Yan Yun’s hand hovered over my abdomen as I sat in meditation, circulating my Qi. Our breaths came in sync as sweat covered my body and I felt something soft touch my abdomen for a brief second.

A result of my partial breakthrough had been the sharpening of my senses. There were not one, but two layers present within my mind, a sense of Qi, and another of Miasma. Where before, the miasma had felt like someone had plastered a negative color film on my Qi sense, now it was an addition to the Qi itself, just polar opposite in nature.

I sensed the furrowed brows on Yan Yun’s face and I sensed the Qi swirling in her core. Where before, I’d been unable to tell much beyond the fact that she’d been in the fourth realm, now I could sense her strength and gain a measure for it.

“Whatever miasma there is… I can’t sense it,” Yan Yun said at last, as she pulled her hand back. I nodded in acceptance, feeling satisfied at my successful attempt at masking the Gu in my second core.

“I still can’t believe… any of this. All my instincts tell me to kill you on the spot, yet, I cannot sense any taint on your mind whatsoever. Just what are you Lu Jie? Are you some ancient spirit here to play tricks? Heavens, are you still the same boy who’d lost to Li and Lei?” Yan Yun asked, staring at me.

Sunlight continued to pour through the window within Granny Lang’s shop and I gave the girl a wry smile. I wished I could say no. I would’ve before but now… I wasn’t so sure. About anything.

“I don’t know. Am I? I’m certainly not desperate to progress and scrape for every inch of resource that I could get. As far as the miasma goes… I don’t know about that either. All I did was find out the First Law-”

Thunder flashed in front of my eyes, as the Qi of the world trembled with fury. I gulped, cutting off my words as Yan Yun jumped back and stared at me in horror. Guess just defying the heavens once wasn’t enough to let me off the hook.

“Heavens Lu Jie! Don’t summon another tribulation! Unlike you, I don’t want to die yet,” the girl said, her cheeks red and her breath heavy. The expression almost reminded me of her furious blush as she’d encountered me in the alleys here.

I paused for a moment, realising something.

“Is something wrong?” I asked Yan Yun, and as she calmed down her breathing once more. Glaring at me.

“First you summon the wrath of the heavens in front of my face then you ask if something is wrong? Do you really wish to anger me? Was being struck down by lightning by the heavens once not enough?” the girl quipped back and I grinned.

“I meant with you, silly. I never tried to talk much since… y’know. You’re the prodigy and everything, and the daughter of Elder Yan and what not. But this feels a lot more like your natural personality. When you’d met me in the grove inside the sect… you felt angry. At yourself. I guess I’m a bit slow to only realise this now, huh?” I said, and saw Yan Yun’s eyes widen for a brief moment.

“I… am alright,” she muttered, diverting her gaze from mine for a moment. “It’s nothing, I was just angry due to something my grandfather had said. In hindsight, it was stupid of me to rush out like that. I should’ve talked to my grandfather, told him that I disagreed with him. But instead, I just got furious and left, and now it’s too late to go back. He won’t change his mind now,” Yan Yun said, as she walked over and took a seat nearby.

“Is this in relation to why you want us to beat your cousins?” I asked, receiving a nod from the girl.

“Talks of my marriage with Lord Zhou’s son are being initiated. I haven’t been engaged yet, but once I am, there would be no chance of escaping it. But if the twins lose to someone like you then perhaps the Lord would change his mind,” Yan Yun said. She glanced up a moment later as she realised what her words implied.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that—”

“Oh it’s fine. I really don’t care. I would agree normally, those two are pretty strong. Arrogant and bratty, but also strong. And you aren’t wrong in that, I’m pretty pathetic as far as cultivation goes. Twenty years old and still stuck in the third realm, quite sad isn’t it?” I said with an amused smile.

“After yesterday? I’d die of shame if anyone would call me a prodigy in front of you. Realm is not the only judge of strength Lu Jie. The dantian is just the method of refining the spirit. I’ve studied cultivation ever since I was five, and yet, I’ve never heard of a man having two cores. Cultivators often have multiple aspects of Qi, and a Path that branches off into multiple aspects. Yet a spirit can never follow two paths, it would split apart from the divergence.”

“It’s not two,” I replied, staring at Yan Yun. The girl looked at me with a confused look. “It’s the same Path. There are just two sides to it,” I replied. Gathering Qi at my finger tips, I traced two circles onto the floor, watching the Qi highlight the illustration.

“Two cores that form a single cycle,” I said, as I drew lines connecting the two cores together in an odd infinity symbol, showing how they revolved around the same central point. “The circle they form, the large one of their rotation. That signifies the whole. I’m not sure why you think a cycle has to be limited to just one single sphere,” I said, as I let the Qi on the floor revolve, representing the spin of my cores.

“But that- it doesn’t… How would you balance, if any one of your cores is behind the other? If their paths are too dissimilar, or too similar?” Yan Yun asked, looking up at me, and I felt a strange sense of joy at the burning curiosity I saw in her eyes. I grinned.

“You either split the core further into three, or merge them back. I honestly think of these as energy levels. The first, singular sphere is the most stable system. The energy is uniformly divided around a central spirit core within the dantian and remains stable. The second, what I think I have, is a two way split binary system. The rotation of each of the two cores balances out each other, but they do have to be polar opposites,” I said, glancing to the side as I spotted some herbs set nearby on a table.

“For example, I’m pretty sure my Qi aspect is Wood now. I’m not completely sure, but I’m reasonably certain,” I said, extending my Qi out towards the herbs. A trickle of Qi poured towards the herb as new leaves began to sprout.

I cut off my Qi, letting out a breath. Focusing on my cores, I switched to the miasma core. The Gu spread through my pathways, as I felt my vision shift just a little. I stretched out a thread of Gu towards the plant, and watched as its life drained in front of my eyes, leaving only a dried husk behind.

I quickly switched back to my Qi core, washing away the remnant Miasma from my system. I turned around to see Yan Yun a further distance away, with lightning crackling around her. Her eyes stared at me, as if I was some sort of monster waiting to devour her.

“Is it that uncomfortable?” I asked, receiving a nod from her.

“Even knowing that you are not a demon… I still feel my core shudder at the vile sensation of Miasma as it courses through you. Not to mention… your eyes.”

“My eyes?” I asked, confused.

“The whites of your eyes start to turn black… and the pupils turn white. It is subtle, but the more you use the Miasma the stronger the transformation. It makes you look… like a demon.”

I paused, as a horrifying realisation came to me. Not only had I gotten an MC level bullshit dual spirit Gu/Qi dual system thing. Which, to be fair, was very amusing and I wanted to study the hell out of it. But, I also got an edgelord demonic transformation!! Damn you Original Lu Jie, your edgelord tendencies are starting to corrupt me!

I groaned, clutching my chest as a pained smile covered my mouth.

“Are you okay?!” yan Yun said, rushing towards me and I found myself bursting out in laughter.

“I’m sorry. I’m alright- it’s just. Oh god, I can’t believe I’m turning into that?” I asked, as another pained chuckle escaped my mouth.

“Heavens, you’re scaring me Lu Jie. Is the Miasma taking over? I knew there was no way you could control such a vile force. Hold on, maybe we can still remove it. There has to be a way,” Yan Yun muttered as she got up, and began to rush out.

“Stop! Hold on hold on,” I shouted as the girl froze, turning back towards me in surprise. “It’s alright. I’m sorry. I was reacting that way because I remembered something back from home. It’s a silly thing we see in stories, the demonic powers help the hero save the world as he conquers the dark aspect and. I just found it… hilarious.”

Yan Yun stared at me, a confused expression on her face. “Are you saying… you are such a person?” she asked, and I choked, noting the serious expression on her face.

“N-no… I’m not. I sure hope not. I’m perfectly happy just doing alchemy by myself,” I replied.

“If you are to lie, you should lie convincingly at least,” Yan Yun’s spirit bird, Leiyu, spoke up and I laughed at his words.

“It’s true. I have no idea what I’m doing, and honestly. I really don’t know much about cultivation. I used to… but well. My memories haven’t been the best ever since my fight with your cousins. I wouldn’t mind learning a few things from you. Not to mention, I could probably teach you a few things about electricity, and Labby after she’s had a few more classes in science,” I said, looking up at Yan Yun who stared at me for a moment, before nodding quietly as she carefully seated herself on the floor in front of me.

“What do you know about cultivation?” She asked me, and I scratched my nose.

“I know about the five circles. The twelve realms, and that the first three realms are the foundation realms. And that realm fourth to sixth are about the core.”

Yan Yun nodded, as her Qi stirred. “The fourth realm is the beginning of the formation of the core. The first three realms denote Foundation, Qi gathering, and Qi condensation. The fourth realm is the realm where the core forms. You… are somewhere in the middle of the third and fourth realm,” Yan Yun said, looking at my abdomen for a moment.

“Up until the end of the first circle, each realm only had one step in between. A minor bottleneck to overcome. The midstep and the peak of the realm. But from the second circle onwards, each realm will be divided in three. Lower, Upper and Peak. You begin at lower, and breach the bottleneck to the upper realm, and finally the peak of the realm,” Yan Yun said and nodded.

“So you’re at the Peak of the fourth realm?” I asked, and Yan Yun nodded.

“I am close to the peak. There is more room to grow yet, but my time to breakthrough would come soon. Once I do, I would step into the fifth realm, which is Core refining,” Yan Yun replied.

“Isn’t that quite high? For someone of your age I mean, you’re sixteen right” I said, and received another nod.

“There have been greater prodigies than me. People who have reached the rank of an elder before they were twenty. Any who can reach the fifth realm before they are eighteen become qualified to earn a nobility title. My grandfather has no use for such a title, but once I breakthrough, I would be a baroness within the empire,” Yan Yun explained, and I whistled in awe.

Seeing how the age of eighteen was usually the expected age to just breakthrough into the fourth realm, that seemed like quite an impressive feat to me.

“Wait hold on, does that mean the Yan clan is nobility?” I asked, confused. I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

“No, we aren’t. My grandfather has the rank of a noble, but such ranks are not hereditary. It would take a lot more than just cultivation strength to receive a hereditary title,” Yan Yun said, and I mentally noted the details down.

“Back to the topic. The dantian is a method of refining, and it is the capacity of the spirit that determines how large one's dantian can be. Yours… had been small. Smaller than most people I knew. There were some cultivators like that, born with feeble spirits who could only gather meagre amounts of Qi. I’d assumed you were just one such person, who lacked the favour of the heavens,” Yan Yun said, and I frowned. The lacking amount of Qi had been something the original Lu Jie had been despairing about for a long time.

“But… that couldn’t be true, seeing how you have survived a heavenly tribulation. Even if just a partial one, at the third realm. I had Yi take a look, and, there is something odd with your spirit. A conflict within your spirit. Each time you cultivate, it’s as if you are fighting yourself, and dragging half of your spirit alongside. It has left both your cores far smaller than they should’ve been,” Yan Yun said.

I grimaced at her words, nodding along. Well, can’t expect all that internal conflict and having two spirits stuffed in the body to not have any adverse effects.

“I’m not surprised that there’s some major downsides to this makeshift cultivation technique. There’s a reason people use established methods,” I said with a shrug.

“That isn’t true,” Yan Yun said and I glanced up at her in surprise. “While it is not easy to increase one’s Qi capacity at later realms, your core has still not finished forming into the second circle. Had you broken through, you would’ve effectively cut your Qi’s growth short forever. But as things stand? It is a simple fix,” Yan Yun said and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Felt a bit too convenient to me, but I wasn’t going to complain.

“Take my hand,” she said, extending both her hands. I stared at her in confusion, but found her expression serious.

I extended my hands, grabbing hers lightly. I tried my best not to think about how oddly soft her fingers were.

“Follow my Qi. I do not know how you would circulate your other core, but try your best to follow along,” Yan Yun said, and I nodded.

Thunder Qi swirled in her core, circulating like a coiling arc of lightning around her core. Her Qi brimmed with energy, ready to burst out.

“This technique is for a pure Yang Qi like lightning or fire. It is taught to young cultivators who just broke through to the first realm so that they can expand their Qi while still young and without a foundation. But it can be applied to any stage if used properly,” Yan Yun said, as her Qi, her core clamped down upon itself. I followed along, circulating both Qi and Gu within my two cores as my twin cycles began to rotate.

I followed suit pressing down on my cores as their rotation slowed down, the Qi and Gu building up within the core themselves.

“When the Qi has reached a tipping point, bottle it further, and push outwards. Then continue to circulate until your core is filled again,” Yan Yun said, her voice even.

I tried to reply, but only managed a grunt. Sweat began to bead on my forehead as each breath felt laboured and exhausting. The Qi and Gu continued to build up within my cores as I matched my breathing with Yan Yun’s struggling to keep pace.

The twin cycle of circulation came to a halt, and for a moment I almost felt as if I’d lose control over my cores. Then, slowly, the cores began to spin, now in an anticlockwise direction.

“Let go of your Qi,” Yan Yun said, as Thunder crackled around her. The Qi spread out pushing on her core and I followed along. My cores hummed, spinning faster and faster as Qi and Gu poured out, equally balanced on both ends.

Energy rippled around me, as I felt a strange rhythm take over my breathing. My breath matched Yan Yun’s as my thoughts began to drift into an endless void.

Two cores swirled in a frenzy within my dantian, energy rippling with their rotating as a dual cycle was formed. I could sense Lu Jie’s spirit stir within my heart as I continued to match my breathing to Yan Yun’s.

As if breathing for the first time, I felt my Qi poured into my body, accompanied by equal amounts of Gu to my core. For the first time since I’d begun, both halves of my spirit cultivated together and I felt the missing pieces slide into place.

A new understanding formed, a new sensation. This was my Path. Two cores but one Path. A path of two halves.

I smiled, still holding on to Yan Yun’s hand, and together as one, we continued to cultivate.