long and silky. If one saw him they would think him a beautiful young girl, with large grey eyes and long charcoal grey hair that was faintly streaked with reds and oranges, much like his eyes. His appearance was one of the many reasons he’d initiated combat with the other young degenerates, either because of them mocking him or touching him unwarrantedly. Many cursed him as a trap, some calling him cursed with a woman’s appearance and others calling him blessed with beauty. After a while, he stopped acknowledging the mocking sneers and only issued beatings when people crossed the line, which they swiftly stopped doing. 

On the morning of his tenth birthday he felt a change in his body. Parts of him began to stir and he felt more powerful than he had the day before, but had troubles putting his finger on the reason why. Then it hit him, Qi! He could feel the energy of heaven and earth surrounding him in his bedroom, present in the air as if it were a humid day. He couldn’t take it in using the methods of his last life, unsurprising to him because he wasn’t a tree anymore, but he could feel it, an entire two years early! He rushed out of his room to tell his father and mother the good news.

Their reaction was a mix of happiness and wariness, with his father interrogating him for a few minutes to verify that his child wasn’t being unfilial and messing with his old man. In the end he was satisfied with Feng Jiao’s answers and Feng Zeipei set off to his mother’s mansion to give her the news and arrange some things. Young Jiao followed his mother to the medicine gardens to tend to their plants as he usually did. It wasn’t something that was required of him, but something he genuinely enjoyed as it reminded him of his last life. 

“I’m very proud of you, my beautiful little, Ash,” Weifeng Xue smiled down at her beautiful son and called him by the nickname he’d suggested. She thought it was a cute name, even if it was a little feminine, so she encouraged him and used it like a term of endearment. If ever she called him by Feng Jiao, he usually knew he was in trouble. “Two entire years early, I really hope your father is ready for the speech…” 

“Speech?” Her son had no idea what she was talking about, but speeches were usually about important topics and he managed to gather many details about the world from them. He couldn’t help but be a little excited when he heard about one, especially when context clues pointed to it being related to his new ability to sense Qi. The excitement managed to blend its way into his voice and his mother noticed, blushing a bit before responding.

“Absolutely not! We agreed that he would give the speech to you if you were a man, and I’d handle any daughters we had! You’ll have to ask him!” His mother was flushed and averted his eyes, causing Feng Jiao to wonder why she would be teaching his two little sisters and not him. Maybe there was a different in Qi Channels between men and women. Although that didn’t really explain her reaction… He just squinted up at his mother who was now avoiding his eyes and shook his head as they continued onwards to the garden.

On the trek over both he and his mother noticed the guards whose eyes couldn’t help trail after both mother and son. He knew his mother was considered a great beauty in the region, and he was commonly referred as ‘the most beautiful daughter of the Feng trio’, a very creepy title considering he was still a child and his sisters were only four and six years old. Oh yeah, and he was also a male. He was sure that his early development would lead to even more rumors about him secretly being a woman and was most likely part of the reason for his parent’s mixed reactions when he told them that morning.

Finally they entered the Feng family garden, a large area where they tended to and grew spiritual medicines for the use of the family's alchemists. In this world they called the herbs he knew spiritual medicines, and for good reason because most of the plants retained large amounts of Qi which could then be refined into pills for cultivation or healing. There were not many if any potion makers, only pill masters who could also craft tinctures and elixirs. The process was different as the elixirs were basically potions without added mana, or Qi, and tinctures were highly distilled and alcoholic, used for physical enhancements rather than cultivation or healing. They lacked many of the methods that Feng Jiao knew to extract magical essence from the plants, as well as enhance the potency of the positions. 

The spiritual garden itself was massive and nostalgic for Feng Jiao, it being the location where he forced his way into his family’s life, literally, and one of the first locations he’d ever seen on this world. He felt at home there amongst the tall reeds, grasses, bushes, and trees. Today, he felt even more intuned with the area, as if he could connect with every single medicine there and speak to them. Quickly, he realized that he could and it wasn’t just a feeling.

His senses had expanded and he could feel every blade of grass, every individual leaf, and every invasive weed in the area. With wide eyes, Feng Jiao decided to attempt something he hadn’t done since reincarnating into this new world. He wandered over to a batch of sun lilies and crouched beside them staring directly at a weed that was very difficult to eradicate, a patch of roach grass. He reached out and connected with the Qi inside of the plant and pulled, like had when it he was an ash tree. To his surprise, the weed was forced to yield its spiritual energy to the young boy, and he pulled it into his body. 

Without having gone through the awakening ceremony or opening his meridians, Feng Jiao could only use the energy to refine his Qi Channels, the pathways he knew from his previous life. The small amount of Qi ran through his arms, legs, chest, and mind in a loop for a long time as he pulled all of the energy from the weed and killed it. The roach grass shriveled up and its slippery roots died with it, which were usually difficult to remove without damaging nearby plants. Eventually he refined the energy acutely enough that he could start using it for spells, but the amount was far too miscule for anything he knew so he stored it in a liquid form around his mind. Mana pool, that was the term his old world used to describe the storage.

For hours he walked from location to location and sapped the life from the weeds, refining the Qi and making it his own before storing it in his Qi pool. His mother didn’t usually check his work as he wasn’t required to pick weeds, only occasionally doing it to help her out, so she didn’t notice his abnormal behavior that day. As he left each area he could feel the satisfaction from the plants that were no longer being crowded and choked by weeds. He knew that if he requested, they would provide a portion of their medicinal energy to him freely, but without his meridians being opened, he had no need for it. He considered his strangely not-so-thankless work as he awaited his father.

After he’d informed his mother, Matriarch Feng, Feng Zhipei came over to the medicinal garden where he knew his son would be with his wife. Part of him wished that his son wouldn’t pick weeds and tend to the garden, a primarily female job, but he also wanted his son to pursue all that he loved in life, so he let him be. He found his only son, Feng Jiao, with his wife helping her dig out a particularly large invasive root that resembled a ginseng. His son was the personification of beauty as he bent over biting his lower lip with his glistening skin as he helped his mother dig out the root. He shook his head and walked over.

“My son, I have very good news. Do you have time to talk to your father for a moment?” Feng Zhipei asked, but it was a statement rather than a question. His son dutily stopped with the root and walked over to his father before bowing in respect. 

“Hello father, is it time for the speech?” The young boy asked with wide eyes and a large smile. His eyes pleaded with his father and expressed his joy and excitement for learning. 

His father, however, was flustered and taken aback. He looked over to his wife who was standing behind Feng Jiao, she only stuck out her tongue before wiping her hands off on her gardening smock and sashaying away in an exaggerated manner, casting her hair over her shoulder and giving her husband a smirk. It wasn’t his intended plan, but he may as well get it out of the way at the same time.

“Sure, let's go find somewhere to have a seat. You’re done picking the weeds for the day.” His father led the way back to their manor and gave his son a few minutes to wash up before meeting him in the dining room. Feng Zhipei sat at the head of the table and invited his son over to sit on the right. He took a deep breath before starting what could only be a long conversation.

“Now that you’re undergoing puberty, there are changes happening with your body. I remember when you were four and you asked how your mother got pregnant, I told you that I would tell you when you were older because you didn’t need to know yet. I’ve been waiting until you underwent puberty to explain it.” Feng Jiao’s father went on to explain about how his body was undergoing changes and hormones were going to start surging. He would feel this way and that way, anger more easily, and start developing strange feelings for girls. He then went over copulation, the relation between men and women, and explained the ways of marriage. To the child’s surprise his father told him that many men marry multiple women and sire children with all of them. He told Feng Jiao that that was never the life for him, because Xue owned his heard through and through.

After he explained mating, most of which Jiao had already known from observing the beasts copulating around his mountain in his previous life, he started explaining how he would start interacting with the energy of heaven and earth. Finally, the speech that Jiao Feng wanted to hear, he’d already figured out most of the sex stuff and had only asked years ago because he was curious about the logistics and assumed most kids asked those questions. It was not what expecting ‘the speech’ to be about. When he thought about his mother’s reaction and his father’s flustered face, he wondered who the children in that situation were. 

“Now that you can feel the energy surrounding you, it is time for you to attend an awakening ceremony. All the young children who are ready for their awakening are gathered every six months and have their martial spirits awoken together. Those martial spirits allow you to gather your Qi and concentrate it, helping you to direct it and use it to improve upon your body. Not everybody can coalesce a martial spirit, but I don’t think you’ll have any issues. The stronger your martial spirit is, the better you can cultivate. Luckily, the Feng family is not poor, so even if you only have an average talent we can supplement your training with pills and elixirs.”

Feng Jiao’s father went on to explain various ranks, the process in which sects recruit young people, and some of the rankings for the more common spirits. The entire concept reminded Feng Jiao of spirit animals and magic familiars from his past life, both of which were capable of assisting in the training of their masters. Most importantly, the next gathering for the awakening ceremony was only a week away and in another city, so they needed to leave the following morning to make it on time. That night Feng Jiao had a hard time falling asleep due to his excitement, somehow he felt he already knew the result of this ceremony but only time would tell.