Silence.
No wind. No sound.Even the flow of time… seemed to pause.
In the depths of his meditation, Heng Zhen sat.Not in a valley. Not in a cave.But in a nameless space—one that only forms when thought ceases to walk,and the soul begins to listen.
"Yuanqi..." he whispered within,"...is not power, but an answer."
But an answer to what?
He opened the memory of the world.
Chaosqi.The first Qi to explode—wild, shaping, destroying, endlessly changing.It was not an enemy, merely… too honest.It was the universe's urge to be, before it knew what being meant.
Yuanqi.Its first reflection.Not created to fight Chaosqi,but to face it—calmly.Not a response to attack,but to the universe's exhaustion.
"If Yuanqi was born because I no longer wished,then could there be another Qi…one not born from desire,not from stillness,but from something that cannot even be named?"
Heng Zhen felt doubt—and welcomed it.For doubt is the doorway to that which has not yet been understood.
"Chaosqi is potential.Yuanqi is harmony.But could there be a Qi born from forgiveness?From loss?From sincerity without form?"
His current realm: Zhùjī.Foundation.Here, he formed his Dantian—not as a vessel of power,but as a container for what cannot be controlled.
Yuanqi did not remain because he held it.It remained… because he received it without binding it.
His body became like an empty bowl—not a jar of strength,but a space for existence itself.
He looked inward.
Ganjing had cleansed.Zhùjī had received.
But something inside him whispered:
"This is only the beginning."
He felt a tremor—not in his body,but in the honesty of unknowing.
And he did not resist it.