I took a breath, stilling my hand as I gently pressed the brush against the paper. Carefully I guided it across the sheet of paper, letting my Qi flow through it and into the ink as I wrote down the character for ‘Wind’. The paper rustled, floating upwards before it snapped towards the wall sticking onto it. I turned to look at the other seven papers similarly stuck all around at equal intervals around my room, forming an enclosed encirclement.

Qi flowed through the papers as I felt the formation set itself within the chamber and sighed in mild exhaustion, putting aside the brush. I had picked up an obfuscation ward from the library to try and hide the Qi and more importantly Gu that I’d be experimenting with in my chamber.

It had been surprisingly easy to set it up, or so I’d thought until I actually began working on the formations. Piles of crumpled sheets lay behind me as for some reason, even the slightest mistake in my brush-stroke resulted in a formation that refused to work. I really doubted a non-cultivator could reach that kind of precision, which was just another way this world was unfair to its denizens.

I wiped the sweat off my forehead, marveling at the formation. I had no clue how writing certain characters infused with Qi provided certain effects, but there were mentions of eight characters that formed the basis of all formations. Everything was derived from these eight.

I set aside the book in my hand, one I’d borrowed from Liuxiang for this formation. A brief study had told me about the relative simplicity of these formations, and their usage.

Each formation consisted of a character, usually more than one, that described the effect of the formation. The formation can be infused with Qi to achieve the said effect on the applied surface, or linked together with others to form more complex effects.

Of course it was far far more complicated than just that, but the basis seemed to be based on these principles. It almost felt like basic logic gates that could be linked together to form Qi circuits.

I turned to look at my notes as a quiet sigh began to build up. With everything happening recently, my notes had begun lagging behind. I still hadn’t made any entries on the First Law itself, the confirmation of the Heavens trying to dissuade cultivators from following the path I was, the working of my cure for Zhang.

There was so much to take note of, and work on. Normally I’d be really excited about working on everything but with the tribulations and the upcoming spirit herb hunt, I found my mind wandering away on tangents.

First things first. I needed to write down what was up with my cultivation and then, the First Law. Second, I needed to form a working hypothesis on how it worked and why the Heavens were so adamantly set against it.

I let out a breath, my smile returning as I took a seat.

My notes lay on my lap as I flipped through them, smiling at the various hypotheses I’d written down in there. A lot of them were wildly off, focusing on completely wrong aspects but a lot of them were still theories worth testing out, especially now that I was aware of one of the Laws.

I laughed at an early idea I’d scribbled down at the Qi attributes being like atoms, where there was a fundamental atom of Qi that when combined differently gave fire Qi, Water Qi and so on.

I continued to flip through the pages before settling onto an empty one.

I folded my legs, and reached out to both of my cores, as they spun within my dantian. The two cores were diametrically opposite to each other, and if I tried to slow one down, the other would slow down in response too, clearly showing some sort of connection.

I reached out to the core containing Gu and tried to feel at my spirit herb garden. Where I’d expected a violent hissing revulsion from my spirit anchor to herbs, I instead found a complete lack of response.

My focus shifted from the now nearly invisible roots of Qi to the little worms and dead leaves and plants that were mingled around in soil near the plants. It was minute, and well covered within the Qi, but there was a minute amount of miasma all around within the earth, mixed in at each inch of it.

I opened my eyes, looking at my spirit herb garden in surprise. It should’ve been obvious and yes, feeling and sensing the ever present nature of Gu all around me that I’d been completely blind to all this time was still a surprise.

Did fungi and such cultivate Gu then? With how they grew in rotten corpses of plants?

I took note to go and check within the library about the existence of any spirit mushrooms, as odd as that sounds to think.

Moving on, I took hold of my brush, opening a new page. I stared silently at the page for a while before beginning to write.

The First Law—

Heavenly Qi crackled around me, thankfully mildly enough that I hoped no one noticed. I hurriedly abandoned the idea, cutting whatever I had written so far. I couldn’t risk starting another tribulation in the sect.

A frown remained held on my brows as I thought over the matter. Writing the information down was also a no go. But what if…

An idea occurred to me, a cheat that only I’d be able to utilize to circumvent the heavens. My heart leapt at the prospect and simplicity of the idea, one I’d unwittingly been using all this time.

One more time, I took my brush and began to write. In English.

I stared with my breath held, ready to erase the words in an instant the moment the heavens rumbled around me.

Nothing happened.

My face split into a grin and I straight out broke into a cackle as I raised my hand up in victory looking at beyond the roof of my chamber and up to the sky. Take that stupid heavens!

I laughed for a moment longer before my heart began to thunder in excitement. It was time to note down my progress!

I wrote in a furious frenzy, almost a trance as the words came one after the other. The insight I’d gained was only of the surface level, and there was so much that was still left to explore, but this? This was the first step I’d taken towards grasping the mysteries of the heavens themselves.

Qi and Gu circulated in my cores, responding to my excitement. With a last long stroke of my brush, I finished writing down what I’d learnt back there in Zhang’s core. The first key insight of my path. Now there, to be shared with the world around me.

I grabbed my notes and began to read.

The First Law of Cultivation: The Duality of Qi and Gu.

The two forces of diametric opposing natures work in tandem to constitute the Heavenly Chi, the force that permeates the entire world and is the basis of all forms of cultivation and immortality.

Qi represents life, Gu represents death. Both are the polar opposite ends of forces that constitute Chi, otherwise known as Heavenly Qi, the energy that we absorb to progress in cultivation.

The path of Cultivation is two fold. That of life and that of death. The cultivation of the Azure-Jade empire is based around the growth of Life and Qi. It promotes longevity, and thrives in conditions that support life. But quite similar to the nature of Yin and Yang, there is some Yin present in the Yang and vice versa.

Similarly, the path of Gu. A Path that as far as I know, only demons use to cultivate and one I know very little about. Gu is contradictory in how it promotes death, yet not of those that wield the Gu itself.

Gu is destructive and destroys the cultivator from the inside as observed from the damage to the pathways. It may explain why Qi was given precedence over the course of history when humanity developed in this form, and cultivation was first established.

Both paths work fundamentally the same, where the cultivator will take in the Heavenly Qi around them, subverting them to their spirit’s shape from which they then convert it to either Qi and Gu.

Qi is tied to Gu and Gu to Qi. Both lend to each other as much as they are polar opposites, and the two forces when tied together constitute the two halves that form the heavens themselves.

I read through the texts thinking if I could add anymore but the frenzy was lost. The rest of whatever I wanted to add was hypothesis and conjectures I didn’t have a strong enough basis for.

The idea of cultivating Gu was still one I hadn't fully understood with how the energy tried to eat at me from the inside every time I used it. There were methods with which I cultivated my Qi, and I was trying to use the same methods to cultivate with Gu as well. I had a feeling that was part of the reason why I couldn’t control the Gu as well.

I needed a way to test with the Gu, something that could mimic my dantian but wasn’t going to be inside me.

I turned to look at my cauldron as an idea came to me.

Getting up, I grabbed some spirit herbs from my garden and started a fire beneath my cauldron. Pouring in the herbs, I added some water, and let it simmer for a while.

Then, as the flames began to rise and the essence of the spirit herbs meld within the water, I added a trickle of Gu to the container.

Steam exploded in front of me as I jumped back, a cloud of smoke covering my sight as my skin tinged lightly from the heat.

I stared at my cauldron now onto the floor and leaking soggy hot herbs onto the floor mat. My heart thundered for a few moments, and I forced it to settle down, walking closer. Carefully touching the cauldron to not burn myself, I flipped it over.

Pulverized remains of the spirit herb sat on the floor. I bent over, picking up the spirit herbs and watched them crumble away like powder.

That was unexpected.

I noted the reaction in my notebook and took another batch of spirit herbs, this time gently feeding them Gu. I sensed heat rising within the plants as they bloated and popped, the water within them boiling as the plants burst apart.

I extended my senses and noted a complete lack of any remnant Qi present in the remains of the herbs.

I stared as an idea started to come to me. My drugnade, with a sealed trigger that disintegrated upon contact with Gu. The energy released seemed far more potent than just relying on fire Qi, and it’d serve as the perfect trigger mechanism that wouldn’t be susceptible to other cultivators either. Something that could easily make the difference for me in the upcoming spirit herb hunt.

A smile came to my face as I began to mentally assemble the grenade.

It’d need a formation for the ignition, something I’d likely need to ask for help from Liuxiang. But the theory was sound in principle and this way I could forgo the need for actually making blackpowder and instead just rely on a grenade that I could trigger with my mind whenever I pleased.

Perhaps I could even add a delay to the explosion after the trigger to prevent people from noticing the thin strand of Gu.

I rushed to my notes and began to write the ideas down, occasionally cackling in my glee at the prospect of wonderfully exploding drug grenades in the face of cultivators.

Something fuzzy rubbed against my legs, interrupting my moment of glory and I looked down. Nyan meowed, rubbing against my leg and my frown softened as I bent down to pet the silly cat. He’d never shown so much affection before.

With a surprising leap, the cat landed onto my shoulders and leapt onto my desk. I rose but a moment too late as the cat grabbed the few spirit herbs remaining on my desk and bolted.

Too smart, way too smart. And it wasn’t even a spirit animal yet.

I scratched my head, not even bothering to go and steal the herbs from Nyan when I realized that I was missing a familiar herb stealing thief in this chamber. My eyes swept across the chamber as I felt a strange sense of worry creeping into my heart.

“Where did Labby go?”