The Science of Cultivation [Xianxia]

Li Lang continued to cry out in agony as he was locked in a fierce struggle with the invading flame in his head.

He curled up on the ground and nursed his head, but the pain persisted. It came from within, and there was nothing physical he could do to remedy it. He tried directing his Qi to his brain to protect it, but it could only envelop him. It couldn’t do anything to the source of pain.

The only thing he could do was to continue his struggle and hope it would end soon.

It did not.

For hours, Li Lang had to endure the pain. The longer it went on, the worse his condition became. He was surely inching closer to giving in than before, but he persisted. Before he knew it, he had lost track of how much time had passed.

It felt like days, months, or even years at times. He began to question why he was even enduring the pain. The longing to take a break kept growing, but a part of him was curious about what was happening as well. It was this curiosity that kept him going.

He was confident something interesting would happen if he managed to outlast the flame. Nothing could have infinite energy.

He equated his state to bronco busting a wild steed. He just had to tire out his ‘horse’ to assert his dominance. Then it would submit and allow him to tame it. As weird as it was to apply animal submission training to a fire, Li Lang had a gut feeling he had hit the mark with it.

As his curiosity about the flame piqued, his perseverance peaked, as well.

Li Lang felt like another whole month had gone by before he felt the force assaulting him weakening.

It was subtle at first, but then rapidly decreased in resistance. When it finally subsided, Li Lang couldn’t help but let out a hearty victory cry.

A feeling of accomplishment and relief rushed over him as he appreciated the comforting feeling that was absent of pain.

He took deep breaths and closed his eyes. He was completely exhausted, but he couldn’t let himself rest yet. The next time he opened his eyes, he found himself back beside the large boulder. It was still burning with the silver-blue flame.

The first thing he did was to check himself. He was glad to find he was no longer on fire, but that didn’t mean the flames were completely gone. Resting in his hand was the small wisp of fire that he had seen invading his mind. It no longer flickered as energetically, resting peacefully in Li Lang’s palm. He even felt a strange connection with it.

Taking a closer look, he didn’t find the fire to be burning anything. It didn’t hurt him or consume any fuel while it burned.

This isn’t like anything I’d ever seen! How in the world does it work? Wait! Is it burning, Qi? That’s the most likely invisible property that I can’t properly observe yet.

Anyway, what am I to do with it? Just walk around with a fire in my hand?

“Ruby, do you know anything about this flame? Can you take it into your artifact space?”

“I can try, master!” Ruby only stayed silent for a brief moment before reporting the results. “…It seems like it can already come into my artifact space because it is part of you, master.”

At Ruby’s words, Li Lang blinked blankly. He was still staring at the fire. It remained unchanged, resting in his palm.

“...Are you sure? It’s still in my hand.”

“I am sure, master!”

The mysteriousness of the flame grew. Li Lang presumed this was the Primordial Star Fire as it was written in the reward, but he had nothing to prove it. He cautiously tried to stand up and approach the boulder to investigate further. Now that he found the flame didn’t hurt him, Li Lang had grown bolder.

The fire burning the boulder flared up when he got close before rushing to form a wall, blocking Li Lang from getting closer. He felt its rejection. The fire burning at the boulder was a separate entity from the one in his hand.

Does that mean I only managed to tame a part of it? Will it listen to my commands?

Looking down again at his palm, the silver-blue flame remained unchanged.

“Stop it. Extinguish yourself.”

He immediately saw the flame shrink down even further, to the size of a nail. It stopped at that size and flickered.

“...Grow bigger, but don’t hurt me or our surroundings.”

This time, the flame grew to the size of his head. It remained weightless to hold, so Li Lang couldn’t resist his next order. He took out and used a water talisman and filled his drinking cup with it.

“Burn hotter. Warm up the water in this cup.”

As instructed, the fire immediately heated up. It slowly raised its temperature, as if it was mindful of hurting its owner.

“Heat the water more. Just the water.”

He mentally elaborated on his instructions to the fire to only heat the water and nothing else. That was because he felt the connection he had with it. He believed it could understand his intentions, so he was curious how much control the heavenly fire had of itself.

To his pleasant surprise, he felt the cup warm up, but the flame still gave off no trace of heat to his hand despite still warming up the water.

“Burn cold, make the water cool.”

Nothing happened, or so he thought. It took a moment for him to realize the temperature of the water had stopped rising and was cooling down instead.

So I guess that’s the coolest it can go is just room temperature. Now then, does it have to stay in my hand all day? Am I going to have a pet fire with me for the rest of my life…?

“Hmm…Can you hide yourself from sight somehow? Maybe go into my cup here?”

This time, the flame didn’t obey his instructions to the tee. It charged toward his head again. Li Lang brought up his hand to defend against the intrusion, but decided during the last second to let it pass. If it was listening to his command, then it should mean it didn’t mean him harm.

Thankfully, he was right.

The flame disappeared into his head, but he could still feel his connection with it. It was just on standby, almost like Ruby. Except a gem wasn’t needed to interact with it.

Seeing the strange property of the flame, Li Lang didn’t hesitate to head straight into Ruby’s artifact space. He was told the fire could be used inside the artifact space and he had to check it out.

“Ruby, materialize some branches and I will light it with the Primordial Star Fire.”

“Of course, Master.”

Ruby did as told.

The fire exited his head without issue and was the same as it was before. It flickered stably without giving off any heat. When he commanded it to envelop the branches, it didn’t appear to affect the branches at all.

That changed when Li Lang willed it to burn hotter. The heat in the area instantly shot up as Li Lang commanded the heavenly flame to burn as hot as it could.

Within a breath of time, the branches were reduced to cinders.

“Interesting…It doesn’t do anything unless I tell it to. Can we put it in the auto-analyzer?”

“Master, I don’t think it’ll work. I can already tell it’s entirely a Qi construct. You’ll only get its Qi frequency.”

“Do it anyway. I want to see.”

They placed a lit branch into the auto-analyzer, as the flame simply disappeared when it left Li Lang’s vicinity by itself. The auto analyzer’s timer displayed a time for over four hours.

“It’s taking as long as something in the same grade of cultivation as me…In fact…its strength is probably reliant on me.”

Li Lang did not immediately exit the artifact space after starting his analysis on his new fire. Instead, he brought out a pill furnace and began fiddling around with it.

“Let’s see. I think they say people who have their own heavenly fires can use them in place of the fire runes that come with the furnaces.”

Li Lang tried to materialize the flames again and commanded them to go inside the furnace. It took some time for him to direct it to the right spot before he stopped himself on the cusp of testing out the new fire he had attained.

No, I am getting ahead of myself. I should measure how precisely I can control the fire first. If this works out, that means I would gain the means to control the flames more accurately. The consistency it affords me will accelerate my progress when trying new pill recipes and improve my traditional alchemy skills.

With that, Li Lang brought out thermocouples and began his tests. He gauged how accurately he could control his new flame.

He found that he had to rely on vague commands, such as hotter or cooler, as commanding the fire with the exact temperature didn’t work. However, like before, he managed to have the fire burn at different temperatures in different sections of it. His accuracy may only be around plus-minus five to ten degrees, but this new ability allowed for a myriad of possibilities. It would take a lot more testing for Li Lang to be able to fully utilize it.

That was because he had to account for the thermal stress if the difference in temperature was too great, or simply the heat spreading over to the object he was burning. Many things could go wrong, and this magical fire allowed Li Lang to embark into uncharted territory.

It was only when his stomach grumbled that Li Lang awoke from his obsessive research.

Oh shit. It’s definitely nighttime by now. Wei Ping and Long Yi are waiting for me. I’ll have to come up with an explanation…