“Yes, Elder.”
“Good. Now, remember. To begin the harvesting, we must first isolate the chi from each branch,” Elder Li said.
Wu Ying leaned forward, listening intently. Not that he had not learned this before, but Elder Li was focused on ensuring he knew each step perfectly.
Minutes passed, the petals of the flower opening at a glacial pace. After making sure Wu Ying knew his part of the plan perfectly, Elder Li stopped talking. As the tension in the atmosphere increased, Wu Ying could not help but shift and look around, searching for an escape. In doing so, Wu Ying caught sight of Tou He seated by the campfire, munching on the remnants of the barbecued pork without a care in the world. The ex-monk waved the skewer of meat at Wu Ying, making the cultivator break into a smile.
Elder Li tapped Wu Ying on the top of his foot with her cane then walked toward the flowers. Wu Ying settled his breathing and focused on his aura, double-checking it was as retracted as he could make it. Content, Wu Ying followed after Elder Li.
The mutant kurinji flower had stark blue petals with golden highlights and a pistil of light pink. It was a beautiful flower, and on a single crowded branch, multiple flowers bloomed. The shrub the pair approached pulsed as it drew in chi from the surroundings, filling the flowers with earth- and water-aspected chi.
Elder Li squatted next to the flower before she handed Wu Ying the box and laid out her tools, including talismans laid out beneath the base of the plant that would lull the plant’s natural defenses to sleep. She sat facing the flower for long moments, judging the flow of chi. When the plant fully bloomed, Wu Ying needed no one to inform him, for the sudden shift in chi flow was apparent. As if a lock had been placed across an irrigation channel, the flow of chi being drawn into the plant cut off. In his surprise, Wu Ying did not see Elder Li move, but the next moment, a flower was in her hand, held out toward him.
Wu Ying scrambled and opened the box, allowing her to place the flower within. Again and again, Elder Li worked, harvesting the flowers using the knife and foreceps she had laid out, while Wu Ying helped move branches away when needed. Never once did she touch the plant directly.
When the box was full, Wu Ying placed the second box nearby Elder Li before he moved swiftly and surely to the waiting Elders. Outside of the range of disturbance, Elder Wei had begun the process of refining the pills, the cauldron glowing with the heat of the earth flame set beneath it.
“Good. The quality is very good,” Elder Wei said when Wu Ying presented the box to her. After glancing at its contents, she set the box aside, focusing her full attention on her cauldron.
Beside her, Elder Po stood, ready to assist, as Liu Tsong sat at a formation flag.
Time passed with Wu Ying moving back and forth between the cauldron and the plant. He lingered longer each time at the cauldron, watching as Elder Wei added fresh spring water, spirit herbs, beast parts, and even crushed spirit stones. She boiled the entire concoction down multiple times, concentrating the energies of the materials and removing the dregs with a swirl of her ladle. Elder Po caught the dregs in a container that he set aside so as not to contaminate the environment.
When the entire bush had been nearly completely harvested of its flowers, Elder Li returned with Wu Ying.
It was when they had left the shrub’s immediate surroundings that Wu Ying asked, “You left some flowers behind.”
“We have enough. If it is fated, more bushes will appear,” Elder Li said. “Come. Let us store these properly and watch Elder Wei.”
For hours, Elder Wei worked the pill cauldron with intense concentration. Each movement she made, each action she took was planned to enhance the production of the pill. From the stirring method Elder Wei used, to the infusion of chi or the set up of the environment around the cauldron, the refining of this pill was an intricate dance of chi and intent. It was countless li different from the way Wu Ying blended his own pills. The live demonstration allowed Wu Ying to clarify many previously learned but barely understood principles of pill refining.
It was late in the night when the pills were finally completed. Elder Wei struck the pill cauldron in the side one final time, and the congealed pills flew from the cauldron to land in the waiting bowl. All three Elders peered at the pills, letting out a simultaneous exhalation of relief when they saw five perfectly formed, glistening red pills.
“Saint-level pills,” Elder Wei said, pride radiating from her voice. “If one is unable to break through using these, then heaven has no place for you.”
“Yes…” Elder Po reached for a pill only to have his hand smacked by Elder Wei.
“Do not put your dirty fingers in my bowl. I will hand it to you.” Suiting action to words, Elder Wei flicked a pill into Elder Po’s hand then repeated the action with Elder Li.
The pair took the pills with a slight bow to Elder Wei before taking a seat a distance from each other in the clearing. Around them, smaller defensive formations were set up to ensure the cultivators were not disturbed, as well as to enhance their collection of chi. In seconds, the pair had stilled their breathing and calmed their minds before they consumed the pills.
“Elder Wei?” Wu Ying tilted his head as he watched her place the remaining three pills in a pill bottle.
“Elder Dong and I will consume our share in the sect,” Elder Wei said. “We are close to ascending from the Core cultivation stage. If we ascend, we will be noticed by the heavens and must face a Heavenly Tribulation. This is not the place for that.”
Wu Ying nodded. Heavenly Tribulations were well-known disasters and roadblocks on the road of cultivation. The first major tribulation occurred when a cultivator formed a Nascent Soul. The Nascent Soul itself was a rebirthed, untouched, uncorrupted soul, one soaked in the cultivator’s dao from the moment of its inception. The newly born soul would then face the displeasure of heaven, protected only by the strength the cultivator had accumulated.
If the cultivator survived, the Nascent Soul would grow over the course of the cultivator’s journey to immortality, absorbing enlightenment and meaning from the cultivator’s existence. In the end, the cultivator’s Nascent Soul would be fully grown and face a final Heavenly Tribulation. If it survived, the cultivator would ascend to the heavens as a new immortal. Those unfortunate souls who steeped themselves in a false dao, those who failed to embrace their dao fully, or those whose dao was too small and narrow would fail at this last step, destroyed by the wrath of heaven itself.
A shift in the flow of ambient chi made Wu Ying turn his head, his jaw dropping as he felt the environment churn. Chi, swirling and resolving in a whirlpool of energy, flowed directly toward each of the Elders in their formations.
“How long…?” Wu Ying said before he stopped when he spotted the pale mien of Elder Wei. “Elder?”
“Oh, no,” Elder Wei breathed. “Heaven’s fury. The formation cannot hold if they cultivate here. We should have realized it…”
“Realized what?” Wu Ying said, but understanding shut his mouth too.
The Elders were draining the ambient chi, bolstering their cultivation as they attempted to breach the barrier between one cultivation level and the next. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and the more the pair cultivated, the greater the flow of chi from outside the formation. The shift in chi put a greater pressure on the deceptive mists the formation created, forcing the reinforcing cultivators to pour in more chi to stabilize the entire formation.