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At twenty, a man still frittered his days away, his dream of azure heights yet an unfulfilled bough. Away from home, the years slipped easily by; back home, he could hardly stay, as though merely passing through. Sails flew through Shan Kingdom, damp with wind and waves; horses crossed Blue Pass through plentiful rain and snow. Long had he entrusted his service and seclusion to Heaven's way, yet what Heaven's way was, he did not know.
With a large bundle on his back, Hou Niao headed straight out of the Divine Capital's north gate and began his new life.
He was not sure how far he could travel down this road, so he could only take one step and see what came next. Others crossed the river by feeling for stones; he now had to cross it by feeling for the Demonic Sect.
He did not want to dwell on everything that had happened before. Thinking about it would do no good. He had not yet fully entered the Dao, but he had already discovered that cultivation was nothing like what he had imagined.
Never distinguish the people of this world simply as good or bad, enemies or benefactors. It was precisely this that would make the path of studying the Dao all the richer and more colorful.
Instead of riding a horse, he chartered a small black-canopied boat. He did not need to hurry, but he did need a quiet stretch of time to sort through the enormous changes that had happened to him over the past month.
The Anhe Kingdom had an extensive network of waterways. Most places could be reached by oar, with at most a short walk after going ashore. But his northward journey to the Liuyang border took him upstream, making it comparatively time-consuming. He did not mind.
Daoist Chongling had imposed no requirements, and the Demonic Sect's mass recruitment also allowed plenty of time.
The boatman, Old Qi, and his son took turns at the oar. Sitting cross-legged beneath the low black canopy, Hou Niao opened the bundle the Daoist had given him.
Ten glittering low-grade Spirit Stones, a bottle containing twenty Qi Gathering Pills, a set of ten low-grade basic spirit talismans, and three basic qi gathering cultivation methods-that was everything.
These things amounted to little in the eyes of genuine Daoist disciples, but to Hou Niao, they were a windfall. It was almost embarrassing to admit: in all his years of cultivation, he had never used even these lowest-grade items of the cultivation world. The commonly available goods he could afford were mostly shoddily made, inferior products intended specifically for penniless rogue cultivators like him.
The Spirit Stones were defective, the pills lacked potency and might even have side effects, and the spirit talismans had limited power and could hurt their users if handled improperly. They were simply incomparable to these genuine Daoist Sect goods.
But at his current stage, those Spirit Stones, pills, and talismans were actually of no use to him. Spirit Stones had considerable purchasing power, but he could not think of anything he needed to buy right now. He could swallow the pills but could not absorb them, because he could not draw in qi. As for the talismans, he could not activate them. The tiny amount of spiritual power in his body was negligible, far below the minimum needed to activate a talisman.
That was his reality. His only advantage over ordinary mortals was that he could sense spiritual energy.
The only truly useful things were the three basic qi gathering cultivation methods: Joining the Same, Tracing the Source; Supreme Lord Daoyin; and Dragon-Tiger Convergence.
Of these, Joining the Same, Tracing the Source and Supreme Lord Daoyin drew qi in through the middle dantian, while Dragon-Tiger Convergence drew it in through the lower dantian. That was the difference.
Hou Niao had cultivated for years. Though he had made not an inch of progress, he had read plenty of Daoist books. A large portion of his family's wealth had gone toward them. In a world where books themselves counted as wealth, few ordinary people were as willing to spend as he was.
According to the Daoist Canon, the brain was the sea of marrow, the upper dantian; the heart was the crimson fire, the middle dantian; three inches below the navel lay the lower dantian.
The lower dantian was the repository of essence; the middle dantian was the repository of qi; the upper dantian was the repository of spirit.
Beginners in Daoist cultivation generally cultivated the middle or lower dantian. The upper dantian was for refining the spirit. Without a strong body, a low-level cultivator's spirit could not develop, making practice useless.
In terms of position, the lower and middle dantian were separated by the Purple Mansion, with neither superior to nor preceding the other. But the middle and upper dantian were separated by the Twelve-Storied Tower, and that was a fundamental difference.
Hou Niao had also accumulated several qi gathering methods, all relatively crude versions commonly available on the market, in all their variety. To be honest, he had no idea which was good. He had failed to achieve anything with any of them.
It had to be said that although the qi gathering cultivation methods Daoist Chongling had prepared for him were the most basic, they were also the most balanced and temperate, the safest, and the most broadly applicable. Put simply, even if practicing them did not bring success, it probably would not do any harm.
This was probably why the Daoist Sect had so many disciples. They sought neither speed nor power, only foundations, advancing one step at a time.
Naturally, he would now focus on these three methods. As for which one would actually work, he could only try them one by one. After years of failed cultivation, he really did not have much confidence in this regard.
It was the first night of his boat journey. After traveling for half a day, the black-canopied boat moored at a ferry landing called Maple Bridge. A gentle breeze stirred, a bright moon hung overhead, and an ethereal mood suffused the scene.
Faint singing drifted across the river:
Rain whispered over the road at dawn; leaves drifted through the river country.
In the cold, the wild geese cried urgently; late in the year, the traveler's road stretched far.
Birds withdrew before the journeying sail; fish leaped, startled by the swinging oar.
Where would the lonely boat lodge tonight? Beneath a frosty moon, moored at Maple Bridge.
This was the mortal world, yet he was about to leave such a world far behind.
...His mind sensed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. He was already very familiar with these little things. They were like countless fireflies dancing around him, but he simply could not catch these little sprites, could not guide them into his body and make them his own.
His eyes were slightly closed, his lids drooping naturally, just enough that he could see what lay before him without distinguishing it clearly.
His ears shut out all outside interference, as though he had entered a realm where every sound lay still, gathering his focus to listen to his breathing.
This was standard knowledge for seated Daoist cultivation: do not listen with the ears, but with the heart; do not listen with the heart, but with qi.
Then heaven and earth united to send down sweet dew, and a cool, sweet fluid naturally formed in the mouth.
In other words, saliva.
This fluid arose from refining the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and was far more nourishing than ordinary saliva. Once it filled the mouth, it was sent to the throat and swallowed with an extension of the neck, making an audible gurgle. This could also help one enter stillness.
When first beginning Daoist cultivation, there was no point talking grandly about meridians. The best medium for internal bodily practice was the spit everyone possessed. With spiritual energy, it was nourishing fluid; without it, mere saliva.
That was why Daoists never spat at one another when they argued. They could not bear to waste it!
Daoists called it "the wine of longevity," saying, "Drinking my own wine of longevity, who could know my carefree ease?" After circulating qi for long enough, it became natural. Even without conscious guidance, the breath would return to the dantian of its own accord, as though drawn by a force. The bellows had opened.
Ordinarily, one needed only to keep a faint awareness on the dantian, still breathing through it. Exhale ever so gently, inhale in an unbroken thread, as though present yet absent, as though existing yet not. Only then was it true breathing.
As one's cultivation advanced, the fluid grew incomparably sweeter. Who but a cultivator could know it? Only when circulating spiritual energy no longer required the fluid's assistance, when one could instead draw spiritual energy directly into the body to temper the meridians, had one truly entered the qi gathering realm.
This was precisely the threshold where Hou Niao had become stuck. His saliva remained saliva and could never become nourishing fluid, and so his years had slipped away.
Following the method of Joining the Same, Tracing the Source, he slowly stirred the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. To his surprise, this time those little spiritual sprites no longer rejected him, instead flying obediently toward him. With every breath, he could take in a great mouthful of spiritual energy and swallow it down with his saliva...
He was engulfed by tremendous, delighted surprise. It was this simple? Unbelievably simple! Was this the marvel of an orthodox Daoist Sect cultivation method?
Once the initial surge of surprise had passed and reason returned, he felt it necessary to verify this. Cultivation could not be a matter of stumbling into success. Knowing what happened and also knowing why-that was the proper attitude toward cultivation.
So he switched methods and began using Supreme Lord Daoyin... It still worked perfectly!
Then he tried Dragon-Tiger Convergence. Drawing qi in through the lower dantian worked just as well!
Beginning to understand something, he changed methods again, using the commonplace methods he had collected over the years... Yes, their qi gathering effects were indeed inferior to those of the orthodox Daoist Sect methods, but there was no fundamental difference. He could still draw in spiritual energy!
Then he understood. It was not a matter of cultivation methods at all. His body itself had changed!
Joy filled his heart. The shackles that had troubled him for years were gone. How could that not leave his heart open and his spirit refreshed?
...There was a thing whose body held spirit, nameless, rooted in nature. The red dragon hid within the cosmos; the white tiger lay concealed in the dantian. Beneath the Northern Dipper and southern stars, eyebrows aided the edges of the lashes. With a heart like cold ashes, circulate water and fire; still the breath and behold the true lead.