Meridian Refinement

The guesthouse owner yawned, scratching his armpit and stretching all at once.

He glanced at Wuxian through his squinted eyes.

"It's quite late for visitors…" 

Wuxian didn't speak, merely raising chief Li's coin pouch and giving it a shake.

"Look, I don't take in criminals. And I don't want any dirty money either- you'll get me in trouble with that kind of money, I don't want to wake up to a Nightwatcher inspection."

Wuxian looked at him with a stoic face, taking a handful of coins from the pouch and placing them onto the counter.

The innkeeper glanced down once at the money, then twice, then thrice. 

"That- uh, that's enough money for…" He took out an abacus and began calculating. After ten or so minutes, he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

"Are you sure you want to stay for twenty five years? I'm not even sure if I'll still be alive by then…"

  Wuxian silently moved his hand, retrieving over ninety percent of the coins and sweeping them back into the pouch.

The innkeeper's eyelid twitched, but he took the remaining few coins, counting them up quickly.

"That's three weeks. My best rooms are at the back, want to take a look? Ah, it'll be quite dark, mind you, we're running low on fuel for the lamps because of the war, you know."

Wuxian shook his head slightly, pointing at the board beside the innkeeper's head upon which several keys hung.

"Alright then, here ya go. Room 13 is down the corridor to the left past the pond. You can't miss it. If you need to trouble me, knock on room 3 if I'm not at the counter. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be heading back to bed."

Wuxian cupped his hands, taking the key and strolling down the corridor. Meanwhile, the innkeeper looked at the coins he'd just received with greed.

———

Having just washed himself, Wuxian sat cross-legged on the bed. His gaze wandered out through the barred window, over the clear pond and at the moon.

Sitting in the shadows, with the only illumination being the rays of moonlight that Wuxian had become well-acquainted with as of late, he had an enigmatic appearance, but his thoughts were transparent.

He remembered that as a child, though he'd been rather fortunate to have grown up the way he had, he'd still had his fair share of suffering.

He remembered the heavier events such as the death of his mother during miscarriage. He remembered the loss of his younger siblings to the plague.

That kind of pain was heavy. It was the pain of sadness but also of helplessness. At that time, had he been more educated, he'd likely have composed a poem cursing the cruelty of Heaven. That was a kind of pain from within the heart. Silent and cold.

Despite having a body in healthy condition, at the time, he felt as if shadows lurked all around him, blotting out the warmth of the people around him and also the rays of the sun.

He also remembered the less serious events, like roughhousing gone wrong. The occasional scratch, the occasional bruise and the very frequent crying and wailing. As a child, he had always been rather 'vocal', so to speak. Perhaps he craved the attention of the adults, perhaps he was just soft. Perhaps it was something else.

"Mian Ji, Xiao Chong… when I vanished from the face of the earth, what were you feeling? Were you as distraught as I? Did you weep? Did you erect a tombstone for me?" He muttered.

He felt a choking feeling, but did not cry. 

"How did you tell my old father? How did he react? Was I as important to you all as you were to me?"

He then grinned widely, letting out a dry chuckle, shaking his head.

"Sihai Wuxian, Sihai Wuxian ah, how self-centred you've become. Did becoming a lieutenant get to your mind? Did becoming immortal get to your mind? Of your brothers three, only you remain… Get yourself together."

He let out a sigh. Speaking to the silent pond, its dormant inhabitants and the Heavens and the Earth felt like a sort of release.

'Let's preoccupy ourselves, then.' He thought to himself, transferring his will to the interspatial ring on his left hand.

The best way to distract one's mind was to occupy it with something else.

He spent the next few hours tallying up the noteworthy items his rings contained. Though the interspatial ring created a miniature space where inanimate objects could be stored and any item could be retrieved at any time, it wasn't like Wuxian could withdraw a specific pill on a whim.

He had to first transfer his consciousness, then find the item and then use some energy to pull it out. If in a battle, he urgently needed a healing pill but wasn't exactly certain of where one was, those few moments of hesitation could seal his fate.

So not only did he mentally tabulate his possessions, but also rearranged their positions, placing the more important battle-related things closer to his will's entry point.

"200 consumable pill-type items, of which 150 are restorative and 50 are supplementary. The restorative pills can be divided into healing pills of various magnitudes and spirit qi replenishing pills. There are 100 of the former and 50 of the latter.

Of the supplementary pills, 10 are attack-boosting, 10 are meridian-strengthening, 20 are defence-increasing and the last 10 are sensory-enhancing."

He then shifted his attention to the other ring.

"Lots of furniture, some decorative paintings and poems, my armour and mask and most importantly, cultivation manuals. There are also some different spirit herbs, though they're all dead.

There are the Nine Revolutions Earthfire manuals, relating to weapon imbuement, golemancy and puppeteering, geomancy, alchemy and forging.

There are the wood qi exclusive manuals, two focused on healing and one focused on poison.

There is one fire qi manual, focusing on… breathing fire.

There are three earth exclusive manuals, one focusing on defence, one on divination and one escape technique.

As for generic techniques, there is Effortless Flow, the beginner movement technique. There is a defensive-supporting hybrid technique called 'Reactive Qi Armour', which can either use qi to form armour that detonates on impact, or adds an explosive property to a preexisting defensive technique.

There is also an offensive-supporting hybrid technique called 'Sonic Strikes', which causes each attack to let off high-pitched sounds and emanate qi, enhancing the distracting and damaging properties of one's normal attacks."

Wuxian let out a satisfied sound. He then returned to cultivating. 

Before he made his next move, breaking through to Foundation Building was his priority.

Without power, he could not protect himself.

———

The moon's silky shine had been replaced with the sun's vibrant glare, penetrating into every corner of the room.

Wuxian sat still, circulating qi. Though he had not been cultivating for long, merely a week and a few days, Foundation Building was one of the easier realms to attain. Combined with the fact that he was cultivating a heaven grade technique, he had long since been ready to advance.

Fortunately for him and in a broader sense, cultivators around the world, Foundation Building was not exactly a 'new' realm. It was more of a continuation of the previous one, Qi Refining. As such, it did not warrant punishment from the Heavens.

And so this lovely guesthouse did not need to suffer the wrath of a lightning tribulation.

But on the other hand, the moment one fully finished Foundation Building was also the moment one was technically qualified to undergo Qi Condensation.

Foundation Building was the moulding of one's internal body to suit their preferred cultivation technique, to mould their meridians, to refine their dantians and nourish their bodies.

Each meridian required care and effort to mould, each dantian required expertise and practice to refine. These processes required sustained efforts, so the stage was divided into multiple minor stages.

In the human body, there were 361 minor meridians and 12 major meridians. For every two major meridians, one had to first cultivate 60 minor meridians. 

Once 2 majors and 60 minors had been fully refined, one could be considered to have entered the first of the two 'Yellow' stages, minor and major.

Then, quite systematically, one would enter the major Yellow stage upon cultivating 4 major and 120 minor meridians, then the same number to enter the minor Earth stage, again to enter major Earth and then Heaven stage…

Once all the meridians were cultivated, the dantians would be refined by that time also. As the dantians were already constantly being refined by the movement of qi, once a cultivator finished cultivating meridians, they'd often ended up with refined dantians also.

Dantians would be naturally refined over time, so long as the cultivator continued to circulate their technique regularly, hence, there was no fuss to be made over that step.

Focusing internally, Wuxian contemplated to himself.

'According to the Nine Revolutions Earthfire manual, there are two main methods to refine the meridians. The first is 'balanced' refinement, nourishing all meridians with qi of all elements equally. The second is 'unbalanced' refinement, nourishing specific meridians with specific elements of qi.'

'There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods. 

For balanced refinement, each meridian is tuned to each element contained within my dantians, enhancing all spells I cast accordingly. The downside is that the intensity or extent of enhancement is relatively minor compared to unbalanced refinement. 

For unbalanced refinement, specific sets of meridians are enhanced with a singular or a pair of elements of qi. This provides a greater bonus to the spells cast when using matching meridians, but at the same time, reduces the effects of unrelated elements of qi passing through mismatched meridians. Furthermore, in the future, specialised meridians will be harder to re-refine into other elements.'

Wuxian was very much tempted by both options. The first was a jack-of-all-trades style of refinement, very much succeeding in all aspects but excelling in none. The second was a riskier, more variable style that required depth of knowledge to pull-off well.

'Though unbalanced refinement's negative effects can be downplayed by smart planning and meridian allocation, I myself do not possess that expertise. It is highly likely that by tailoring my meridians to the techniques I have at hand now, I will be curtailing my effectiveness in using more complex techniques later down the line.

While simpler techniques use only a few sets or lines of meridians, complex ones will often triple or quadruple the number of meridians used. With unbalanced refinement, not only will the spell effectiveness be decreased, but unwanted side-effects may occur too.'

He decided on the spot. Though unbalanced refinement was purely advantageous over balanced refinement when employed by an expert, Wuxian was not one. To him, who did not have a set-in-stone tailored pathway to ascension like a real silver spoon immortal provided by an elder, every technique, every mystic art and spell he could get his hands on would see use.

By deciding to narrow his options now, his future options, already narrow, would thin to that of a pinprick. If he did choose unbalanced refinement and later obtained a technique that would have been suitable for him otherwise, he could only feel remorse.

'According to cultivation laws in general, the order of meridian refinement depends on one's innate qi and spirit root. A fire cultivator begins with the Triple Burner meridian, then the heart and small intestine meridians, then following the cycle of five elements before ending with the pericardium meridian.'

'As a triple element cultivator, I may choose to either start with wood element meridians, or fire or earth.'

Each meridian was focused on a specific organ with its own element and polarity. There were two unique meridians, the Triple Burner and the pericardium meridian, then two meridians of each element, split into either yin or yang polarity.

'To avoid disharmony, it is best to cultivate elemental pairs in order, avoiding disharmony within the system from elemental conflict as well as polarity imbalance. The starting meridians I pick matter only in the short term. Ideally, I would not engage another in battle until all my meridians are refined.'

Wuxian drew in a cool breath, letting it out through his mouth.

"Let's begin."