Feng Qi looked at the black cube in his hand.
It was absolutely black, but something in it was red.
Feng Qi sat on the bed in the lotus position examining the cube, but he still closed his eyes.
“Focus, was it?”
That was too superficial an explanation — was he supposed to concentrate on the cube or on his belly?
He had a lot of questions.
But one of a human’s most important advantages, and the reason a human could survive — was imagination.
Feng Qi concentrated on the cube.
Not only on it, but also on the slight cold he felt from touching it.
Just as though Feng Qi could move it, as though he could control it.
Feng Qi opened his eyes and looked at his belly — no fire showed there.
What’s more, the cube was still on his palm.
That was to be expected.
After all, nothing can work out the first time.
Feng Qi closed his eyes again; he imagined the fire in his belly — how it swayed, how his breathing changed its direction…
Feng Qi was motionless; he thought, imagined, saw.
He opened his eyes and looked at his belly; inside it there was still not the slightest hint of fire.
Suddenly Feng Qi let out a long breath, as though he had been running for a very long time.
It was not irritation; he really was tired.
“It seems I’m on the right path!”
Feng Qi touched his belly with his free hand.
“Since imagining didn’t work, then what about the senses?” Feng Qi thought it over.
Feng Qi closed his eyes after putting the cube on the bed.
He put his hands on his legs and imagined it anew.
This time Feng Qi felt warmth and pain in his belly, as though a fire had broken out in his pancreas.
The feeling that a candle was burning in his belly, and scorching wax was running down from it.
Feng Qi opened his eyes; he saw something in his belly.
It was the same small fire as the one Leng Yu had before it flared up to the size of the liver.
But his fire differed in one more way — it was orange.
“I see,” Feng Qi closed his eyes.
He didn’t hold back, and imagined a fire of the same size as the one Leng Yu had, but orange in color.
How he felt the warmth not only in one part of his belly, but in his whole belly.
Suddenly he felt something, as though his body had changed, as though he had become different.
It was as though he had got his second wind.
He stopped imagining the fire, but the feeling of warmth did not disappear.
“Excellent!” Feng Qi rejoiced.
But in any case, he quickly calmed down.
“I’ve done only a small part.”
Feng Qi picked up the cube from the bed.
He opened his palm, on which lay the glossy black cube.
Feng Qi decided to use all the knowledge he had just obtained — imagining the cube as it vanished piece by piece.
But the cube was vanishing only from his palm; in fact Feng Qi had focused on his palm, the cube and the flame.
And the cube meanwhile was supposed to be moving into Feng Qi’s belly.
Feng Qi decided to open his eyes.
Before his eyes was a cube that had almost fully vanished, the rest of which was by the flame in Feng Qi’s belly.
But Feng Qi did not close his eyes to drag the last part across — he wanted to try doing it with them open.
If a cultivator needed to close his eyes only so that it would be easier for him to imagine, then for Feng Qi that did absolutely nothing.
Feng Qi looked at the cube and imagined how it vanished.
When a person falls deep into thought, he can literally disappear from reality.
That was why Feng Qi first had to find out whether he needed to disappear.
“Four…”
Feng Qi kept his balance counting from one.
Arithmetic in such a case would take up a great deal of attention.
Feng Qi blinked and saw that his palm was empty.
He immediately looked at his belly, seeing where the cube had disappeared to.
It was levitating right above the flame in Feng Qi’s belly.
Feng Qi did not wait and lowered the cube in his mind, which carried over onto its physical form.
Feng Qi’s spiritual flame flared up and gave off one small flame.
“A pity, I guess, but this was only a theory from the start.”
A small sliver of flame began to move up Feng Qi’s body.
It had exceeded the height of the overall spiritual flame and was already in the area of the lungs.
Then suddenly it stopped.
“Spirit…
not all that bad,” the small flame stopped in Feng Qi’s heart, which pleased him slightly.
He already knew that Leng Yu had Spirit, which meant Feng Qi had a chance to get at least mobility through flight.
“What?!”
Then suddenly the small flame which was in Feng Qi’s heart divided, and flew higher.
Feng Qi jumped up from the bed and walked over to the mirror in the room.
Feng Qi grabbed his throat in front of the mirror, since the second sliver of the small flame was already in his throat.
Yet even through his own hand he could see that flame.
The flame seemed to stop in his throat, but with incredible speed it made a dash, and reached Feng Qi’s head.
Feng Qi stepped away from the mirror and calmly sat down on the bed.
Of course, if he had understood correctly, then he would have liked to get Strength, but Mind was not bad either.
Meanwhile the small flame had vanished from his heart.
Before going to the “elder” with one question, he would have liked to test his capabilities.
“Well, here we go,” Feng Qi said after taking a deep breath.
It was quite a strange sensation — he could move the flame and change its strength; and all this he did as though moving a limb, not imagining.
“And what if?…” Feng Qi remembered something.
Feng Qi started moving the flame into the flame itself, watching it.
His orange spiritual flame turned into a dense sphere, which was burning itself.
But in that very instant it began to resist, and controlling it became incredibly difficult for Feng Qi.
It was breaking out of the shape of the sphere, and Feng Qi began to suffocate.
Feng Qi blinked.
The sharp discomfort disappeared, as did the flame in his belly, but Feng Qi felt some kind of liquid running down from his eyes, and then from his mouth and nose.
“What made me start crying?” Feng Qi thought.
He had only blinked, but he distinctly felt that some time had passed.
At the same time his vision was blurry, and he had the feeling that something was pressing on his head.
He was not in pain; it was just that something was not right.
Feng Qi unhurriedly got up from the bed and walked over to the mirror.
“Strange…”
The mirror was fogged up, but when he tried to remove the layer of moisture with his hand, nothing came of it.
Feng Qi narrowed his eyes and realized that the mirror was not fogged up; at the same time he was able to see his face.
A red liquid was running down it; the white sclera of both eyes had turned red, and blood was running down from the eyes themselves, just as from the nose and mouth.
Feng Qi covered the right part of his face with his hand and tilted his head slightly.
“Quite a price for losing…”
He moved his hand away and looked at it; the blood had imprinted itself into the microcracks of his palm.
Feng Qi sighed and looked for something to wipe himself with.
But wherever he looked, he could not find anything of the sort, so there was no other choice.
Feng Qi left the room and walked down the corridor with a bloodied face.
In that way he reached the stairs and went down them.
Feng Qi saw that someone was walking on them too.
In the end he walked past a girl standing still, who was greatly bewildered by the sight of Feng Qi.
But Feng Qi paid her no attention and kept walking.
At that pace he reached the door and knocked on it.
Feng Qi did not wait long, and two seconds later he opened the door.
Opposite Feng Qi sat, apparently, the elder, who was dealing with papers.
He looked at Feng Qi and said:
“You look worse for wear, is everything all right with you?”