What do you mean I'm a cultivator?-Chapter 28

Following his acceptance of the woodworking mission, Jiang Cheng's daily routine acquired a new dimension. After completing his morning sect duties, chopping wood, carrying water, and whatever else the outer sect wanted, he would make his way to the small shed tucked behind the disciples' training grounds.

The shed was a simple structure, with walls of unadorned wood and a sloped roof that leaked slightly when it rained.

Inside, racks of training weapons lined the walls, and the floor was perpetually covered with wood shavings and sawdust. The scent of freshly cut wood and oil permeated the air.

The workshop's overseer was a weathered man who had never advanced beyond the early stages of Foundation Establishment. His cultivation might have stalled decades ago, but his hands held the wisdom of countless years working with wood.

"Wood speaks boy." Elder Liu had told Jiang Cheng on his first day.

"Most disciples never care to listen."

At first, Jiang Cheng approached the task of weapon making with the same methodical determination he applied to everything else.

He observed Elder Liu's techniques carefully. How the man would select branches and logs with a careful eye, testing their weight and balance, running his fingers along the grain before making even a single cut. And while Cheng couldn't see it, the man probably flowed his Qi in the wood, to feel for any imperfections.

The first week proved humbling. Jiang Cheng's hands, strong enough to split trees in half with an axe and wield a sword with increasing precision, and speed, struggled with the delicate work of carving.

His first attempts at training swords were awkward. Too heavy at the hilt, too light at the tip, the balance entirely wrong.

Or at least, that was what Elder Liu spoke, when scolding his work.

Sure, Jiang Cheng had carved before, but those were not something of note. He didn't really check the quality of the wood. He didn't really plan ahead. He just cut and cut, and went with it.

This was different. The old man moved his hands with purpose.

"You're fighting the wood, boy." Elder Liu spoke, watching Jiang Cheng struggle with a particularly stubborn piece of white oak, his own hands moving against another piece.

"Wood has its own nature, its own flow. Like Qi."

Jiang Cheng had nodded, though inwardly he was a tad confused at the simple comparison.

How could working wood compare to the complex arts of cultivation?

But as days passed into weeks, he began to understand somewhat.

Sure, it wasn't anything too grand, but just like flesh, Wood, and other materials could posses Qi of their own. Some wood, especially fresher pieces, were harder to work with, resisting the Qi flowing in the knife he used.

To really work with it, he improvised. Just like when feeling the wood for imperfections, he flowed his Qi, both in the wood, and the Knife in tandem.

It was easier this way, he had understood. After all, if you want to punch properly, as the books explained, you don't just use your arm. You use your whole body.

You don't use the knife. You use it, in harmony with the wood.

Harmony.

In the evenings, after returning to his cabin, Jiang Cheng would continue practicing. He'd collected scraps of wood from the workshop. pieces deemed unsuitable for proper training weapons and would sit outside his door, carving by the fading light of dusk, and then by the small oil lamp he placed beside him when darkness fell.

His fingers grew calloused in new places. Tiny cuts and splinters became a regular occurrence, though his cultivator's constitution meant they healed quickly. Sure, he was a cultivator, but his pure might was not that far off from a mortal body. Still, there was a clear difference, thanks to his dantian.

The frustration remained. He could advance through stages of Qi Condensation at unprecedented speed, yet crafting a simple wooden sword that balanced properly in the hand eluded him.

It irked him a lot. Sure he was a cultivator with no elemental affinity like geniuses. He was no genius. But to see that he was struggling with some stupid carving was making him frustrated.

One evening, as he worked a piece of ash wood that kept splitting against his knife, in a moment of anger, he flowed way too much Qi into the wood, causing it to explode in splinters.

This was no way to go. he first thought, angry. Then, a second thought appeared. Why did the wood explode?

He took a piece of the remains, and let his Qi flow in it.

And he focused, thinking. Why did it explode? His fist was fine when he let Qi flow through it.

Was it his anger? he thought for a moment. And so, he channeled his frustration on the piece in his hand, and flowed Qi in it, willing it to burst.

He channeled his frustrations. Of the inner sect. His struggle with the art of carving. The confusion of these errant thoughts, as sparce as they'd becoem lately. He poured all his frustrations in it.

And then, the small piece of wood, once again exploded, sending splinters flying.

Sure, it was by no means an attack. Hell, it was inefficient.

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But it was his. A technique he had found on his own.

It reminded him, that despite his frustrations, he needed to keep pushing. Because even in the anger and frustration that carving wood brought, it led him to find something different.

The next day, before making a single cut, Jiang Cheng held the wood chunk in his hands and circulated a thin stream of Qi through his palms.

Not to force or change the wood, but to sense it. To feel its density, its grain, the way it had grown in response to sun and wind during its life as a tree.

Elder Liu, passing behind him, paused. "Now you're beginning to understand, boy." was all he said before moving on.

That evening, Jiang Cheng sat on the lotus pose outside, sitting on the wooden steps of his cabin.

In his hands, was a piece of cherry wood.

Instead of immediately setting the knife onto wood, he closed his eyes and meditated, holding the wood against his palms, trying to truly connect with it, with his dantian. He felt the faint resonance between his Qi and the leftover one that remained in the wood, even after cutting.

When he finally began to carve, his movements were different. More fluid, more responsive to the wood itself.

The blade of his knife followed the grain rather than fighting against it. When he encountered knots or irregularities, he worked with them rather than trying to force the wood into an idealized shape that existed only in his mind.

By midnight, he held in his hands a cherry training sword unlike any he had produced before. It was not perfect. Not comparable to Elder Liu's work. But it had balance. It had integrity. It felt right in the hand.

Jiang Cheng stood and moved through the basic forms of the Flowing Water Sword Art with his newly crafted weapon. The sword moved as an extension of his arm, responsive and light.

For the first time, he understood what Elder Liu had meant about wood speaking. This sword had been there all along, waiting within the cherry wood. He had merely helped it emerge.

In the days that followed, Jiang Cheng's progress accelerated. Each evening, after his regular duties and his time in the workshop with Elder Liu, he would return to his cabin and continue practicing his craft. Sometimes he would work late into the night, forgetting even to cultivate as the act of creation consumed his attention.

Yet strangely, this did not feel like a waste of cultivation time. There was something meditative about the work, something that seemed to clarify his understanding of Qi in ways that sitting in the familiar lotus position never had.

"Why did you take this mission boy?" Elder Liu asked him one afternoon, as they worked side by side on a batch of training weapons for new disciples. "Most outer disciples avoid anything that doesn't directly advance their cultivation."

Jiang Cheng considered the question carefully before answering.

"I....was frustrated, senior. When I went on my first mission, on a whim, I decided to carve something. A small, stupid little cube."

Elder Liu nodded, his attention on Jiang Cheng.

"It was bad for my first time. It was not something I had ever done before. And it made me mad. I am supposed to be an almighty cultivator, soaring the skies, but I can't even carve something?

I was mad. I carved some other things again. a sphere. a triangle.

When I returned here, I even tried to make a training sword, when I broke the one I grabbed from the weapon's shed.

Then, I saw this mission. It felt like something I had to do. To prove to myself I can really carve something good."

Nodding again, Elder Liu smiled. The first time Jiang Cheng had seen such an expression on the weathered man's face.

"A foolish disciple chases techniques like butterflies, never catching any of them." Elder Liu said after a long moment, his weathered hands still working deftly on the training sword before him.

"But you... you chose something else. You understood that you failed. humbled by it."

The old man's voice carried a note of approval rarely heard in the outer sect.

"Most would have abandoned this task by now, seeking glory elsewhere."

Jiang Cheng felt a warmth spread through his chest. Recognition. It had been the first time anyone had acknowledged his efforts that he had almost forgotten what it felt like. last time he remembered, was probably his father rubbing his head when he found out how the sheep were escaping their pen. A faint memory.

The sensation was foreign, almost uncomfortable, yet undeniably pleasant.

He bowed his head slightly, unsure how to respond. "Thank you, Elder Liu."

Elder Liu, let out a snort, and spoke.

"Call me master. I like you, kid. And I think you'll go a long way. Further than I ever could."

"yes, master Liu."

Master Liu spoke, his rough palm landing on Jiang Cheng's head, ruffling his black hair, before walking out of the shed, leaving Cheng alone, with his thoughts. And the sword he was working on.

Later that evening, back at his cabin, Jiang Cheng sat with a piece of dark walnut he had selected from the workshop's scrap pile.

Master Liu had raised an eyebrow when he'd chosen it. Walnut was notoriously difficult to work with and prone to splitting if handled improperly.

"Why this one?" he muttered quietly as he turned the wood over in his hands. The answer came as he closed his eyes and sent a gentle current of Qi through the dense grain. Because it would teach him something new.

This time, Jiang Cheng approached the carving differently. Rather than beginning with the shape of the sword in mind, he started by listening to the wood itself.

He ran his fingertips along the grain, noting where it flowed straight and where it curved unexpectedly. He tapped it gently in various places, hearing the subtle differences in tone that revealed its internal structure.

Only when he felt he understood the piece did he make his first cut, a decisive stroke that seemed to release tension from the wood rather than imposing form upon it. Each subsequent cut followed the same principle. Working with the wood's natural tendencies rather than against them.

When his knife encountered a knot, instead of trying to cut through or around it as he might have done weeks ago, he incorporated it into the design, allowing it to become part of the guard, a natural strengthening point that added character to the weapon.

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Hours passed unnoticed. The small oil lamp beside him burned low, casting flickering shadows across his hands. Sweat beaded on his forehead not from physical exertion, but from the intense concentration.

This was not cultivation in the traditional sense, yet he felt his connection to his Qi deepening with each careful stroke of the blade.

Midnight came and went. The sounds of the outer sect, occasional laughter from other disciples' cabins, and the distant calls of night birds, faded into insignificance as Jiang Cheng entered a state of focus that bordered on meditation.

When he finally set down his knife, the training sword that lay across his palms was unlike anything he had crafted before. It possessed a subtle curve that followed the wood's natural grain, making it appear as though it had grown into this form rather than been carved. The balance was perfect, the weight distributed so evenly that it seemed to float in his hand.

Standing, muscles stiff from hours of stillness, Jiang Cheng moved through the first form of the Flowing Water Sword Art, letting Qi flow into his body, to settle the stiffness in his body.

The walnut training sword cut through the air with a whisper, responding to his movements as though it were an extension of his arm. No, of his will.

For the first time, Jiang Cheng smiled as he practiced. Not the grim satisfaction of reaching another cultivation milestone, but something lighter, more genuine.

There was joy in creation, he realized. Joy in bringing forth something that had not existed before, in revealing the potential hidden within ordinary material.

He continued practicing until dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, moving through form after form with his new creation. The sword never tired his arm, never fought against his movements. It moved as water flowed, adapting to his intent.

When the first rays of sunlight touched the training sword's polished surface, Jiang Cheng finally stopped. He would probably be tired for his morning duties, but the fatigue seemed inconsequential compared to what he had gained.

"Wood speaks? Sure. I'll make it sing." Jiang Cheng Whispered to himself, staring at the sunrise, a piece of oak wood in his hands.