The sky grew darker with each passing minute until Jing Yi's surroundings were finally plunged into darkness. He tried to see the way in front of him but it was futile. He hadn't managed to leave the mountain. Just as he had predicted it would take a long time if one went by foot.
He sighed and sat down on the roadside. "I'm sorry, Qiu Ling, I'm really sorry. This should have been a memorable day for us but now …"
No, he didn't believe that everything had worked out. He didn't know whether Qiu Ling had been able to save his mother or even the people in the capital.
"Maybe he has. Just thinking back on how he managed to conjure such a huge storm up in the first place it's obvious he's a cultivator. I wonder why he never said anything? Why did he become a practitioner anyway? With his talent … he probably has heavenly spirit veins."
Jing Yi sighed again. "I can ask him when I see him again. It's just … I don't know if he's alright. If he was, he certainly would have come back by now. So … something must have happened to him. Maybe he really saved them but he was hurt because of that?"
Jing Yi bit his lower lip. "It's my fault. I told him to do something about it. No." He shook his head. "Not just that. He only summoned this storm because of me, because he wanted to help me finally cultivate. And I … I actually didn't manage to learn it. I've let him down."
Jing Yi leaned back against a tree trunk and looked up at the star-dotted sky. If he was able to cultivate, to manipulate the air currents just like Qiu Ling then he would be able to fly. He could just fly down from this mountain and over to the capital and see for himself whether his mother and Qiu Ling were alright.
"I have to learn it. I can't drag it on."
He closed his eyes and slid into the lotus position once again. So many people had been able to do it before him. It couldn't be that he would be unable to do the same. Having trash spirit veins didn't mean that he lacked comprehension ability, too. He would just have to work a bit harder than the others with better aptitude.
He concentrated on the spiritual energy of the air around him but that was still as far as he could go. He couldn't move it or take it in or do anything else but watch through his inner eye how it moved about.
Would it really be different if he had heavenly spirit veins? What was the difference between them? He had never really thought about that. Back then when the Elder in charge of testing their spirit veins had announced him to have full spirit veins he had thought that something being full didn't sound so bad. Even a while later when he found out that these strange names had something to do with the number of spirit veins one had, he had still been sure that having six must be a good thing. The more, the better.
After all, wasn't that always the case? He had thought of rice bowls back then to explain it to himself. If you had six, then besides his father and mother and himself, another three people could eat with them. Or, if it was just them, then they'd have three spares! How great was that? If one broke, they could just take one of the spares!
Only after nearly a year did he find out what exactly it meant to have full spirit veins. Trash. Indeed. If it was about trash, then having more of it wasn't a good thing. Quite the contrary. Nobody wanted trash.
"I still have to live with it, though. Ah … I really wonder what that other idea was that Qiu Ling had. His first one really helped, so maybe it would have worked out?"
He couldn't ask him, though. "For now, I should try to become better at this. It's a long way till the capital. Until I'm there I can train. Wouldn't Qiu Ling be happy when he saw that I don't have any problems anymore sensing the energy of the air he showed me? And maybe I can even learn to sense one of the other energies …"
He lightly pursed his lips. He was sitting on the ground with earth below him and all around him was forest. There should be a lot of earth and wood energy. He had tried to sense them back in the outer sect already but had never managed to do so. Maybe it would be different now. After all, he had been able to do it with one of the elements. Maybe he could do it with the others, too?
He put his hands on the ground and concentrated. He felt the little grains it consisted of and the sharp stones embedded in it, he could even feel the moisture that had covered it and was slowly seeping down. But just like with the air before this was just something physical. It had nothing to do with the spiritual energy. It was just the same as always.
Jing Yi sighed. "Do I really need Qiu Ling's help to achieve anything? How can that be?"
He turned around and pressed his hands against the tree trunk instead. Once again he felt those things he already knew: The bark, the sticky resin and the water droplets that clung to it and the bit of earth the wind had blown up. Once again, the spiritual energy completely eluded him.
Jing Yi dropped his hands and sighed. He felt defeated right now. As if he would never be able to solve the mystery around cultivation. Without help, he couldn't even sense the energy!
He furrowed his brow and thought of what Qiu Ling had said: 'My love, after five years of achieving nothing you finally took the first step. Is this really the moment where you should think of giving up? Trust me a bit. It might not have worked just now but we're not at our rope's end, are we? I still have an idea that might work. Let's just try it.'
Right. He was right. This wasn't the moment to give up. Today was just the first day. He'd just try every day from now on. And someday he'd manage to do it. He was sure of it!
Jing Yi continued to sit on the ground and went back to sensing the air energy, slowly trying to widen his scope. He only fell asleep in the morning hours and rested a bit before continuing on towards the capital.