Chapter 59: Higher Realms
I frowned, the excitement fading into confusion. "That’s not an answer," I pointed out defensively. "That’s a question! And what kind of question is it, anyway? Are you mocking me again for not having qi?"
"No, Ziyang. I’m being completely serious. What exactly have you been taught about cultivation?"
Though still deeply confused on why he would detour into an academic pop quiz, I answered slowly, trying to recall the countless boring lectures.
"I mean... Cultivation is the manipulation of earthly elements. People are born with a pool of qi inside them, they practice focusing it, and they become cultivators who can move earth, fire, water.
Maybe master a few other aspects of their body, or environment and get into things like healing. That’s it. Am I missing something?"
"Something?" He smiled, but it was a cold, pitying smile. "Ziyang, you’re missing everything. The so-called ’cultivation’ of today’s pathetic world is a complete joke. None of you have ever even tasted true cultivation.
Cultivators of today are granted the ability to bend the elements of the earth at their will right from the get-go. It’s handed to them. But what happens after a few years of rigorous practice? They inevitably hit a hard limit. They plateau."
He leaned forward.
"Back in my youth, in the era before this controlled masquerade, cultivation had levels. It was a brutal, infinite climb. Not everyone would magically be able to control the elements just by winning the genetic lottery of being born. It used to take decades of agonizing spiritual work just to reach the higher echelons of power.
Sure, it was slow, but they didn’t have a ceiling. Real cultivation would demand you to spend a massive, almost incomprehensible deal of effort and sacrifice to grow in stages. There were distinct and monumental milestones.
There’d be things like the initial Qi Gathering, the Foundation Establishment, the miraculous Core Formation, the birth of the Nascent Soul, and multiple, terrifying other levels of ascension until you literally shed your mortality and reached godhood."
I listened intently, my breath hitching. I’ve read every book I could get my hands on, scoured the library at Tianlan, and yet, I was hearing the specific words he spoke about for the very first time in my entire life.
"You folks of today have been deliberately stripped of your true potential, your raw power, and your free will to immortalize yourselves," he continued, his tone dripping with disgust. "Tell me, Ziyang, you’ve studied geography at Tianlan. How big is the world? Do you honestly think it’s only as big as the neat little maps they teach you it is?
It’s funny, isn’t it? How there are so many different kingdoms, so many bizarre, disconnected places, and yet, when you really look at it, the whole geography of travel and borders doesn’t make any logical sense.
And when you sit down and try thinking about it? Well, ’think’? Haha! They don’t even let your mind get to that stage of rebellion."
He stood up from the porch, pacing a few steps.
"And don’t even get me started on your heavily sanitized history. Ask yourself, why is everything so incredibly vague?
Why does almost every single historical record, every ancient book, every grand legend always begin with the exact same, meaningless phrases like ’Years ago’ or ’Centuries ago’? Why is there never an exact timeline or date recorded?"
He stopped pacing, nodding sideways in disappointment, and let the weight of all that information sink between us.
"You wouldn’t get it," he repeated softly, his eyes tracing the stars again. "Not even if I laid the entire, bloody truth out before you. At least... not for now. I’ve waited for so long, I’ll wait for just as long if that’s what it takes."
With that massive revelation hanging over me, my mind was pushed into thought. I scrambled to process it.
All of what he said, the missing gaps in history, the strange geographic impossibilities, the sudden limits of human power, it did seem to add up. It all clicked together. They did seem to make some sense.
And just when my brain began to fire rapidly, just as I was about to try and put the final puzzle pieces together to see the big picture... a sharp spike of pain hit the center of my mind.
For just a split second, it felt like my eyes completely rolled back and went blank.
I gasped, blinking hard. I opened my eyes to find Longwei staring down at me. My head throbbed with a dull ache. I seemed to have forgotten all of the conversation I had with Longwei right from when he started to answer me.
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders in irritation. "So? Are you gonna answer my question or what?"
He didn’t look surprised by my sudden amnesia. He just calmly looked back up at the night sky.
"Let’s just say for now..." he murmured, "that you’re my lucky charm. And I intend to have you by my side until we get a hold of the Primordial Core."
I turned my head away, immensely annoyed by his dodging. But as I sat there in the grass, the lingering tension in my chest began to evaporate.
I stood up slowly, brushing the damp dirt from my clothes. As I stood there, looking at the god who held my life in his hands, I suddenly reached a point of acceptance. Not like how it was back on the ship. This was a real and deeply rooted acceptance of reality.
I finally accepted the cold hard fact that I couldn’t do jack shit about the position I was currently in.
Since I had finally cried my heart out and let go of the illusion of control, I felt a hell of a lot lighter.
"Alright," I said firmly, nodding my head after pausing to contemplate the gravity of the moment. I met his gaze dead-on. "I’ll be right by your side. I’ll help you until we get to the Core. You have my word.
No more stupid backstabbing attempts, no more secret plans of trying to run away, no more wasting precious time. Just the one, singular, unified goal of getting to the Core."
I took a step closer, my voice hardening. "But, due to your incredibly flashy and arrogant display of confidence back at Ironbell, we both know we won’t be the only ones trying to get to it.
So, before we begin this march, I’d like to know everything there is to know about your intentions. Anything that you can either actually tell me about, or that you think might be of vital help to keeping us alive. Because if we’re doing this, we’re going to do it right."
I paused, making sure he was listening carefully.
"But just so you know, Longwei... once we finally get to the Core. Or, rather, when I get to it... it’s going to be you versus me."
Longwei’s lips curled into a sharp smirk. "I’ll make sure to wear my best clothes for the occasion."
Then, sitting back down on the porch, he finally opened up. He proceeded to give me every single bit of his original plan and intentions.
After a long while of planning, a loud rumble from my stomach interrupted the war council.
I turned my back on the god and began walking toward the warm, inviting light of the kitchen inside the hut.
"Oh, and one more thing," I called out casually over my shoulder on the way inside. "Fuck you."
Longwei let out a slight sigh. Without even bothering to turn around, he muttered quietly to the night air, "Once again... I’m literally centuries old."
