Path Of The Dragon (A Dark Fantasy Cultivation Wuxia Xianxia Progression Series)

Chapter 7 Cultivation

"Before I can explain what a cultivator is, I need you to close your eyes and take slow, deep breaths in and out," Ming said.

Jie did as she was told, closing her eyes as she breathed deeply and slowly.

"With each breath you take in your body is nurtured and given life," Ming said, "with each breath out the wasteful air is removed. Do you feel the air within your lungs? The way it makes you feel more alive? More full of energy? If you were to stop breathing, you would pass out and later die. So essential is air to life."

Jie kept breathing deeply and evenly as she listened to the dragon's words.

"However, if you turn your attention away from the air. Away from taste, touch, smell, sight, and even what you can hear... if you turn away from those senses and focus your mind and your spirit... and reach out... what do you feel?" Ming asked.

Jie furrowed her brows. Sight was easy to shut out as her eyes were closed, but it was hard to ignore the soft breeze against her skin... the birds chirping nearby...

One by one she closed herself off from her senses, pushing them out of her mind. When her mind was clear, she tried to do what Ming said. To reach out with her mind and her spirit... to feel through a sixth sense.

Something clicked within her. A new sensation filled her mind, pressing on her from every angle. It flowed and moved around her like water.

It weighed on her shoulders. It brushed against her hair and her skin.

It permeated everything.

It was in the tiles beneath her feet and in the earth beneath the tiles. It was in the weeds that grew between the cracks, and the vines on the temple walls.

It was in the petals of the flowers around them. Inside the bodies of the birds that chirped.

And especially inside Ming.

If the world around her was like a lake of energy that pressed on her from every direction, yet somehow allowed her to breathe... Ming was like a maelstrom.

A swirling vortex of power so dense it would crush her if even a fraction of it were to release and brush against her.

Not just that but the energy inside Ming was infinitely brighter. The entire world around her shone with energy, but Ming made it seem dull and lifeless.

Like a blazing star amid the inky black of space.

The energy that weighed on her was nothing compared to the power inside him. It hurt her head just to have him close, yet his energy remained tightly controlled within his body.

"Wow..." Jie said.

"Incredible isn't it? At first, you were blind, but now you see. Do you begin to understand one of the differences between my world and yours? This energy that you sense all around you is called Essence.

"Or rather... the Essence of the Heavens and the Earth. It's easier to just say Essence though. It's energy. Most worlds produce this energy naturally, but yours does not. Or if it does, it's so little that even I could not sense it, and I like to think I'm rather talented," Ming said.

"Now that you've sensed this energy, it'll make understanding what cultivating is and what cultivators are much easier. Cultivating is simply the act of absorbing this energy into your dantian.

"Your dantian is the spiritual body within you... you will understand more about that later. For now, just remember that cultivating is taking in this energy, refining it within yourself, and making it your own.

"In a world like this, and in most worlds in fact, the amount of Essence means that everyone is a cultivator. It doesn't matter whether they farm, or fight in glorious battles.