The Dao of Magic

24 - Double

I come to and immediately check the sun's position. Not even ten seconds have passed, excellent! I reassert some control over the qi surrounding me again, my grasp now a lot more tenuous. The last shards of my previous core slowly dissipate as I take a deep breath and the power burns its way through my body. I toy with the idea of creating a core in a different location than my head. While I'm at it, I might as well redo an old failed experiment.

I have thought and speculated a lot whether a person or being could have multiple cores. Ideally, I would want to create a brain and a heart core, giving me the best of both worlds. Making a third dantian core seems like a bad idea. The amount of qi required for advancing into the later realms is already enormous, adding a second core would multiply this amount by more than ten times. A third core would probably be expensive enough to make gods weep.

I decide to try it out, nothing ventured, nothing gained right? Splitting the stream of qi flowing through my body in two is easy. Guiding both to their respective places is more difficult, the qi starts feeling sluggish and slippery. Forcing the qi to form vortexes in both my brain and heart nets me a splitting headache, but I see the initial stages of core forming happening.

The higher ups must have blocked this type of cultivation path in my previous world. I tried this before and got zapped by lightning for my effort. The fact that no clouds are gathering above my head proofs that this world has no such imposed laws.

I try to grin through the pain but my face ends up in an ugly grimace. I feel my control of external qi slipping, I have a few minutes before the city is in danger again. Instead of containing the power in a sphere around me I start giving it the command to move upwards, that should buy me some time with the limited control I have at the moment.

My brain is filling up with mana, I pull some out and redirect it to my heart as that core forms slower. My heart core doesn't seem to want to advance, so I give it another spin. My headache becomes a full-blown migraine and my eyes start to water. I made my brain core by shoving all my qi in my cranium, maybe I don't have a heart affinity?

I admonish myself, I don't believe in affinities without provable physical signs. My heart is as good as any other, so I should be able to make a core there. Gritting my teeth I shove more qi into my heart.

Spying on Lola told me that the precise location of the core is inside the middle heart wall, the interventricular septum. My brain core will form without my guidance so I focus my attention on compressing all the qi I can manage on that wall. My chest starts hurting too, this experiment might have been another rash decision spurred on by my lacking intellect. Too late to cry about it now though, so I give the qi in my heart another push.

Someone seems to be screaming? Was that me? Irrelevant, let's continue with... what was it again?

Blearily I look around while clutching my chest. I feel something starting to snap into place, but just one, that's not good? I think? I decide to stop it from happening for now. A theory I thought about an age ago bubbles to the surface of my foggy mind. I have nothing better to do right now, so let's give it a try.

Pulling on my brain and heart at the same time I connect both together with a strand of qi. A massive buildup runs throughout my body as if something is heating up in another dimension, overlaying me. With a massive internal boom, my mind comes back to me.

Blinking furiously I look inside. Glowing spheres of white are located in my brain and heart, one each and are connected by a small thread. Did it work?

"IT WORKED HAHAHAAA"

Lola jumps away from me, seemingly scares shitless by my outburst. That was a bit risky there, but it worked. Already I feel my mental strength grow and my body infuses itself with qi. Sitting down again and breathing in I can't help but continue laughing.

Both cores are still fluctuating a bit so I calm down. The qi is still far away from ground level, giving me time to chill for a few minutes. I calm my mind and racing heart as best I can. It's kind of difficult because I was always slightly envious of body cultivators. Instead of making intricate and complicated plans, fallback strategies and weakness analysis, they can just hit stuff. Solving a fight like solving a puzzle is fun of course, but sometimes I just want to smash some face.

Not breathing any qi I let it all settle. I use the time to look how Lola is doing. Her core is stuffed to the brim again, she is just circulating the qi throughout her system to get rid of my fingerprints now. She will have her first drops of liquid qi soon. After filling her core with that she will be able to initiate solid core-forming. There is enough qi around us for her to form a full solid core at once, my qi is all she ever got so it will have to be compatible enough to use as construction material.

On a different note, I admit that I have detected a slight case of arrogance from myself. Falling to the bottom from the top must have hit me harder than I wanted to admit. I kept pretty low key so far if you ignore the animal horde, kidnapping and broken tower that is, but I took some risks that were too dangerous. I have not even investigated local power structures before starting with my own plans. The single direct usage of mana I did in the dungeon was proof enough that this world's mages will hold considerable power, but I ignored them all. I have put myself in dangerous situations three times by now. My solid core formation in the clearing, transforming the tree into the Tree and just now. A random flying beast could have killed me at the end of my mountain flight when I was low on qi, so it's actually four.

I need to stop thinking of myself as this enormously powerful being, but honestly, I don't want to. Normal mortal habits are hard to break, imagine how hard getting free of a hundreds-year-old habit is. But more importantly, I really don't want to. I want freedom, the ability to do as I wish. I also want other people to do as they wish. Of course, if those people want to hurt me I will use my ability to kick their asses to impose my will, but that's not the point. Limiting myself in order to avoid detection and attention is something I do by default, I prefer staying low key over lording one's power over others like some spoiled young master. The main reason is that becoming famous is a bother and would limit my freedom.

I hereby decide that I will not leave the wellspring of qi until I have regained enough power to do whatever the fuck I want. The lure of not having to worry about poison or a dagger in my back was a big contributing factor to my double core experiment. Mind cultivation is awesome, the only downside is a lacking physical defence on all levels. A shiver runs down my spine at the possibilities of perfect mental control and a powerful body combined.

Alright, that's enough blabbering about my feelings. My cores have settled down perfectly after that round of self-reflection. I would call it a reaffirmation of my Dao or something if that didn't sound so pretentious.

My cores start churning again, but this time they are purring like engines instead of threatening to fall apart. I look at my hand, making a fist and do some flexing.

My heartcore has already started pumping body reinforcing qi through my bloodstream. Instead of gathering the qi in a single place, like mind and dantian cultivators do, the heartcore releases it throughout the bloodstream. Here it slowly settles into the bone, sinew, organ, muscle, and skin cells, reinforcing whatever those cells do. Body cultivators make their entire body their core by spreading every strand of qi throughout their bodies. Training helps you control this strength, but no cultivator gets significantly stronger by lifting weights.

I now feel every cell in my body getting a little better every second. It's a tingling feeling, like a really pleasant version of pins and needles. I stand up and walk around a bit. The tower is around two hundred meters wide at this height, giving me a third of a football field to move in. The jagged diagonal shard of rock, the back of the chair shape, cuts this volume effectively in half, but it is enough room to jog on.

Shoes crunching on the loose-lying white shard laying everywhere I start running past the edge. A quick look down nets me an amazing view. I see clouds blocking parts of the grasslands beneath my feet. At the very edge, I can look straight down and see glimpses of the city. I am higher than some of the clouds and the wind is whipping my clothes about. Thanks to the qi now running through me it feels rather comfy, while I know that it must be freezing up here.

I look around, scanning anything interesting and saving it to my growing map. I see more cities on the horizon, all to the north. I give my cartography process access to my eyes, causing my vision to swim as the process scans everything in sight as quickly as possible. Efficiency over usability is a motto of mine, and I stand by it despite the dizziness.

I start stretching as my map fills in with details. I am starting to understand why body cultivators never sat still, always moving at least a bit, always running instead of flying. Using the qi in your cells feel slightly orgasmic, just stretching a bit feels unbelievably good. I stop myself from moaning as I start running. I need to tone this down a bit, I can't be soiling my pants when fighting.

I move my hand around while I sense its movements. The problem is that I move my hand, not my muscles. My previous physical exploits, aka fights, were all greatly limited by the power of my body. My mind could calculate everything perfectly, the slow reaction times of my nervous system and muscles hindering me. If my body now keeps up with my mind I will need to have a greater level of control.

I imagine myself hanging just over my own shoulders, remotely controller each separate muscle via some holographic interface.

That worked great! I start running again, increasing my pace. It feels very nice now, but the positive feedback isn't quite so overwhelming anymore. Sometimes you only need a slightly different perspective on things.

I pull a massive rock from my spatial ring, weighing at least of few hundred kilos. I struggle a bit, more with positioning and handling than because of lacking strength. I feel like I could juggle these boulders if I where to have longer arms. This is seriously exciting, a whole new path of growing stronger stretching out before me.

I try to move my body to the limit for the next half hour. I stop because I sense no improvement after twenty minutes. My coordination issues are fixed, exercise really doesn't do shit for gaining strength, huh. I do start seeing similarities between both cultivation methods now.

The initial gaseous core is made up of something. All that qi needs to be held under pressure. The core structure itself absorbs a part of the qi one absorbs, strengthening itself so it can withstand higher pressures. This locked up energy is then utilised when a breakthrough happens. When crossing over to the solid core stage, that energy is used to rapidly transform large amounts of qi to the cultivators own fingerprints, allowing said cultivator to construct a core from their own qi.

The body works the same, only on a bigger scale. The cell walls and blood vessels absorb a percentage of qi in a similar manner, using it only to strengthen themselves. The leftover qi can be compressed more because the container can withstand higher pressure. This higher pressure allows for more qi to structurally reinforce the walls, which then allows more compression.

I wonder what the body equivalent is for the solid core stage, I can't wait to find out!

So I immediately sit down and start breathing in all the qi I can handle. Instead of the slow trickle, I get from creating it by combining mana, this is a flood wave. Is has my fingerprints already, so it willingly surges into my body, running through my heart and into my brain.

I sink into meditation as I feel the first drops of liquid forming. My brain core now has drops orbiting each other while my blood gets so qi saturated that small mist droplets start to form. When these microscopic spheres of liquid qi reach my heart they get sucked into the middle wall. They are similar processes, just performed differently.

I breathe in so much qi that the sphere surrounding me starts shrinking. The tower is still giving off a steady stream, hopefully, that will last for a while. With no need to make fancy stuff like mana vortexes I focus all my concentration on both cores, watching them fill up with liquid.

Doing this for ten minutes fills them both up. I think I will have to crystallise both at the same time. Grabbing hold of both balls of liquid qi I start squeezing. As they were waiting for me the both start collapsing immediately. Two small specks form, sucking up the liquid qi. They start draining the qi from my cells and I let them. I look closer and see them both absorbing all the qi in my body, even the structural qi.

Body cultivators are empty qi vessels after breakthroughs, this is good to know. I inhale more while sinking into a light trance.

⁂

The sun tells me an hour has passed. I zoned out again while forming my solid core, no qi starvation keeping me awake this time. Two magnificent solid spheres are located in my body. The danger of having a complete core is that the qi available for use is extremely limited. There is no place for storing qi.

Traditional teaching would have me starting to form my foundation now, or some such bull shit. You are supposed to start making a representation of yourself, carving up the core to elevate it into a more metaphorical position. I say screw that, I want to build a better carving material first.

Gripping both cores using my willpower I start squeezing again. Instead of stepping into the next realm I want to raise the qi density of my core. I pretend my core is coal and that my body is a diamond making machine.

"HEAT, PRESSURE, LOTS OF HEAT AND LOTS OF PRESSURE, HNNGHGHGHGG!!"

Too excited to shout something funny I press down harder until I feel two somethings snap. The solid structures collapse in on itself again, creating a smaller, darker core. I keep sitting until I stuffed every single spot of the empty space in my head and my blood chock full of qi.

I take a deep breath and moan at the pleasant feeling. My muscles are having sex again. Cultivating my mind felt addicting as hell, doing the same with body and mind is an otherworldly feeling. I grin as I see the sun going down, painting the snow capped mountains orange and pink.

I feel like I forgot something though, maybe I should check on how my disciples are doing?