Chapter 166 - Physical Cultivation I: Run or Die

  Guan made it sound simple. Physical Cultivation was exactly as it sounded. He did preface everything with: “The most basic of basics,” and “A little rushed.”

  Everything in the process seemed a little rushed.

  Guan’s explanation started before the clouds and ended when he dropped Hao to the grass with a thud.

  “First, a warm-up, around the peak a few times. My Master’s trick with helping us grow quickly back then was a threat behind you. A wild animal would be too complicated on the peak, so…”

  Hao started running as Guan chased him. The first time he got distracted when he passed Senior Sister Zu and her normal crowd, he was reminded what a whip felt like.

  “The lash is made of World Energy; it won’t leave any marks,” Guan explained.

  Hao held in the shout, but the crowd made up for it. They laughed and cheered, “Go Senior Brother.”

  “Hurry, Junior Brother, don’t let Senior catch you!”

  They all made whipping noises and whistles as he passed after each lap around the Blue-Sky Pagoda.

  Hao had to stop looking back at Senior Sister Zu after the first time. When he looked at her and thought of his state, he felt his face grow warm, not just from the rush of blood to his ears. But after ten minutes and four laps, that feeling was gone. All he focused on was getting faster and escaping Guan.

  Not that he had much chance. Each time he felt himself get faster, the Senior Brother with his short-sleeved robe would appear at his side. “It doesn’t just make the body faster. It can improve flexibility.”

  After only fifteen minutes, five lashes, eight laps, and half a lecture, Hao thought he would see and hear the man in his nightmares surrounded by blue flowers with a legion of flying whips at his back.

  “Now listen closely to this part. I have failed this myself,” The Senior’s porcelain smile shone as he talked about Physical Cultivation and pointed an invisible whip. “Attributes beyond the physical sense can be held within the body. Iron can be held in your bones, making them stronger. Earth Qi can make the blood strong and crystaline.”

  After he talked about making the stomach a furnace with Fire Qi and skin eternally young with Water Qi, he grabbed Hao’s shoulder. The Young Disciple’s legs shot forward. Hao nearly spun backwards as gravity tried to pull him down and his momentum forward, yet the vice that was Guan’s hand held that one shoulder in place.

  “We won’t be doing any of that, obviously. Just strength and flexibility,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, which brought Hao up and down like he was a rag doll.

  “Then what did I listen to all that for…” Hao panted, realizing that when he ran his max speed in the Secret Realm, he was as slow as a tortoise on loose sand.

  Guan looked confused, “Well… you have to know how great Physical Cultivation can really be before you start it. Think of it as extra motivation. Besides, we are just starting.”

  The words sounded crazier than normal, but as they wandered to the Blue Sky pagoda with the Senior Sister and her crowd cheering, Hao realized the sun hadn’t moved.

  When they were at the Pagoda’s door, they all forgot about him and were watching Senior Sister again. She was still doing the same training. Her feet left the ground. She floated up, the leaf followed, flowed, and fell. As she let out a long sigh, she touched the ground again. Her eyes met Hao’s for a moment. She nodded to him, her cheeks flushed with exhaustion. It must have been thanks to the Day-Night Amethysts he gave her last time.

  “Focus, girl,” Daoist Silver-Step’s voice rang like a bell over the mountain.

  Senior Guan waved his hand in front of Hao’s face. “You should focus, too, Junior Brother. I understand the temptation.” He stepped into the Fifth Elder’s residence. “The thought of getting cut once past my mind when I first set out on this path, but I thought one day I’d like to have children. I was quite popular back then. It was hard with only willpower… but didn’t waver on the journey of Physical Cultivation.”

  “Cut?” Hao asked, following his Senior Brother into the Blue-Sky Pagoda.

  “Yes. Castration.”

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  The pagoda doors slammed behind Hao, wind blasting his back as his head swam through white noise. It transported him back to the island. Ocean waves slammed against the shore during spring high tide.

  “Salt and Sea… Heavenly…” The door settled with a loud creak that hid most of Hao’s curses.

  I thought the people on the Lower Peaks were the insane ones. Those days wasted, burned away at the bottom of a wine jar or honey pot. Did they waste away so they didn’t have to… Hao looked down as his thoughts ran wild.

  He shook his head and walked more slowly than before, just enough to keep up with his Senior Brother.

  They did a similar thing on the islands to boys with poison at birth. If he hadn’t come to the Drifting Stream Sect and cultivated, the Taliff Fish poison never would have left him with other mortal toxins embedded in his flesh and blood.

  But that was to control the population and marriage. Not the willing and final extreme with your own two hands to pursue a singular path of cultivation.

  Guan rubbed his chin, “Some techniques require this kind of sacrifice. Most Metal Techniques that require Yin Qi, like the famed Golden Body, and some techniques that require a Buddha’s focus. On the other end, some Demonic Cultivators wait until a boy turns to a man, then—”

  “—Senior Brother! You mention a chance to breathe.” Hao quickly changed the topic before the Fifth Elder’s first disciple felt experimental during the next twenty-six and a half hours he was on this peak.

  Guan looked back, more confused than offended. “Yes, your warmup.” He pointed back at the door. “Oh, I guess you can count the bath as a chance to breathe, but I don’t think many would agree once you start…” All the emotions on his face sank towards pity.

  “Most I’ve seen run away before they really begin.” Guan sighed, “No time to waste then, it is the ideal first step.” He nodded, waving for Hao to follow.

  They passed under the murals and carvings. One of them was new, a nice little wall sconce that wasn’t here the last time Hao was. It was replicated a dozen times in a rich wood. One of the archways that led up to the dais, too. It was a man sitting on water in a state of serenity.

  They turned left before passing under it, heading towards a mural instead. A mural of a tree growing. Above the tree, a storm brewed in the sky that grew stronger as the tree got taller. Soon, the clouds were gray and full of snakes of lightning that came down and tore young branches away as they grew closer to the sky.

  The tree furthest to the right was looped in the middle as if it were twisted around a giant metal pole. He could see through it to the other side of the tree for the first time, where even the sapling had grown to hide on the left. But he didn’t care for the background, but what had become of the tree. Shattered and broken with thorns and sharp edges, holes in its bark, and dead spots where there was once bright green and brown, now white, gray, and withered. Yet the tree lived. The top was still crawling upwards for the sky as the lightning lashed it.

  “Senior Brother, was there something that was removed there?” Hao pointed to a spot on the wall that was less faded than the rest.

  “Mhm. My Junior Sister… Last summer, she removed four of her paintings and burned them on the spot. The walls and floors nearly caught.” Guan laughed, his head sinking for the first time Hao had ever seen.

  “Burned?” Hao asked.

  “Enough of that.” Guan waved his hands, turning back towards the dais as footsteps approached them. He shook his hand, swiping his hand over the ring on his index finger to a flash of light.

  The light of the spatial treasure faded.

  Hao didn’t have much time to look at the white jade ring when a strange tool was thrust into his hands. Then, several odd fruits. Red as cold embers and shriveled, like a mortal that was going to see their hundredth year. There was a smell, stinging his nose and eyes. He nearly dropped them, but Guan pushed them up into his arms as if they were babes to be cradled.

  “They are a little old,” Guan admitted. “The process is rather simple. While in the bath, take that fork and press it down into the fruit. Bathe in the juice. Wash with it, and… take your time.”

  He wiped his hands on his robe before he tapped Hao on the shoulder.

  “Junior Brother! Can you take Junior Brother Hao the rest of the way to the old baths?” Guan called out, looking behind Hao.

  Hao turned to find Senior Brother Que. His shoulders rounded and head sunken down in a listless mutter until he heard Guan’s voice.

  The younger Senior saw the fruit. His eyes went wide as he adjusted the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. It looked like he wanted to walk away while he could.

  Guan walked out before he got the chance. Laughing, he said, “Can you do that for me? I have to find my Spirit Iron bracelets!”

  There was a back and forth between them before Guan ran off, and Que meandered over without an ounce of enthusiasm. Similarly, the Senior Brother stopped Hao from performing any formalities. He just fit his face with pity.

  “Junior Brother, follow me.” Que walked forward, popped open a door to a long wing that didn’t quite fit the rest of the interior.

  Blue paint chipped from the walls. Instead of a golden Nanmu wooden decoration, the chairs were spruce from down the mountain. The very woods Hao hunted in. The floor turned to stone as they got down the latter half of the hall.

  Hao enjoyed it; it felt like a place to breathe. The air was thick and uncharacteristically humid for the mountain peak. He felt like he stood at home. On the mud flats, the sun’s violent glare turned the water’s surface to steam.

  As he was reveling in comfort and taking long breaths from his nose, Hao felt he could take a long rest here.

  “Junior Brother…” Senior Brother Que looked back with an apologetic look. “If I were to be honest. I don’t envy you. You should have gone straight to the Second Peak.”