Hou Niao began a brand-new life of cultivation in his new home. During his very first evening practice there, he swallowed a legendary Qi Gathering Pill for the first time in his life.
He had no fixation on whether to take pills or not. If everyone took them, and they really had no obvious side effects, why shouldn't he?
Among cultivators, there were those who believed pills reigned supreme, and those who followed nature and would die of old age before taking one. Those were extremes, of course. Most cultivators followed a single principle: take them when you had them, and tough it out when you didn't.
The key was still resources. Pills were nowhere near plentiful enough to be eaten like sweets, always available whenever one wanted them. That was a way of cultivating only the wealthy could afford.
Take Hou Niao, for example. He now counted as a disciple of a renowned major sect, yet even at the Qi Gathering Stage, he received only one bottle of ten Qi Gathering Pills a month. If he cultivated once each morning, noon, and evening, that would last him just over three days. Who was he supposed to turn to for the remaining twenty-odd days?
He had heard that the higher one's realm, the more precious the pills became, the harder they were to refine, and the fewer were distributed. Having them whenever one wanted depended on one's ability to earn something on the side.
As Hou Niao saw it, he would take them when he had them and wouldn't pine for them when he didn't. He would take things as they came.
The Qi Gathering Pill melted in his mouth, turning into a stream of clear qi that rushed straight into his organs. There was a faint spicy heat, as though he were holding a hot-water bottle inside his body.
The effect was quite good. His first impression was that this was something worth taking; its benefits to cultivation went without saying. His second impression, however, was rather worse, because he suddenly discovered that the vortex which invariably appeared in his Lower Dantian whenever he circulated his qi was nowhere to be found. Had it vanished?
If that thing really had disappeared and he had returned to normal, that might not be a bad thing. After all, where things departed from the ordinary, something sinister was bound to lurk. But if merely swallowing a pill interfered with the mysterious vortex's appearance, then the problem was rather thorny.
Should I take the pills or not? Should I continue the journeys through the vortex? That is the question!
It left him fretful.
He walked out of his room and gazed up at the starry sky in the courtyard, alone with his thoughts. From the neighboring courtyard came faint, intermittent singing:
"...Facing thick morning clouds, fine evening rain, and tangled peaks leaning together. Witch Gorge and Gaotang locked away the vermilion and jade of Chu's palaces. Painted halberds brought spring along; splendidly adorned, they greeted the horses, bound for the city of an entire river plain.
"Cast ten thousand miles into the wilderness, alone with only my shadow-what joy could there be? All said Southern Guizhou lay a mere foot and five from heaven. I gazed to the ends of the Divine Land, across ten thousand miles of mist and water. Wine cups in the public hall, fine gentlemen from the central court. Lychee cheeks of deepest red, musk pods brimming with fragrance."
It was a woman's voice, low and rich, with a beautiful cadence and a lingering resonance. Compared with the winding melodies and rising and falling rhythms of Anhe's songs, it held an especially desolate quality. That could not be learned; it came from the surroundings.
Each land and its waters nurtured its own people; each range and river nurtured its own feelings.
He did not investigate where the voice came from, nor did he want to know which household's woman was grieving before her mirror. Such mortal stories were growing ever more distant from him. Since he had left, he ought not to look back.
Early the next morning, as the Golden Crow leaped up, he began his morning practice. This time, he took no pill. Sure enough, the mysterious vortex appeared again.
His Divine Soul entered the Soul Realm. Before he had traveled far down the passage, he encountered a problem he had been worrying about all along: a fork appeared ahead, and he had no idea which path was the right one.
He had no basis for judging!
Over these past days, he had killed more than a hundred wandering souls. Each time he killed one, he could strengthen himself by absorbing it, but what he absorbed was only energy, not consciousness. The consciousness of these lowly wandering souls was itself muddled and chaotic, without any order to speak of. All that remained was the instinct to kill.
That meant he could not gain any understanding of this Soul Realm by absorbing their energy.
If this was a maze, his only choice was to always take the left-hand path, or always take the right-hand path. Eventually, he would find his way out. It was a very clumsy method, but it would ensure he did not miss the correct path.
Of the two branches, he chose the left, leaving a complex mark unique to him at the fork before departing. Hopefully, this place would not change at any moment. Otherwise, this truly would be a path he could never find his way through.
Another soul form appeared ahead. He cautiously took his stance, no longer carried away as he had been after slaying the Sword Soul, thinking he could sweep through this place unopposed.
For he had discovered that the wandering souls appearing here were also quietly growing stronger. Did they grow in accordance with his own increasing strength, or was this simply how the Soul Realm worked, its challenges growing ever stronger?
If he wanted to make it all the way down this soul path, just how powerful would the strongest wandering soul he encountered be?
He could not charge ahead with his eyes shut, because many of the wandering souls now not only wielded weapons, but also used spells! Others had exceptionally tough soul forms. It was like the real cultivation world, with its Dao cultivators, demonic cultivators, sword cultivators, bone cultivators, body cultivators, blood cultivators, and so on. The Soul Realm was now developing in that direction too.
Before engaging, he could not predict what sort of thing he had encountered.
As the two sides cautiously tested each other, the distance gradually closed. The wandering soul opened its mouth and spat a ball of flame at him...
A Dao cultivator! Hou Niao ducked beneath the flames and shot forward close to the ground. As he charged, his body swayed constantly from side to side, dodging successive blasts of fire. One still grazed him, making his soul state unstable, but he could endure all that!
Only when he drew close did he suddenly leap up and bring his sword down!
He had to admit that his swordplay was becoming increasingly simple and vicious. His attacks were concealed, unfathomable even to ghosts and gods. Once he closed in, Dao cultivators like this one could almost never escape his overhead slash.
This time, however, there was a surprise! Seeing him leap up at close range, the wandering soul neither dodged nor evaded. Instead, its soul light flared, and its soul form suddenly floated forward. It swung a fist in an incomparably savage punch, nearly smashing the airborne Hou Niao into pieces.
Not a Dao cultivator-a body cultivator! Those flames weren't a spell either, but a Divine Ability! Or was this a Dao cultivator who liked practicing his punches?
He knew he could not retreat. Otherwise, he would have to repeat that dangerous approach, and he did not even know whether he could hold out long enough to reach this fellow again.
Fists and swift sword strikes flew together, their soul forms locked in an inextricable tangle. Hou Niao could no longer remember how many punches he had taken, but he knew very clearly how many sword strikes his opponent had suffered!
It was a grim struggle that left both sides devastated. When his opponent's soul form was sliced to fragments and dispersed like smoke and clouds, he too was in scattered pieces, no longer resembling a soul. Both returned to nothingness.
Opening his eyes, Hou Niao awoke from the Soul Realm. He suddenly realized that he seemed unable to do without such exhilarating, all-out battles anymore. So, to hell with the pills!
That was the decision he made. He had swallowed the first pill of his life, and it would also be his last.
I'll just keep moving forward, plain and simple. Why do something I dislike for the sake of speed?
...To learn the Dao, seek no marvels; nonaction surpasses action. Let qi flow evenly, unbroken; with a still heart, all naturally grows clear and calm.