Chapter Thirty: Seeking the Center of the Dantian

After scrubbing the little deer clean, he wrapped the wound with cloth and left it to wander the courtyard. The chickens were still alive, the water jars had to be changed, and his own body, strengthened by that strange inner cultivation, had to be tended as well. He spent the rest of the day quietly sorting through the gains and losses of his journey down the mountain.

The deeper he looked into his own body, the more he felt that something had changed. Beneath the nourishment of the spirit liquid, even his organs seemed to be transforming. He had already learned how to gather and refine the vital breath within him, and now the liver, fed by that breath, had become formidable beyond measure. The other organs, too, were steadily growing stronger through their connectedness. Yet he still could not force a second core of vital energy to form in the heart or elsewhere. For that, he would need to wait a little longer.

What he wanted to test was the strange hollow deep in his body, a place that seemed both real and unreal.

He had heard of the three great inner reservoirs before, and although the ones he had discovered were not described exactly as the old texts said, it was hard to deny the resemblance. Since one such place existed above, and another below the navel, who could say there was not a third hidden somewhere in the center?

So he turned his awareness inward and began a meticulous search through his whole body. His consciousness sank deep; his spirit spread through every inch of flesh and bone. In the haze of inner vision, countless points of brilliant light flickered into being. He ignored them. They were merely the traces left by the spirit liquid as it was absorbed throughout his body, each spark representing a patch of tissue drawing in that miraculous fluid. The first time he had seen it, he had been thrilled. Now, after seeing it so often, it no longer stirred him much. It was still wondrous to behold, like a starry sky woven within his own flesh, but it was not what he sought.

Not the hidden center he was looking for.