2 A Baby Once More

Yang Qing woke up hacking. He felt himself sinking underwater. The sky looked distorted, refracted, by a layer of blue and his lungs felt clogged with water. He needed air, desperately. His arms flailed his arms to no avail. His head only ached greater, both of the lack of air.

His soul pushed back and forth against its soul threshold. Something from his upper dantian gnawed on its container in an effort to shatter it. He convulsed for a minute before abruptly stopping and losing consciousness.

After some time, he opened his eyes. The air was clearer, fresher. Although the water elemental qi was still present, wind elemental qi dominated the space. He could now properly breathe, like his head was pulled from the depths of the ocean into the open air, but upper dantian still ached.Within his upper dantian, seven giant orbs - fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, darkness and light - vied for supremacy, constantly clashing and dissipating.

He couldn't begin to fathom where they could come from but he did faintly remember something about the elements combining with his soul when he died. Each questions he asked to understand his current situation only lead to more question, each more difficult to answer than the last and some made no sense whatsoever. His thoughts spun faster and faster to no avail.

Stop. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He closed his eyes for a moment before looking around. He could only see unfocused shapes which all bleed together, without a figure or background. He was in a giant white room, with a single bed. Yang Qing concentrated what little qi he had - it was truly pitiful, less than even a single drop of qi he used to possess - into his eyes. The images started to focus and he could differentiate the things he could see now.

He laid upon the soft chest of a woman who he didn't recognize and he was small - no bigger than half her torso. He had shrunk - or, worse, became a baby once again, powerless to his surroundings and unprepared to this new, unknown world. The woman seemed to be sleeping and there wasn't anyone else in the room. A dark brown nightstand was beside the bed, topped with a couple of books, a glass of water and an unfinished meal. They were too far out of reach and any movement besides tilting his head a bit or moving his arms was beyond his capability.

His upper dantian throbbed violently again. He closed his eyes. He was safe, at least physically. He was drowning before, but he was now in a safe area, tended by this woman. He redirected his attention to his upper dantian. The seven orbs were giants compared to him, a mere fly; they carried out the play of creation and destructions, acting out the profound truths and laws - concepts far surpassing his own understanding - and dance in harmony and opposition.

Sadly, now was no time for admiration, not when his life was on the line. The seven elements restrained each other as each vied for supremacy, but this stalemate wouldn't last long. His qi couldn't handle the consumption and neither could his soul. He needed a solution and he needed it before this mess started.

There had to be a way out. He just hadn't figured it out it. Think. Think. What could have possibly gotten him into this mess? Where did these elements come from? He drew a blank. Perhaps these elements weren't here to extend his life, only to prolong it, give him a taste of hope just close enough for him to try but just out of his reach. Yang Qing grit his teeth. No, there had to be a way out.

Elements don't randomly fuse into people's souls, otherwise he wouldn't have broken through at his death bed. Legend foretold that the seven elements were parts of the primordial qi, the essence and foundation of the world. Tian Ren - the person who integrated four elements into the Nine Revolution Spirit-Body Technique - had once theorized that the technique would only truly be complete when all seven elements were integrated. Sadly, he only had affinity to the four main elements - water, fire, wind and earth - and could progress no farther, though he did reach the legendary eighth realm that few in the history of the Yang Dominion ever achieved.

That was it. Perhaps this was his chance. He started revolving the spiritual portion of the technique and the seven elemental orbs spiraled around him. His qi drained even more rapidly, as the orbs slowed and shrunk as they revolved around him, but their density and momentum increased dramatically.

The darkness element congregated into a dense orb covered by an everchanging cloak. The cloak emitted qi and looked much bigger than the other elemental orbs, but Yang Qing was sure it was the same size, if not much smaller than the others. It was the first one to respond to his technique and fell flew out of its orbit like a comet rushing towards him. Once at the center, the darkness element sucked the light element - which formed a sun, fluctuating between a harsh glare and a serene glow - which swallowed the darkness orb. The lightning roared and struck the newfound sun, the entire upper dantian dimmed. However, this light was further snuffed out by earth that consumed the lightning, only to be burned by the impending fire element. The ocean turned the flaming lands into an ocean and the wind gave the world an atmosphere.

Finally, his upper dantian regain its tranquility. His spirit threshold and upper dantian began to shrink, forcing the cracks within them together and ultimately restoring the damage. As the upper dantian shrunk to the size of the orb, it pushed Yang Qing out. No matter what he did, he couldn't enter it. Instead, wind elemental qi came, gushing out, overstuffing his body and soul. He confirmed he was safe then, once again, lost consciousness.

The sky had turned dark but a small lantern on the nightstand kept the room lit. Yang Qing relished the wind elemental qi that the woman's body released, hungrily devouring whatever he could grab.

Yang Qing combed through his entire body for the first time since he awoke. He finally had that luxury.His soul could only peek into his lower dantian, just below the navel. It was too frightened to venture any further in and trespass onto the territory of primordial qi.

A small flame, the size of a couple of twigs, was burning at the center of his middle dantian. It burned not wood nor fat but the essence of his life. Considering it size, it was called the flame of the newborn.

His meridians were full of silver, gaseous qi - wind elemental qi. The meridians were brittle, albeit the wind elemental qi coursing through his body did strengthen them quite a bit. Some of the pathways were closed, short or both, preventing him from cultivating the Nine Revolution Spirit-Body technique.

This wasn't his own body. His meridians were so brittle it was laughable and he couldn't even access two of most important areas of his own body. Furthermore, his essence reservoir had long since been exhausted. He was at borrowed time even before the inheritance ceremony. Yet, it was filled to the brim like he was given another life.

He must have been reborn, like in the legends. Perhaps his wife and parents had also reincarnated. The question was where was he now? How long had it been before he was reborn? How was his family? He swallowed those questions before the nostalgia boiled up. It would be a few years before he could even start investigating and these answers weren't going to come by easy.

He must begin cultivating now, so he could have the strength and ability to investigate when he got the chance. Unfortunately, his meridians allowed too much of his qi to dissipate through it. Although the lower dantian was the qi reservoir of the body, the meridians were the river that fed it. Without them, there was no reservoir, especially since he couldn't even access his lower dantian. All the qi he had was just in his meridians and he was a goner if simply existing costed him half of his qi.

The first order of business was to strengthen the meridians. His cultivation required it and physical exercise was currently beyond him. He had no alchemy pills, no Qi collecting arrays and certainly no medicinal treasures to consume. He had to take it the long and slow way, but it was steady. His soul was currently as strong as an adult, despite his inability to even crawl, let alone walk. He could start cultivating as soon as his meridians were strengthened and complete. Perhaps, he could even beat the normal five year old cultivation initiation, allowing him to get a sorely needed headstart.

Yang Qing poured his Qi slowly into his weakest open meridians, part of it fill the meridian and another part to seep into the meridian itself. Each strand of Qi that entered in his meridian felt like a tiny needle poking it. The gaseous qi within the meridian would act as a cushion, so the meridian wouldn't collapse or shrink. Five minutes on each segment. Then ten minutes rest. He started at the feet then worked his way up.

By the time he had finished, the sun has risen and the woman had awoken. When he stared into the woman's eyes, she smiled and immediately started to breastfeed him. He felt warm and safe with her. Her qi belonged to the wind element too and he felt an inseparable connection to her. Mother, was the first word that came to his mind. At least, of this body, his new body.

He reminisced while he drank. His mother died some odd twenty years before him, with his father. She was just his concubine, but his father had always doted on her. She could have lasted longer, if she hadn't chosen to pass on her cultivation so early, but she believed a world without his father was no life at all.

It was hard losing both parents, but they had died satisfied, content with their lives. He was no young man himself, with one of his feet in the grave. His wife stayed with him and his daughters would regularly visit and host family picnics. On other days, he concocted pills or developed alchemy theories or collected data. As time grew on, however, he spent less time researching and more time guiding his apprentices. They were his children in a way, not by blood, but by profession. His daughters followed his wife's path, so he never got the chance to teach his daughters. Sometimes, he wished he had a son. His son-in-laws were the closest thing and he relished it, refusing any other candidate as his apprentice, even after he became an alchemy emperor.

When he came back to reality, his stomach was full. He looked into his mother's eyes and smiled, before closing his eyes and nodding off, content.