Cultivation Fever

This page seemed different somehow. While the first page led me through a singular process, this one seemed more repeatable. Soul Expansion was a method for gradually growing the soul.

There was, however, a conceptual barrier that needed to be crossed. To grow the soul, I had to change it from a seed to a container; a well for qi.

I had just woken up and there was about an hour for me to make my first attempt. I needed to dive back into deep meditation in order to shape the seed to my will.

I focused on breath then spread my awareness across my body. I was better at honing my focus now, and my consciousness swiftly separated from my body.

The spirit seed appeared in front of me. Being able to feel its presence so distinctly without seeing it amazed me every time.

Before, I found it difficult to move the seed, but now I had to shape it. The page recommended to try and form it into a well, but I couldn"t picture a clear image in my head. It was too unfamiliar.

I focused on something I knew better, a bottle. This time I could form a clearer picture. But how do you change a seed into a bottle?

There was no use in doubting myself. I tried to expand the seed, stretching it out from itself. The seed resisted me, and I felt my concentration waver. Calming myself, I tried to think this process through.

"Baby steps Oscar, baby steps." I thought to myself.

A bottle isn"t a solid object. It"s a sheet of plastic, extruded and shaped into a container. The first step was to make this sheet. I imagined a huge hydraulic press, squeezing the seed flat.

The seed resisted me, trying to fight the force, but was giving way as I increased the pressure. I kept pressing and pressing, but it was taking a toll on me. I could feel myself weakening.

"Nothing can hurt you, keep going! Keep going!" I chanted to myself over, and over again, like a coach to an athlete.

Exhausting myself like this hurt. With every second I had less power to give but I couldn"t let up the pressure or the seed would bounce back.

I start counting down the seconds. Just another 5 seconds. Now just another 5 more! It didn"t matter if I was running on fumes, I had to keep going.

I could feel myself returning to my body, brought back to reality by the visceral pain in my chest. I couldn"t let myself be dragged back! The seed was still resisting, it would bounce back at any moment!

I summoned every drop of strength left in my mind and body and gave one last gargantuan push. I would bend this seed to my will; crush it into submission! I could hear cracking from the seed, and this only fuelled me more.

The cracking escalated, until there was a snap, and I felt no more resistance. I didn"t know what had happened, but I didn"t have time to care, as I blacked out.

I woke up to darkness. No light came from the windows in the nursery. It was morning when I had last woken up, had I slept through the whole day?

Thoughts of the time of day fled from my head as the memory of my battle with the seed returned. It was hazy, and I couldn"t tell how long I had been fighting it. I still felt tired and had a throbbing headache.

I felt somewhat bad for the abuse I was putting my infant body through, as I didn"t even feel the urge to cry. My body was becoming accustomed to the pain of cultivation at a frightening pace.

I wanted to give my body a bit of a rest, as this couldn"t be healthy, but I needed to check on the seed. I was distracted by the pain in my head, but after some time I managed to vaguely feel the seed.

I could barely sense its vibration. It sent waves of warmth, but they were very weak, like ripples in a pond. I was fascinated and my pain faded out of recognition, and I began to sense the seed better.

It was no longer a seed, but a smooth disc as thin as a hair. It was wider than I thought was possible from its starting volume.

It wasn"t a bottle, but it was a start. From a sheet this large I could probably form a decent container. I noticed that the waves emanating from it were not random. I could faintly hear the rhythmic splashing of water drops.

Each drop splashed onto the disc, which was covered by a thin veil of liquid. With each drop, a ring of faint warmth was pushed out, spreading into a fine mist which soaked through my body.

A pulse of pain from my head snapped me back to reality. I should rest for today. But I was interested in what was happening with my soul. The liquid must be my qi, and I needed to create a container so that it was not all lost in my body.

I concentrated on my hands, and I could feel that some of my qi was escaping into the air. I didn"t need all this qi to just lie here in a cot, I needed to store it.

But would a bottle be the correct container for my qi? It"s difficult to precisely control the flow of liquid from a bottle. The well a.n.a.logy from the book also seemed too crude.

I thought back to my past life, back to chemistry cla.s.ses. The burettes used for t.i.trations could be precisely controlled with a turning plug to deliver a known volume of liquid.

It would be harder to create this than to create a bottle. But if something is worth doing, it"s worth doing well. I would slowly form my soul into a piece of precise equipment.

I lay back in my cot and looked out the window at the blurred sky. I couldn"t wait for my eyesight to improve, and my muscles to develop so I could explore the world. Resting on that vein of thought, a question surfaced.

This Soul Becoming World Technique, what was its ultimate use? This was a world of cultivation, so there must be more techniques: mysterious techniques that could let me fly or take control of the elements.

So, what was this technique? What did Soul Becoming World even mean? Would this technique teach me to fight? How many pages were in the book?

I had so many questions now, so I revisited the vision of the book in my mind. Walking up to it, it was shut. I tried to open it, but it was stuck, as if it could never be opened to begin with.

I tried to look at the side to count the pages, but as I did, I was sucked out of the vision. Could I not know anything more about this technique than it let me? Was I really treading my own path of cultivation or just blindly following someone else"s?