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Chapter 3 - Chapter 3: the experience

The sky thickened.

Not with clouds. Not with rain.

But with something older, rougher:

the scent of pressure, as if the world had been holding its breath for too long.

Heng Zhen stood upon the stone where he usually sat. But today, his body felt heavy. Not from age, nor from wounds. But because something around him… refused to be still.

Chaosqi.

Hundunqi.

It was beginning to thicken. No longer gathering as directionless mist, but forming a faint vortex on the eastern horizon. A world that had lain silent and wild for fifty thousand years was now stirring. Not because of mankind, not because of war. But because it had realized something not born of it had begun to grow within its own body.

And the world did not like that.

Lu Wen coughed, his breath short. He pointed at the sky. "Why is it… red?"

"That's not light," Heng Zhen said quietly. "That's intent."

Lu Wen stiffened. "Intent… from the world?"

Heng Zhen nodded. "Chaosqi is not just power. It is the world's memory of the first chaos. It carries the remnants of will from when the universe first screamed. It cannot speak… but it can feel. And now, it feels threatened."

"Threatened by what?"

"Silence."

Lu Wen didn't understand. But he didn't ask further.

That day, some people from the north arrived in the valley. They were not ordinary wanderers. Their bodies were marked with crude carvings, bluish-red lines on their arms pulsing, as if something moved beneath their skin.

"We're chasing something," said one of them, a tall man with his hair braided short.

"What is it?" Lu Wen asked.

"The emergence of an unknown energy. Light. Silent. But unwilling to submit."

Lu Wen turned to his teacher. But Heng Zhen only closed his eyes.

He knew. The world was no longer merely stirring it was now searching for the source of its imbalance.

Yuanqi did not seek to dominate the world.

But that very refusal made it foreign.

And in a world born of chaos, something that desires to hold nothing… appears as the most dangerous enemy.

At night, the valley was no longer quiet.

The air felt as though it might crack.

And in the midst of that tension, Heng Zhen sat again — this time, not to listen, but to endure.

"Where… am I?"

It wasn't a question of place.

It wasn't a question of space.

It was a question from within one that finally escaped Heng Zhen's lips as he sat alone by the edge of the old spring, his body wrapped in an unfamiliar feeling that could not be explained by the world's logic.

He wasn't floating.

Nor was he sinking.

But it felt as if he… had been folded inward into himself.

All was silent.

Yet within that silence, there were layers.

He began to feel the layers of his own being, like veils of the soul he had never touched before — and each layer held a different color.

"I've never been in a place like this," he said softly.

But who answered?

Not the sky.

Not the earth.

And yet, it was as if his body replied — with a shift in his breathing, with warmth flowing through his chest, and a subtle pulse tracing his spine.

Yuanqi…

It is not something gathered.

It is something that appears when nothing is being gathered.

And when it appears, the inner world begins to change.

He had entered the First Realm: Qingjing (清境) — Clarity.

In this realm, the first thing to emerge is clarity of mind.

There is no power. No technique.

Only one thing: awareness of what is not oneself.

All illusions, all old desires, all inherited fears surfaced one by one… only to melt away.

And from that clearing, the first Yuanqi was born within Heng Zhen.

Not from absorption.

But from purification.

"This is not power," Heng Zhen said.

"This… is my true self."

He opened his eyes.

And the world felt lighter.

He could not yet change anything. But for the first time… the world no longer pressed down on him.

Chaosqi still circled the valley. But now, it did not weigh on Heng Zhen's body as before.

Because Yuanqi now enveloped him like a membrane of silence thin, but undisturbed.

"Realm," he whispered.

"Not as they call it… not a stage of power. But a stage of unloading. A layer of being."

From a distance, Lu Wen felt his body grow slightly warmer.

"I… can feel something from Master."

Heng Zhen smiled.

"If this continues, we will carve a path unlike this world's."

"Master… may I try?"

The voice came from Lu Wen calm, yet holding a subtle tension, like an arrow just shy of release.

Heng Zhen didn't answer right away. He gazed into the spring, where his reflection shimmered blurry, like an unfinished memory.

From afar, voices began to stir.

Some from the valley had started to gather.

"What did he find?"

"Is this a new kind of power?"

"If he can do it, why can't we?"

Humans are always drawn to change.

But it's not change they seek it's results.

And results are the one thing Yuanqi cannot offer.

Heng Zhen sighed.

"How long do you think I sat here?" he asked.

Lu Wen thought. "Seven days. Maybe eight."

"No."

"Two weeks?"

Heng Zhen shook his head. "Seven years. But only my body was still. My time… was inside."

Silence fell.

Some people exchanged looks. Even Lu Wen lowered his gaze.

"Master… during all that time… what did you do?"

Heng Zhen looked up at the sky.

"I erased. Not added. Not gathered, not cultivated. But slowly… I let go of what wasn't mine. Thoughts, desires, fears, memories I didn't even realize I had inherited from this world."

He turned to Lu Wen.

"Can you do that?"

Lu Wen didn't reply.

But behind him, a young man stepped forward. His hair was matted, his eyes sharp. He spoke clearly:

"I want to try. If this path is true, let my body be the proof."

His name was San Lie.

A bold youth from the eastern part of the valley, known for his temper and fierceness but also for his resolve.

Heng Zhen studied him in silence.

"Sit."

San Lie sat.

And the world began to shift for him but not in the way he expected.

Days later, his body trembled.

He stopped speaking. Stopped eating.

Then one night, he screamed in his sleep.

When he awoke, he stared at Heng Zhen with red eyes.

"Why… is there no sound?" he asked. "Why is everything gone?"

"Because you've only opened the first door," Heng Zhen said gently.

"And there, you'll find emptiness.

Before Yuanqi arrives… you must face yourself."

San Lie lowered his head. He said nothing more.

In the days that followed, others tried.

Some sat then stood and walked away in fear.

Some were silent… then began to cry.

Others grew restless, even angry.

They thought Yuanqi was a new force they could wield against Chaosqi.

They didn't understand:

Yuanqi does not conquer. It does not fight.

It calms.

And for that… it demands a far deeper courage.

On the eighth day, Heng Zhen spoke to Lu Wen.

"This path isn't for everyone.

Not because they are weak but because they are still full.

And to begin this path… one must be empty enough."

Lu Wen looked up at the sky.

"Master… I'm not ready, am I?"

"You'll know when the time comes.

Yuanqi doesn't call.

It only appears… when your heart calls for nothing at all."

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