Fates Parallel (A Xianxia/Wuxia Inspired Cultivation Story)

Haeun’s breakthrough had been a sudden but pleasant surprise. That she had apparently achieved it using a completely unique cultivation method was even better, but it meant that Yoshika now had a whole host of questions that needed answering.

She’d noticed the intense gathering of mana around Haeun, and watched over her breakthrough just in case. Her intervention hadn’t been necessary, but witnessing the event had been enlightening. 

In her private courtyard, Yoshika’s aspects sat around a table and discussed the event.

“How useful is this new cultivation method, and can it be generalized?”

Jia, as always, was most interested in the implications it had on cultivation, but Kaede’s concerns were more practical in nature.

“Before that, we should consider whether this can be considered progress toward finishing the reflecting pool.”

Meili huffed and shook her head.

“What about Haeun? Is she going to be okay? This isn’t going to hurt her, is it?”

Eui sighed and scratched her cheek. It wasn’t like them to be so out of sync, but the new style of magic had a lot to address. Since she didn’t have as strong an angle as the others, she took the initiative to keep their discussion organized.

“As far as we can tell, Haeun is fine. It was a clean breakthrough, all things considered, but we’ll keep an eye on her to make sure there aren’t any unexpected side-effects.”

The biggest concern was her inner spirit. While communion with one’s spirit-half was by no means guaranteed, it was something that half-spirits needed to be aware of when progressing their spiritual or unified cultivation. So far, Haeun hadn’t shown any signs that her Kumiho fragment was active.

Jia sketched out a miniature spell formation. After years of neglecting Yoshika’s arcane studies, running the academy was rapidly advancing their spellcraft.

“On its own, Haeun’s magic isn’t enough to make a reflecting pool, but I think there’s potential there if we think of it less as a singular discipline, and more as a technique or method that can be combined with other kinds of cultivation.”

She cycled the essence of her domain through the spell—a simple mana shield formation—then willed it to change its elemental attunement from Fire, to Magma, to Force, then back to Fire.

“As Heian and Iseul have shown us, spells and formations can be directly controlled with personal essence, kind of like external meridians. It’s really hard to do unless you’re made of essence like they are, or if you’ve got super fine control of your domain. I wouldn’t be able to do this if we hadn’t forced ourselves to learn on the spot by cramming ourselves into the Soul Realm formation.”

Even as they spoke, the Sovereign’s Tear was connected to Yoshika’s Soul Realm through her core, forcing her domain through an impossibly complex formation that she was only barely beginning to unlock the secrets of.

Compared to that, repeating Iseul’s trick of becoming a spell or formation herself was child’s play.

“But doing that changes the nature of the spell. Mana shield is simple enough that I can keep it on track, but for something like Dae’s reflecting pool, too much power overrides the connection to the other side. The moon spirit can only see the moon, and Heian can only see us.”

Kaede nodded.

“We know all of that already. You think that Haeun’s discovery is the key?”

“Yeah. Her magic has always been our best bet, but after seeing her breakthrough, I think I finally see how to make it work.”

Jia withdrew herself from the shield formation, then closed her eyes in meditation. Yoshika already knew what she was doing, of course, but hashing it out among her aspects in person helped to solidify her thoughts.

She was still not used to Haeun’s method of calling on mana without absorbing it, but she had been practicing. It wouldn’t do for her to let her own disciple completely outclass her, after all. After a few minutes, she reached the limit of what she could handle—barely enough mana for a first-stage spell, but it had been refined without becoming part of her.

Yoshika didn’t share Haeun’s visualization technique of conversing with essence. Instead, she just focused on the kind of essence she wanted, then drew it towards her as she would with regular meditation, but without absorbing it.

As Haeun had discovered, it would refine itself after a while, though it took a very long time to do so. Yoshika may have taken a few minutes to pull together a first-stage spell, but her normal cultivation speed could have drawn enough to go from a regular mortal all the way to the peak of the third stage in that time.

Jia directed the mana into the formation, which readily drank in the heavily concentrated mote of natural essence.

“It’s important that we do this with formations. Spell talismans are too temporary, and the time it takes to gather these pseudo-spirits is way too high to be practical for instant effects. But once we do...”

She flicked a tiny mote of fire at the shield, only about the size of a candle flame. As soon as it made contact, the mana shifted into a bubble of water and extinguished the flame. She repeated the process with a pebble, which was instantly blocked by a shield of ice, and then a rush of Corrosion essence, which was halted by a field of purifying essence.

“It’s not perfect. The shield can only adapt with elements adjacent to what it’s already projecting, and it’s got a limited amount of mana, but an adaptive shield like that would normally be a second stage spell that requires constant concentration on the part of the caster.”

Kaede rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

“You think we can do something similar for Dae’s spell?”

Jia shook her head.

“Not us, no. Not without a lot more practice. But now that Haeun’s broken through, she might be able to manage it.”

Eui nodded slowly. That made sense, and settled that matter for now.

“On to generalization, then. It’s pretty narrow as a cultivation technique.”

Kaede tapped her fingers on the table as she thought.

“Perhaps not as much as we might think. Let’s look at the pros and cons.”

“The most glaring disadvantage would be that you lack control over the refinement process. Conventional cultivation adapts the essence to match your cultivation, but in the long term, this would force you to match your cultivation to the essence.”

Jia shook her head, frowning.

“That’s true, but with practice you could just be selective about what kind of essence you refine.”

Kaede pursed her lips.

“Mm, sure. But why? For anyone other than Haeun, that will be slow, and normally you can absorb a large quantity of essence, then take your time to refine it properly. This new method has all the disadvantages of rushing your cultivation without actually being any faster.”

Meili leaned forward and rested her chin on her palm.

“Should we just forget about it as a cultivation method and focus on the technique, then? Narae’s little trick was simple, but I’d be interested in seeing what sort of spells could be developed that way.”

Jia crossed her arms and sighed—she really wanted Haeun’s new cultivation method to be viable.

“We’re forgetting something important. Haeun’s magic is a lot more than just the ability to refine essence without changing it, or cast spells without talismans. It could combine very well with Ruiling’s aura-shaping as well, but most importantly her biggest edge is essence reading.”

Yoshika silently contemplated that for a moment. Haeun’s talent for reading essence far outstripped her own, and bordered on divination. In spars, if it was possible for Haeun to avoid an attack, she did. If dodging one attack would leave her open to a larger threat, then she’d take the smaller hit to avoid the bigger one. She always seemed to know, and it made her an absolute nightmare to fight.

If that talent scaled up into the higher levels of cultivation, Haeun would grow up into one of the most overwhelming forces in the world. That wasn’t the sort of ability that could be trained haphazardly. It was a core part of her cultivation.

Kaede was the first to break the silence.

“Jia has a point. As a broad cultivation method, it may be inefficient for gathering raw power, but what if a practitioner didn’t have to rely on a carefully shaped aura or a prepared formation to create the sort of flexible, dynamic effects we just demonstrated?”

Jia nodded excitedly.

“Yes, exactly! It’s like the basic movements of martial arts. Knowing, or even mastering the movements is one thing, but Master Ienaga taught us to live them. With enough practice, they stop being something we do, and become part of what we are. That’s the potential I see in Haeun’s technique, and it’s not too late for Narae and Jiaying to pick it up either.”

What went unsaid was that it was too late for Yoshika. She could still learn the core principles, and had already started making headway into performing techniques with Haeun’s method, but it would never be as central to her cultivation as it was to Haeun. Her foundation was simply too ingrained for further adjustment.

She wondered if that was how her own mentors had felt after her discovery of Unified cultivation. The pride she felt at her students being at the forefront of a new kind of cultivation with untapped potential was offset slightly by the melancholy of knowing that she would never experience that potential first hand.

For the time being, the best she could do was support her disciples—learning as much as she could about this new technique, and guiding them along their fascinating new path.

Eui smiled at the thought of her students one day surpassing her, and commiserating with Master Ienaga.

“Let’s start with a trial group. Haeun, obviously, and I doubt Narae is going to turn it down—she’s as cultivation-brained as Jia is.”

“Hey!”

“Jiaying too, if she’s interested, but we should open it to any early-stage cultivators as long as they understand the risks.”

Kaede nodded in confirmation.

“I’ll make the arrangements for a new academy class. It’ll take some time to prepare, so I don’t think the actual lessons will start until next year.”

Jia shrugged.

“That’s fine. We’re going to need some more time to work with Haeun and figure out the practical limitations and potential. Everything we’ve discussed here is just theory.”

“There is, however, the issue of Jiaguo taking credit for a new discipline that was technically invented by a Goryeon princess—particularly one who is a likely candidate for the throne.”

“Mmm, let’s just ignore that for now. If Goryeo makes a stink about it we can just say that she did it under our tutelage and that we’re already openly sharing technology with them anyway. It’s not like they won’t benefit from it too.”

That was a very Jia solution to a major potential problem, but Yoshika couldn’t really think of a better option. Trying to get ahead of the issue would just be inviting problems sooner. They were just about finished with their discussion, but there was one more issue that Eui needed to bring up.

“Okay, we can’t really avoid this any longer. When Haeun gathered that essence together, it looked a lot like when Iseul was born, didn’t it?”

They all nodded in agreement before Eui continued.

“When Ice and Magma focused their essence together, we didn’t really understand what we were seeing, but I think it’s entirely possible—even probable—that the elementals already know techniques similar to Haeun’s. It also means that at a high enough level, Haeun’s magic might have the potential to create spirits and elementals.”

It wasn’t even much of a leap. The pseudo-spirits formed from the refined natural essence already had a higher degree of sophistication than regular essence. They didn’t have intelligence or souls, but there was something there. Some core element that was necessary, but not sufficient to create life.

Jia sighed heavily.

“I guess we know what to ask Void about next time we encounter it.”

With that, there was nothing left to discuss. Once Haeun was stable in her new level of cultivation, it would be time at last to finish the reflecting pools and check in on Rika. Yoshika hoped she was doing alright. At the very least, she hadn’t broken the speaking stone, which suggested that she was still alive.

But just because there hadn’t been any emergencies, didn’t necessarily mean all was well.