Looking through the french window to the borough seven’s bright streets, Ubel let out a sigh and pulled the curtains. Darkness overtook inside his room for a moment, then the cyan lamp above him started to shine the room. It was soft, not detrimental to the eye as candles were, and since the lamp’s fuel was the Qi it wouldn’t put out unless he wished so.

It’s convenient.

Ubel stopped marveling at the functions of his new home and laid on his bed. Next to his fair-sized bed stood an end table, upon that the scrolls he had taken from the Star Library. He came to his house the moment he stepped outside, with visible excitement people commented on as he passed through borough six to seven. Luckily, although it took an hour on foot, Ubel wasn’t too tired to postpone his first cultivation session.

He actually started, a bit over two hours ago when the lamps and lanterns on the crowded streets dimmed a bit, reminding people that the sun set outside the mountain. But when he read the real deal of the Mind Expansion Technique, a terrible headache struck him. With that headache came the knowledge that he had to reach mid-Qi Creation to learn the thing itself.

He learned about the realms, too. Realms were levels of power or the alignment of the degree one immortal achieved through cultivation. And there were only seven realms. They weren’t much, he thought and agreed that it was better if it was simpler. First realm, Qi Creation, which he was going to attempt to reach in a moment.

After that came Qi Destruction, a stage where one had to destroy their Qi and rejuvenate the traces of Qi to increase its quality. After that came the three stages of Path; Path Finding, Path Establishing, Path Opening. Ubel didn’t read about them much, he only knew that most high-level guards, like the old men duo at the disciple hall, were barely at the Path Finding.

Above them were Essence realm and Overseer realm, which he knew nothing of.

Well, he had no reason to know about them as well. His attention laid elsewhere, inside his sweating palms. He held the violet colored scroll with the smooth texture and opened it wide. It flapped in the air like a flag and stretched until its fabric strained. Then came in view several images, as well as lines of texts right above the images.

He tried to read, but no words came into his mind. He felt like he didn’t know the language, or as if he had forgotten what he knew for a moment. Shivering for a moment, Ubel averted his eyes from the text and took a deep breath. After the eerie feeling crept off, he sneaked a peek at the text again. This time, he just read the first sentence.

There are two corpses, dead and alive.

Further than that, as he read, the disturbing feeling swarmed over him again and Ubel forced himself to stop. Still, figuring out that much still gave him a sense of accomplishment. Slightly chuckling, he pondered over words for a moment. Well, no need to force myself. He said, shamelessly, and looked down at the images.

To his surprise, whenever he gazed inside an image, a wizened voice appeared inside his head, explaining the purpose of each and every move and breath.

To become something, understanding comes first. To understand, one needs knowledge. Knowledge of the death, however, comes from living, inspecting, sympathizing, and valuing. Yet before gaining the knowledge, establishing the foundations comes first. First breathing technique expands the lungs, causes searing pain for some time, and prepares the cultivator for the incoming challenges of founding foundations of his future path.

It spoke with dread, and the might inside the voice trembled at the mention of foundations. Ubel didn’t know why, but he felt a tinge of regret in the voice as well. In one way or another, the speaking man/woman had done something wrong and perhaps, till this day, didn’t manage to amend his/her mistake.

Why do I feel this way though? Ubel questioned, but the voice continued to describe the technique and how to get past the hurdles. Useful information, but to unattentive Ubel they didn’t seem that important. Brushing off the words, he finally heard the voice he wanted to hear.

Breathing exercise one, seven seconds of inhaling, two seconds of ha...

Ubel accompanied the voice and took a deep breath.

********

Thirty minutes.

No, it wasn’t even thirty minutes as he fell on the floor, gasping for another slither of breath, holding his chest in searing pain. It spread like wildfire and invaded his throat, traveled through his laryngeal to the nostrils, and a filthy, dark mass of gas spread out of his small bridged nose.

Ubel’s expression relaxed, a mellow face full of relief appeared on the full-length mirror across the room. Looking at himself, Ubel let out a bitter smile and arched his back to stand up. Although with half-success, he managed to raise his upper body and stood seated on the floor.

It is painful, tiring. Is it this hurdle the voice spoke about?

Thinking about the process, Ubel found his assumption feasible.

At the start, the whole thing seemed easy, smooth-going. With each breath, he felt power arising inside his cells and his mind felt sharper, like a never-ending full-focus state. After, he estimated, the twentieth-minute things had gone astray. A feeling of burning or a heat like in a fever spread out of his body. Then his breath turned erratic and, at last, he fell down in pain.

Ubel averted his eyes from the text again, and his eyes fell on the first picture. Yet, he didn’t hear any sound. Gone? Is it gone?

Feeling somewhat panicked, he looked over the second image. The same voice invaded his mind again.

Second breathing exercise, for Path Establishing level. Thirty-three seconds of inhaling, twenty-seven seconds of...

Path Establishing level? Ubel doubted he could even inhale more than eight or nine seconds, let alone thirty-three. Then was he supposed to do the same breathing exercise over and over again? It seemed so, and he felt a bit of regret over not listening to the voice properly.

The pain somewhat wavered him, but even so, he had nothing else to do. This time, he would stop at twenty minutes and see what would happen.

*********

After seven times of twenty minutes of breathing sessions, at the eighth right before its ending, Ubel felt something inside him awakened.

He could feel something, invisible and with no mass, swirling inside his body and in the air. It traveled through a channel, named Meridians, or Qi vessels, or Life Passages, and many other aliases bestowed upon it. It was refreshing, had a chill like a moderate breeze. It reminded him most of the autumn winds, the kind that brushed the hair and dirt alike off the face and made one shiver.

This was Qi, the foremost power and representation of nature and Heaven’s tool of communication.

Like a slithering snake, Qi moved from the place it came into existence, from his glabella. It rushed like a burning ox and revolved around all meridians inside his body once. Then a feeling struck him, and fumes of black fog sprouted out of his pores. Unlike the first breath of air he let out, this thing turned out to be denser, and filthier, its smell reminding one of the sewage of a city or a rotten corpse.

It contacted his old leather robes and tainted the grey leather with a tinge of darkness. The scent spread like a falling air-current on a mountain. Smothered by the bright blue of the lamp above, the changes weren’t much visible to Ubel for the moment. Even if they were, he wasn’t so attentive to recognize them, as excitement bottled up from earlier that day burst off in a flash.

What is this?

He stood up, all fatigue and lassitude seemed non-existent now. A new light replaced the dimmed, dull shine in his sparkling eyes.

The first place to change was his body, a wave of fresh life brushing over his cells and bones and muscles cleansed all exhaustion and tension from it. Then came the mind, the stream of energy kept a steady pace at which it struck his soul, like battering the dust on an old book by flicking it, and never in his life Ubel felt this free.

Coming back to his senses, faster now with the aid of his newfound ability, he looked down at his attire. Filth, stench, sweat. One understood with a single glance that this was no easy thing to clean, and it gave him a slight headache. One thing he didn’t like the most was laundry, and luckily for him, the sect had given him a new dandy set of robes to wear. But he loved this fabric of his the most. He wondered still if there were any people doing laundry in the sect.

Then came the evaluation of his power.

To test that was easy, just a peek at his manual and he could see a new line of texts appear near the first breathing method.

Depression: Death River Qi’s aura, condensed, as a projectile.

Isn’t that too short? Compared to the huge lines of texts above and below with images, and with the voice he heard that almost talked an eternity, this small description seemed unbelievable.

Unbelievable or not, it doesn’t matter though.

Ubel read what he needed to do, simply condense the Qi inside him on his index finger and let it go. Sounded simple, and was actually simpler to do. He channeled the Qi through his meridians and redirected it towards his finger. It passed through, contrary to the first introduction, more like a whirlwind than a breeze and reached to the tip of the finger.

He garnered his focus, pointed his finger to a relatively empty wall away from furniture and the window, then released.

At the exact instant, a dark mass like plasm blew out like wind and started to revolve around his finger. It grew in size and matter, it ate away the nearby natural Qi and shot forward with a flash. With a thrumming, depression struck the wall and blasted it into smithereens. Splinters flew like arrows, deep crevices spread over the remaining walls and pillars and Ubel threw himself on the floor amidst the chaos. He narrowly avoided a flying piece of sharp rock by rolling backward, but couldn’t manage the other side of the wall behind him and head-butted the concrete wall.

Ouch!-What did I do?

Looking in front, inspecting the mess and the star-like prickling lights of the inner-mountain, Ubel thought that he was in trouble.