The Laws of Cultivation: Qi = MC^2

Chapter [B4] 6 — Changes

We flew through the skies of the Seventh Peak, making for a rather strange sight. There was me and Zhang of course, but Lord Zhou and Qiao Ying had also tagged along. There had been a brief moment where Qiao Ying had not been sure how to tell Lord Zhou not to just fly across the city during a period of war, but if there was something that could threaten or hurt him flying across the sky of the seventh peak then we had bigger problems at hand, and so here we were.

I watched the city beneath me, finding a hard to explain emotion as I saw how quickly everything was changing. This was the world I’d envisioned, or at least the beginning of the world of my vision, and to see it exist in reality… it was a strange feeling. Strange, but not bad.

As we flew across the city, we soon landed near the border. The walls that had existed previously around the city had been raised and fortified, and soldiers patrolled the walls, both mortals carrying firearms and cultivators. It was a strange sight, to see mortals standing up there besides cultivators with just as much if not more pride, ready to fight till the end to protect their homes.

The people at the wall quickly turned towards us as we began to land, a few of the militiamen grabbing their rifles in alarm, not recognizing who we were before someone at a clearly senior position slapped their heads, and bowed towards us apologetically.

“Lord Zhou, Elder Jie, forgive these two idiots. They’re fresh recruits from outside the seventh peak and don’t know left from right just yet,” the man said, pushing both the men’s heads down in an apologetic bow as well.

“No harm done, and it is good to see that they are taking their duties with such seriousness and consideration,” Lord Zhou said.

“Refugees, is it?” I asked, eyeing the two of them.

“Yes, elder Jie. We have them start by guarding these walls, as there’s less of a chance for them to run into something bad out here. As they gain more experience we’ll begin sending them out to the nearby villages that we’ve fortified, starting with Taizhou,” the man spoke to me, standing at attention. I noted he gave a respectful nod to Zhang as well and stood at attention, holding both hands behind his back when he spoke.

I had not directed any of them to do that. Neither taught them how to salute or trained these mannerisms, but clearly they’d begun to pick up on these things on their own. I wondered if it was Zhang’s influence. He had heard a lot of talks from me, particularly about wars, weapons, soldiers and armies from my previous life.

“Not this far in sir, but on the external perimeter we’ve been getting reports of a steady rise in demonic beasts heading in this direction. The number of refugees flooding to this place is rising, especially as word spreads of this being the only safe place to hide from the demons in. Some are worried we’ll begin to have food shortages,” the man said, and then quickly added. “Of course, none of us doubt your ability and foresight, elder! Or the Lord’s ability for that matter. It’s just the mortals who do not know any better murmuring amongst themselves.”

I frowned, that was a real concern. We had food supplies from before winter but those were not going to last for very long. If this war went on for any amount of length, and with the number of people heading in our direction… we’d have a mass famine at our hands.

“That is good to know, soldier. Return to your duties,” I said, as the man gave me a salute. The younger two men did as well, but one of them remained where he was.

“Uh… are you the one… Elder Jie, the five fold sage and divine child?” The man asked. I raised my eyebrow in intrigue.

“Xiao Ru! What’re you doing, you’ve been dismissed!” The man shouted, ready to storm back in and scold but I held up a hand and stopped him.

“Some of that describes me, yes. Though I’m not so sure about divine child. Is that what they’re calling me nowadays?” I asked, chuckling.

“They call you a lot of things. Even as far as my village, which is pretty far away. Far enough that we didn’t have to deal with the sect too often either. But they knew of you as the herald of the divine tree, and now, the five fold sage. Some say you’re actually an ancient spirit here to save the empire from ruin and bring in a new era of peace. I also heard some say you’re actually a demon hiding in human form. That they saw you as a demon, the twin flame demon and that this is all a trap,” Xiao Ru said.

I nodded. “What do you think I am?”

The man paused. “I… I think you’re a genius. A genius the likes of which has never been seen in this empire. I’d been doing what you were doing as well. I figured it out a few years ago. We did not have to rely on the sect, the demons are stupid and I built traps. I built a lot of them and they worked, the demonic beasts fell for them and soon stopped coming. I thought I was a genius… until I saw the real threat, and then I knew I was a fool. But you’re different. You’re the real deal. What you’ve made… I can see it, each piece of it tying together, all the different areas, the traps, these rifles and those fire arrows, it’s all ingenious. I’ve been studying them carefully and I just cannot fathom how you managed to come up with all of this, and in such a short amount of time. I tried to improve the pit traps or the fire arrows and it’s taken me over a week to get anywhere with those. And I had to break open a rifle I’d found to finally begin to understand how it all worked, and it’s so intricate. I keep marveling at the idea, I would’ve never thought to use coiled up metal like that, but it makes so much sense!” The man exclaimed, his eyes fanatic with passion and fervor.

I tried not to look guilty at his praise. I’d cheated after all, none of these ideas were my own.

“Sorry, sir. I just… I admire you. And I’m also scared of you. I cannot understand how a human, even a magnanimous and all powerful cultivator could make all of this… you truly are a five fold sage,” Xiao Ru said, bowing to me.

I patted the man’s shoulders. “The way I made all these is by using a lot and I do mean a lot of help and guidance from people better than me,” I said, glancing at the soldier standing nearby who was his superior. “Send him to the sect, and tell the craftsmen to let him look at their designs. He’s wasted on the walls,” I said, nodding to the man.

Xiao Ru looked at me, eyes wide in shock and I smiled. “Like I said, I made this with the help of people better than me. People like you. I hope you can help my men improve these designs from your insights.”

“Y-yes sir!” Xiao Ru shouted, and I nodded. We all took off from the walls of the seventh peak at that.

“You make a fine Lord, Lu Jie,” Lord Zhou said. “Many think it is a lord’s strength that makes him who he is. But in reality, it is a lord’s ability to recognize the potential of the men under him and guide them, and realize when someone is better than they are at something and utilize their ability to help their people.”

“Thank you, Lord Zhou,” I said to the man. We continued to move through the city, stopping at points to inspect and check in on the people. Some scrambled and were flustered at our sudden arrival, some tried to win our favors, but almost all of them reflected that same emotion in their eyes. The faith that Lord Zhou had talked about, and a resolve to fight for their homes.

These people did not know what had happened in the capital, they did not know the true threat that lurked. But they had felt it, certainly, and they knew that things were not normal, and that demons were on the rise.

But despite not knowing the extent of everything, to see their will to fight and defend their homes against whatever may come… to see their faith in me to protect and guide them and not do them wrong, and to be there from itself.

It started to change the weight of my responsibilities, into fuel for a fire that slowly began to rise in my heart.

These were my people. This was my home. And the demons would not get to have it.

***

After roughly an hour of checking everything on the way, we finally arrived at the place. The cave had been transformed into a proper research facility, its walls carved and turned into slabs of stone and gates not present at the entrance with two guards standing watch. But even with all of that, it was still a fairly secretive place, present inside the woods beyond Taizhou itself with the entryway kept obscured, now with hidden wards to divert people away from this place. The scholars who came in here were all trustworthy people Qiao Ying and Yin had directly picked and had sworn oaths of secrecy.

The guards at the entrance bowed at our arrival, opening the gates as the four of us headed inside. The inner chambers were lit with glowing spirit stones, almost reminiscent of electrical lights but shaped more as lamps.

“A lot of the improvements for the most powerful weapons in our arsenal have been happening here,” Qiao Ying said, explaining a little in detail just what exactly this place was and did.

I took a look around, inspecting the area. The channels of Gu had been cut off and turned into constricted flow lines around the facility, limiting and guiding exactly where they’d go. They’d done it using Qi infused rocks and earth which I found really smart, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought to do that myself. It made perfect sense.

A lot of the other minor changes also stood out to me like the wards here used some English characters which would make them impossible from anyone but me and Yin and those who knew the language to breach them, serving as a near impenetrable defense. It was enough to impress me.

“Yin has been hard at work, hasn’t she?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. She’s been working nearly non stop, often using spirit elixirs to keep herself awake through nights. It’s gotten to the point where I have told Granny Lang to check in on her every week and force her to sleep if she doesn’t comply and hasn’t taken a rest. The other scholars, or researchers as she prefers to call them, have also begun following her methods of working, many losing track entirely of the day and night cycle and gaining a sickly look. We’re considering implementing mandatory rest periods and forced interventions because of this… but due to circumstances so far, we’ve been unable to,” Qiao Ying said.

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I almost wanted to laugh at that, and then cry. Yin had become every research or grad student ever, chugging energy drinks and working overnight. I couldn’t say I did not relate. Normally I’d scold her for it, but as Qiao Ying said, with circumstances being what they are… it’d have to do for now.

As we passed through one of the final doors, Qiao Ying flashed a jade slip with the words “Pass-3” written in English on it. The ward let us through and allowed all of us in before closing behind us as we stepped one of the central chambers. The inside was all stone now, neat slabs making the walls and clear stone tables with glass equipment alongside a lot of the standard lab type things, but there were also… weirder things around. One glass cylinder had a floating spirit stone that was clearly made of miasma inside of it, being balanced by opposing Qi spirit crystals to both sides.

Another jar had demonic herbs inside of them that constantly seemed to be making screaming faces inside the liquid they were present. If Granny Lang’s shop had felt like a witch’s hut then this was the modern lab version of the same… but worse.

“Momo, why has the spirit jade transmuter not been calibrated? And did you properly convert the units like I told you to?” Yin said, speaking in English.

“Yes mam, I did! I made sure to after- well, last time. The transmuter has not been calibrated because we were going to run the Qi field analysis on it first. I have that set on your task list and you told me to remind you in case you forgot,” another voice, Momo supposedly, replied back.

I coughed to catch the two women’s attention, who paused, finally noticing our arrival. The girl, Momo, who was surprisingly young, looked flustered and rushed out. Yin glanced in our way but did not stop working on whatever it is she was working on, with a metal like device running over a jade slip, glowing clearly with Qi flowing through it.

We watched her work in silence from afar, as she continued to engrave patterns on the thing, before at last, the jade slip lit up with power, crackling once and then falling back.

“Damn it,” Yin cursed, then took a deep breath and headed in our direction. I noticed dark patches under her eyes, and her skin was generally paler. She really had embraced her role here.

“Apologies for that display, we’ve been having some problems with one of our new parts,” Yin said, returning to Azure-Jade script as she gave us a bow.

“This place… you run it by yourself, little girl? And those words you spoke…” Lord Zhou glanced towards me.

“Yin’s grandfather was from my world, and had taught her the language. Everybody in this place is roughly aware of those details,” I said, turning towards Yin. “Though I didn’t know they all knew the language now.”

“They don’t. But I’ve made it a rule that it’s going to be the only language we communicate in within the facility. They need to catch up and become capable of learning the documents. We cannot translate these, as they’d cause tribulations… and it serves as a good secrecy system as well. Momo is the only one who’s somewhat fluent so far,” Yin replied.

I nodded, surprised but not too much at that rule. It did make sense. It’d be easier to just translate but with the way things worked here, we had to use this system instead.

“Apologies to interrupt you then, but do you think we could see the thing I’d mentioned? If it’s in working condition,” I asked Yin.

“Oh, yes, it should run. But we don’t have enough to power it even at one tenth of its capacity. And it needs at least that much to start,” Yin said.

“Don’t worry about it, I have the needed things with me,” I said, showing my ring to her and Yin’s eyes widened. “Oh… that’s a masterwork. That- okay, follow me,” Yin said, leading us in.

As I followed behind her I fell a little behind the group to stand next to Qiao Ying. “Since when has she become like this? The Yin I knew was shy and always stammered when talking.”

“In the last month or so. Granny Lang thinks it’s the lack of sleep. But we don’t know for sure. Her work involves a lot of contact with miasma, so everyone in the facility goes through routine checks and inspections but so far we have not found anything wrong with her, if that was your concern, sir.”

I nodded. I wasn’t concerned that Yin of all people was going to fall prey to wraiths or spirits and become a demon. This land was protected by the divine tree anyway, so that was rather unlikely even if she had been susceptible.

We walked deeper into the earth, following stairwells that led down and down, the polish of the area began to fade, the chamber becoming more like a dungeon cell, and a little later, after passing nearly five wards all with inbuilt traps that’d be strong enough to leave me in a lot of pain or straight up kill me, we finally arrived at the chamber.

There was a pool of water with a scrying formation running it displaying a prison cell from here. One that was a little further from where we were. In the image, we could see just a single prison cell here, one made of different stone than everything else around it. Inside it, stood a short boy with white hair strapped to a pillar with chains that were inscribed with powerful formation characters draining all the Gu from inside. He wore torn leathery clothes and had dark black eyes, but other than that, it was impossible to tell that he was a demon.

That and the hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.

“We’ve been running experiments and routinely taking out the creature’s heart. We’ve also tried burning it, poisoning it, cutting off its head and exploding it, but it always comes back after some time. That said, the amount of time it takes the creature to come back goes down over time and we think it may be possible to kill it enough times that it just stops to regrow, but despite nearly three weeks and 728 deaths, the creature so far has not stopped reviving,” Yin said, all in a matter of fact tone.

I’d wondered for a second if she’d feel pity or horror at the acts, but it was clear that she was aware what this creature was, and what it meant for the world at large.

The thing, the boy that this used to be was already dead.

I knew this for a fact now, with Li and Lei’s soul connected to the tree. These demons were not alive, they were puppets. Corpses running on magic, acting as vessels for the demon within.

“And the device?” I asked.

“We did not want to risk the creature’s death before we had experimented enough. We have done so now, so if you’d like to use it, I can get it ready,” Yin said.

“What is this… thing you speak of, Lu Jie?” Lord Zhou asked me at last. “You’ve been quite secretive of it so far.”

I glanced back at the Lord, and then towards the demon inside. It looked back at me, and I realized it could tell we were here.

“My lord, I have mentioned that my world was really good at making weapons. In truth, I had not truly ever gotten even close to the scale of the power that the weapons from my world were capable of… and I had not wanted to. But with the deathless… I’d gotten an idea. A way to kill them. These creatures can come back if any part of them remains, and so the only way to kill them is to annihilate every piece of them,” I said, following Yin as we headed to a formation. The place was rigged with spirit stones, connected to channels that looked an awful lot like circuitry, feeding into a device that the scrying water showed us.

I took out spirit jade from my ring, around 10,000 spirit jade. Enough money to buy a castle. Yin looked at it, and then nonchalantly picked them all up and put them into a formation area where they all dissolved into light.

She sat at the helm of the spirit jades, wispy characters floating around her as she moved the pieces around. On the watery scrying screen, I saw the contraption light up as Qi began to circulate through it.

The device was a circular metallic piece, with characters carved on it. It looked rather simple and was the side of a basketball or football. The entire thing was connected with pipes that fed in what looked like liquid Qi directly into it.

I did not even know how she did that process, but now was not the time to question things.

“Can we run it at 25% capacity?” Yin asked me and I gave her a nod.

She went back and adjusted a few things on the table that was clearly the control system, and then inserted a jade slip into an area that lit up, as the doors to the prison cell automatically opened with a crackling noise.

“The demon is engaged,” she said, her voice practiced.

The creature cracked its shoulder, pulling on the chains as they came undone and stepped out, glancing in our direction.

It wore a mocking smile.

“Again? Don’t you grow tired of this farce? Tired of pretending you could stop our might? All these mystical formations and devices cannot hurt me. You cannot hurt me,” the demon said, its face growing more and more twisted.

The device whirred behind it.

“I just relish the day that our Lord will come and save me, taking down you vermin and bringing an end to your rotten empire. We are the true inheritors of this world and you have kept us down long enough. Oh, I just relish the thought. Just wait. Wait until I’m free and you will understand what true horror means,” the demon said, cackling, before it jumped closer to the device running the scrying spell.

Yin glanced towards me. “It’s ready.”

“You can see through this thing, can’t you? I bet you can hear me, too. You can hear me right? I can tell you’re there, I can feel you, feel your vile and filthy presence,” the demon spat, its face turning magical. “You’re all doomed. Doomed. Just wait until I get out. That day, I’m going to find you and I’m going to rip you apart and tear your tongue out with my hands and cut it into little pieces before feeding it back to you. I’m going to mince your-”

“Fire,” I said.

The world turned white.

Even through the screen, I had to close my eyes for a moment as the device just erupted in a blinding flash. It took a second for the scrying spell to return and when it did a single cylindrical line of molten rocks remained in the chamber, having blasted straight through the area and through one section of the wall before finally stopping after taking down one of the internal wards.

We all watched the area, the scrying formation moving around to see what was left, if anything, of the demon.

Nothing.

We waited for a few seconds, and then a minute. Nothing changed.

I nodded to myself and then looked at Yin.

“The demon is gone. There’s no trace of Miasma left inside the chamber. He’s… just gone,” Yin said. Even she looked surprised at that.

“How much?” I asked.

Yin glanced at me, then she pulled out a jade slip and looked at it.

“Roughly two hundred and fifty,” she replied.

I winced. Five hundred jade pieces when using twenty five percent capacity? That meant I would lose roughly twenty five thousand gold coins each time I fired the weapon. Thankfully I was rich now, but that was still enough to make me want to cry.

Still, it was good to see the weapon was effective. The empire would have a way to fight back against the deathless.

I turned towards Lord Zhou, who looked perplexed, unsure of what to say. At last he looked at me, and then finally said. “Lu Jie… we’re glad to have not seen your world.”

Somehow, that made me smile. I looked at Qiao Ying and gave him a nod. “Make preparations to get three more of these built. We’ll send two to the frontlines, one to the north and one to the west, and the last one will be for the capital.”

“Three? Sir, that’s… it’s going to be difficult,” Qiao Ying said.

“We can do it,” Yin interrupted. “We’ve already made it once, won’t need as much time to do it again.”

“You heard her, get it done. We’ll need these if we want to defeat the powerful demons. Also the stronger void bombs should start production as well, to take out any of the weaker deathless like this one here. No need to waste so much money on them,” I said.

Qiao Ying bowed. “As you wish.”

I turned back to face the device, feeling the fire in my heart rising.

“Those demons won’t know what hit them.”