Lectures Part 1 An explanation for cultivator syndrome
Those wishing to attend the lecture are required to first spend 12 hours in a pit of Skin-Scouring Searing Fire Ants. Really that is a dramatic way to say that everyone attending the lecture has to have mastered Acupoint Awareness or second thoughts as I prefer to call it. Still I guess that it must seem very impressive for people that don't know how second thoughts work.
I have found that by manipulating my acupoints I can enhance or minimize the effect of stimulus on me. By opening them to their fullest extent, I can make the most boring lecture a life changing event that is forever engraved on my mind. Conversely, by shrinking my acupoints all the way I can make being tortured a distant experience as if I am reading it out of a book. Maximizing is best for cultivating and living life to the fullest, but minimizing is really great for my stress levels. Also if I kept maximized all the time I would likely gain either an unending terrible hatred or disturbing fetish for sand. It's important to keep things in proportion. Carefully deciding what things I actually want to be life defining moments. Really don't want to just become another stereotype for power like some people seem to cough*Ninth prince*cough even if he seems to be a decent guy. The increased cultivation speed just isn't worth always being at max and deciding that someone bumping you by accident is worth a death feud. At least I never have to worry about immortality taking the spice out of life.
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I sit in the fire ant pit. Sometimes I open up a bit and let the pain matter to me because cultivation is cultivation after all, but whenever the pain gets too much I just minimize and lay back feeling bored at the repetitive book that just keeps saying
PAIN PAIN PAIN. It doesn't really matter how big and fancy the letters are if the actual content doesn't tell me anything useful.
I am surprised just how open many others in the pit keep their acupoints. It actually makes me feel a little bad in a dull way about not taking my cultivation as seriously. Not enough to follow their example though.
Feeling bored, I decided to experiment a bit. Opening some acupoints more than others. Trying to determine which acupoints are associated with what. I try to maximize how important watching the other disciples well at the same time minimizing the importance of the pain.
I made a few mistakes, often screaming in agony, but eventually I got it down.
---Talking with a good seed and Switching to 3rd person since we are all protags here---
Abel sees a big man in a group of five. All of them looked relatively old, their skin green, with marks of working under the sun for a long time and other marks of hard work. All of them are trying to smile at each other despite their obvious pain. They notice some of the people in the pit look at them and make hand gestures to their small group.
Abel extends a hand crawling with ants "Hi, have to say you are way more diligent about cultivation then I am."
"Hahaha, no, brother. We all have our own paths. Who am I to say what else you have done?"
Abel frowns in confusion. "Have done? You have managed Acupoint Awareness yes?"
The Big Man points to the four others. "These are my brothers, to make it simple. We are first brother (pointing to himself), second brother, third brother (put to the woman of the group), four brothers and fifth brother (one guy with really dark eyes). I have done more yes, but they are my equal for I have saw their journey and it was a beautiful one.
Abel is starting to get the impression that he and this odd group are talking past each other, but tries to be polite anyway. "Well that is an easy naming system to remember anyway" He says with somewhat forced cheer.
"Indeed!" the big man said in a baritone.
"So what else have you accomplished? I have only roads, walls and things like that."
"Eh, Um, I made my own hand cannon?"
The smile that seems just a bit forced from the pain, froze from a moment "hum, did you made bronze mirrors and magnifying glass too?" Then the smile returned.
"Ah, yes I figured that the two things that the Golden Desert is never going to run out of is sand and sun. So might as well make the most of them!" Abel's smile becomes a bit more genuine.
The five look at each other making some talk with eyes and posture and animated hand gestures and the giant returns to look to you.
"Like I said, a beautiful journey, it seems my brotherhood owes a lot from your mirrors, and an entire village owes you for allowing them to produce colorful glasses!" he says with some grunts of pain.
Abel's eyes light up "Really! You mean people are actually using those! I was worried that they were doomed to just become one more curiosity!"
"A man's trash, can be another man's Heaven treasure, these mirrors are cheap" the giant makes a pause from the pain "can be used for communication, and for, mortals, can be used for impressive art" another pause from the pain. "If mortals can make a place that is impressive enough for Old Gold to talk to the other leaders, then they can do impressive art that helps the clan too" the big man tries to raise his arms to the heaven but fails from the pain. The other four continue to use their eyes and hands to direct the giant.
It seems like these people really haven't managed second thoughts. They are toughing though the pain by sheer willpower. Abel opens his acupoints.
PAIN PAIN PAIN and falls down screaming before managing to close them again. He isn't trying that again. He doesn't care if that makes him a wuss.
What were they saying again. Right "Well I am glad that they have been useful to you. I hope that you take the idea farther than I could ever dream." Right now Abel is focusing more on getting the computer to work.
"Our brotherhood will try our best!" he pauses to breathe "and allow other villages to enjoy your work, see you have much to boast! And we only tried the mirrors and bronze, some hunter is probably having fun with the gunpowder" the giant pause from the pain again "fun killing beast with it, some brothers talk about using it to break stones, we are unsure if this was a good use"
"Well if nothing else gunpowder is comparatively inexpensive. The trouble is safe transport."
"Cheap?" the second brother comments and then starts to make furious hand gestures.
"How cheap are we talking about?" ask the first brother.
"The primary ingredient is dung" Abel shrugs. Bat dung, but still this world has some huge bats. There is even talk of using them as cavalry.
The five froze for a moment, ignoring pain. "As builders we have to deal with a lot, and I mean a lot of dung fixing sewers and doing other stuff" he nods to himself, "yeah, second brother blacklist that guy!" the others nod together with the second brother, all of them with evil eyes.
"If you want to make it yourself I put the recipe up on the contribution board. It isn't expensive. Just requires some risk tolerance."
"Ha, like I said, a beautiful journey" he looks to the others and they show genuine smiles (ignoring the pain). "I have decided, I have lots, and I mean lots of brothers, if you have a project that need only five years to be build, we trying our best to help"
Abel gets a glint in his eye. "Are you any good with clockwork?"
The shoulders of the five droop. "We are better with rocks, sand and general construction. For clockwork we would be only dumb muscle".
Well that would have been a bit too much to hope for. "I am doing a project in Apoikía Bucephalus. Huge clockwork machine powered by a waterwheel."
He looks at the second then the fourth brother, a quick search of eyes with the fifth that shakes his head. "We can help with the foundation. If is too heavy for a normal soil, we have lift machines and like I said dumb muscles. Other than that we would not be much of a help there."
"You might want to consider training up. You are cultivators now that generally means your labor should be valuable. If something can be done by just two mortals then generally it is going to be less expensive to hire two mortals. Unless you are being vastly unpaid for some reason."
He looks at the second and third 'brother' "hum, for the most part we are probably being well paid (to our needs), because it one thing to build a wall close to a city is another to build it in a place one would expect spirit beasts" "If you see a sewer that more than ten cultivators have shit on. You probably will see some impressive things" he said the last part with thousand miles eyes"
"I gather that some sewers have been less than diligent with Disease purification arrays?"
"Indeed, we have seen some human corpses, we have seen some storages of pills that certainly would go bad and did, and we have seen some impressive former pets there. When things get bad" all of them pause from pain "they can go really bad in a city with enough cultivators"
"I guess it's a choice to pay upfront and do things right. Or do things wrong and pay more later. Amazing how many people pick the second option."
"Indeed" he gathered himself from the pain once more "we call this 'pick one of three' in our work, cheap, good or fast. Most select cheap or fast".
The group spent the rest of time amusing each other with anecdotes about funny things that people flush down the sewers and singing. The singing was not quite as painful as the fire ants, but it gets more complaints.
--End of talk Back to first person.--
I came to the conclusion that this was a lesson on learning selective importance. This has been a really great opportunity. Not often that you can get a chance to experience pure pain without having to worry about actual damage. When I asked the proctor if I could have the Skin-Scouring Searing Fire Ants after the tests were done she told me that there was a bidding war for them. I didn't realize they were in such high demand.
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Manuel actually floats in the air as he gives his lecture. I can't tell if it is ostentatious showmanship or just that is so easy for him that he does it naturally. Given that he didn't explain the purpose of the entrance exam to get into these lectures I am generally inclined to think that he has a love for drama. Well I guess he has earned it given he is like 3000 years old or so. I wonder if he gives these lessons well at max or if this is all just classes blurring together for him.
"In a little over a decade, the Trials put before us will arrive. I do not doubt that one in five of you who stand here today will be dead after them, for all your talent. You are ill-prepared, though better prepared than we were a century ago."
Ya, I heard about the last trial. The clan likes to focus on the heroics of the 13, but reading between the lines, heroics are only needed when things are going horribly wrong.
"You will have heard tales. A few of you will have lived through those times. The Clan suffered, and then came the good times. Conquest and growth, new mines and new talents rising up. New relationships with the Righteous Path. Some of you have even travelled into the Great Battlefield, and not been killed on sight for the colour of your skin and hair. The Optimatoi suffered greatly that you could rise."
It really is interesting hearing stuff like this from an outside perspective. I have never personally experienced any of the downsides of being a golden devil. So far for me it has been all upside. Being one of the 1% and people treating me with respect just based on the color of my skin and hair. But I haven't ever left Golden devil territory and this is going to be my first trial. I guess I will see the downsides soon enough.
"Now you will suffer so that the Clan may rise. Body, soul, and Dao. The true trinity of things, connected by Qi. These are tiresome truths you should know already, but I lecture on them merely to frame what is to come. How are the three interlinked? Nobody I have ever met knows the full truth of things, but an old man's ramblings might shed a little light."
"Qi is of course the fundamental building block of the universe, as we all know. Heavenly tribulation is opposed by Qi, bodies are strengthened by it, souls are enhanced, Dao-arts are made possible. Qi is the energy of all things, and the motive force that drives reality. It is formless until given form, shapeless until carved into shape. Without it nothing is possible, but with Qi alone nothing can be done."
I personally don't agree. There are other fundamental building blocks of the universe than qi. The very existence of the qi draining desert proves it. If qi was in fact the energy of all things then a place without qi that has things in it could not exist. Also the fact that I come from a world without qi.
He takes a breath.
"Firstly we come to the truth of the Body. The Body is the physical, the thing formed and shaped by the Law."
Manual pauses for a bit as if debating saying more well taking a glance at the sky. He seems to decide not to. Not sure how much of that is theatrics. Also the way he says Law makes me wonder if he is talking about something descriptive or prescriptive. The difference between gravity and a speed limit.
"Each of your bodies obeys gravity, for the most part. It falls to the ground when lifted in the air. It is constantly pulled down by gravity, and obeys many other laws. You cannot simply will your body to move."
As if to refute his own words, Manuel rose up in the air again. Not really sure if that is supposed to support descriptive or prescriptive. After all Manuel does not seem to be being punished for floating in the air.
"There is a reason cultivation is the path that it is. First the body, then building the Dao, then forming the Dao, then discarding the Dao and then comes the soul. Other paths may differ, but no path I have ever heard of ignores that the body must come first. The ability of the body to channel and use Qi is the heart of all things. If you do not expel impurities, your meridians and dantian are full of muck and are useless. If you do not cleanse your acupoints, you cannot bear a thousandth of the Qi you will need to advance into Foundation Establishment. If you do not open your meridians in truth, you will never amount to much. Aligning the body with Qi is the first task of any cultivator."
I have not actually gotten to cleaning or opening my meridians yet. I have just been focusing on fine tuning my control of my acupoints. I hope that isn't going to be a problem.
He descends to the ground.
"I cannot solve all your problems, nor do I intend to. Still, one of the greatest problems of any cultivator is exploring where the true limits of your body lie. The hairsbreadth between where you exert the maximum power and your meridians burst, leaving you crippled and mortal. For most, they simply excavate nine-tenths of their power, and eventually another nine-tenths of what remains. Today, we will be reaching your absolute limit. It will be a small increase in power, but a real one."
I haven't even figured out the second nine-tenths yet. Was that a prerequisite? It would have been nice to have some recommended reading and exercises before the lecture.
"Circulate your Qi. Slowly increasing from your normal amount, you are to fill your dantian to bursting, channel as much as you can through your meridians. Continue increasing the amount. You will feel pain, you will feel as though you are about to shatter and die. If you stop before I stop you, you will be dismissed from the lecture and may not return."
Well no opportunity to ask questions. I just have to trust that Manual is keeping an eye on things. Nasect souls are supposed to have super mental abilities. Right?!
I am always cultivating at least a little bit nowadays, but I start really focusing on it now. As it starts to hurt I slowly close my acupoints slowing down but I don't actually stop cultivating.
Manuel stopped a few people so he was playing attention.
"Again. Once I stop you, begin again, but closer to the limit I stopped you at. If you stop before I stop you, will be dismissed from the lecture and may not return."
I keep cultivating. I wish I could have taken this lecture after cleaning my meridians. With them full to the bursting point my corruption stands out in stark contrast and every now and then a bit of corruption will shift slightly making me feel like I am about to pop. Still I have learned my current limits and I should be able to repeat the lesson on my own when I clean my meridians. Still I feel like the lesson in the fire ant pit on applying selective importance was actually more valuable than this.
@Alectai,
@TehChron,
@Humbaba,
@ReaderOfFate,
@Kaboomatic Also put me down for going to the Qiguai Clan Doorway so long as the trials don't wound me or use up a LST.
