Chapter 70: Mayflies
The mayflies stayed on the water surface for a few breaths before they took flight.
They flew towards the bushes where Yu Nianzhen stood and landed on the branches.
Another few breaths later, they shed their skins and again took flight.
At this time, they flew above the branches.
Some rose tens of metres, while others rose a few metres before diving back to the ground.
After arriving a short distance from the ground, they would rise again, before repeating the process.
As he watched this spectacle, Yu Nianzhen’s attention was drawn to a specific mayfly.
It wasn’t any different from its peers, but it somehow caught his attention.
While he was looking at it dive for the third time, another mayfly appeared out of nowhere.
It elongated its front legs and caught the mayfly that was in mid-dive.
The caught mayfly didn’t resist.
Rather, Yu Nianzhen felt that the caught mayfly was happy.
In the blink of an eye, the two mayflies began flying together toward the ground.
When they were close to the ground, the second mayfly released the first.
Without delay, the first mayfly rushed to the water surface, and cloudy stuff was released from its body.
"Eggs?" Yu Nianzhen wondered as he continued to watch.
The cloudy stuff sunk to the bottom of the creek, and the mayfly flumped on the water surface.
It looked exhausted and didn’t even have enough energy to lift itself up from the water.
However, it also looked satisfied.
A few minutes later, the mayfly died, and Yu Nianzhen turned his attention to its flying partner.
This mayfly had landed on a branch near him.
It also looked tired, but not as tired as its mate who had just died.
For a day, Yu Nianzhen looked at the mayfly without any distractions.
When it died, he woke up from a trance.
He felt like something had fundamentally changed within him, but he couldn’t pinpoint the change.
"I need to meditate."
He gave up his plan to bathe and returned to the space prepared in the thicket.
The defence array was still in place, and he sat cross-legged within.
As soon as he closed his eyes, the experience replayed in his mind like watching a movie.
He saw the mayflies emerge out of the water, shed their old skin, take flight, mate mid-flight, lay eggs, and die.
The female mayfly died within five minutes of emerging from the water, while the male died within a day.
However, neither mayflies were regretful when they died.
Although Yu Nianzhen couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining the whole thing, he thought he felt a sense of fulfilment from both mayflies.
When they died, they were satisfied that they fulfilled their purpose in life.
"Purpose?"
Yu Nianzhen recalled everything he knew about mayflies from his previous life.
Mayflies only emerged from the water when they became adults.
However, an adult mayfly did not have a mouth and thus had no way to feed.
Because of this, the energy to fly, mate, and lay eggs was reserve energy that could not be replenished.
In their limited capacity, the mayflies knew they would die after leaving the water.
However, this did not stop them from living their fullest.
Yu Nianzhen had seen how they flew.
The female mayflies did not conserve the energy in their bodies. Instead, they did their best to fly crazily to attract a mate.
The male was also not stingy with its little energy.
If it didn’t use the energy to mate, it could probably live a little longer.
However, both the male and female mayflies had a purpose.
Their purpose was to mate and lay eggs before dying.
For this purpose, they didn’t waste their time and energy on distractions. Instead, they devoted all their attention to achieving their purpose.
When he thought of this, Yu Nianzhen felt a kind of awe toward the mayflies.
He recalled everything that happened since he arrived in the Cangxing world.
He thought about how he lived his life.
He also thought about how he used his qi, soul, body, and intent.
Compared to the mayflies, Yu Nianzhen felt he was inferior.
His sword arts consumed more qi and intent than necessary.
His mind and soul were not single-minded enough, and his body was still less than perfect.
These conclusions were obvious to him, but Yu Nianzhen felt there were a lot more mysteries to be uncovered from the mayflies’ experience.
The life and death of the mayflies triggered something in him, but he couldn’t grasp it.
Without a choice, he pushed the matter to the back of his mind.
This was not because he had given up on understanding, it was because understanding couldn’t be forced.
Deciding not to force it now wasn’t a loss.
When the time came, the mystery would be the basis of an epiphany.
At that time, understanding would come naturally.
For the time being, Yu Nianzhen chose to focus on the mystery he could understand.
Other than life and death, he felt a vast meaning of transformation from the mayfly experience.
Initially, the mayfly was just another insect.
However, when it became an adult, it changed several times.
The first change was the disappearance of its mouth.
The second was when it first emerged and landed on the water’s surface. At that time, it could not fly, but it soon adapted to the world and took flight.
After that, it shed its old skin and took flight as a new being.
Finally, it fulfilled its purpose and lost its ability to fly.
From these transformations, Yu Nianzhen could grasp a little meaning of rebirth.
Without wasting a moment, he sunk his consciousness into his dantian.
As usual, his qi was gathered within the qi ocean, and several swords were swimming freely.
"I have nineteen swords." Yu Nianzhen counted.
At the qi transformation realm, the origin qi would be transformed into origin shaped qi.
After understanding a little meaning of transformation and rebirth, Yu Nianzhen had a bold idea.
He wanted to transform all his qi into sword-shaped qi before breaking through to the qi transformation realm.
Normally, this kind of thing was impossible, but Yu Nianzhen was determined.
He didn’t want to waste the opportunity he received.
"I won’t know until I try."
At that thought, he injected his understanding of transformation and rebirth into his origin sword.
At first, Yu Nianzhen thought the origin sword would reject this comprehension since it was unrelated to the sword.
However, the origin sword did not reject the comprehension.
The sword vibrated, and silver light radiated from it.
Encouraged, Yu Nianzhen continued to picture the experience and continued to comprehend.
The more he comprehended, the more the sword shone.
When the light fell on the qi ocean, some of his qi was transformed into sword-shaped qi.
Time passed, but Yu Nianzhen was not impatient.
He examined every bit of the experience.
He saw the moment the mayflies shed their skins and became a new lifeform.
He also saw the moment they lost their energy and fell from their peak
Without his knowledge, Yu Nianzhen’s sword-shaped qi underwent another change.
At one time, they would look like swords and in the next, they would revert to shapelessness.
After that, they would once again regain their shape.
When Yu Nianzhen could no longer gain any more transformation meaning from the mayfly experience, he opened his eyes.
A silver light flashed in his eyes, and his body felt different from before.
"My cultivation has increased a little."
Yu Nianzhen examined his body and realised that his cultivation had risen from the early stage of the seventh level to the midstage.
However, this was not the best surprise.
When his consciousness examined his dantian, he saw that a quarter of his qi had been transformed.
"Three thousand sword-shaped qi." He spoke.
From his knowledge, an ordinary level one qi transformation realm cultivator had six thousand origin-shaped qi.
Now, only a quarter of his qi had been transformed.
If he met a qi transformation realm cultivator, Yu Nianzhen felt even if he couldn’t defeat them, he would be able to escape.
Other than the qi transformation, he also felt that his qi had gained a lot of mystery.
Yu Nianzhen didn’t understand it, but he knew it would be beneficial and not detrimental.
After cataloguing the changes, he opened his eyes and exhaled a turbid breath.
When he looked around, the world he saw was different than before.
Previously, he took the world at the surface.
However, after this time, everything gained a little more meaning.
Looking at a tree, he wondered how it came to be, and how its life would end.
With a smile on his face, Yu Nianzhen stood up from the ground.
"I have been here for six days."
His smile disappeared when he thought about that.
Although he was in a meditative state for the past few days, a part of his mind was conscious of the world.
If the communication token reacted, he would have immediately known.
However, it didn’t react at all.
"Are we that far apart?" He wondered aloud.
