Chapter 118: A Dual Dantian to Conquer the World

Having asked his question, Han Kai looked at An expectantly.

"Hm, my own cultivation's too low to really grasp what a second dantian even means, if I'm being completely honest with you..." Hearing the question, seeing the look on his face, An decided without much hesitation to just say what he actually thought. "But from where I'm standing right now... I'd call the idea a little strange."

"Why strange? A second dantian! Wouldn't that make you twice as strong?" Lun found himself puzzled by An's answer.

"Maybe it boosts the raw strength of your Qi, though I doubt even that..." Falling silent suddenly, An thought it over, turning it around in his head for a few seconds, working out the words, before speaking again.

"A second dantian just increases your Qi capacity, and honestly, I don't see many other upsides beyond that.”

“If you actually wanted the strength of the Qi itself to increase, like you're suggesting, your physical body would need to grow far stronger too, just to withstand the change in your energy's density... Which means, on top of this pill, you'd have to eat pills by the bucketload just to keep the process of forming a second dantian from draining you completely dry: both physically, meaning your vitality, and spiritually, meaning your Qi and your mind..." Pulling a charred stick from the fire, An started writing something in the dirt.

"There always has to be balance... Even if you somehow had enough resources just for the creation of the second dantian itself. What then? Eat a second pill to evolve your physical body, and a third to strengthen your soul? Ridiculous idea... Qi, Body, Soul... they need to stay in balance. Sure, there's always some margin of error, every cultivator's proof of that, but creating a second dantian pushes that margin way too far."

Drawing a human figure in the dirt, two dantians in its stomach, An kept going. "Picture this: you're in a fight, and your opponent's too strong for you. You decide to draw from both dantians at once. What do you think happens to your body? And what happens to your mind, which now has to process, eh, doesn't matter... In short, your physical body would have to withstand massive, directed streams of energy passing straight through it: muscles, veins, bones, cells..."

Once he'd finished drawing the figure so that the CycleSymbol, laid out in coals, sat inside the man's head, with the two dantians positioned below, An tossed the stick back into the fire.

"Besides, what happens afterward? When you try to break through to the next realm? I have no idea how that would even work... So I really can't say whether having two dantians is a good idea or not."

Resting his chin on one hand, Lun spoke up. "Hmm, in other words, for this to actually be worth it, you'd need an enormous amount of resources just to stabilize yourself after forming the second dantian. And we don't even know which is better for a cultivator: burning through a mountain of resources on stabilization, or spending that same mountain on your own cultivation instead."

An just nodded.

"Wait, but if you formed a second dantian and stabilized it, reached this so-called balance, then you'd be able to-" Kai tried to argue with An, but he cut him off.

"You'd be able to what? Be stronger than everyone else? Faster than everyone else? Closer to some fundamental truth of the universe? What? We don't even understand what this second dantian actually is... Does it become equal to the first, something born from you that becomes a full hundred-percent part of you? Or is it some foreign object, born out of the pill itself, that stays a separate piece forever?"

An continued after a short pause. "Neither of us has two dantians. Our whole argument's built entirely on our own experience. We have no idea how a body would actually respond to a second dantian, whether it becomes part of you, or stays some foreign object you could theoretically discard at any time..."

"Do you get stronger? Again, from my own experience, I'd say no, you don't get stronger. You just double the size of your fuel tank. And that alone raises a whole new set of questions and problems..." Rolling his eyes, An pulled another stick out of the fire, realizing he'd been foolish to toss the last one away.

Starting to draw in the dirt again, he continued. "What if the two dantians end up different sizes? How would Qi even distribute itself between them during cultivation? Would you need an entirely new technique for it? What if both dantians end up identical? Then what? Again, would you still need a different technique for your Qi... The more I think about a dual dantian, the more questions and potential problems pile up in my head."

Writing a few words around the figure he'd drawn, An waved a hand and wiped them all away. "And again. My opinion's just my opinion, limited by whatever knowledge happens to be sitting in my head."

"Every upside and downside of this dual dantian thing comes straight from my own accumulated experience with Qi... Who knows what actually happens to a cultivator who forms a second dantian... Maybe they become a master of every type of energy. Maybe they become the strongest cultivator in the world. Or maybe they've just sealed off their own path forward, or maybe, a few years or decades down the line, their dantian just detonates from the inside and kills them outright."

Deciding to toss the stick back into the fire again, he suddenly stopped himself and set it down beside him instead.

"If you had the chance, would you go through with forming a second dantian?" After another brief silence, Xuan Lun suddenly asked An the question.

Hearing it, An thought it over for a moment, sitting quietly for a few more seconds before finally answering, "No... I don't see any real upside for myself in forming a second dantian."

"What about you?" Lun turned to Han Kai.

"I, I think that-... hm, thinking about it, for me personally, a second dantian would be more of a problem than a solution." Kai caught himself right as he was about to bring up Mo Fan as an example, the future owner of a dual dantian, someone he knew personally, if only indirectly.

"Heh. I, on the other hand, wouldn't mind having a second dantian... Even if it's a headache, going by what he said." Lun raised his mug and pointed it at An. "But I believe a second dantian is like a door to something completely new. And thanks to it, you could, say, expand your own potential and reach further than you otherwise could."

'Maybe he's got a point somewhere in there, who knows what a second dantian actually gives you... But I still don't think it's a good idea.' An just nodded, not bothering to argue with Lun's point of view.

Falling into silence again, all three of them stared at the burning fire, An occasionally tossing in a clump of FireQi to keep it going.

Taking another sip, Lun realized his mug was empty and, fidgeting slightly, turned to An. "Mind another mug?"

Kai immediately raised his own, long since drained. "Me too!"

An just nodded, pulled both mugs toward himself, filled them to the brim with wine, and sent them back.

Drinking in silence, they suddenly heard a sound coming from inside Han Kai's robes.

'Oh, sounds like some kind of messenger device...' An lifted his gaze toward the source of the sound. 'That artifact...'

Kai pulled the artifact out of an inner pocket, tapped something inside it a few times, then looked up at An. "Time for me to say goodbye. My friends need my help... judging by their message."

Standing, he drained his wine in one gulp, set the mug down on the log he'd been sitting on, offered a gesture of respect, and bowed slightly. "Thank you for your hospitality, and for the wine. I should go. Farewell."

"Take care!" Xuan Lun waved a hand with a faint smile.

An just nodded, still staring into the fire.

Han Kai gave An one last look, let out a small sigh, pulled his flying artifact from his ring, jumped onto it, and shot up into the sky.

Watching the black speck grow smaller and smaller in the distance, Xuan Lun finished his wine and, pulling over the mug Kai had used, tucked both away.

Looking at An, he stood and started gathering his things. "Guess it's time for me to head off too... I don't think 'farewell' really fits... So, see you around!"

An looked up and, smiling slightly, nodded.

Whoosh!

Shooting up into the sky, Lun disappeared, heading in the opposite direction from the central ring.

'Sigh, they drained almost a whole bottle out of me...' Picking up the bottle and giving it a shake, he took one last swig and tucked it back into his ring.

He suddenly touched the brand on his neck. 'When he stepped out of the forest, I felt a strange prickling in the brand... This uncertainty is getting to me. Doesn't matter, I've got more important things to deal with...'

'Barely any time left before this Sacred Land closes... And I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do. This strange sense of unease that's been bothering me… after this new energy of mine, I can tell that unease is tied directly to the sect itself... It's like instinct. I'm not sure going back is even the right call.' Waving a hand, he pulled a huge amount of branches and broken trees out of the forest and started throwing them into the fire, tossing in particles of FireQi along with them.

'Honestly, I'm not even sure going back is still an option anymore. Which means... I need to figure out how to get away, and where to.' Sitting almost right up against the fire, he tilted his head back and stared up at the massive flames, now taller than the trees, spilling out past their edges.

….

"Onie Alia, are you alright? Where is everyone else?" Rushing over to the young woman, Mo Fan wrapped his arms around her and helped her to her feet.

"Ptooh!" Spitting out blood and wiping the traces from her lips, she looked into the distance. "Lin Xue, and a group of forty disciples managed to push them back a little further! But I'm not sure how much longer they can hold!"

"Senior Sister Hua! Stay with her." Handing Onie Alia off to his sect sister Hua Zhen, who was also, secretly, a disciple of his master Gu Bai.

Mo Fan turned to the others who'd come with him. "We need to help the others. We should split into two groups."

"Lia Kult, Lou Emilia, Brother Hill Shtern. Head north and hit them from the rear. Mi Mili, Nea Emmia, you're with me."

Hearing his orders, no one objected, and everyone prepared to move out, but suddenly Mo Fan turned his head toward the massive mountain in the distance, the one marking the central point of this Sacred Land.

<"Mo Fan, we're going to try to get into the Great Library. All we need is for you to keep the demonic forces' attention on you for as long as possible.”> He suddenly heard Wu Xin's voice inside his head.

He just nodded in response and, turning to Mi Mili and Nea Emmia, said, "Let's move!"

….

"Are you absolutely sure this is the right call?" Standing on a tree branch, shoulder to shoulder with Wu Xin, Isabelle wrinkled her nose and turned to her.

"You saw it yourself... for some reason, events aren't unfolding the way they're supposed to. Even accounting for Master An's influence... there are still way too many strange elements that have changed, and keep changing, how things play out." Wu Xin pulled a small artifact from her ring, a white needle at its center, the device looked a lot like a compass.

"Only thirty-seven years from now, once the formation sustaining this whole space fully collapses, and cultivators from every direction rush in to pillage this place, will they finally find the Library's location..." At last, the needle in the artifact began to move, and Wu Xin let out a relieved breath, glad the device had actually worked.

"I understand you're right. But Miss strictly forbade us from altering the course of events." Isabelle stared out at the horizon, where the battle still raged in the distance.

"Miss... we sacrificed our own fates, threw ourselves into this the moment she first called, without even knowing our odds of success." Wu Xin turned back toward the base of the trees, where Gen Lo and Silent Adrian sat, unrolling a map and marking something on it.

Watching them for a moment, she continued. "Our mission is to secure the pill before Mo Fan breaks through to Golden Core... And after that, have you even thought about it? Or do you want this to become the whole purpose of our lives?"

"But Mo Fan, he-..." Isabelle clenched her fists.

"He what? Have you already forgotten how he used you for your Yin Body? And then just discarded you, like some toy he was done with. All that attention he paid you was just to win your father's approval." Wu Xin frowned, remembering how it had all played out.

"H-he's not like that. He's just always so busy... and, and he never had any free time for-" Isabelle lowered her head slightly, her gaze dimming.

"He didn't have time for you, but he sure had time for Miss and every one of his other companions..." Letting out a deep breath, Wu Xin placed a hand on her back. "You... we have to live for ourselves. This might be our only chance! We know sixty-eight years of the future ahead of us, every location where we could find something to change our own potential, our own future... A future where we could stand as equals among the geniuses of their generation, instead of being forgotten, left behind, after sacrificing everything!"

Listening to her, a faint but real resolve appeared in Isabelle's eyes. She lifted her head, looked into Wu Xin's eyes, took her hand, and nodded, her face set with determination.

"Hey! Guys! Message from Brother Han! He's already on his way, heading to the first checkpoint to wait for us!" At the base of the trees, Gen Lo pulled out a communication artifact, read the message, and tilted his head back, shouting.

"Well then, time to move." Wu Xin turned, and she and Isabelle both jumped down together.

Walking over to Adrian and Gen Lo, she looked over the map. "Everything ready?"

"Route's mapped out, copies made, just in case, who knows..." Adrian started handing scrolls out to each of them.

"Perfect, let's move out!" Pulling out her flying artifact, shaped like a sword, she jumped onto it and shot into the sky.

All three of them, keeping pace right behind her, pulled out their own artifacts and shot off after her.