Qi

Michael suddenly thought of something, he hadn't noticed it earlier, because he had been thinking of other things.

'Crane said that he had deactivated the castle so as to preserve energy, but all the rooms I have been entering where filled with world energy,is it that the energy is leaking,or he reactivated the castle when I arrived' Michael thought confused.

Thinking there was a problem with the castle Michael called crane and explained everything to him.

Crane was surprised

"what do you mean by there is energy in the rooms, I haven't even activated the castle back."

Michael was getting even more confused by this "I remember clearly that each room I entered contained world energy"

"What is world energy?" Crane was confused.

Michael was stunned "what?!!! what do you mean by what is world energy?"

"You said that there was energy in all the rooms you visited?" Crane questioned

"Yes"

"Then let's go to those rooms"

Crane closed his eyes and with a flash of light he and Michael disappeared.

Crane and Michael reappeared in the main room, as soon as Michael appeared in the room and felt the concentrated energy around he immediately turned to Crane.

"Senior Crane can you feel the energy around" Michael asked.

Crane had a look of realization on his face, and with a wave of his hand he condensed the energy around in his palm.

"Is this the energy you are talking about?" Crane asked.

Michael nodded.

"This...? Don't tell me that this is what people cultivate with now?"

Michael nodded again "Yes that is world energy, cultivators absorb it to advance in rank" he added.

"What? How the hell do cultivators use this to cultivate?" Crane cussed.

Michael was surprised, he felt like he was about to learn something important. "If cultivators don't absorb world energy to cultivate, what should they absorb?, what is the energy in your hand called then?" Michael asked uncertainly.

"Qi" Crane replied, "Cultivators absorb qi to advance, as for your second question"

Crane paused and dispersed the energy on his palm before continuing "This energy that you call world energy is actually a by-product of qi"

Michael was stunned

"Infact calling it by-product is actually a nice way to represent it, what it actually is,is a qi that has lost its origin energy.

The origin energy is what keeps each of the elements together, you should have probably noticed that it is quite easy to separate the different elements contained in the world energy?"

Michael nodded

"Qi doesn't contain just a single element, it contains all elements joined together, with the origin energy as the intermediary, you can also refer to qi as a vital energy." Crane added.

"The elements contained in qi cannot be separated until after absorbing them, while the world energy you are talking about can easily be separated even before absorbing them, and it also does not contain origin energy."

"But doesn't that mean that world energy is better than qi? at least with world energy a cultivator can easily absorb the energy of the element he has an affinity with?" Michael questioned

"Although with world energy a cultivator could cultivate faster by absorbing only the elements he has affinity with, it doesn't mean that world energy is better than qi, because no matter how many treasures a cultivator who cultivates with world energy uses, he would never have a foundation as stable as a cultivator who cultivates with qi, even if the qi cultivator doesn't use rare treasures,he would still have a more stable foundation than the former thanks to the origin energy contained in qi, and as you know the more stable the foundation of a cultivator is, the further a cultivator can go."

"Apart from helping cultivators to build a better foundation, those who cultivate using qi should have stronger bodies, because the energy they used to strengthen their bodies contain all elements combined together, unlike people who cultivate with world energy"

"What about the elemental rooms,if the whole castle contained qi when it was activated,does that mean that there are elemental qi's too?" Michael asked

"Yes, but they are called elemental energy instead,since they contain only one element, for example water elemental energy or earth elemental energy." Crane replied.

"What about world energy stones, they do not contain any element?" Michael asked taking out a diamond shaped world energy stone from his storage ring, and giving them to Crane.

Crane studied the stone for sometime before replying "It is not that there is no element there, but the element energy inside the stone are so few, and are in such a perfect equilibrium that it appears not to contain any element."

Michael was surprised. " How come no one has figured all this out?" Michael asked.

"You can't be sure no one has figured it out, although it is expected since those who can sense the elements in the stone would probably not need world energy stones, and those who use world energy are not strong enough to notice the elements in the stone, which makes people believe that there are no elements in the world energy stones"

Michael nodded,he felt that what Crane had said was most likely the case.

"And even if someone found out, I guess they would probably decide to keep it as a secret" Crane added.

"Infact one of the major reason why qi is used to cultivate earlier is so as to be able to judge a cultivators talent accurately" Crane continued.

"What type of affinity do you think a person who was born with a talent for the earth element would show after spending years living in a place filled with the world energy containing fire element?" Crane asked and then continued before Michael could answer

"Affinity deals with what type of element a person is more familiar with and have a close relationship with, since the person has spent years interacting with the fire element, it is much more likely for the person's affinity to show fire despite his talent for the earth element, and since his affinity is showing fire, he would end up moving in the wrong direction, but with qi such a thing is impossible it contains all the elements, and hence a person would only have affinity for an element he has talent in and not based on the environment, which makes the person at least move in the right direction." Crane concluded