I flipped to another page, my notes descending into increasingly desperate metaphors. “Well, I need a proper cultivation method, something more efficient than basic Wu breathing to start stretching my Dantian—my soul’s storage unit. Is that what you did?”

  He shook his head. “I was focused on the physical. My abilities are tied to my body, so I circulated my energy through it, using it like a battery for compression. My… concept… of gravity contains compression as a core principle. My soul expansion was less like careful construction and more like putting a balloon on a soda bottle and shaking the hell out of it.”

  I nodded, following the thread. “That’s the next part. Once I figure out how to start cleaning out all the spiritual gunk I can’t use, I should be able to run energy through my body directly—circulation. I’ve tried. I immediately hit walls of crap I can’t budge without a lot more energy and a metaphysical bulldozer.”

  I flipped the page. “Meditation. Sitting still and contemplating my navel has never worked for me. I start composing grocery lists. But movement—workouts, katas—that helps me perceive and manipulate my energy. Doing it without actively using my power is possible, but again, I keep hitting those roadblocks.”

  “As far as I can tell, the real problem is the blocks themselves. My cultivation is like a jet fighter, but there are chocks in front of the tires. From what I’ve read, there are medicines or treatments that can help, but my own power is useless here. Unlike yours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My power works by taking a snapshot of a state, making a change, and then having the option to revert to the save point. I’ve been able to push against those chocks a little. It feels like trying to shove a boulder with a wet noodle, and it hurts like a bastard. And when I restore? It’s like getting teleported back to the start of the maze with all my chalk marks gone and the walls rearranged.”

  “Right now, I’m technically at the beginning of the refinement or condensation stage. I like the ‘Body Forging Realm’ for pre-Dantian—it sounds manly and involves hitting things. I think I know why you were able to move forward so easily… and why I’m stuck.”

  “Elucidate.” He leaned forward, his immense focus making the room feel smaller.

  “Your concept is mass and weight. You naturally create pressure on your energy, which is exactly what it needs. That pressure causes it to condense into a liquid, and then, under even more pressure, a solid foundation. That compression liquefies and forces all the impurities—the inappropriate shapes—into new, useful ones. Your concept is a natural purification system.”

  “Mine is a whirlwind. I keep pushing, and all it does is stir up the crap and maybe add more. So, mind if I use a metaphor that’s probably even worse than the last one?”

  “Sure,” he chuckled. “I live for these.”

  “Before we were awakened, we were like kids stuffing random toys and bits of crap up our noses. Your concept was like suddenly standing in a ten-G field—it pulled all that junk right out and let you breathe easy. Mine is more like trying to use a leaf blower to clear a sinus infection. I just keep pushing, and all it does is add more debris and make everything smell like burnt leaves.”

  He laughed, a sound like boulders falling down a mountain. “I am starting to love your metaphors. At least it wasn’t fish.”

  “The fish one was a work of art, and I stand by it. But basically, for me, the next stage is to do what your concept does naturally. But to do that, I need to be able to breathe through my nose. In your case, to get to the next stage, you have to do the opposite. You need to induce motion and friction in that solid mass of power at the bottom of your soul. Grind it down, fill your soul to the absolute brink until it’s ready to crack, and then fuse it all into a Golden Core. Like turning coal into a diamond with sheer, stubborn willpower.”

  “So I got it easy in the beginning, but now I get to the hard part?” he mused.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I get the hard part right at the beginning because my concept is fundamentally unhelpful for cleanup. Once I get past it, it should be smoother sailing. For a while. Then, according to the stories, it could take anywhere from a week to a few thousand years to form a core. The ultimate goal seems to be living forever, which sounds exhausting. I also couldn’t decipher their stages. Everything says they get a massive power-up with each new rank or realm.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  He nodded. “Unlike you, I don’t have that much of a clue about my own energy. But yeah, I’m… formidable, I suppose. Still can’t solo a city-level kaiju, but who can?” He said it with the casual humility of a man who knew he could probably try.

  “Did you have any tribulations?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, from what I’ve read, breaking through a major threshold usually comes with a challenge. Lightning from a clear sky, attacks by your own psychological demons, monstrous beasts attracted to your rising energy… the common theme is that it’s painful, dangerous, and requires enough willpower to bend reality over your knee and spank it.”

  He laughed, a full-bodied roar. “Well, when I hit those points, I was on active duty. I’m basically immune to lightning. Fighting powerful beasts was my day job—one more would just be a Tuesday. And…” he leaned forward conspiratorially, “…I don’t have any insecurities.”

  “How about psychological flaws?”

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Well, I am arrogant to a frankly pathological degree, but from my reading, that’s pretty much a defining feature for cultivators. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature. So, no. I didn’t notice anything unusual. However, that leads to your homework.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “More? I’m going to have to buy a second laptop just to store the metaphors.”

  He shook his head. “No. I have homework. You’ve already shot past the syllabus for this class. Feel free to keep checking in during downtime, but not here. Especially if you get more information.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Yeah. Technically, you’re not my student so much as an unpaid, uninsured research assistant. You picked up the basics freakishly fast, and my knowledge level isn’t much higher than yours. We’re both punching in the dark, but you’ve got better night vision.”

  “However, you still have nine hours a week to kill. I’m going to move you over to the Qigong and Tai Chi class.”

  “What? Why?” I asked, my mind immediately conjuring images of slow-motion lawn care.

  “There’s not much more I can teach you without those BSA diagrams, and my experiences don’t map onto yours. But since you can somehow detect your own energy, I’m hoping you can evaluate their exercises. Who knows? Maybe all that slow, deliberate motion will help your… circulation problems.” He said the last part with a completely straight face.

  I laughed. “You sound like a vascular doctor hawking supplements on a late-night infomercial.”

  He nodded, a slow, ponderous movement. “That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been confused with an intellectual. I’m at a standstill. Your next two weeks are open. Hopefully your mind will be, too. I agree that a lot of the kung-fu circuit is superstition and overpriced pajamas, but some of it might offer insights. Martial arts and power cultivation have gone hand-in-hand for a very long time.”

  “Long enough for what?”

  “Long enough that the original cultivators might have been martial artists first,” he said. “I never learned to fight until after I got my powers. You learned to fight before. Your ability isn’t tied to combat like a kinetic’s is. At some point, someone had to take the first steps. I’m hoping that even if we can’t find a shortcut for you, you’ll be able to retrace those first steps yourself and maybe map them for the rest of us.”

  I facepalmed. Hard.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been mining online fiction depositories for clues,” I groaned. “There is so much contradictory cultivation fiction out there it’s insane. It’s like asking a hundred different fantasy fans ‘what is magic?’ and getting a hundred different answers, each with their own elaborate, self-consistent rules. It’s enough to make me doubt how my own power works.”

  “How so?”

  I shrugged. “The first thing I could do was figure out how many grains of dust were in a pile. Manipulation came later. It makes me wonder if what I do is even telekinesis. What if it’s just a hyper-advanced detection ability that lets me see and edit the vectors of things? That would certainly explain why my first power assessment came back as a piddling Class Two.”

  He grinned. “If that’s the case, then figuring out how to manipulate your own energy should be easy.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Well, you can detect it, right?”

  I nodded. “More or less. I can sense its potential movement, its particle state.”

  “So,” he said, his grin widening. “Figure out how to get it moving without tearing your soul a new one. You said orbits are important. Start with that. If the unfit shapes have different movement characteristics, stop trying to beat on them like a micro-hulk. Do what I do. Use the motion. Use a whirlpool. Sure, it tosses things around, but in the middle, there’s suction. Use that to suction the impure bits out. Find a way to get rid of them. It should have a similar effect to my gravity compression.”

  I nodded slowly. The idea had a certain elegant, violent simplicity to it. Use my own chaotic nature as a tool instead of fighting against it. It was so crazy, so perfectly in line with my entire life, that it just might work.

  It was either that or spend the next thousand years trying to breathe through my nose.