The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

I sat in the carriage as we made our way back to the Lord’s manner. That has certainly been one hell of a meeting, with despite the rough nature of it the practice had gotten with a Divinity’s domain had certainly been useful. But I no longer had an excuse left to not talk about the things that I had been meaning to talk about with the old man. I sat there for a long moment hesitating over how I should ask about his past, the really was just trying to delay having to bring it up as much as I could. Taking a breath, I looked up at him and decided to just go for it.

“How do you know the Shie matriarch?” I asked the old man, who looked back at me with mild surprise.

“I used to know her mother,” the old man replied.

“The previous matriarch and Divinity?” I asked, raising my eyebrow. “Wasn’t she super important and also really really old?”

“She was, this old man was much younger back then when he had first met the woman. She had been amused by my youthful arrogance and had tested me. I had passed her test, and so she had come to know of me. She had been one of the people who had helped me at the time as well, and would continue to help me many times in the future. At first it hadn’t been out of kindness but because she had seen some benefit in me, but eventually, I think she had come to like my presence. Zhuihu, her daughter, had been young back then and we had known each other, and we spent some time together in our youth, although not for long. She was the daughter of a Divinity. I was barely the first son of a branch family of the Huo clan. But despite that, our acquaintanceship has survived the years.”

It was hard for me to picture him as anything but an old kind man but if I tried I could vaguely see a young youthful version of him with far more confidence and arrogance going about dreams were Divinities test of all things.

“You were quite adventurous back in your youth, huh?”

The old man laughed at my words. “I was a fool, but I was also strong enough to not die. So yes, I was quite adventurous, emboldened by my use and strength I had done many things that could have ended my life. Challenged the wrong people, and made for stronger than I, but fate had other plans and I came out stronger beyond those challenges.”

“Is that why they call you the Flame Dragon?” I asked.

The old man’s expression shifted as a thinking about a particularly nostalgic memory. “Ah, that nickname, the curse that has not faded even now. We got that name because one time a fire dragon had arrived at the first peak, but disguised in human form. And we had ended up in a drinking match, of course I was losing, instead of graciously accepting my defeat, I had tried to challenge the dragon. Amused, the dragon had agreed, but instead of sparring normally, in my drunken stupor and with the alcohol burning in my throat I ended up breathing fire against the dragon without warning, burning his clothes,” the old man said, shaking his head. “The dragon was forced to change her form back, and had laughed and declared me as one of his kin, which is how I gained the nickname. At first as a joke, but eventually as my strength and name grew, so did the nickname.”

I struggled to imagine the old man getting drunk, much less behaving like that, but the thought still made me smile.

“That was how things had been, until we started a family. And especially after we had a grandson,” the old man said. His expression shifted through a multitude of emotions, joy, nostalgia, and a whole lot of grief and loss.

I looked at him in silence for a moment. “What… had happened in the past? What truly happened? With you and your grandson.”

The carriage shuddered to a stop at my words. I looked outside, realizing we’d arrived back at the Lord’s manor.

“Perhaps it’s time we told you everything,” the old man said, looking at me before he stepped outside. I followed him out, walking behind him with a curiosity and worry fighting against one another.

Ultimately, the curiosity won out and I walked to the old man’s chambers.

The old man walked in his chamber, moving around the place as he picked up a cup from nearby, flames dancing around his hands as he quickly heated up some tea.

I took a seat and the old man followed, putting a cup of tea in front of me while keeping another that he nursed in his hands. I sat there for a few moments, giving him time as silence persisted for roughly a minute or so, before the old man spoke up at last.

“We won’t repeat this, so listen carefully,” the old man said, and the pain in his voice felt like knives stabbing me, but it was too late to regret, and I did want to know.

I nodded to him in reply.

The old man’s expression turned forlorn and distant as he began to recount the events. “Back when I had lived on the first peak, I’d been a member of the Sheng branch of the Huo clan. Our clan home was on the seventh peak, and my father had served the lord at the time there. In my youth, I’d been told that I would inherit the position from my father and serve the lord of the First Peak and his son. I hadn’t questioned it at the time.”

“But… as I grew, something became obvious. I was strong, skilled with martial arts and with enough drive. The only heir and the son of the lord didn’t have any of those attributes. He spent most of his time playing with animals and birds. A gentle soul, far too gentle. He did not eat meat, did not harm anyone and was the first to apologize. His nature was unsuited to be a Lord. I was roughly the same age as the son, and the polar opposite of the boy. The Lord had tried to change his son’s demeanor, but ultimately had ended up pushing him too far and the boy had abandoned his name and home, leaving. And so, I was adopted by him as his heir in my later years when he couldn’t sire any other children.”

“I continued to grow, making a name for myself. My family rose in prominence rapidly due to my rise in status. Eventually, the lord of the first peak fell sick and began to weaken, and I began to be trained to take on his duties instead. I poured myself even more into my training to match up to the man’s expectations. I respected him much like I respected my own father. And I would eventually go on to inherit his position.”

I tried not to widen my eyes in surprise. I’d expected something like he had been a sage or a famous or powerful warrior— but not that he was the lord of one of the seven celestial peaks.

“But my ambition wasn’t satisfied with the lord’s position I was bound to get. I wanted to go further. I’d grown arrogant, and I’d grown impatient. My position meant I often traveled to the capital, mingling with the strongest children in the empire and the very best of talents, and within this crowd, there were people even better than me, and I wasn’t used to that,” the old man said.

A part of me understood the feeling. As a child with no memories of my past, I’d clung onto the Qi I’d had, making me special. And I’d wanted to remain special, but joining the sect that image had shattered and it had left me broken.

“I trained and trained, but I could not catch up to some of them no matter what. Zhuihu, the current Shie matriarch, was a little younger than me and the girl was about to obtain her domain and become the youngest master in the empire. She eventually did, but it took her three more years. There was also… Lang Xiaorong. A girl from a distant clan of the Tu, she practiced earthen arts and was a little younger than me, but her ability in alchemy surpassed mine. And she made a point to bring that up. It irked me, given our difference in status and ranks, I wanted her to respect me, and yet I couldn’t beat her,” the old man replied, a slight smile on his face.

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“Sounds like Granny Lang hasn’t changed much then,” I added.

“Oh she was a lot more violent back then. And a lot harsher. She would punch anyone who offended her, or crush them under a boulder. She wasn’t the strongest in combat, but you couldn’t take her down. She practiced an ancient art that hardened her bones like stone, you couldn’t hurt her,” the old man replied. “She was also quite short in her height, which I used every chance to make fun of her by calling her Xiaoxiao.”

I chuckled at that, the image of the granny getting mad and being called xiaoxiao was hilarious. I almost wanted to try saying that to her when I went back— but I’m not sure I’d survive the aftermath if I did.

“There were a few of us. Children with talent and potential. Not all of us had equal opportunities, but we ended up bonding. Of them all, Xiaorong and I especially got close. By the time I was in my thirties and had become the lord, I had been certain I would marry her, but her ambition was greater than I’d anticipated. She wanted to change alchemy, to free it and reform the alchemy halls. And my clan and family wanted me to marry the girl from the Yue to strengthen ties.

Ultimately, I chose to go with our families’ wishes. And I loved my wife, but my ties with Xiaorong remained despite that. By this time, with the years passing rapidly I had risen in power and ranks, but I’d also realized that I did not have the talent needed to ever truly touch the peak of cultivation,” the old man said, as his distant gaze returned, focusing on me.

“When you’d come to me, it had reminded me of my past. I had continued to serve as the lord, but the despair in my heart continued to grow. I would never see the end of my path. I did not have what it took. Around the time when this feeling had grown to such an extent that I had begun losing sight of my path was when my grandson was born.”

“Sheng Yuan,” I said.

The old man nodded. “I gave him that name. Because I could not see the depth of his talent. He was endless, and pure, and it felt like the heavens had shown me a brand new path. From the moment he was born I was able to see something. The boy had what I lacked. The ability to reach the very pinnacle,” the old man said.

“I became obsessed with training him, I put the expectations I myself had failed to meet on a young boy’s shoulders instead. And instead of breaking under the weight of that, he had relished the challenges, constantly surpassing my expectations. Over the years Yuan continued to grow rapidly, and quickly began to make a name for himself. He continued to break records, becoming the younger elder, expert and then master. By the time he was in his thirties, many people knew his name throughout the empire and he was praised and loved.”

“Then… what happened?” I asked, wondering how someone like that became a demon.

“Well… he fell in love. It was a mortal woman. The boy loved her deeply, and despite protests from others, he intended to marry her. I had been one of the ones who had dismissed the girl, thinking she was merely trying to reach beyond her means. Yuan had not taken well to my words. He left his home and clan, settling in some distant village. I didn’t see him until nearly a decade later.

He came back, tattered and broken carrying the girl. Demons had been rising around this time, and she had become inflicted with miasma, and was only barely hanging on to life due to Yuan’s Qi. Taking pity… I had gone to the emperor, seeking help.”

“Yuan had begged to save the girl… but the emperor had refused. I had asked as well, trying to understand why when the emperor had revealed something that broke the boy. The girl was with child. But due to the miasma seeping into her dormant core, even if she survived, the child she would give birth to would be a demon.”

“Yuan watched the girl and his child die in his arms, after being refused by the emperor. I… was powerless to help. All I knew how to do was to kill, to fight, to burn. I could not heal. But even then, I had tried to let the boy grieve, let him recover. I thought it would take time, but he would move on. But… I had been wrong,” the old man said. A torrent of emotions swirled in his eyes.

“He poured himself into learning more, into forbidden books, into life, death, and into immortality. The boy cultivated an immortal twin, secretly mastering Gu and demonic arts, trying to reach past the point anyone had. To reach for Ascendance. He managed to even find a lost Divine Beast and receive their blessing. If there was anyone in the world who could’ve done it, it was him.

“But… at the very end, at the pinnacle… his technique failed. When the boy had attempted transcendence… the demonic half of him betrayed him. I sensed the shift and had found him and tried to kill the demon… but it was too late. I watched my grandson be consumed by hatred of the world, of the empire, as Sheng Yuan died, consumed by his twin, and the demon Yang Shen was born.”

“The divine beast tried to stop him. I tried as well, desperate to bring my grandson, to save him, should any of him had remained inside the demon. But he’d achieved power we had never even dreamt of. I failed, and Yang Shen fled. I spent three years searching for him before I gave up. He was gone.

“But then… almost a decade later, all of a sudden he returned… and he had become a true monster. He’d managed to fight and capture not just one but two divine beasts for himself and control them at his command. With the power of two divine beasts in his hands, he’d fought hard… and he killed two Divinities, and injured two more heavily, before finally being pushed back.

“It was when he’d mercilessly started killing even those weaker than him when I realized that I’d long lost my grandson, and what stood in front of me was merely a demon wearing his likeness. Enraged and grief took me over as I fought the demon to a standstill, before I had grabbed his heart and tore it out of his body. I thought that was it. I killed the demon that had taken my grandson away from me. But I had no peace. I lost… all meaning in life, and so I abandoned my position as lord and left. I wandered the empire aimlessly, simply looking for a place to spend the last of my days till death took me, but Xiaorong found me in this state.

She picked me back up, and gave me a new path. To not kill, but to heal. To save lives. Xiaorong herself had lived a difficult life and had failed in her endeavor, though she had done much good in her time. So we departed together. I abandoned my name, abandoned my past and settled around the seventh peak. The lord at the time welcomed the two of us, and eventually we ended up working for the sect. But then when the thing with your brother Zhang occurred, she lost all hope in the sect and left. I chose to stay… because we believed we could still do good there,” the old man said, looking down at the cup of tea in his hand, before he looked up at me.

“And that was when I found you,” the old man said.

I simply sat in silence, taking all of that in. That was… a lot. With the nature of the empire in my mind… and with everything that had happened, I felt a lot of complicated emotions. Yet, a thought remained in my mind. What if… Shen Yuan is still there? Inside of Yang Shen. Back when I had been lost to Xuanwu, was what I saw just a lie? Was I just being tricked?

I put an arm on my chest, feeling the spirit rings in my soul. My two halves and the harmony they carried. What if Shen Yuan had never managed that?

I let the thoughts dissipate, letting out a tired sigh. Looking at the old man, I gave him a small bow. “Thank you for telling me.”

The old man nodded, before looking at me. “I had told you that… you are like a grandson to me. That was not a lie, but in truth, I saw you as a reflection of my younger self. The ambition, the desire, and the despair. When you’d come to me, this old man had felt like he was looking at his own reflection.”

“But… you’re not like me. You have managed to carve your own path ahead, Lu Jie. I have no doubt that you will go far,” the old man said, smiling at me.

I… couldn’t smile back. I always felt like a fake, after all, most of my gift was just having the knowledge of a modern world. Did I truly have what it took?

“A lot of what I have done… it has been borrowed. The memories of my past life, they have guided me, given me a cheat. I’m not as great as people seem to think,” I replied.

“Perhaps so, but the one to do it was still you. The one to stand in the face of danger was still you. The one to see the path and pave the way was still you, my boy. And… there is no one else who has found the paths you have, your cultivation is unique to you and you should be proud.”

I looked up, before nodding my head. “Thank you.”

The old man rose from his seat. “Get some rest, Lu Jie. We will be resting as well. We have to leave for the jade court tomorrow.”

I got up at that as well, nodding. Feeling exhaustion and a swirling mix of emotions bubbling in my chest I walked out of the chamber with heavy shoulders.

I had a lot of things on my mind, thoughts and feelings that I needed to process, but I put them aside for now. Tomorrow would be the day I met the emperor.