Opening the Elemental Gate

Sitting on his bed, Hong Zhao examined the sapphire pendant thoroughly. He looked at every edge to the trinket, which was intricately woven as if it were molded together as liquid. Who knew, maybe it was. The thought intrigued him, but he pushed it aside. He had to know if this was something he could do on his own. Taking the sapphire hammer, he placed the head of it to his brow and inserted a wisp of qi. The moment the energy entered into the memory stone, images began to flash within Hong Zhao's closed eyes.

Most of what he saw was nonsense. It looked hazy, as if watching a show through a tv with much static. When Lang Feng spoke, he didn't hear him. The images skipped forward of their own volition, if he was meant to make any sense of the man's efforts to create anything, he couldn't.

Hong Zhao released the pendant from his forehead and massaged his temples. The whole event had given him a massive headache and not so much to think about. He swore when he realized he would indeed need Lang Xinyue to decipher the stone. The dream of being able to avoid this whole mess vanished before his eyes. "Dammit," He sighed as he picked up the hammer and examined it again. "I guess it was worth a try anyway."

Hong Zhao then remembered Lang Xinyue's explanation of elemental qi and the gate that opened when one reached the disciple rank. He still hadn't looked within himself to see if such a gate existed.

Closing his eyes, he focused on his qi spiral within his dantian. With the qi suppressor on, the spiral was only a tenth of what his true qi capacity was. With the extra space within the dantian revealed, he could see something within a far wall. His consciousness flowed over and noticed it was an indentation within the wall, yet as he focused on it, he could see a lick of flame within the crack.

"This must be what he meant by a single drop a day of elemental qi." Hong Zhao said to himself as he looked within. "That won't be enough if I'm going to master this in a month."

Not knowing exactly what he was supposed to do, he allowed instinct to guide his decision. After all, what was cultivating if not a spiritual journey within one's own mind and body? After he justified it, he focused his qi into the indentation in the wall. His qi spiral quickly emptied as it pushed against the wall. Though only ten percent of his full power was only enough to chip a piece of the wall off. He saw just a little ember of the elemental qi drop from the crack, melding with the rest of his dantian. Even in his meditating state, he could feel the warmth of the energy as it touched the floor of his dantian. He knew that he could use the energy if he needed to, but it would also disperse within a few minutes.

Hong Zhao groaned at the thought of only being able to use a fraction of the elemental qi for training purposes. It meant he would only have one chance to work on the ability per day. If it took that long, he would be within Naje for many years, not just a month. If he wished to make a leap early, he would have to do something to open the elemental gate. He thought about how he had made the one ember of energy appear from the crack. It took all of his power within the ninth star student rank just to be able to gain access to that single molecule of fire qi. What would happen with the full qi spiral of a third star disciple rank cultivator?

At that thought, Hong Zhao released his hold on his consciousness within his dantian and came back to himself. Without wasting a second, he changed into his qi blocking uniform. He didn't need to make a fake qi signature since he had already used up the qi within his qi spiral. He could tell it was replenishing at a rapid rate already, but he had no time to lose. He activated the qi blocking formation on the forehead of the mask, then sat in the lotus position. He took out a qi grasping pill and qi stone, after swallowing the pill, he cupped the stone within his hands as he cultivated.

He could feel the tornado effect of the qi funnel atop his head grow in intensity. It felt faster than it was the previous day, which made him wonder about the benefits of holding the qi spiral's potential at a tenth of the level. If he could think of one way to describe it, it would be qi hunger. It was as if he had starved the qi spiral all day and it wanted to absorb all that it lacked within the day. He could understand the large pull from yesterday, due to having the pendant on for a full week, but just after a single day?

Within an hour and a half, Hong Zhao had replenished his entire qi spiral back to the realm of third star disciple rank. Without opening his eyes, he dove into his dantian. The qi spiral had grown the size of the dantian itself, the walls were just a few feet away from the flowing qi. He noticed that the spiral was already raging like a river, yet formed into a spiral. The third star disciple ranked qi spiral was like a raging river compared to the ninth star student rank's small creek. He felt almost powerless with the pendant on now that he thought about it. Something just felt wrong about the whole experience.

Hong Zhao's thoughts raced as he watched the qi within him surge. He was proud of the achievements he had made so far within the world of cultivation, yet he still felt weak. He still remembered the ranks he still needed to climb and realized that he only graduated from being a speck of dust to an ant when he broke through to disciple. When he reached the warrior rank, he might be considered a rat among wolves. He was just lucky to be an ant among dust mites within the Yuan continent. He grimaced when he realized he wasn't even strong enough to kill a rat. With that thought, he noticed the indentation in the wall of his dantian and grinned. If he was to be a dust mite for a while longer, he may as well be one with a bite.

Focusing on the indentation, he sent the full force of his qi spiral to it. He could feel the impact of the qi within the dantian physically just as he was witnessing it. The qi spiral shrunk significantly before returning back to it's original state. Hong Zhao looked at where the crack was a moment ago and noticed the full gate had been opened. Within the opening, he saw a fire the size of a camp fire casting shadows on the wall.