After returning to Thousand Birds Cliff, Xing Yan gazed at the stone house of Four Seas Residence, nestled beneath the green shade, and could not help letting out a long breath.
After a busy morning, he was at leisure again. At last, Xing Yan had some time to sit in Cloud-Sleeve Pavilion and carefully recall the wondrous state he had experienced the night before, when he absorbed and transformed heaven and earth qi.
"Last night, as my great splendor dao power flowed round and round, it seemed as though I was breathing together with the vast, boundless world!"
Gazing leisurely at the graceful flight of a few birds far out against the cloudy sky, Xing Yan found a vivid comparison for what he had felt the previous night.
"Yes, we were breathing together, breathing in the immortal spirit qi that fills heaven and earth!"
The more the boy thought about it, the more apt the comparison seemed-surely he could find no better one.
With the long daylight hours stretching ahead and nothing to occupy him, Xing Yan began, as was his habit, to follow the thought wherever it led:
"Immortal spirit qi certainly sounds fine... but just what was that immortal spirit qi I absorbed yesterday?"
Originally, such terms as "immortal spirit qi," "Heaven and earth qi," "Cosmic essence," and "essence of the sun and moon" appeared mostly in Daoist texts. Even the tales of spirits and marvels Xing Yan had once loved to read often mentioned these vague, ethereal expressions.
Yet although such usage was everywhere, and countless texts declared that, for mortals or plants, birds, and beasts wishing to become immortals or gods, finding a way to absorb heaven and earth qi and the essence of the sun and moon was a highly effective, practicable path-
Unfortunately, almost