The First Spell

"The next three techniques are harder for me to explain since I myself am not that well versed in them. Your grandmaster and great grandmaster were both famous for their skills in these three categories.

They are; geomancy, alchemy and forging. 

Now, the reason why I am not very good at these is not because I was negligent in my studies, nor was it because I ran away from home before your grandmaster had finished teaching me…

It is because I was more interested in the first two techniques. I did not need to be able to produce pills or forge weapons and armour because I got all of those things from my master…"

Wuxian resisted the urge to get up and leave. Not only was his master unreliable to others, but he was also unreliable to himself, not even bothering to properly learn his own cultivation system!

'Respectfully, that's nonsense.' Wuxian muttered silently.

"I can hear your thoughts, brat." Black Emperor Mountain Hermit snorted.

Knowing that his master was all bark and no bite, Wuxian merely grunted in response.

His master shook his head in disappointment, slowly floating into the air.

"Aihya~ The new generation lacks manners."

Before Wuxian could retort, Black Emperor procured a set of manuals from thin air and tossed them into Wuxian's arms.

"These are the manuals for all five spell schools."

"I still can't read immortal script, master."

Black Emperor slowly floated over and placed his hands on Wuxian's head. A faint icy blue glow emerged from beneath his palms, seeping in.

Wuxian felt a tight sensation within his head, like something was wrapping over it. After a few moments, it went away, but he could feel that something had changed.

"I've implanted a soul seed into your mind. This will allow you to read immortal script until the seed eventually expires. Once it does expire, you'll lose the automatic translation feature, but hopefully you'll be able to retain some information pertaining to vocabulary and grammar."

Wuxian bowed. "Disciple thanks master."

Black Emperor shook his head, stroking his beard. "Small matter, small matter."

Looking on, Wuxian couldn't help but think, 'Perhaps, when he was well and alive, a complete soul, master was in fact a reliable person.' 

Then he immediately rested his head in his hand, wishing that he could stop his mind from being read. Upon first entering the chamber, he had greater worries than his thoughts being intercepted, but now that the shock of everything had gradually worn off, mind reading was the final thing that continued to unnerve him.

"Don't worry, disciple. I won't be around to read your thoughts for much longer, so just bear with me! Hehe, I need some entertainment after waiting around in this chamber for as many years as I have anyway."

Wuxian's face turned black, but he refrained from making any comments. His inner thoughts were repeatedly flooded with 'don't think, don't think, don't think.'

"Master, may I ask, what exactly do immortals do for fun? From what you've said, it seems they spend most of their time cultivating." He asked.

Said immortal in question was currently floating upside down admiring the golden dragon patterns on his sleeves.

"Eh, it depends on the person. Some people like to play weiqi, some people like to debate with acquaintances, some people like to test formations, some people like to play music and so on. 

To be honest, even cultivating can be treated as entertainment sometimes. It's mostly when you've sat still in a cave for the last ten years that it tends to get a bit repetitive and you start looking for other avenues of fun.

There was actually a pretty interesting card game floating around back in the day. It went by the name of 'Heroes of Heaven and Earth'. What made it unique was that all of the characters were based on real life figures."

Wuxian raised an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't the great figures of the immortal realm feel insulted if they were turned into cards for others to play with? Aren't the creators of that game afraid that they'll one day wake up to find that their house has been incinerated?" He asked.

Black Emperor shook his head confidently.

"No, in fact, it's even the opposite. A lot of people enjoy the attention. On top of that, the company even pays royalties to the people it creates cards for and always obtains consent first before producing them. 

There have been many cases of one cultivator being requested to have a card made after them, only for said cultivator's nemesis to turn up to the company's headquarters and demand they make a card after them as well!"

He then smiled proudly. "And our lineage has a card set based on it too. Your great-great-grandmaster was so powerful at one point that his card got banned from competitive play. Ah, those were the days."

Wuxian didn't understand much of what was said. As an ex-mortal, recently turned immortal, most of his fun came from playing rough with the other village kids or messing around with the village animals. He knew some card games like 'fight the landlord', but they weren't common in rural Liang. He had only learnt about them and others from his father who had obtained packs of cards from the city.

Seeing his master acting as if having a card in a game modelled after oneself was the pinnacle achievement a cultivator could make, he felt second-hand embarrassment.

'Anyway, time to get back to studying.'

Opening the first manual, he was surprised to see that the characters written down hadn't changed from before. They were still the strange patterns that he'd seen in the Nine Revolutions Earthfire technique as well as on the totems lined up to the entrance of the inheritance chamber.

But after a few moments, ice-blue Liang script floated up beside the immortal words, forming understandable sentences.

He spent the next few hours reading with great interest, occasionally asking questions about things that he did not understand.

This lasted until he suddenly felt a wave of hunger wash over him. Not only that, but he was suddenly hit with a headache and intense mental fatigue as well.

In response to this, his master had tossed him a small pea-sized sphere that carried an alluring fragrance. After eating it, Wuxian's fatigue and hunger were washed away and he felt as if he had been restored to peak condition.

Thus, he carried on reading through the manuals. Previously, his master had manually guided him through the circulation of the Nine Revolutions Earthfire technique, so there was no urgency to go over that manual again.

He began with the weapon imbuement techniques. There were many spells recorded within the scroll, ranging from simply injecting qi into weapons of different sizes to more complex usages like using an imbued weapon to project qi externally.

Once he finished reading through the instructions on imbuing a weapon with qi, he realised a problem.

"Master, the only weapon I have is the sword I picked up from the dead Han soldier. I'm not familiar with using it- will that lead to trouble in practising the technique?"

Black Emperor shook his head. "No. To practise circulation, you only need to have a weapon whose dimensions you're familiar with. Actual fighting techniques are unnecessary in this case, just focus on the meridian channel you're using.

Actually, a good method of training weapon imbuement is to switch weapons as soon as you get comfortable with the one you're currently using. This way, you have a better ability to adapt to the circumstances."

Wuxian nodded, getting up and going over to pick up the discarded longsword.

As he inspected it, he realised that it was a really interesting weapon. Unlike many swords which had an elastic quality to them, this one was a long and thick blade. It was longer than his arm and could be rested similarly to a spear in some places.

'This… this looks like a variant of a horse-killing-sword.'

He felt that placing its flat side along the back of his shoulder to be most comfortable. This way, he could use only one hand to hold it there and swiftly take a hold of it with both hands and strike when he needed to.

With its double-edged sword blade, he had to be careful not to cut his own neck.

Wuxian closed his eyes. He inspected his three dantians.

The Shen dantian was completely full with wood qi. Whenever he expended wood qi, either in casting spells or producing fire and earth qi, it would gradually fill up by itself.

The Qi and Jing dantians were saturated with their respective qi as well.

After a moment of contemplation, he decided to use his wood qi. Fire qi and earth qi were more 'valuable' to him, since they required circulation of the Nine Revolutions Earthfire art, whereas wood qi could be replenished simply by breathing.

He took a deep breath, slowly rousing the qi sitting in his Shen dantian. He felt like an army chef, holding a large ladle and swirling a large pot of stew. Each swirl was a laborious movement, requiring exertion not just from the arms, but from the legs and chest too.

Soon enough, the qi within his dantian was swirling on its own, similarly to a whirlpool. Once it was roused, channelling it through his meridians was the next step.

He did not need to manually push the qi through the meridian pathways, since it was already stirred up and ready to move. Wuxian's job was to guide it, making sure it went down the correct pathways and not the wrong ones.

He held the sword with two hands, resting it on his shoulders. He located the primary meridians in both arms, the one in his chest and everything in between, mentally drawing out the map in his mind. 

Then, with a gentle shove, the qi shot down. Though he could sense when to make each turn as if in slow motion, the reality was that the qi moved through the meridians at lightning speed. Wuxian could tell that trying to 'freestyle' a spell would lead to disastrous consequences, since the time his qi took to reach a new meridian was shorter than the time it took for him to even identify which meridians were available for him to guide it through.

And in that instant, even though he had prepared the route beforehand, his qi went down the wrong meridian. Usually, passing through one or two wrong meridians could still allow the spell to be activated, albeit with unintended side effects. But in this case, the meridian his qi had moved to did not link back to the original pathway and Wuxian was not experienced enough to jury-rig a way back on track.

Luckily, the manual contained a method to effectively abort the spell's activation. Wuxian closed the channel from his Shen dantian to the currently active meridian. This was similar to closing the water tap to a hosepipe, or closing the gate of a dam.

Though the qi was no longer flowing out of his dantian, the qi that had already left was still roaming through his meridian system.

Wuxian focused with all his might, opening all the meridian channels that lead out of his body.

In the next moment, he felt blood rising up out of his mouth and dripping down his lips. At the same time, a puff of green energy shot out through his nostrils. He suffered a minor backlash and ejected the rampant qi from his body.

Failed.

He wiped the blood off his mouth with his dirty sleeve. 

Wuxian took a deep breath, replenishing some of his lost qi, before closing his eyes again.

He mobilised his Shen dantian again, stirring up the wood qi it contained. He opened the first meridian. Then the second. Then the third. This continued to the tenth meridian, whereupon he had a momentary lapse in concentration. 

The qi spiralled out of control and he had no choice to abort. As he opened every nearby meridian to eject the qi, green gas was expelled from the pores across the entire surface of both his arms.

Ignoring the blood and the pain, Wuxian felt a sense of accomplishment. The first attempt, he had not even made it past the chest meridian. This time, he had managed to guide the qi all the way up to his arms.

He took a short break, reflecting on the mistake he made and how he could improve. As his blood settled, he continued to practise. This time, he didn't let his qi flow out, but instead practised opening and closing the required meridians in quick succession.

After ten more rounds of practice, he felt ready again.

Once again, qi within his Shen dantian was activated. It swirled like a raging tornado, eager to be let out and cause destruction.

Once the first meridian opened, it was like starving wolves had been uncaged. Wuxian did not falter once, opening the meridians as he had practised. 

After one second passed, his eyes opened. He knew he had succeeded in weapon imbuement.

Lifting the blade off his shoulder and scrutinising it, he held in a breath of wonder. The entire length of the sword was coated in a mirage of green energy, swirling around it like the steam in a hot spring.

Despite everything he had gone through so far, this was undoubtedly the most intimate contact he'd had with the supernatural since beginning cultivation. Though he had been circulating qi, seeing the product of his efforts visually was something else.

He squatted into horse-stance, giving the weapon a swing. As the blade cut through the air, the green energy created a visible blur. Not only did the weapon now have elemental properties, it also functioned well to impair the opponent's vision.

Black Emperor Mountain Hermit, who had been watching the whole time, refrained from saying anything, allowing Wuxian to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

After some time passed and Wuxian was about to move on to the next spell, he finally spoke.

"You've impressed me, disciple."

Wuxian, remembering how happy his master had seemed when talking about their ancestor having a card created based on his image moments prior, kept a straight face.

"What could possibly impress you, master?"

Ignoring the backhandedness of the question, Black Emperor replied.

"You managed to cast the most basic spell in the weapon imbuement series with only three attempts. Not only that, but you did it without slowing down the flow of your qi either. These are the signs of a martial genius." He praised, causing Wuxian to faintly blush.

Then Wuxian noticed the issue.

"Ah? Wait a moment, it's possible to slow down the flow of qi? Did I suffer from backlash for nothing?"

Master and disciple stared at each other blankly.