Gathering Qi

Recreate the golden age of Kan Water?!

Liu Zhijian was just an angler; he had no such lofty ambitions.

If, in his lifetime, he could fish for flood dragons in rivers and dragons in the sea, becoming an incredibly formidable angler, he would be utterly content and have no regrets in this life.

It was just that this ideal was rather petty.

Liu Zhijian kept it to himself, not daring to say it aloud for fear of being laughed at. With a couple of awkward chuckles, he asked, "Master, may I ask how I should gather Clear Qi Above the River?"

Li Chengxuan took out a Jade Slip he had prepared long ago. "This is the Qi Gathering Method. It also contains quite a few annotations and accounts of experience from the sect's seniors."

"It's just that the Old Method is no longer in vogue, and gathering Qi is difficult these days."

"Remember, the experience of those who came before can only serve as a reference."

Liu Zhijian nodded in assent, accepted the Jade Slip, and went to a side hall.

"This is way too long..."

Liu Zhijian picked up the Jade Slip and touched it lightly to his brow, only to feel a vast flood of information being stuffed into his mind.

If he hadn't already opened his meridians and been full of spirit and vitality, he feared he would have fainted.

"No need to study it. It gets poured straight into your head."

"If I'd had this on Earth, I could have gotten into college one way or another..."

The strange thought flashed through his mind.

Liu Zhijian carefully sorted through the Qi Gathering Method.

The imagery of Kan Water lay in rivers and streams, in rushing water.

Rivers and streams had their clarity and muddiness, their flourishing and decline.

Clear Qi Above the River naturally drew on the imagery of "clarity."

"This Qi Gathering Method has ancient origins."

"Back then, many cultivators secluded themselves from the world to cultivate, and prized clarity."

"So the Qi they gathered also had to embody 'purity and clarity, still waters running deep.'"

Liu Zhijian savored the words. "That suits my temperament."

When he was on Earth, Liu Zhijian had visited Tiger Leaping Gorge. The vast, surging force of the water had been truly awe-inspiring.

But Liu Zhijian was steady and taciturn, far from having such a fierce temperament.

"But these requirements are just ridiculous."

Liu Zhijian had scarcely had a moment to be happy before he said in disbelief, "What do you mean, 'find the clearest spot in the river, and on a day without wind or rain, draw water to refine Qi'?!"

Having read the sect's records and gone down the mountain to gain experience, Liu Zhijian considered himself to have some understanding of the Southern Edge Continent.

Take the White Dragon River alone. It surged onward in a mighty torrent for far more than ten thousand li, didn't it?

How was anyone supposed to find the clearest water in a river that long? Wasn't that asking the impossible?!

"No wonder Master said gathering Qi was difficult, and could sometimes take years or even decades!"

"A river never stops flowing. It changes every moment."

"Where the water is clearest has become a question for the metaphysicians."

Liu Zhijian felt a deep headache coming on. He could only set the Qi Gathering Method aside for the moment and look at the lessons learned by the sect's seniors.

"This senior was clever. He went straight to the source of the river. Great minds think alike."

"What?!"

"There wasn't enough water at the source, so he could only gather Lesser Qi."

Liu Zhijian had read the records long ago.

Proper Qi was a great road reaching the heavens.

Mixed Qi was a fork in the road, and where it led was entirely up to luck.

Lesser Qi was simply a dead end. Once you reached Qi Refining, there was nowhere left to go.

Unless he had no other choice, Liu Zhijian certainly wouldn't consider Lesser Qi.

Liu Zhijian took a deep breath and patiently continued.

"This senior went to the river mouth, but unfortunately, it was tainted by Confluence Water, so he could only gather Mixed Qi."

"And this one struck out on a different path. He planted vegetation all along both banks and taught and transformed the people, hoping to create the imagery of 'clear rivers and tranquil seas.' After twenty years of hard work, he failed to gather Clear Qi of the River Water, but by a strange twist of fate, he gathered half a portion of Mortal Realm Emperor Qi instead."

"..."

The stories of the sect's seniors failing to gather Qi truly came in all shapes and sizes, each more colorful than the last.

Yet the seniors who had succeeded in gathering Qi had mostly left only a few brief lines.

Some had advised their juniors not to rush after quick results.

Some had reflected on how their ten years of hard work had finally fulfilled their wishes.

One senior had even left a note saying he had found an excellent shortcut to gathering Qi, but there was too little space left in the Jade Slip, so he couldn't fit it in and wouldn't write it down.

Reading that made Liu Zhijian want to curse.

Three days later.

Liu Zhijian finally decided to leave the side hall and seek Li Chengxuan's guidance. "Master, may I ask why the Jade Slip gives such detailed accounts of failures, yet remains vague about the details of successful Qi gathering, even... deliberately concealing them?!"

Li Chengxuan smiled when he heard this and asked, "Have you understood the Dao principles of gathering Qi?"

"Of course."

Liu Zhijian nodded and replied, "There's nothing difficult about that."

"Come to think of it, it's much like finding a fishing spot."

"First, you pick a stretch of water, then look it over carefully, and finally settle on the place with the most fish."

"But rivers are so long, and fish swim around. How can you be sure where that is?!"

Li Chengxuan nodded slightly. "That's a good comparison."

"If I told you directly where the most fish were, what would you do?"

Liu Zhijian had a vague feeling something was wrong, but he still blurted out what was on his mind. "I'd go straight there and start fishing. It would save me a lot of trouble."

Li Chengxuan made no comment and continued, "But are you the only angler in the world?"

"Of course not."

Liu Zhijian shook his head, recalling the famous fishing spots from his previous life. Fishing rods had stood like a forest, with more people than fish, packed so tightly together that the sight made his scalp tingle.

That was precisely why Liu Zhijian had resolved to travel across the country to fish, going only to wild rivers and ponds rather than joining the crowds.

At that thought, Liu Zhijian froze, looking thoughtful.

That was right.

If the place to gather Qi in a river were fixed at a certain spot, then every cultivator in the world who wanted to cultivate Kan Water would probably go there to gather Qi.

Even those who didn't cultivate Kan Water would go to join the crowd; they could always sell the Qi after gathering it.

In the Purple Mansion Golden Core Dao, cultivation placed great importance on imagery.

In a place swarming with people and choked with foul air, even if one really succeeded in gathering Qi, could it still be called Clear Qi of the River Water?

Though Liu Zhijian still had no idea how to gather Qi, he inexplicably felt more settled. A little ashamed, he said, "I was too impatient."

Li Chengxuan said no more on that and continued his guidance. "This applies not only to gathering Qi, but even more so to your cultivation in the future."

"For a Dao lineage, the most important thing is its Dao principles, not its techniques."

"Dao principles are obscure, and ten million people will have ten million interpretations."

"Even among those cultivating the same Dao lineage, cultivators' differing understandings of its principles will lead to vastly different techniques, Immortal Foundations, and Divine Abilities."

"Conversely, if everyone who cultivated the same Dao lineage ended up the same, wouldn't that be frightening?"

Comprehension dawned on Liu Zhijian, and he said in heartfelt admiration, "Thank you for the lesson, Master."

Liu Zhijian calmed his mind and stopped looking through the seniors' annotations for traces of a shortcut. Instead, he earnestly reread the Dao principles concerning Kan Water and felt he had gained quite a lot.

"When all is said and done, this cultivation does have an element of idealism to it."

"As long as an understanding of the Dao principles is logically consistent, it's most likely right."

"If you really followed the path of those before you and cultivated without deviating in the slightest, that would put you in the Lower Vehicle instead."

"Looking at it that way, the ideas behind the Old Method aren't outdated at all. They encourage innovation instead. I wonder how it declined to its present state."

Having put his thoughts in order, Liu Zhijian went down the mountain once more to gather Qi.

The Patriarch Hall.

Li Chengxuan was still breathing in and out Spiritual Qi and circulating it through his body.

With the Two Worlds Pearl's power to travel between worlds, Li Chengxuan tempered his heart amid the mortal worlds of both realms, and his Dao attainment grew rapidly.

But his cultivation had to be honed bit by bit; there was no room to cut corners.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Li Chengxuan opened his eyes.

The Two Worlds Pearl was trembling faintly.

Hua Chunning was calling him from Earth.