Emery

Emery and Avuri sat together on their bed, legs crossed, Cultivating deep in meditation. They held hands, creating a circuit for their Qi to flow between each other. They had even both leaned forward to let their foreheads lean against one another lightly.

The touch was calming, as was the strength of their connection after the long stretch of minimal Cultivation. Of course, it had been a couple weeks since their break now, but with the sudden change in their Qi and strength their connection had felt a little off at first, as if they needed to recalibrate things to make everything fit together as perfectly as before.

Emery had figured it made sense, given they had both suddenly changed in fairly significant ways - at least when it came to their Qi. Avuri had agreed, and the two simply spent more time that usual on their basic Cultivation exercises, just cycling their Qi together for extended periods until it clicked again.

And it did, thankfully, after a couple days. And now, they had returned to their changed Qi feeling once more like a singular whole as it ran through their bodies.

That left them with the next task of making this new Qi work for them in the best ways possible, which meant a new style of Cultivation.

Typically, Cultivation worked through a number of different principles working together. On the most basic level, a person's body could take in the ambient Qi around them in the world, circulate it through their bodies' meridians, and draw it to their core or Inner World. Functionally, a person's core or Inner World would realign the ambient Qi to the person's body, making it match their personal affinity.

In lower Realms, that typically meant purifying the Qi to match whatever basic affinity that person Cultivated, whether it be metal, fire, water, wood, or earth. In higher Realms, starting in the Sky Realm, the Cultivator's Inner World would attune the Qi to the person's specific variant of Qi. Many people chose to name their own variant, like Avuri's blizzard Qi, but it was not an official thing. Instead, a Cultivator's personal variation on Qi was more about aligning the Qi in one's body to be as compatible with that person's practiced techniques as possible. The better the affinity, the easier and faster it was to use the Qi for its intended techniques.

The adjacent principle to aligning one's Qi correctly was the practice of pushing one's Qi through the meridians. While the act was called many things interchangeably, the purpose was clear enough. Pushing Qi through one's meridians regularly would help those meridians expand and grow stronger, like a muscle.

By default, the number of meridians in the average human's body was incredibly large. There were so many, that counting had been largely pointless, even for scholars. This was compounded by a Cultivator's ability to forcefully carve new meridians through hard work by forcefully pushing Qi through their body.

Even for forcefully created meridians, the standard basics for Cultivation was quite simple. Like a muscle, the more a Cultivator uses any given meridian, it would grow, strengthen, and become easier and easier to move Qi through it. Conversely, meridians that remain unused typically remain smaller and weaker.

That interplay of meridians was the basis for what formed the basics of Cultivation techniques. The way Qi was moved through the body's meridians, and which points of the body it passed through were what formed the basics of techniques. Part of each technique was based on intent, of course, but the passage of Qi through the body played an important role as well. And that process was immensely complicated, which is what made most Cultivation techniques complex and time consuming to create.

Emery's techniques often required the Qi moving through her arms and hands, symbolic of her craftsmanship when it came to crafting things like weapons. Similarly, there were specific motions, body parts, and other specifics associated with each base element that were often represented as well. Metal-based techniques often incorporated downward motions of Qi, as well as being funneled through the lungs before being brought to where it was needed to form the technique.

Any given Cultivation style was focused on taking all of the associated techniques that were planned to be used by the Cultivator and sending their Qi through those patterns to make those meridians as strong as possible, while simultaneously building up the lesser used meridians in a sort of priority system.

Combined with the potential hundreds of other minute factors, like elemental balance, physical well being, building affinities, matching pathways to branching techniques, and more is what created a comprehensive style of Cultivation. The intensity involved in balancing all such factors was the driving force behind large sects, which practiced a well developed and unified style created by a talented master, coming together to practice an already well designed style.

Plenty of Cultivators, like many of the people in Emery and Avuri's family, eschewed that approach to design their own far more personalized style.

However, it was also exceedingly rare that a Cultivator underwent some sort of training or event that completely altered the base makeup and elemental balance of their Qi. And that was exactly what was happening to everyone involved in the Dragon-Kin Bonds.

It would require each of them to rework their entire Cultivation style to make their new Qi work to the best of its capability for them - directly in proportion to how much it changed their basic balance.

So, in some sense, the kids that hadn't made it to the Sky Realm yet might have the easiest adjustment time, as they were being inundated with raw elemental Qi that mostly matched the base because they hadn't created an entirely personal Qi variant through an Inner World quite yet.

Conversely, Emery had it the hardest, as she was not only already working with a solidified style of her own, but she was even adding an entirely new basic element to her base.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Altogether, it made the work set out before them quite complicated. And that was made all the more complex by Emery and Avuri's Bonded Cultivation that made them function as one particularly complex entity when it came to their Qi.

Still, in the two weeks they had since their Dragon-Kin Bonds, they had both been hard at work on finding their way forward, even when they were doing other things. The problem before them was both monstrously complex and incredibly interesting, which left both of their minds wandering to the problem in any free moment they had.

As they sat Cultivating on the bed, they were actively trying to work through different ideas, and bouncing theories back and forth through their link as if sharing thoughts.

Emery was wracking her mind, trying to track down any traces of styles that she had heard of that had used water Qi in a supportive way for fire or metal. If she could at least come up with a way to get one side of the equation working, she was confident that she could make it work somehow.

Meanwhile, Avuri was trying to think about the best way to make water and ice Qi more unified. Typically, ice Qi was purified and condensed water Qi - a different aspect of it. Other elemental forms had ways of manipulating the base Qi to an altered aspect of it as well, like metal to poison or earth to rock. But Avuri was sure there must be a way to make water and ice functionally the same Qi; they were both the same actual substance as water, just in different phases. They should, in theory, be able to be handled at the same time, together.

Her blizzard Qi already was close to bridging that gap between ice and water, but just wasn't quite enough yet. But it would be.

As the two Cultivated together over the course of the two weeks since their Dragon-Kin ceremonies, they both drew closer to their respective answers. Without a solid other option, Emery drew on Avuri's blizzard style, using the principles that Avuri had used to bridge the gap between water and ice in a way that used water Qi to bridge the gap between her fire and metal.

By the time she was convinced it could work, the technique looked nothing like Avuri's blizzard technique, but she thought that what she had devised would work.

Avuri's planning breakthrough came at the same time as Emery's, born from the same idea. She could use bits of Emery's metal and fire Qi to bridge the gap between water and ice. After all, fire melted ice into water while cold metal solidified and condensed water. The idea was sound, she only needed to refine the technique into something that worked quickly and in balance with her techniques.

The night before Ieji's going away party, the pair's new ideas had truly crystallized and began to take form. They both spent that night forging new meridians and strengthening others that already existed but were previously unused. It took hours, but when they had quite literally all night, they were not pushed for time.

Driven by their inspiration that evening, they had even begun Cultivating early, just after sundown. By the time the early morning rolled around, still well before the sun rose, both women had created the basis for their new Cultivation pathways. And with nothing more than a quick mental agreement, immediately began pushing into new territory.

Neither of them had considered that this step was also the first time they had actively been using each others' base elements directly as part of their cultivation, but as they both put their collective elements to use in both of their bodies, things began to change. At least a little.

As they Cultivated, they both found whichever Qi they were looking for at any given moment quicker to respond, as their original personal alignments moved toward one another. They didn't quite share the exact same alignment, and there was still some sort of distinction between Emery's Qi and Avuri's Qi, but it felt as though the difference was almost in name only.

As they continued to cycle their Qi through both of their newly built paths, the Qi became more responsive, as if almost any piece of it could respond to the call for any base element. With both bodies' cycles running the Qi through paths that were focused on combining strengths and perfect balance between the elements to strengthen them all equally, the disparate Qi alignments blurred, as if the colors representing each individual element mixed to become a shifting mass of each color.

The brighter colors changed depending on which body the Qi was passing through, but the balanced, formless nature of it didn't change.

By the time Emery and Avuri sat back into a more natural seated position, letting their foreheads separate, it was after sunrise. Probably sometime midmorning, actually. They had Cultivated later than usual.

However, in that time, something new had solidified between them, or at least had begun to. They both could feel that their Domains were in some sort of state of flux, as if they were trying to decide on what form to take. It was yet undefined, but they both knew it would take shape over the next day or two as they continued to Cultivate these new techniques that were more balanced than ever.

Something fundamental had begun to shift between them. It was a soft, almost delicate change. There had been no burst of energy while they had Cultivated, like there would have been for a Breakthrough, nor had there been anything that would draw attention from anyone in the Basin.

But as they stared at one another, still connected through their hands and Qi, they could both tell that something had changed. Their Domains had always locked neatly into place since they had originally Bonded. Their Qi clearly wanted to be in contact at all times, and would eagerly search the other out, fitting together like a jagged edge of multiple perfectly cut puzzle pieces.

That wasn't how it felt any more. As they shook off the last remnants of their meditative daze, the two shared a brief but loving kiss before letting their hands go, both wordlessly wanting to see how things had changed.

As they separated, they also actively withdrew their Domains from one another in curiosity. While they came apart mostly as normal, it felt more like separating water into two cups. There was no sensation of the neat puzzle pieces unfurling, but rather two similar substances being drawn apart.

Their individual Domains, even fully apart, both felt so immensely similar that Emery was momentarily dazed. The differences between them were so subtle, as if Avuri's Domain was the same as hers, but in a different mood. The similarities between them were so shocking that it took her a full few minutes to realize that her individual Qi had altered so significantly. She had referred to it by multiple names in the past - blade Qi, sword Qi, weapon Qi - but none of those were applicable any more.

And from what she could sense of Avuri's Qi, there was equally no way she could call her Qi 'blizzard Qi' anymore either. They were both something wholly new to each of them.

Emery could see similar thoughts dawn on Avuri's face in her widened eyes and mild - very mild - panic, even without their connection active.

On a whim, Emery quickly spooled up her Qi, pulling her Domain into her body. Avuri did the same. Even without literally sharing thoughts, they both processed this situation the same.

First, until they had a chance to Cultivate again and explore their new Qi, Domains, and probably even Inner Worlds, they didn't need to broadcast the change to the entire family and worry everyone.

Second, and probably more importantly, they had found their way forward.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.