Druidic Cultivation| Chapter Two

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Feng Jiao was reborn as a young boy into a relatively wealthy family. This was something that took the young boy a minute to figure out though. He’d first assumed it was yet another illusion like the hell that he’d been trapped in since he died upon his mountain top. Just a new dream to torture him with, a new landscape for his nightmare.
He’d cycled through a burning forest wasteland with fires that reached the skies and non-attributable screaming surrounding him. Faceless beasts that reminded him of the two legged creature he’d awoken next to the first time would run around on fire before being slashed down by other beasts. He wanted to help but was rooted in place, a slender sapling with thick roots that stopped it from moving. Slowly, burnt corpses would be stacked up next to and on top of the tiny sapling before being set aflame. He’d burn for hours only to be saved by one of the blurry figures, the only one that was close to having a face. A female, he didn’t know why he knew, but he knew, with a kind face that was almost visible through the haze. A name, right beneath the surface that he couldn't remember. Then he would watch her burn away too as her flesh bubbled and sloughed off bit by bit.
His sapling would burn into a husk and wither away, only for him to reawaken on the mountain top. Sometimes the two headed snake would slowly suffocate him, other times the firebird would peck him to death over the course of a week. Those were the nicer ones. Other times lightning would descend from the sky and he’d be struck nonstop of months, always on the husk of death. His least favorite, of course, were the nightmares were the firebird would save him, only to instantly experience its tribulation. He was unable to save his friend as he was still a sapling and was forced to watch as it was struck again and again. At the end of each nightmare, the ash tree’s soul would feel something pulling at the edges of its consciousness, trying to unravel its very being, to steal away its memories.  
With techniques the tree had been born with it held fast to the memories, its abilities, its only friend. It refused to surrender them even if it cost the tree never ending suffering, an endless torment. This silent war of the mind went on for eons, but the tree would not yield. If there was one thing a tree was good at, it was biding time and standing fast. Then one day something changed.
The ash tree was plucked from its nightmare and thrown through the skies. It soared amongst the stars and planets at a speed that it could never imagine. Stars turned to lines that streaked past the ash tree’s soul and planets were dust being blown in the wind. Eventually a large planet, one much larger than the planet that the tree had seen before, came into view. It grew larger and larger as the soul approached the round planet on a crash course, eventually encapsulating its entire view. At this point the tree noticed it could no longer see omnidirectionally, but that wasn’t its primary concern.
It broke the barrier that separated the planet from the heavens and its speed fell drastically. Wind resistance began whipping away at the incorporeal soul that was descending toward the planet, trying to deny it entrance. Friction began building and the ash could feel something about to happen. Finally, as it broke the cloud barrier, it transformed into a bolt of lightning and shot straight toward earth, unable to control its path. The tree shot toward a two legged beast in a beautiful meadow and slammed straight into its stomach from its back. 
The lightning that composed the soul rushed toward the creature’s womb and enveloped a sickly looking fetus before slowly sinking into it. The ash tree opened its eyes, no longer a tree but a baby, a baby that was dying rapidly. Not only did the fetus had genetic deformities due to a condition its mother had, but the mother had also been poisoned with wedlock weed, a tasteless medicine used to kill late term pregnancies. It was not a medicine anybody would be willing to take as it often cost the host, the mother, their life as well. The ash tree recognized all of these things without having every experienced the weed before as it was some of the innate knowledge it had sprouted with. 
The fetus started drawing on the surrounding mana, the mana of its mother’s body, and started casting a cleansing spell. It concentrated on cleaning its new body first, unwilling to die and return to its hell, before spreading the effects out to its mother’s body to cleanse her as well. Because of the emergent danger, the fetus overdrew its mother’s mana in order to heal her, causing a high fever. The poisoned blood exited the only channel the fetus had access too as her body generated new and clean blood, until she was eventually healed and the spell stopped channeling what little mana she’d been regenerating.
He’d spent the rest of the pregnancy growing into a functional body and using spare mana from his host to fix her genetic dispositions that made childbirth difficult for her in the first place. Eventually he’d been born and named, although he didn’t know the significance of a name at the time, and held by his mother and the one he presumed to be his father. Neither of them knew that their son, the fetus he’d possessed and repaired, had died before ever developing a soul. From impregnation to his take over, the fetus was fated to die and hadn’t received a soul.
The way these humans, that was the name of this beast he eventually learned, interacted was very strange to the young tree-turned-boy. Their language was very difficult to grasp and their customs were strange to him, so he didn’t start talking until he was nearly six months old. He figured he must be a very late bloomer from the way his nanny shrieked the first time he greeted her, but his parents were very happy nonetheless and enthusiastically helped him expand on his knowledge of the language.  
    By the time he was a year old he’d figured out how to walk. His legs were chubby and he had little to no energy so he couldn’t walk far, but he’d figured out the mechanisms which was a big goal. The approval of his parents made him beam and told him he was on the right track. Unfortunately, after being severed from his mother he was unable to access any mana, which made him worried that he hadn’t developed correctly. 
    For some reason, his parents did not start his schooling until he was four years old, worried about his inability to learn or the rumors that would spread. When he entered the class he realized that he was still the youngest there and assumed it wasn’t a learning disability thing. He chucked it up to one of those customs that left him confused and let it be. After only a week he realized how underdeveloped the other children were, and referred back to his learning disability theory. His parents had placed him with all of the other slow minded children.
    When he was six, he understood that he was an anomaly. He’d been suspecting it for some time but was worried about tipping people off with his targeted questioning. Eventually, a friend of the family passed away and he was able to ask ‘innocent’ questions about reincarnation, finding out that people didn’t retain their memories and nobody knew for sure if reincarnation was a thing. 
    As the family traveled the funeral, Feng Jiao saw many new things. Their carriage passed by trees that were ten times larger than the biggest he’d seen in his last life, and the beasts more ferocious. Even the mountain’s he saw in the distance here dozens of times taller than the peak he’d been perched upon! He thought back to the image of him flying through the sky and knew that he was on a new planet and many things would be different. Through targeted questioning he found out that he lived in a human country called Dasenlin, a very small country that was of medium wealth and strength when compared to other local powers.
The funeral was a sad occasion, apparently, as many of the humans began crying and mourning. None of them knew that the man’s soul would be reborn again and, considering none of them retain their memories, probably wouldn’t be tortured like he was. He frowned and hugged his mother but couldn’t bring himself to cry for a man he didn’t know. Many of the adults saw him and called him strong of spirit and strong of will. They were right, but for the wrong reasons of course.
When he was seven, he finally found out why he’d never learned the word for mana or magic. Apparently, the world he was born in didn’t view magic the same way he knew it. They instead called mana Qi, and magicians were called cultivators. They used the Qi to strengthen their bodies and extend their lives, practicing things called martial skills rather than spells or rituals. It was all very strange to Feng Jiao, but he knew he could learn these same skills. He also theorized, from his experience in his mother’s womb, that he could cast the same magic he knew from his last life, something others did not know. Another secret to keep.
“Father, when will I be able to cultivate like you and become strong like the other clan warriors?” The young boy asked with round eyes and a hopeful heart, he still didn’t know why he couldn’t sense the Qi like others could as his father hadn’t explained it before and school hadn’t covered the subject. His father smiled down at him before responding.
“You cannot interact with the energy of heaven and earth until you can sense it. When you can sense it, you will be able to absorb it through your meridians and refine it into Qi and strengthen yourself.” He stopped the young Feng Jiao before his next question, “Most boys start sensing the energy around them around the age of twelve, just as they step into puberty. Girls are a bit earlier at the average age of ten. Your class will start covering more when you are nine, so that the girls present can have an understanding before they develop.”
Meridians were what they called the energy pathways in the human body, but he knew them by a different name when he was a tree. He’d referred to them as channels, which he’d refined and strengthened with my mana. He wondered if the process would be the same or if it would be one more thing that he could practice that others didn’t. Another advantage in this lifetime, another chance to become a strong presence that stands on the summit of the world.