Ery
Ery and Avuri sat together on their bed, legs crossed, Cultivating deep in ditation. They held hands, creating a circuit for their Qi to flow between each other. They had even both leaned forward to let their foreheads lean against one another lightly.
The touch was calming, as was the strength of their connection after the long stretch of minimal Cultivation. Of course, it had been a couple weeks since their break now, but with the sudden change in their Qi and strength their connection had felt a little off at first, as if they needed to recalibrate things to make everything fit together as perfectly as before.
Ery had figured it made sense, given they had both suddenly changed in fairly significant ways - at least when it ca to their Qi. Avuri had agreed, and the two simply spent more ti that usual on their basic Cultivation exercises, just cycling their Qi together for extended periods until it clicked again.
And it did, thankfully, after a couple days. And now, they had returned to their changed Qi feeling once more like a singular whole as it ran through their bodies.
That left them with the next task of making this new Qi work for them in the best ways possible, which ant a new style of Cultivation.
Typically, Cultivation worked through a number of different principles working together. On the most basic level, a person's body could take in the ambient Qi around them in the world, circulate it through their bodies' ridians, and draw it to their core or Inner World. Functionally, a person's core or Inner World would realign the ambient Qi to the person's body, making it match their personal affinity.
In lower Realms, that typically ant purifying the Qi to match whatever basic affinity that person Cultivated, whether it be tal, fire, water, wood, or earth. In higher Realms, starting in the Sky Realm, the Cultivator's Inner World would attune the Qi to the person's specific variant of Qi. Many people chose to na their own variant, like Avuri's blizzard Qi, but it was not an official thing. Instead, a Cultivator's personal variation on Qi was more about aligning the Qi in one's body to be as compatible with that person's practiced techniques as possible. The better the affinity, the easier and faster it was to use the Qi for its intended techniques.
The adjacent principle to aligning one's Qi correctly was the practice of pushing one's Qi through the ridians. While the act was called many things interchangeably, the purpose was clear enough. Pushing Qi through one's ridians regularly would help those ridians expand and grow stronger, like a muscle.
By default, the number of ridians in the average human's body was incredibly large. There were so many, that counting had been largely pointless, even for scholars. This was compounded by a Cultivator's ability to forcefully carve new ridians through hard work by forcefully pushing Qi through their body.
Even for forcefully created ridians, the standard basics for Cultivation was quite simple. Like a muscle, the more a Cultivator uses any given ridian, it would grow, strengthen, and beco easier and easier to move Qi through it. Conversely, ridians that remain unused typically remain smaller and weaker.
That interplay of ridians was the basis for what ford the basics of Cultivation techniques. The way Qi was moved through the body's ridians, and which points of the body it passed through were what ford the basics of techniques. Part of each technique was based on intent, of course, but the passage of Qi through the body played an important role as well. And that process was imnsely complicated, which is what made most Cultivation techniques complex and ti consuming to create.
Ery's techniques often required the Qi moving through her arms and hands, symbolic of her craftsmanship when it ca to crafting things like weapons. Similarly, there were specific motions, body parts, and other specifics associated with each base elent that were often represented as well. tal-based techniques often incorporated downward motions of Qi, as well as being funneled through the lungs before being brought to where it was needed to form the technique.
Any given Cultivation style was focused on taking all of the associated techniques that were planned to be used by the Cultivator and sending their Qi through those patterns to make those ridians as strong as possible, while simultaneously building up the lesser used ridians in a sort of priority system.
Combined with the potential hundreds of other minute factors, like elental balance, physical well being, building affinities, matching pathways to branching techniques, and more is what created a comprehensive style of Cultivation. The intensity involved in balancing all such factors was the driving force behind large sects, which practiced a well developed and unified style created by a talented master, coming together to practice an already well designed style.
Plenty of Cultivators, like many of the people in Ery and Avuri's family, eschewed that approach to design their own far more personalized style.
However, it was also exceedingly rare that a Cultivator underwent so sort of training or event that completely altered the base makeup and elental balance of their Qi. And that was exactly what was happening to everyone involved in the Dragon-Kin Bonds.
It would require each of them to rework their entire Cultivation style to make their new Qi work to the best of its capability for them - directly in proportion to how much it changed their basic balance.
So, in so sense, the kids that hadn't made it to the Sky Realm yet might have the easiest adjustnt ti, as they were being inundated with raw elental Qi that mostly matched the base because they hadn't created an entirely personal Qi variant through an Inner World quite yet.
Conversely, Ery had it the hardest, as she was not only already working with a solidified style of her own, but she was even adding an entirely new basic elent to her base.
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Altogether, it made the work set out before them quite complicated. And that was made all the more complex by Ery and Avuri's Bonded Cultivation that made them function as one particularly complex entity when it ca to their Qi.
Still, in the two weeks they had since their Dragon-Kin Bonds, they had both been hard at work on finding their way forward, even when they were doing other things. The problem before them was both monstrously complex and incredibly interesting, which left both of their minds wandering to the problem in any free mont they had.
As they sat Cultivating on the bed, they were actively trying to work through different ideas, and bouncing theories back and forth through their link as if sharing thoughts.
Ery was wracking her mind, trying to track down any traces of styles that she had heard of that had used water Qi in a supportive way for fire or tal. If she could at least co up with a way to get one side of the equation working, she was confident that she could make it work sohow.
anwhile, Avuri was trying to think about the best way to make water and ice Qi more unified. Typically, ice Qi was purified and condensed water Qi - a different aspect of it. Other elental forms had ways of manipulating the base Qi to an altered aspect of it as well, like tal to poison or earth to rock. But Avuri was sure there must be a way to make water and ice functionally the sa Qi; they were both the sa actual substance as water, just in different phases. They should, in theory, be able to be handled at the sa ti, together.
Her blizzard Qi already was close to bridging that gap between ice and water, but just wasn't quite enough yet. But it would be.
As the two Cultivated together over the course of the two weeks since their Dragon-Kin ceremonies, they both drew closer to their respective answers. Without a solid other option, Ery drew on Avuri's blizzard style, using the principles that Avuri had used to bridge the gap between water and ice in a way that used water Qi to bridge the gap between her fire and tal.
By the ti she was convinced it could work, the technique looked nothing like Avuri's blizzard technique, but she thought that what she had devised would work.
Avuri's planning breakthrough ca at the sa ti as Ery's, born from the sa idea. She could use bits of Ery's tal and fire Qi to bridge the gap between water and ice. After all, fire lted ice into water while cold tal solidified and condensed water. The idea was sound, she only needed to refine the technique into sothing that worked quickly and in balance with her techniques.
The night before Ieji's going away party, the pair's new ideas had truly crystallized and began to take form. They both spent that night forging new ridians and strengthening others that already existed but were previously unused. It took hours, but when they had quite literally all night, they were not pushed for ti.
Driven by their inspiration that evening, they had even begun Cultivating early, just after sundown. By the ti the early morning rolled around, still well before the sun rose, both won had created the basis for their new Cultivation pathways. And with nothing more than a quick ntal agreent, imdiately began pushing into new territory.
Neither of them had considered that this step was also the first ti they had actively been using each others' base elents directly as part of their cultivation, but as they both put their collective elents to use in both of their bodies, things began to change. At least a little.
As they Cultivated, they both found whichever Qi they were looking for at any given mont quicker to respond, as their original personal alignnts moved toward one another. They didn't quite share the exact sa alignnt, and there was still so sort of distinction between Ery's Qi and Avuri's Qi, but it felt as though the difference was almost in na only.
As they continued to cycle their Qi through both of their newly built paths, the Qi beca more responsive, as if almost any piece of it could respond to the call for any base elent. With both bodies' cycles running the Qi through paths that were focused on combining strengths and perfect balance between the elents to strengthen them all equally, the disparate Qi alignnts blurred, as if the colors representing each individual elent mixed to beco a shifting mass of each color.
The brighter colors changed depending on which body the Qi was passing through, but the balanced, formless nature of it didn't change.
By the ti Ery and Avuri sat back into a more natural seated position, letting their foreheads separate, it was after sunrise. Probably soti midmorning, actually. They had Cultivated later than usual.
However, in that ti, sothing new had solidified between them, or at least had begun to. They both could feel that their Domains were in so sort of state of flux, as if they were trying to decide on what form to take. It was yet undefined, but they both knew it would take shape over the next day or two as they continued to Cultivate these new techniques that were more balanced than ever.
Sothing fundantal had begun to shift between them. It was a soft, almost delicate change. There had been no burst of energy while they had Cultivated, like there would have been for a Breakthrough, nor had there been anything that would draw attention from anyone in the Basin.
But as they stared at one another, still connected through their hands and Qi, they could both tell that sothing had changed. Their Domains had always locked neatly into place since they had originally Bonded. Their Qi clearly wanted to be in contact at all tis, and would eagerly search the other out, fitting together like a jagged edge of multiple perfectly cut puzzle pieces.
That wasn't how it felt any more. As they shook off the last remnants of their ditative daze, the two shared a brief but loving kiss before letting their hands go, both wordlessly wanting to see how things had changed.
As they separated, they also actively withdrew their Domains from one another in curiosity. While they ca apart mostly as normal, it felt more like separating water into two cups. There was no sensation of the neat puzzle pieces unfurling, but rather two similar substances being drawn apart.
Their individual Domains, even fully apart, both felt so imnsely similar that Ery was montarily dazed. The differences between them were so subtle, as if Avuri's Domain was the sa as hers, but in a different mood. The similarities between them were so shocking that it took her a full few minutes to realize that her individual Qi had altered so significantly. She had referred to it by multiple nas in the past - blade Qi, sword Qi, weapon Qi - but none of those were applicable any more.
And from what she could sense of Avuri's Qi, there was equally no way she could call her Qi 'blizzard Qi' anymore either. They were both sothing wholly new to each of them.
Ery could see similar thoughts dawn on Avuri's face in her widened eyes and mild - very mild - panic, even without their connection active.
On a whim, Ery quickly spooled up her Qi, pulling her Domain into her body. Avuri did the sa. Even without literally sharing thoughts, they both processed this situation the sa.
First, until they had a chance to Cultivate again and explore their new Qi, Domains, and probably even Inner Worlds, they didn't need to broadcast the change to the entire family and worry everyone.
Second, and probably more importantly, they had found their way forward.
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