Leaving A Legacy

The two potential catastrophes had been planted, but Ren’s work had only just begun. To ensure he retained a modicum of control over the Heart of Relentless Suffocation and Encroaching Darkness, he needed to infuse his own qi into them. Like with his insect control manual and other plant and beast controlling methods, his qi would be the bridge or bond between them.

He repeatedly flew back and forth between the two, carefully balancing the amount of qi he poured into them. He had no time to catch his breath, his reserves steadily draining. He couldn’t recover his qi fast enough, so he made sure to calculate the precise quantities of qi he spent. Still, he was only barely managing to leave an imprint, as the qi carrying his signature was but a small fraction of what the two plants were absorbing from their environments.

Ren had hardened his heart and proceeded with plans involving the deadly spirit plants because he was confident he could control them. However, he couldn’t afford any top-tier plant controlling manuals at the moment and could only follow the stable but generic methods that were freely available. It was a risk Ren was willing to accept because he planned to exhaust the two plants of opposing natures by pitting them against each other. It would buy him time until he could afford a proper plant controlling technique or he grew strong enough to break into the core formation stage.

Through extensive study, Ren had grasped the properties of the plants and the means with which he could manipulate them. Passing Hawk’s test in the black market had actually been a welcome boost to his confidence. It was proof that he did indeed study them well. The other source of his confidence was the 9 sets of combinations of plants and herbs he had grown around the 18 wells of qi around his mountains.

Ren had always trusted in the power and stability of an interconnected system. He had used the Wuxing cycle of elements in both his homes in the outer and inner sects. In the inner sect, he had further built upon that basic system with a mountain-spanning array. Where weaknesses were bolstered, surges were tempered, and the collective was greater than the individual, that was a true, cogent system.

Along that same line of thought, Ren’s plan was to use the higher order qi of Life and Death to form the basis of a system. And when it came to the ancient concepts of yin and yang, life and death, the Taijitu symbol naturally came to mind. The cycle of Yin and Yang, balancing and coexisting with each other. Generating and controlling each other as they swirled around each other endlessly in a circle. It was a simple idea, but its execution was extremely complex.

It had taken Ren over a month of intensive study to understand the various aspects of the higher-order qi. Then it had taken nearly another 2 months to get a practical feel for the two types of qi and how they interacted with each other. And despite all that, anybody who heard his ideas would still say he was like a bull, charging ahead recklessly. It was indeed foolish to assume he had anything more than the bare minimum of understanding after such a brief period of study when it came to such esoteric forces. But Ren had decided to gamble on himself and refused to back out. Passively studying any further wouldn’t help him here.

With both Encroaching Darkness and Heart of Relentless Suffocation planted in their designated places on the 1st and 3rd mountain peaks, they had already started to show signs of recovering from their withered states. Their initial stage would be a period of explosive growth, and Ren fully expected them to take over the peaks with ease. His supporting arrays had already begun channeling the local death and life qi to the hearts of both plants.

Both plants would form a central structure and gather all foraged resources back to them. If allowed to mature long enough, that center would be where the plant core would form in the future. Ren found it easier to just refer to them as their cores or main bodies.

While the cores gulped the atmospheric qi to grow, Ren, on the other hand, was already flagging. He needed to sit in his qi gathering arrays and cycle qi through his meridians to restore his reserves for what was to come. Ren also made sure the arrays were still functioning as planned for the next phase. Competition.

The plants may be on opposite ends of the Edge, but on the scale of their potential future bodies, the distance was actually minuscule. If he left the plants to their own devices, then they would find each other but may choose not to compete for resources. Not when there were two such abundant sources of qi on either side of the Edge. They could choose to avoid conflict and settle for expanding peacefully in opposite directions into the sacred ground and forbidden region. A possibility that Ren needed to prevent at all costs.

If it were discovered that he was the cause of such precious resources of the Azure Mountains Sect being fed to these calamities, he would die a dog’s death! His studies had informed Ren of the true worth of these places. Both territories contained an unprecedented number of dragon veins running through them. With their origins lost to the veil of time, cause and effect were impossible to determine now. Whether the events of their creation had formed the dragon veins or the multitude of veins meeting had formed these territories. All that mattered now is the value they held as formidable regions filled with boundless qi and rare natural treasures.

Their allure to the two plants would be undeniable. The Heart of Relentless Suffocation would find the brilliant vitality of the sacred ground a perfect ground to conquer. The Encroaching Darkness would find the barren forbidden region rich with ubiquitous death qi the perfect fertilizer. Ren wasn’t just afraid that they would just grow unchecked; he was even more scared that their balance-disrupting presence would cause whatever entities that lay at the center of the two territories to stir.

All this and more could go wrong. As a practitioner of karma, Ren knew that such disastrous fallout wouldn’t stop with him but infect all those connected to him. Just like he had one-sidedly been forced to accept the consequences of Elder Yun’s karma at the moment of his death, his actions may hurt Bao Hua, Mei Ling, Xi Yuan, and everyone else he was connected to.

Since he had decided to stake all on one throw of the dice, he had resolved to not let others be hurt unreasonably by the consequences of his actions. Ren swore to himself that if events reached a point of irrevocable loss, he would sacrifice his cultivation and sever all his karmic strand constructs. It wouldn’t erase it all, but it would mitigate the damage to everyone connected to him.

For all his grim musings, his plan was progressing smoothly. A purple mushroom with black spots had sprouted, glowing with qi to his senses. Simultaneously, on the 3rd peak, a single creeping vine had emerged, lush with vitality.

“It’s time.” Ren couldn’t spare any more wasteful thoughts as he focused all his attention.

The signal was sent to the 18 arrays he had prepared around the nodes. The arrays either plugged or opened the tap to draw out more qi from the sources according to his design. Ren was going to create a lure to bring the two nascent plants into contact. Nodes releasing the life attribute qi that the Heart of Relentless Suffocation desired would be closest to the Encroaching Darkness, and the reverse was true for death qi.

The plants would rapidly grow towards and confront each other. But that alone wouldn’t prevent them from escaping into the neighboring territories. So Ren was going to force a rotation. By forcing the qi of The Edge to rotate counterclockwise, he would draw the qi inward, like a whirlpool. It would truly resemble the taiji symbol! This had the added benefit of keeping his new home on the second peak from becoming a battleground, as the points of conflict would be a much longer line around the second mountain.

It was also why he needed to wait until all the 18 nodes had sufficient traces of the opposing qi. To keep the rotation constant, he needed a lure even on the opposite side. When Encroaching Darkness on the first peak needed to grow toward the left side, which only had nodes of life qi from the sacred ground, Ren’s arrays would suppress the life qi while highlighting the traces of death qi in the soil he had sown using 9 sets of plants. The same held for when the Heart of Relentless Suffocation on the 3rd peak needed to grow toward the right side where the nodes leaked death qi from the forbidden region.

In this manner, he would keep the plants growing in a contained circle around The Edge and force them into co-existence and conflict within that tiny space. The rotation was also slow, as the arrays needed to follow a sequential activation and deactivation, resulting in just one complete rotation every day. At least to begin with. As with diverting a stream, the initial effort was the greatest. Then the stream would reinforce and deepen those channels by itself over time.

The time to activate the rotation swiftly approached as the thin bone-colored strands started spreading down the first mountain and the emerald vines began running down the third mountain, both heading toward the second mountain.

“It either cycles the qi and fosters harmony or the qi clashes and destabilizes the Edge entirely. It’s too late to back out anyway! HAAH!” And the die was cast.

The arrays began the laborious process of spinning the qi. Ren had bottled a storm, and the wildlife of The Edge immediately started to take notice. There were panicked bleats from the goats and yak as they scrambled to find safety. From the caverns deep under the 2nd mountain, a cloud of luminescent insects spewed out as if fleeing a predator. Ren had only read about their existence, and they were said to be harmless, but the swarms certainly looked intimidating. The clouds above Ren had begun to form a swirl.

“It will take a few days to be sure of the results, and the danger is not past until then. In the meantime, I need to maintain what feeble imprints I can on the two plants and…”

Alarms began sounding, alerting Ren that two of the arrays around the nodes began to fail. An odd, keening, grating tone rang out, and the ground began to shake.