Pursuing The Summit - Chapter 14 Amber

“Basically, your training this entire month will be a cycle of things: collecting all the flames within your body into your lower dantian, compressing them into something you can withstand, then moving onto the next dantian. Those would satisfy the first three layers right now. Each layer will require a week on average and each session will last until your qi runs out. When it does, we will switch over to physical exercise, so your body gets stronger. There will be four main breaks: breakfast, dinner, sleep and whatever time is left in the day between dinner and sleep if you finish your training early enough. Alright?” Nancy asked.

Amber nodded.

“Alright. The first thing you will do, since the sun is up right now, is to collect the flames within your body into your lower dantian. The fastest way to do so is stripping all of your fire element and collecting it within your lower dantian first. Your body will naturally replenish the fire element in your qi with the flames within and slowly you will lure those flames out. Once your dantian has been filled with flames, you will condense it into a orb for your body to withstand. My part in this body is to look after you so you don’t die in this process, but I can do little to ease the pain of this process.” Nancy said.

Amber nodded.

Nancy turned around and created a pentagon from five placed stones. She connected each vertice with the others to form an outer and inner pentagon with a pentagram connecting the two. She took out a sheet of paper and began to copy the runes within the image onto each side of the pentagons.

“Sit in the small pentagon, then start cultivating.” Nancy said.

Amber sat at the center of the pentagon and Nancy sat before her. Both of them fit comfortably within the smaller pentagon. Nancy immediately activated the array and the surrounding qi immediately pelted her, but it melted as soon as it hit her body. Refreshing, Amber thought, like a cold shower.

Amber took a minute to slowly exhale and inhale when she sat down. Unlike other cultivation techniques that started in the middle dantian and moved up to the head, the Nine Sun Yang Emperor technique started directly in the head. It had the steepest requirements for cultivation and in order to achieve the first realm, the upper dantian should be opened first. And, for those with some type of flame body, the technique required the upper dantian to be opened first. Of course, Amber did not open any of the three dantians on her own. Instead, Louis helped her open all three, so it was easy and painless, costing her little more than a couple of months to jump three realms. However, because of this, her cultivation realm was at a halt for the next two years and the pain she would receive could roast her alive.

Although theoretically the qi within a person’s body could be revolved at any point, as long as a complete revolution was completed, many techniques started at one of the three dantians or the four limbs. For the Nine Sun Yang Emperor technique, one complete revolution was not revolving from the upper dantian and back to itself, but also adding another part to end at the lower dantian.

Completing the first revolution was simple. As her qi passes through the lower dantian, the fire element would fall off like small pebbles of burning coal into her reservoir of qi, which looked less like water and more like a molten sea. A few pebbles falling into it did little to change her circumstances, so she continued.

The first few revolutions revitalized her, reforging her body from any damages and scars that her tissues and internal organs sustained in the few weeks prior, as she was ‘preparing herself’ by creating an orb of flame outside of her body. However, after the fourth revolution, she felt her body internally heat up and the frost qi pelting her begin to chew into her body. It was at that moment when a soft and warm qi seeped into her body. While she still felt the cold, which caused her body to heat up internally, the cold no longer hurt her. By the sixth revolution, her internal temperature had begun to fall and her qi was running out. The amount of pebbles she collect had barely cover the bottom of the molten sea. By the seventh revolution, her qi was completely exhausted and the molten sea had disappeared, leaving a rugged layer of pebbles fighting each other to reach greater heights. The frozen qi pelting her also disappeared the same instant.

“Good work, Amber.” Nancy said, as she held out her hand.

Amber grabbed it and was lifted up by Nancy.

“Now, we are going to run until your qi is restored. Considering we are outside under the blazing sun and the ruins replenishes your qi pretty quickly, I believe you will restore within a couple hours. Now, let’s get running.” Nancy said.

So they ran around the entire ruins, following the walls of the gate, round and round. Amber could feel her qi restoring, albeit faintly, with each step she was taking, which was much faster than when she stayed indoors. Since they were running in a circle, it was boring. So very boring. To their right was a giant wall with runes she couldn’t understand but with enough laps, she saw that each row repeated every twenty or so steps, though she couldn’t decipher it one bit. To the left, all she could see was the dusty landscape. The ruins was more a dungeon than a building. To reach the first floor, there was a rectangular spiral road that led down into the depths. Besides that, Amber spent most of the time that she could watching Amelia train with Priscilla. They were both practicing stances and swinging their swords in the same fashion. She wondered whether running or swinging a sword was more boring.

After a couple of laps, Nancy started trash talking. “If you have the energy to look around, you have the energy to run faster,” was her motto. So faster and faster they went and Amber felt like using qi to keep up with Nancy, who would hit her if she ran too slowly, but every time she used her qi, Nancy hit her once more. Amber quit using qi to run after the third time.

They ran for forty minutes, when Amber’s legs began cramping and walking, let alone running, became difficult.

“Alright, stop.” Nancy said. “It’s time for a ten minute break.”

“Yay,” Amber said, laying down.

“I said it was a break, not bedtime. Now sit up. I’ll massage your limbs then it’s back to revolving your qi and collecting those pebbles.” Nancy said, grabbing her right leg.

Amber did not notice it earlier, but Nancy was using a mixture of earth and water qi as she grabbing her leg. Nancy had light purple hair and purple pupils. While hair and pupil colors outside the normal red, blue, silver and brown colors were not that rare, the purer the color generally meant better the talent and the Inzud family was renowned for its wind talent, techniques, perhaps not as much as the Rosenburg family, but it was still extremely well regarded, even by her father.

“How can you use the water and earth elements?” Amber asked.

“Oh this?” Nancy said, looking up as she continued to work. “Turns out I experienced an atavism, so I’m more of a high elf, an archmage one at that, than a normal elf, so I can use all four elements to the same extent and use them interchangeably at will. Quite convenient, if you ask me.”

“I have never heard of that before.” Amber said.

“Well, yeah. Although some of the club members know, my parents don’t. They think I have poor wind talent because of my hair and pupil colors and I want to keep it that way.” Nancy said. “So keep it a secret.”

Once Nancy released her arms and legs, Amber felt as if her limbs were fully restored, as if she had not been running for forty minutes.

“Although I have healed some of the damages and speed up the healing process, if it’s not a full job. It’s just enough so that you can cultivate in peace without aching too much. I’ll do an extensive healing process before you sleep, so you can wake up without any problems.” Nancy said. “Now, it’s time for you to start cultivating again.”

Her qi reservoir restored only twenty percent. She began immediately and frozen qi once again pelleted her body. Two revolutions later, her qi was exhausted and Nancy took her onto another run. This time, they ran in the opposite direction. Every few minutes, Nancy would hit her and she felt that her qi was increasing at a faster pace, but she had little time to appreciate it.

Once her qi replenished, her body grew exhausted. Once her body rested, her qi was exhausted. Rinse and repeat, her days passed as such. Sometimes Amelia and Priscilla ran with her, other times she had to chase Amelia or Amelia had to chase her. Other times, only Amelia and her ran while Priscilla practiced her own sword play while Nancy changed the landscape as they ran, so they sometimes ran up hill, had to jump over a newfound crevice or a sharp stone sticking out of the ground. While they slept every night, only of their two would sleep, for the other kept watch.

It was hard, Amber had to admit, but after the first week, Amber finally collected enough pebbles to cover the entire reservoir. She ate an unique grade Fire Qi Replenishing Pill and used her qi as it appeared to crush those pebbles, which were fragmented fire crystals, together. The increasing pressure shattered the crystals and they looked much like the molten sea. Instead of falling back into the reservoir, the qi twisted and turned, spiraling onto itself and formed a sphere. Her qi was exhausted bit by bit as the flames within her body once again began to ignite and flock to the sphere on their own volition. Once it was complete, the sphere became a red inferno, burning brightly as it fell into the qi reservoir. It had the same height as the reservoir, but its width only filled a third of it. The unique grade pill finished began to fill her reservoir with qi now that her newly made sun no longer devoured her qi.

“That’s step one, Amber. Congratulations.” Nancy said, smiling. “I prepared some cake.”