19 The Middle Dantian

The first two tries opening the middle dantian were the easiest. Opening the middle dantian required courage, will and knowledge. The middle dantian was related to thoughts and emotions, and such was heavily influenced by them. The first try people would be most hopeful, without having as much fear or resignation. The second try people had experience and their will had not faltered yet; they would not have resigned yet. However, with each successive try after two, opening the middle dantian got harder and harder.

Thoughts of doubt fed the mental challenge and formed what many cultivators called mental demons, thoughts that would manifest as their barriers to a higher cultivation realm. No pills could try this ailment, for neither the spirit nor the body would be worsen, it was simply the person's thoughts.

Few people knew this better than Louis - it would be more accurate to say Yang Qing, the man he used to be. The Nine Revolutions Spirit-Body opened the middle dantian in order to reach the second realm. Normally, the upper and middle dantians would not be touched until the sixth realm, but these specialized cultivation techniques followed not what the populace did, but what the cultivator needed at the time.

Sadly, for Yang Qing, hundreds upon thousands of tries had passed for him, when he was merely ten until he was nineteen before he finally opened it. Without the support of his mother, his fiancee - and their following marriage - and their soon-to-be born children, Yang Qing would have never been able to take the step into the second realm.

Louis was not the inexperienced, resigned kid Yang Qing was when he was ten. He had lived a full life after that point: having a sister and mother who would never give up on him; marrying Luo Xuemei; raising two beautiful daughters; raising two alchemy apprentices who never left him despite initially surpassing his cultivation realm; being acknowledged by his father; the list went on and on.

Louis was not confused when he took a day off at the end of the month. Reaching the second realm for the Nine Revolutions Spirit-Body technique had two main requirements: fusing the nine hair strands of qi into one (for each element) and opening the middle dantian. Within the center of his meridians, two hair strands of qi floated next to each other, one wind and one water. He had long completed this step in the past month, with all the elemental qi replenishing pills he consumed.

Although the pills would not improve his cultivation on its own, it gave him the opportunity to cultivate whenever he fully exhausted his qi. The qi that would remain after he finished a cultivation was unfit for cultivating since the elemental qi within it was scant, around four to ten percent of its normal amount on average. This qi would then need to be exhausted and concocting alchemy pills constantly would drain the qi for him.

Louis looked at his middle dantian, took a deep breath and steeled his mind and heart. It only took him a minute to open it. The mental demon could not and would not stop him. It did not ever appear for him this time. After he finished, Louis laughed maniacally. Although it was unsurprising the same problem would not plague him twice, opening the middle dantian in a minute on his second try made the nine years he struggled through it the first time seem trivial by comparison. It was this he was laughing at and, by it, the last bit of grief from that period left him forever.

Reaching the second realm was enlightening. A breakthrough in the truest sense. Of the spirit, of the mind, of the body. But it was a brief enlightenment, shattered by the beck and call of his upper dantian. Much like his first two visits to his upper dantian, this visit was neither intentional nor wilful. He was, once again, dragged into his upper dantian by a force he was no closer to rivaling now than before.

A giant ball of fire - of molten magma - squirmed as it appeared to move slowly on the exterior of the naked orb. All of it moved in the same direction, so movement hardly seem to occur at all, but Louis knew it was not the case. Every element seemed to possess its own life, its own sentience. The gentle fire element he was once familiar with and relied on for his alchemy was not the same before. The fire element before him was a tyrant at times and submissive at others, but willful all the same.

Just as Louis thought he could take more time to analyze the situation, the fire flooded into him, much like the wave that hit Amber, except this time it was a tidal wave unconcerned for his safety and weakness. Why would it bother to wait for him to become ready and build its tolerance, when one attempt was good enough? The magma seared his soul, severed any connections he had with his body, Everything turned a bright white which violated his eyes to no need. Unable to tolerate the pain, Louis lost conscious.

When Louis woke up, he went to the alchemy room. Amber would still be in her final rest, as she would finally reach the peak of the second realm, but no dantians would be opening so he had no worries. It was the third realm bottlenecked that he worried about, for she would need to open her middle dantian and he knew just how hard it could be.

New alchemy ingredients were in new boxes filling the room once again, leaving little more than his array free in the room. This time will ingredients for all four elemental replenishing pills. Nia would need the earth pills; Amber would need the fire pills; and he now needed fire, water and wind pills.

The unique grade elemental qi replenishing pill remained elusive, but Louis was not yet resigned. Something was missing and perhaps making the fire and earth qi replenishing pills would solve the mystery, or at least give him a hint. The quantity of pills did not improve either, a grade 10 pill and a grade 7 pill seemed to be another bottleneck he could not pass.

Now that Louis had fire elemental qi available, he no longer needed the array to form elementless qi for him to ignite. He added another ring around the array and modify some of the seals and outer layer so they would automatically convert the elementless qi into fire elemental qi. The array still used his water and wind elemental qi as the base and energy source.

Louis started once he finished, starting with the Water Qi Replenishing Pill. He had concocted this pill the most and he would need some time adjusting to his new fire, especially since the strength, the quality and the quantity would all be changing every six pill concoctions since the element had two entire realms to catch up on.

It took Louis the entire day to adjust to his new flame and, by the end of it, he reached the peak of the fifth layer. Although he maintained the quantity at two, their quality was sporadic, especially after he broke through the fourth layer, where he almost failed concocting a pill at all due to the great increase in quality.

When he returned to his room, Tera was waiting for him, with Amber sitting in her lap. Amber was jumpy and smiling as she saw him, prepared to tackle him, but Tera kept her in place, though she could not seem to prevent Amber from squirming to find a way out.

"I will take your deal." Tera said.

Louis nodded and brought the two down into the basement to the room on the opposing his alchemy room. This room was empty and unused. Louis started constructing a new array, Qi and Soul Refining Array. Unlike the Wind-Water Qi Pocket Array, this array was not used to collect and convert qi. Contrary to its eerie name, this array was a two person grade six array - much like the array he carved into the orb, he did not know how the world would currently rate this array - which alchemy masters would use to train their apprentices; the master would could create orbs of their element and could make it appear anywhere within the array. The student would have to discern how much qi was within the orb then counteract the orb with the same amount of qi in order to dispel it. In the process the student would improve their control over their soul, which related to sensing the qi, and over their element through countless hours of practice. The energy and soul consumption would not be light for either person, since Tera - although strong - was not much stronger in soul compared to Amber, whose soul was around a four star martial artist now, even stronger than his own mother. Tera's experience and control would be required for this to work, so she had to work just as hard, if not harder, as Amber.

Seeing the two start immediately, Louis ate four medium - two water and wind - qi replenishing pills and began concocting once more. He would need to make many Fire Qi Replenishing Pills for them to use. Still, this was better for him than when Tera avoided him and Amber could nothing but sleep. If this was the price, Louis would gladly pay it.