Endurance. Endurance, ah!
ZhuQiu tried to hype herself while sitting cross-legged on a circular platform with one of her masters in front of her, also on his own circular platform.
Traveling through space can really take a lot of time, especially between two different solar systems. ZhuQiu, our silly mannequin on a traveling space vehicle, became a disciple. Although, there was some confusion about who was her real master. There were four cultivators teaching her at the moment, although for different topics.
FuXi1 according to legend, the Dragon King has nine offspring, and they each have very distinct appearances and personalities. Fuxi (负屃) looks like a dragon. Known for its love of literature and calligraphy., called Burdened Scholar, is a serpentine male who always dressed in sleek suit and tie — being inspired by the Triad movies that earth had about gang disputes — with designs that is quite more alien than local. However, mafia-type clothing did not suit him, as a scholarly person. His scales are white as snow, with teal undertones, as if he's made of pearls. He was obsessed about language, and would often touch on the subject of Chinese homonyms. Simple puns made him go into trance as he murmured the words repeatedly. FuXi took upon himself to teach ZhuQiu the art of meditation.
SuanNi2according to legend, the Dragon King has nine offspring, and they each have very distinct appearances and personalities. Suanni (狻猊) – also called the Suanni Lion. It looks like a hybrid of a dragon and lion. Known for its fierce appearance and love of tranquility and burning incense., often referred as Master Scenter, is another serpentine androgynous male with features prettier than white lotus pop stars. His scales is mostly black, with yellow pattern that stretch across his arms and forehead. He usually only wore pants, therefore most people were able to tell he's a male. Suan Ni teaches ZhuQiu the art of alchemy. The most notable feature was his sense of scent. He would present herbal ingredients and made ZhuQiu tell the difference. Although our dummy's sense of smell is utterly lacking as a plastic mannequin — she could smell Thaghillie only because the scent was too strong, ah!— she was taught to utilize Qi to temporary substitute as her olfactory organs, and thus was able to barely categorize each species of the dried plants with some accuracy.
ZhuQiu liked learning blacksmith. Her current blacksmith master is Lord Underneath, also known as BaXia3according to legend, the Dragon King has nine offspring, and they each have very distinct appearances and personalities. Baxia (霸下) – looks like a hybrid of a dragon and tortoise. Known for its great strength and love of carrying heavy objects (often stone steles) on its back. — her favorite turtle person at the moment — and he was gentle and understanding when ZhuQiu accidentally broke her feet while dropping the anvil. His smithy took up a majority of the space, mainly as a storage. There was cyborg-parts and weapons in equal amount.
And then, her worse cultivation topic, martial arts. Ai ya! This person who is to teach her martial arts must have bore grudges against her! He would just simply make her duel with him every lesson. There was no technique being taught, except for 'learn through doing is better than learn through seeing!' Out of most beings she had encountered, Shi DaMao4ShiDaMao (失大猫) Literally: Lost Big Cat — alternatively referred as Lost Tiger — resembled human more. He, like Bi'An, is of the Tiger species, but he only had a tail to show. It was white with black stripes. Almost familiar... Anyways, it could be said that the Martial Arts Master is a bully, ah! Also, he must have some speech problem, ah! The only sentences he would utter is "Seeing is not doing" and "Get up". Truly a Stone Lion5ShiDaMao (失大猫 [Literally: Lost Big Cat]) is being used in a pun as ShiDaMao (石大猫[Literally: Stone Big Cat] aka the nickname, Stone Lion. And Lion Statues mentioned are intentionally meant to be the actual statues that people put on the entrances, hence almost pun with Gargoyle.).
Of course, there were other disciples, but since they have been cultivating longer than ZhuQiu had, they were on advanced level and needed no supervision. These such disciples are usually on the forth cultivation rank of JieDan6YuanYing(元婴)-Nascent Soul .
ZhuQiu, although she had been a diligent student, had only reached the second cultivation rank of JuQi in her first three weeks aboard the space vehicle. When simply remarking that she had never been on the first rank of cultivation yet, FuXi explained that the first rank was already naturally assigned to all existence, especially for a synthmanoid where the soul is Qi dependent to manipulate the non-organic vessel.The first Rank can be split into two categories, XianTian7XianTian - Innate (先天) and HouTian8HouTian - Acquired (后天). Since it was difficult to truly divide and categorize what is innate and what is acquired, they're simply dubbed as the TianTian Cultivation Rank. The second Rank, JuQi (Qi-Gathering), like the name suggest, is simply when one can skillfully gather Qi from the air into their inner self. Once a JuQi cultivator gathered enough Qi, a foundation within them solidifies, and they will officially step into the rank of ZhuJi (Foundation Building) where they will continue to stabilize this newly laid foundation. This is also the stage where affinity of Spiritual Roots may display itself when invoked. However, methods of invoking the Spiritual Roots power can vary within individuals according to each own beliefs, priorities, and current situation. So there are some cultivators who hadn't discovered their affinities for several decades until upon brink of their end of life.
Therefore, there wasn't any actual skip of ranking for ZhuQiu. Our silly dummy wasn't discouraged, though. She was two fifth of the way towards something and that bore the most progressive result of anything she had done.
Currently, the master in front of her is FuXi, he is in deep meditation, while our silly dummy is trying to think about nothing in order to meditate. How to meditate, ah?
"Autumn Chaser."
ZhuQiu opened her eyes. That's right, ah! Our ZhuQiu got herself a new face, gifted by BaXia! She can blink, move her mouth, smile, and gawk, just like any humanoid! Other kinds of complicated expression... leave it for later, ba!
"You don't have to force yourself to think nothing," FuXi slowly nod at her kindly, "It's natural to have many thoughts. Meditation is to see those thoughts through and letting the body release the stress of the worldly affairs."
"Disciple ZhuQiu will do her best!" She cupped her hands instinctively like the disciples in movies, and ducked her head.
A sighed escaped FuXi's lips as he close his eyes again, allowing ZhuQiu to find her own self within. With the latest tip, ZhuQiu began to stop chasing away her thoughts and let them play out in her mind instead.
Hours passed until it was time for the end of class that she realized she had made progress. FuXi sent her on her way with a praise to keep up the work. With stirring enthusiasm, she left the room with a polite farewell.
According to the schedule, the next activity should be of her own choice, it was technically a free self-study time for her. She has already made her choice on the third week, it was blacksmith. ZhuQiu had looked forward to it the whole day, and walked to her dorm in a fast pace. She had to put on her heavy-duty apron, so that she would remain mostly untouched amidst the flying metal shavings and hot loose flakes. And occasionally dropped flaming works. Mostly, anyways.
With renewed enthusiasm, ZhuQiu hurried to the smithy holding a small prototype she had made. She carved it out of stone, just to see how it would work in a small scale, and had to refined it that it became more of a kinetic sculpture. In the end, she got a completed plan and would ask BaXia for advice to start putting the project into motion.
BaXia, upon seeing the miniature piece of work, gave a thumbs-up in approval and started launching into a plan for ZhuQiu to start and how she can improve her creation. ZhuQiu was delighted and worked for hours on end with a smile. She didn't even stop for a break, although mannequins don't need to.
She borrowed the force of the swinging hammer to forge the shape into a piece of glowing steel, often bathing the work in flames to keep it from becoming too hard to work with. She would also constantly measure it against a marked stone, where most of the measuring are done without ruler. Ai, it was truly hard without such objects, but that's okay! Creative solving would always triumph over problems of any logic.
There are times, when ZhuQiu would accidentally broke her work in some places because it became too cold too fast, but she was persistent. She sheepishly put the broken piece aside to fix it later. Some of the times, she was clumsy with her grasp, and the hot metal rolled off the anvil to burn her pants. Some of other times, the sleeves of her parka rolled down as she pick up a piece from the glowing coals and get scorched instead. The overalls she was given helped in keeping most of her clothes intact.
When everyone —those who have organic vessels, that is— had to retire to regain their energy, ZhuQiu kept at it until the next day. There were some synthmanoid aboard, but ZhuQiu hadn't the opportunity to encounter them closely by chance.
When the alarm bell sounded to indicate work time, ZhuQiu reluctantly left her unfinished work at the smithy to go onto her class of the day.
Each day, there were one different class taking turns to be taught, to allow ZhuQiu's extra time in the smithy. ZhuQiu was very grateful for that, hence she never missed any class and was a diligent student. Even if it was Shi DaMao's torture, er, class.
A month passed in this manner, and our silly dummy reached the rank of ZhuJi, the third rank of cultivation, and began to show some talent in the blacksmiths. Her alchemy was good enough to allow her to help SuanNi sort herbal ingredients, and occasionally make some basic level healing pills for storage. Of course, that meant she also made progress in meditation, therefore she was often allowed to so secluded meditation as a homework. As for martial arts.. our dummy had made no progress yet, ah!
Two week passed, when ZhuQiu completed her project! A new leg attachment for herself. It was simple and crude, but at least it was anatomically similar to humans. ZhuQiu just couldn't get used to the cat-like hind limb part she first had. It was more of a mentality issue than physical. ZhuQiu just couldn't fully get used to having her ankles acting as the knee and having her thigh reach shortened. After this new 'downgrade', ZhuQiu had another accomplishment as a result! ZhuQiu had dodged Shi DaMao successfully in one of the bullying fight! The look on his face was worth the burnt patches in the legs of ZhuQiu's pants. The minute flex of his jaw indicate his incredulity, and then he attacked her again more fiercely. Ah! the unfairness of such master with unknown grudge!
A month passed as ZhuQiu takes a break from the extra time in the smithy and entered secluded cultivation. And she emerged, bottleneck at the peak of ZhuJi rank. She couldn't breakthrough, and spent several days mooning. SuanNi, couldn't stand the increase of mistakes ZhuQiu made as a result of distracted mind, banned her from her lessons and punished her by assigning her with a job in the mess hall. She is to help distribute food during recess and clean the kitchen.
ZhuQiu was shy at first, at the curious eyes, and often withdraw to mope in her dorm. As days passed, she began to feel accustomed to the livelihood of the residence and began to acquaint herself with several others. The best part is that, she have seen the white toyger cat again! It sometimes stalked around, with swishing tail and cold air about it. It's so cute, ah! Sometimes she would try to approach the cat when she is off duty, only to see it disappear into the thin air before she rounded the corners.
When the punishment came to an end, ZhuQiu found a new blacksmith project to take on. She began to work on it for the next two week.
In the middle of that two week, she finally stabilized her foundation and embark on the journey on formation of the core, thus stepping into the rank of JieDan (Core Formation). She also faced the Heavenly Tribulation for the first time! It wasn't too bad, as it was the lowest possible level of punishment, but why does it feel too akin to menstruation pain ah?! Painful, very painful, ah! This also means that Heavens are beginning to take notice of her growth, hehe! Besides, SuanNi had also begin to assign her with more pill production of other kinds that she could finally make as a cultivator of JieDan rank.
A month after ZhuQiu became JieDan cultivator, she gotten the hang of Martial Arts, and managed to retaliate in the duel with a punch to the cruel tiger's face. It was so satisfying, ah! But then, the smirk in her heart fade away when Shi DaMao began to chuckle darkly. Her premonition came true, as he lifted another set of limits he put on his own powers and started an onslaught of bullying, ah! Lamentable!!
Two months passed, and ZhuQiu made her first weapon and a sheath to go with it. It's a machete. BaXia also guided her on how to infuse her Qi into it, lacing it with more strength and durability. BaXia also approved her idea of attaching the sheath onto her spine area. But, being male of noble upbringing, BaXia embarrassingly recommended ZhuQiu to look for Bi'An to help ZhuQiu attach the sheath. And so, our silly mannequin looked everywhere for Bi'An only to find that Bi'An had boarded onto a space boat to help the maintenance crew. It wasn't a fruitless journey, though.
As fate would have it, ZhuQiu walked around a corner and find herself staring at the back of a white cat that lain itself on a warm bench. With itchy fingers, ZhuQiu attacked the toyger with scratch of utmost pleasure and satisfaction. The Toyger remained stunned and obedient throughout the whole comforting session. It even purred and squirmed to rub it's head on the bench while ZhuQiu's fingers where digging softy onto it's white belly. Ah, such goodness! After being thoroughly scratched and rubbed on, the toyger finally remember itself and hissed. It left with a powerful scratch that left a mark on ZhuQiu's steel arms. ZhuQiu did not take offense. Instead, she wondered if her steel skin might have hurt the kitty instead!
The next day, however, as if bearing a new set of grudge, Shi DaMao was utterly ruthless during the lesson. ZhuQiu had to limp for the rest of the day, while looking for Bi'An to help her attach the spine machete. Bi'An, after helping her with this task, sent her to the healer, to take a look at the limp. ZhuQiu obediently went, but instead of being healed, she was told it was only a mechanical issue. ZhuQiu then took upon herself to fix it, spending a few minutes to reset the joint that had been detached when Shi DaMao dealt her a low roundhouse kick. What an unpleasant master, ah!
Three months, passed, when there were only a tiny progress made in ZhuQiu's cultivation that she understood the true hardship of cultivation. It was a battle of will and motivation. She had only manged to reach the middle stage of JieDan, and to do so with much difficulties. In discouragement, ZhuQiu stopped being creative and refused to complete any of her half done prototypes, thus only being sadly idle during her self-study period.
She took this opportunity to visit the recreation hall where QiuNiu would often play a piece of music from all over the galaxy. It was sometimes soothing, sometimes heart-racing, sometimes groovy. ZhuQiu would always cheer when he was done and kept quiet when he start another piece. When QiuNiu is not performing, there were poetry reading session, where FuXi would lead, and encourage others to share their works.
Often, ZhuQiu felt empty, despite her relaxed state. And she would stare at the metal curved wall on hours to end, until it was time to go for her remaining lessons.
FuXi had already taught her all there was to be taught, allowing her to meditate by herself. Her distracted mind kept SuanNi from giving her important work, so she just simply stared at the pictures of herbs in the book that he told her to study on. Blacksmith was a little more easier to pass through, as ZhuQiu would only need to refine and reshape some weapons for her tasks, and those are almost becoming a second nature to her. Shi DaMao, on the other hand, would press even more when she withdraws or attacked back half-heatedly. There was no end to his madness, which almost made ZhuQiu reluctant to get back up. ZhuQiu had to force her frustrations down, when the urge to play dead rose up. Shi DaMao, of course, knew.
Many more months go by, and suddenly it had been a year since ZhuQiu left earth.
No one celebrated new years, it was obsolete. Every day, it was a new year somewhere, since there were countless worlds with countless celebration.
Then one day, ZhuQiu snapped. She refused to go to any of the three classes, locking herself in her dorm. She would lay awake, not quite meditating, not quite sleeping, but letting her thoughts ravage her. She felt that there was no meaning to her life, and wanted to fade away.
FuXi, upon hearing from BaXia and SuanNi for the deteriorating participation and abrupt absence, went to visit ZhuQiu to inquire about her mental state. ZhuQiu refused to be honest and just kept quiet, pretending to be in secluded meditation. No one bought it.
BaXia and SuanNi then visited ZhuQiu in turns, wanting to tell her to take her time, and they they would always be there for her as her masters. ZhuQiu only smiled and nodded.
Shi DaMao, of course, did not visit. Why should he? If ZhuQiu was not willing, he would not force her to submit to him every time during the duel, hehe! Besides, he harbored a very deep resentment against her, ah! He will give no face to such humiliation.
Not that the depressed mannequin minded, though. Our silly dummy spent about another seven weeks drifting between reality and the wild thoughts in her mind. Until one day, the whole space vehicle shook.
This roused our silly dummy, who suddenly wondered if there was an attack. And so, out dummy got up and walked out of her dorm for the first time in weeks.
so, that's why the chinese particles (!^ - ^)
Also, Shi DaMao... why is he so mean (!!^ - ^)
Hmm, I do think if you explained it like that, the cultivation ranks can be easy to understood. And you also include the translation so i think it's fine nwn