The night wind blew in from the mouth of the valley, brushing across my face. I opened my eyes. The spirit beast was still lying beside me, breathing steadily. That round of meditation had completely stabilized the spiritual energy within me. There was no longer any sluggishness in my meridians; instead, they flowed smoothly like a dredged riverbed.
I slowly rose to my feet. My legs were still a little numb, but I could stand steadily now. I looked up at the protruding platform on the cliff wall—that was the place. Ever since breaking through yesterday, I had wanted to try ascending into the air. I felt better than ever now, my spiritual energy abundant and my divine sense clear. The time was right.
"Let's go," I said to the spirit beast.
It lifted its head, its ears twitching. Without making a sound, it slowly followed me up the slope. One after the other, we climbed onto the stone platform. Loose gravel covered the ground, making it slippery underfoot. I stood at the edge and looked out at the distant sky. The clouds had parted, revealing brilliant blue skies. A few birds swept over the ridge, their wings tracing arcs through the air.
I remembered. Back in the modern world, I often watched birds fly too. I had always thought they were free and unrestrained. Now that I had cultivation and enough power within me, why couldn't I leave the ground like them?
I took a deep breath and pressed lightly with both feet, gathering all my spiritual energy beneath them. The energy in my dantian surged rapidly, rushing up through my meridians and straight into my legs. I could feel that hot current accelerating, condensing.
The next moment, I lightly tapped the ground.
My body left the earth.
At first, it went smoothly. I slowly rose to about a meter above the ground. Wind passed beneath my feet, and the hem of my clothes fluttered. I continued driving my spiritual energy, trying to rise higher.
Two meters, three meters... By around four meters, my ascent clearly slowed. I increased my output, forcing seventy percent of my spiritual energy into it. My body rose another short distance, barely reaching five meters.
Then I stopped.
No matter how I circulated my spiritual energy, I could not rise even a fraction higher. Worse still, the energy within me began draining rapidly, like water leaking from a punctured bag. A faint swelling pain came from my meridians, as if they were ropes being forcibly stretched.
I gritted my teeth and held on, wanting to last a little longer.
But in less than three breaths, the spiritual energy beneath my feet suddenly broke apart. My body dropped sharply, falling straight down.
I reacted quickly enough to adjust my posture just before landing, bending my knees to absorb the impact. Even so, the force made my ankles go numb, and I staggered several steps before steadying myself. My knees buckled, and I dropped to one knee, gasping.
The spirit beast immediately came over and gently bumped my arm with its head.
"I'm fine." I waved it off and reached out to stroke its horn. "Let me try again."
This time, I changed my approach and stopped trying to rush upward all at once. I tried rising in stages—first to two meters, stabilizing myself, then continuing. It went fairly well at first, and I even maintained three meters for several breaths. But when I tried to break past the fourth meter, the same thing happened again—my spiritual energy disconnected, and my body fell.
This time, I hit the ground harder. My right knee slammed directly onto the stone, and I had to brace myself with one hand to keep from pitching forward. A metallic sweetness rose in my throat, but I swallowed it back down.
The spirit beast crouched beside me. The runes on its horn flickered faintly, as though it was about to release some kind of energy. I raised a hand to stop it. "Don't help me. This is a hurdle I have to overcome myself."
It stopped moving and watched me quietly.
I lowered my head and looked at my hands. My fingertips were still trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the natural reaction after exhausting too much spiritual energy. Those two attempts had used up more than sixty percent of the energy in my body. Logically, at my current level of cultivation, I should not have depleted myself so quickly.
I closed my eyes and recalled the feeling of each ascent.
The first rise had been the easiest, but the higher I went, the greater the resistance became. At around five meters, it felt as if I had struck an invisible barrier. No matter how hard I pushed, I could not pass through it. And that resistance did not seem to come from the outside—it felt more like it was arising from within me.
Could it be... that I was doing something wrong?
As I thought about it, the system interface suddenly appeared in my sea of consciousness. It had remained silent until now, yet it proactively displayed a line of text:
[Detected consecutive flight attempt failures] [Analyzing...]
A few seconds later, new information appeared:
[Conclusion: Current total spiritual energy has reached the basic threshold for aerial movement, but its compression is insufficient to form sustained lift] [Lacking guidance from an aerial-movement technique, the spiritual energy circulation route does not conform to the laws of flight] [Foundation not yet fully solidified. Forcing ascent may cause spiritual energy backlash. Breakthrough attempt temporarily not recommended]
I stared at those lines for a long time.
So it was not that I lacked strength, but that my method was wrong. I had always thought that as long as my spiritual energy was strong enough, I could fly. But now it seemed that strength alone was useless—I also had to know how to use it.
It was like learning to ride a bicycle as a child. Pedaling hard was not enough; I also had to learn balance.
I gave a bitter laugh and looked into the distance.
Just then, a Golden-winged Great Peng swept across the horizon. Its wings stretched dozens of zhang wide, tearing through the clouds as it shot into the sky. Its flight was extraordinarily stable, every beat of its wings carrying a rhythm as if it were connected to the breath of heaven and earth.
And me? Even with all my strength, I could not even fly steadily at five meters.
The gap was far too great.
I slowly withdrew my gaze, clenched my fist, then loosened it. I really did feel a little upset. I had just broken through and was in such good condition, yet I could not even manage the most basic act of lifting off. The feeling of falling from such heights was heavier than hitting the ground.
But I did not make a third attempt.
I knew that trying again would only waste spiritual energy. The problem was not how hard I worked, but that I was heading in the wrong direction.
I stood up, dusted the dirt from my clothes, and said to the spirit beast, "Let's go back."
It did not move, only looked up at me.
"I shouldn't have been so eager to fly," I said. "I broke through and immediately wanted to rush upward, but I forgot that the road beneath my feet was not yet solid."
After saying that, I turned and walked deeper into the valley.
My steps were much slower than before, but each one was more steady. The spirit beast followed behind me, its hoofbeats light.
When I returned to the edge of the stone platform, I sat cross-legged again with my back against the vine-covered rock wall. I placed my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and began regulating my breath.
This time, it was not to improve or break through. I simply wanted to properly sense how the spiritual energy within me flowed—where it departed from the dantian, which main meridians it passed through, how its branches spread, where it turned quickly, and where it became obstructed.
The system interface still floated in my sea of consciousness. Though the answer function remained grayed out, the basic monitoring had recovered. I brought up the spiritual energy circulation chart and adjusted my rhythm according to the data while circulating the Lesser Heavenly Cycle.
In the past, I had relied too heavily on the techniques and guidance provided by the system, always wanting to grow stronger quickly through rewards. But today's fall made me understand that some things could not be given by others. I had to explore them little by little on my own.
For example, how to compress spiritual energy more densely, how to make every circulation more efficient, and how to build my foundation so solid that it could not collapse.
The spirit beast lay to my right, its head resting on its front hooves. It did not glow again or make any sound. It simply stayed quietly by my side.
My breathing slowed as my mind sank into my body.
The first cycle moved very slowly, advancing almost inch by inch. Whenever I encountered a node, I stopped and carefully felt the changes in pressure there. The second cycle was a little faster, but I still controlled the rhythm. By the third, the flow of spiritual energy gradually became smoother, no longer as impatient as before.
I did not know how long I would need to practice like this.
Maybe one day, maybe ten. But before I could truly fly, I had to make this step steady first.
The sun gradually sank westward, and light slanted in through the mouth of the valley, falling across the stone platform. My shadow stretched long, reaching all the way to the spirit beast's side.
It suddenly moved, its ears pricking up as it looked toward the valley entrance.
I did not open my eyes, but my senses had already spread outward.
The wind direction had not changed, the flow of spiritual energy was normal, and there was no unusual presence nearby.
A few seconds later, it turned back and lightly touched my wrist with its nose.
I opened my eyes.
Its gaze was clear. It was neither a warning nor unease, merely a look of confirmation. I looked at it, and it looked back at me.
Then it lowered its head, lay down again, and rested its head on its front hooves.
I looked down at my wrist. The folds in the fabric at my cuff resembled my still-unsettled state of mind. Under my gentle touch, those marks left by the wind seemed to gain warmth as well. The night wind brushed past me again, carrying the valley's unique chill.