For three days and nights, Luo Chen studied the jade disk in secret. He discovered that by holding the disk while meditating, he could access knowledge that flowed directly into his consciousness. The information did not come as words or images, but as pure understanding—direct comprehension that bypassed the need for language or explanation.
From the disk, he learned the fundamentals of cultivation.
All living beings possessed a form of spiritual energy called qi, which flowed through their bodies in channels called meridians. In most people, these meridians were underdeveloped and narrow, allowing only a trickle of qi to pass through. But in those with cultivation talent, the meridians could be expanded and strengthened through practice.
The first stage of cultivation was called Body Refinement. In this stage, a cultivator would expand their meridians and strengthen their physical body by circulating qi through specific patterns. The goal was to achieve a perfect harmony between physical form and spiritual energy.
The second stage was Spiritual Awakening. In this stage, the cultivator would establish what was called a dantian—a spiritual core located in the center of their body where qi could be stored and refined. Once a dantian was established, a cultivator would truly possess power.
The jade disk contained detailed instructions on how to accomplish both of these stages. But for Luo Chen, there was something far more important—instructions on how to cultivate the Space Law and Time Law simultaneously.
According to the disk's teachings, the two laws were not inherently opposed. Rather, they were two aspects of a greater principle called causality. Space determined how events propagated through distance. Time determined how events propagated through the flow of moments. By understanding how space and time interacted through the principle of causality, a cultivator could harmonize the two laws.
The specific technique described in the disk involved creating a spiral pattern within the dantian. The Space Law would rotate in one direction, the Time Law in the opposite direction, both centered on the principle of causality itself. Like twin stars in a binary system, they would orbit a common center while maintaining perfect balance.
This was the secret. This was what no other cultivator had discovered.
On the fourth night, Luo Chen attempted his first real breakthrough.
He sat cross-legged in his small room, the jade disk held against his chest. His three roommates were sleeping, their breathing deep and regular. The room was barely large enough for four sleeping pallets, and Luo Chen's small space was cramped and uncomfortable. But it was private enough for what he needed to do.
He closed his eyes and began the meditation form that the disk had taught him. His breathing became synchronized with what he imagined to be the pulse of the universe. He imagined space as an infinite canvas stretching in all directions, and he imagined time as a river flowing through that canvas.
For the first several minutes, nothing happened. Luo Chen felt foolish. Perhaps this was all just imagination. Perhaps he had experienced some kind of fever dream, and the disk was just a strange artifact with no real power.
But then, slowly, something changed.
The meditation deepened. His consciousness expanded. He became aware of the spiritual energy flowing through his body in faint streams. The meridians, which had seemed like abstract concepts, suddenly became real to him. He could perceive them as glowing lines of light running through his arms and legs, connecting his limbs to his core.
In the center of his body, in a location just below his navel that the disk had identified as the dantian, something began to form. It was not physical—he could see his body remained unchanged—but spiritually, a structure was taking shape. A vortex of energy began to spin.
But this was not a normal dantian vortex. According to the knowledge from the disk, a typical cultivator would establish a simple spherical or orb-like structure. This one was different.
Two spiraling forces began to interact in the vortex. One spiraled clockwise—this was the Space Law, expanding and reaching outward. The other spiraled counter-clockwise—this was the Time Law, contracting and pulling inward. The two spirals moved in opposite directions, and yet somehow, they did not conflict. Instead, they created a third pattern—a rotation around a central axis.
The axis was causality itself.
Luo Chen's eyes snapped open.
His body was glowing with a faint light that shimmered like starlight bending through water. The temperature in the room fluctuated wildly—one moment it felt like a winter morning with ice forming on the walls, the next like a summer afternoon with heat making the air shimmer. His small shelf of belongings seemed to move and freeze in place simultaneously, as if existing in multiple moments at once.
His roommates stirred in their sleep, sensing the disturbance but not waking.
Luo Chen quickly suppressed the manifestation of his power. The light faded, the temperature stabilized, and the world returned to normal. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might burst from his chest.
The pain he had expected never came. Instead, he felt more alive than ever before. His body thrummed with a newfound vitality. His senses seemed sharper, his mind clearer. He could perceive the world with a new dimension of awareness.
Deep within his body, in the location where his dantian was forming, he felt two spiraling forces rotating in perfect harmony. They were still weak and unstable—if he tried to use them, he would likely overextend and injure himself. But they existed. They were real.
He had taken the first step on a path that no one before him had dared to take.