Chapter 12 – Me and the homies straight cultivating

 “Breakthroughs and Eurekas are based on the same principle. When one knows and has trained with a group of ideas, to the point of being aware of a large enough set of details, the whole thing falls into place, like combining two halves of a puzzle. The bigger the puzzle the more satisfying the feeling.” - Qian Qianfang teaching his students

Vera was ostensibly tired. Although she was a spirit, spending Soulforce was somehow tiring.

“You want to be imbued with Soulforce?” The dragon asked.

Vera was thinking about that, ‘On the one hand I really want to try it out, on the other hand, what if there...’ She was cut off in her train of thought by the dragon “There are no side effects.”

‘It’s annoying enough when you read them, don’t jump in.’ He waited patiently ‘Also, how do I call you? I need a name to complain about.’

That raised another chuckle from the chuckling dragon.

“You can call me Qian Qianfang.” The dragon looked like he was smiling.

‘Did the God-Emperor steal your name?’ Vera instantly thought.

“No, I am one of his Spirit Anchors. To be completely honest, he himself created the ranks beyond Jade Emperor, giving everyone annoying challenges, setting Anchors in the spirit world.”

‘How autonomous are you then?’ Vera learned that nothing made him angry, ‘Not like I’ve tried to hard to anger him though.’

“Yes, you have been pretty cordial. And besides not being able to leave this dimension, and not being allowed to teach cultivation to people, who haven’t completed my trial, I am very autonomous.”

‘That is pretty restrictive though.’ Vera mused. ‘Well, how about that Soulforce Qian? I’m really tired and I need a pick-me-up.’

As she started to fill up with Soulforce, a pleasant feeling washed over her. She was just as sleepy as she had been before, but her tiredness was gone completely.

“Thank you.” she stood up ‘On that note, I don’t think I can call you Qian Qianfang, so you’ll be the Chuckling Dragon.’

Another zing, like the one before, traveled down the dragons body, speeding up and creating a blinding light from every direction.

“Let’s get back to training Sweetheart, Chuckling Dragon.” She chuckled at the name she had given him herself.

“This has been a terrifying foray into the way ripples from your existence would shape the Spirit Realm, should you ever claim one of the upper Emperor ranks.” The dragon supplied quickly.

Vera entered into her Soul Realm and started funneling Qi from the Chuckling Dragon into Sweetheart, and stopping at regular intervals. Each time she stopped she got a small response, like discomfort and each time it seemed to be more familiar to the feeling of Qi passing through it.

‘Good for you, little rotter, it still feels completely alien to me. I suppose that’s the price of not having a body.’

She did it about a hundred and seventy times and she had exhausted her supply of Soulforce. She became somewhat frustrated, her sleepiness, tiredness and general exhaustion deepening.

“More Soulforce.” Vera said it in an almost crying voice.

As the Chuckling Dragon supplied it, she realized ‘None of the Body Realm techniques I used to have, apply anymore.’ The Dragon had already felt the loss of ‘Unrelenting Fight’, ‘Placated World’ and the biggest offender ‘Patient Student’, maybe even a hint of ‘Overcome Desire’ or ‘Clear Mind’.

It’s not like she worked towards increasing the ranks of these techniques all the time, but because of her all-over-the-placedness, they naturally had a lot more work to do with her, than other people with larger inclinations to be calm and collected.

Any technique one learned could become stronger by long-term use and just like learning the technique for the first time, you could have Eureka moments to obtain the next rank.

Outside of the three cardinal magical techniques, the others, and their evolutions, weren’t given that much importance. Even though they brought with them interesting side-effects, these were almost always tiny changes.

Runecraft, Alchemy and Soulcraft, the three cardinal magics, were different, as they were representations of the most powerful techniques known to cultivators, they were given special importance and taught as soon as possible in both the old and ‘new’ style.

Vera was always pretty good at Soulcraft, middling at best at Alchemy and underwhelming at Runecraft. The latter two of which were closely combined most of the time, but out here, where Vera was a spirit, she didn’t have access to Runecraft, and her limits to Alchemy, by lack of Qi handling, were pretty much at zero. Not like she could invent half the Alchemical equipment she was familiar with anyways.

She went back to supplying small amounts of Qi from the Chuckling dragon to the bacteria in spurts that lasted a couple seconds. After doing it almost mindlessly for the better part of an hour before she ended it and felt the backterias Qi, which was represented as green in the Soul Realm. It wasn’t the almost teal green of the dragon, the Qi from the bacteria was yellowish, but clearly not Soulforce anymore.

Unlike her, the little rascals could do Runecraft. Well not yet, but they had potential.

‘Double cultivation, huh.’ ‘It feels weird, but at the same time it’s so satisfying, seeing your work advance.’

She slowed the small grain of Qi slowly traveling towards her, through the link between the two of them. And then, she nudged it straight back to the bacteria.

“You’ll need more of those, kid.”

Vera was exhausted, even though all the resources she’d been using for the past two hours were from the dragon.

“Hey dragon.” She said trying to make a point, as she laid down on the grass, that was oh so comfortable. ‘Bacteria aren’t people right?’

“No they wouldn’t qualify as people.” The dragon answered, with a hint of chimes.

“That means you can train my bacteria in cultivation!” Vera exclaimed.

“That doesn’t seem to violate any of my rules and it will probably be more efficient than whatever you have planned.” Vera seemed giddy from that answer “But as I said, I can’t solve the problem, so everything I teach your bacteria pet, will be the most traditional of ‘old’-school cultivation.”

“That’s… yawn… fine.” She smacked her lip and soon enough, Vera was taken by sleep again.

********

‘Good morning Chuckling Dragon.’ Vera thought as she saw the dragon’s body above her.

“Good morning to you too, your ‘friend’ is progressing well enough.”

‘How long have I been asleep?’

“It’s been another two days.” Vera was becoming used to communicating with her mind.

‘Let’s see the progress in the Soul Realm and then, I will be going out to see what this place is like.’

Vera entered the Soul Realm, to see not only had the sphere of strings that moved like tentacles coalesce. It seemed much more similar to the Soul Realm of a human, it looked almost like a sphere, and there were four squares and seven rectangles, each of which had a single band flowing out of them.

They were deftly picking up specs of Soulforce from the rich environment.

That’s when she noticed another Soulforce source in her Soul Realm, a perfect oval roughly twice as far and quite a bit above the ‘Sweetheart’ signature. She recognized it as the Chuckling Dragon. It Shone with a beautiful intensity like the sun. Not quite enough for her to feel blinded by it, but enough that she didn’t want to stay ‘staring’ inside the Soul Realm.

She noticed that the band going off of one of the squares of her bacteria was in fact connected to the Chuckling Dragon, another was connected to her. ‘Does that mean he has 2 more connections I don’t know about?’

“Yes he does.” The Chuckling Dragon chuckled inside the Soul Realm. ‘Now I have nowhere to hide again.’ Vera half-complained half-joked at the dragon.

“He’s started learning Runecraft, and bound himself to the mushroom he’s inhabiting along with the Spirit-Sakura tree itself. He was already bound to you, and his bond with me has been created by multiple interactions along with you throwing my Qi into him.”

“You know, you could also bind yourself to a Spirit Anchor, such as the Sakura tree. It’s definitely a good idea if you’re going to wander.”

‘How would I go about that, if I can’t do Runecraft.’

“Soulcraft can always do the same thing you can do with Runecraft or Alchemy, it’s just more convoluted, as the rules of Soulcraft are most open to interpretation. How convoluted Soulcraft is, causes Spirits to be hard to understand, as their deeper understanding of Soulcraft warps their minds.”

‘I thought he couldn’t teach me.’ Vera japed again.

“Of course I can’t, however I have read all your memories, and I can repeat anything anyone ever said to you. Even if the sentences had over a year of time between them.” Vera was embarrassed even though she couldn’t flush in her Soul Realm, her thoughts came out ‘Even all the times I’ve gotten hot from watching Sweetheart multiply?’ She tried to put her hands on her mouth but she was in her Soul Realm, doubtless a byproduct of losing ‘Clear Mind’.

The dragon just chuckled again, instead of answering.

‘This is a complete disaster. What has my life become?’

“Well you ARE a spirit now. Until a spirits’ place of Origin, or the spirit itself gets destroyed they will live eternally.”

‘More of my memories?’

“Yup.” The dragon chuckled again.

‘I do like the sound of him chuckling.’ Vera had a realization.

She said as she left the Soul Realm.

“That was a bit dramatic, but you forgot that I’m still here, no matter how quickly you do the first thing you thought of, I will know at the same time.”

It was no use getting angry, but Vera did anyway. The calming aura of that place quickly diffused it though.

‘That calming thing is kind of annoying.’ Vera tried to be annoyed for real, but it didn’t last long.

“Isn’t it better to calm down fast?” The dragon asked chuckling again.

‘No, it feels unfulfilling, feeling feelings for a very short time.’

“But wasn’t that what your cultivation also did to you?”

‘Reducing feeling intensity is not the same as cutting a feeling short.’

“Well, I can’t stop that either.” He said chuckling again.

Vera wanted a change of scenery, so she went to the Spirit-Sakura tree first.

It was pretty small, all things considered, but that wouldn’t stop her from climbing up it. As a child she enjoyed climbing up trees close to her house and reading books in them.

All-in-all the tree was not that tall, and it didn’t buck under her weight at all, making the climb easier.

“I mean you could have flown up there as well.” The dragon supplied.

‘Haven’t climbed a tree in years.’

At the top of the tree, Vera moved to the topmost branches. Even birds didn’t usually sit down on these and yet, the weightless Vera stood on top of them as if there was nothing.

The number of Sakura petals flowing around her had increased and the Sun and the golden dragon took on a tinge of Orange.

The whole scene around her felt completely different and then the moment passed.

“Well well, look who just skipped to the Soul-Wielding stage. You have just become an old-school cultivator.”

The dragon chuckled “Although I do remember someone saying ‘I’d be Soul-Wielding or even half-step to Nascent-Soul’.” The dragon laughed heartily and the sound of gongs created a real harmony with another resonating zing passing over the Golden Dragon’s body.

Vera was in a state of serene glee, intoxicated on a sensation she couldn't quite put to words. It felt amazing. The satisfaction of advancing a rank was many times more intense, but not only that, in that moment she skipped over the Unlocking the Soul-Realm, Soulcraft Handling and Soulforce-Sieve stages, straight to a completed Soul-Wielding stage.

The moment of serenity, contentedness with the world, and complete fulfillment lasted only a couple seconds, but Vera felt like she spent her whole life to get to this moment.

And then, then it was gone. Vera returned to her senses. Getting pulled back in created a stark contrast between reality and the cultivators high which caused her to find the experience’s end extremely jarring.

She calmed down fast enough as multiple realizations and understandings of the working of the Soul Realm had flooded her ‘Mind’s Gate’ the replacement for a brain that she had access to thanks to her cultivation.

A pang of satisfaction passed through her as her Mind’s Gate closed again, and in that feeling she created a Spirit Anchor at the Spirit-Sakura tree. It was a simple procedure, the importance of the moment and the importance of this world for her life had made it simple, that is.

“Even though you don’t have a body, you might be aware that ‘the old-school cultivators have a distinction between the Soul Realm and the Spirit Realm, where-as the new-school cultivators put every technique that uses Soulforce into Soul Realm, every technique that uses Qi into body realm and those that use both are given the blanket term Alchemy.’”

Alchemy was also all of the creation arts combined, at least for the layman. Difference between archaic differentiation and what we now knew to be more nuanced.

‘But alchemy uses Soulforce or Qi in a different form, it doesn’t necessarily use both, it’s just the fact that it requires Runecraft to function.’

“Many of the apparatuses you use are created with Runecraft, but it’s not a necessity.”

‘If I asked now, I wouldn’t get an answer though.’

The dragon just chuckled again.

‘I understand what he is doing though.’

“And what would that be?” The dragon asked, again chuckling.

‘You want me to do alchemy.’ Vera’s accusatory thoughts whirred around.

“Why would I ever do that?” The dragon sounded smug. So damn smug.

‘Because the second rank of the Spirit Realm in the old-school way, is Alchemy Handling and from the way, you’ve talked about my memories, persuaded me that spirits do alchemy in a different way, it is clear. You want me to do alchemy the same way spirits do alchemy.’ Vera was smiling something fierce at the time.

“Guilty as charged.” The dragon said as he erupted in another bout of laughter, with another zing passing through his whole body.