Chapter 204: Water Wielding

Yang sat beneath the roaring waterfall, drawing in the energy of the water element.

It had been six months since he had woken up in Nahar's body.

He had spent most of that time since then sitting under the shower of Sivlar's waterfall, soaking in as much of the water element energy as he could. By now the bead was in better condition than it had ever been. The energy it could consume here directly from the river was many times more potent than what was ambiently available in the cultivation world.

It had barely taken more than a week for the bead to get back to the condition it had been in before Yang entered the Vermillion Cloud Realm, and it had mostly been improving even more ever since.

Right now the golden webbing deep within his sea of consciousness looked brighter and denser than it ever had. The second world's bud pulsed with a healthy thrum and glow, and the status bar was at full [100% Energy].

Yang nearly wept once the status bar hit its peak. He remembered all too well how raising the status bar was like squeezing blood from stone in the Cardwright World. It took him decades to do what he had easily managed to do here in a matter of weeks.

He definitely preferred this Water Wielding World over the Cardwright World.

After the first time he absorbed the water energy, he had been able to perceive a difference in his soul as well, but he hadn't been able to take in any more energy for his own cultivation, or rather, the bead wouldn't allow him to take in any more.

Yang had a feeling it had something to do with his cultivation. Initially, he was angry and frustrated at the bead's attempt to prevent him from improving upon his soul cultivation, only to later realize that it could potentially create a disastrous imbalance between his body and soul once he was back in his world. He needed a ratio of roughly seventy and thirty percent qi between his soul and his body.

If his soul cultivation advanced too much while his body lagged behind, then that would create problems he didn't want to deal with. He already was practically a freak of nature forced to simultaneously cultivate body, soul, and more recently various energies. Inviting further complications that required even more attention and alteration to his cultivation would be the height of stupidity.

Spending most of his time absorbing water elemental energy had also helped him understand a bit better how the power system worked here.

He would take complete credit here, as the other tribesmen were no help whatsoever. True to their zealotry, for them everything starts and ends with the will of Sivlar. They possessed an instinctual understanding and mastery of the water which Yang lacked, yet they were unable to provide him answers and guidance on his more technical questions.

Every "how" and "why" had the same answer.

Because the Sivlar wills it so.

Yang had begun to loathe the phrase.

But he had spent enough time here showering under Sivlar’s snot that he could confidently say there was nothing mystical or inherently divine about the river itself. It had the same energy, or rather qi, that any natural body of water would generate.

There were no meridians and dantian because these people didn't evolve to use them. They were, in a way, right when they said they were born to Sivlar.

Their bodies functioned as natural conductors for water qi. If Yang were to take them to his own world, they would be able to wield water just as effortlessly as they were able to do so here.

As a cultivator, he needed to use special channels and techniques to absorb qi. Saral's lack of specific instructions made sense once he got the hang of basic water wielding. These people were so attuned to water qi that it was as easy as breathing for them. As a cultivator in his original body, he would not be able to absorb water qi from just any body of water unless it was in hundreds of times more concentration, or if he had some kind of treasure, elemental technique, or affinity.

It was like Yang and his fellow cultivators were like straw; only able to draw in qi through a narrow, precise channel, and these people were like sponges absorbing water; less versatile but able to deal with greater volume at a faster speed with no technique or tool required.

Water wielding came with the ability to manipulate water and, at advanced levels, even the water in other people’s and one's own body. That's what Raya had used to heal him.

These people, while zealous about their worship of Sivlar, were rather peaceful about everything. They lived, wielded water, and healed each other. He had read somewhere in his first life that if a person wished to get the measure of a society, look at how they treat the weakest member of their society, the women, the children, and the infirm.

By that standard, the tribe excelled. The women weren't considered weak here due to having the same ability as any man. While the children, the old, and the infirm were treated very well. They took care of each other. They raised children communally, worked through their youth to contribute to the tribe, and then were taken care of in their old age by the next generation. It was a cycle that worked very well for them.

There were pros and cons to both power systems, but he still preferred his own world because no matter how easy water qi absorption and wielding came to these people, they were not able to live as long a lifespan as even the lowest realm cultivators.

A few weeks into learning the basics of water wielding, he had tried using the three water techniques he knew: the Qi Dew Watering, Spirit Spring Rain, and the Cool Breeze Watering Technique, but had not been able to use any of them. The mudras and the details were useless without the internal channels the technique called for.

Here in this world, he could use the water to do almost anything: raise a wall of water, make it spray hundreds of meters in all directions, all with the wave of his hand and just his will alone. No specific techniques required. But the lack of more sophisticated magical crafts really bothered him.

It was like being a water elemental came so easily to these people that they didn't bother innovating.

There was no corresponding path to alchemy, talismans, artifact refining, or formation arrays.

He had heard of other tribes and villages who practiced water wielding as well, and he would one day like to visit those places to see if they offered anything else, but for now he had no intention of moving from the Sivlar until he at least became an expert.

Right now, while sitting under Sivlar’s fall, the bead used his body to absorb the energy while Yang himself concentrated on practicing a more advanced water-wielding concept.

He was attempting to create a large self-sustaining water sprout from the pool of water. Something like what Saral did on her palm the first day he went to the hall.

She used the moisture from her own body to make a small sprout in her hand that she continuously sustained while speaking to him and Som.

Creating a self-sustaining water flow that keeps going while you concentrate on something else was more difficult. It was easier for Yang to create a 30-foot wall of water, but it would only last as long as he was concentrating on it.

He needed it to stay like that, at least until it was released by himself or someone else.

In water wielding, true mastery was not about moving vast oceans, but rather making the element move reflexively, as if it were an extension of one's own limbs.

Yang, who had been given a cultivator's education, was having trouble with this part.

In cultivation techniques, at least the ones he had studied so far, they all required constant focus to be carried out. For self-sustaining effects, they relied on formations and tools.

No matter how he wielded water, he was unable to keep wielding it once he lost concentration. Water as an element was fluid by nature and lost shape as soon as he stopped actively shaping and moving it.

He was in the middle of attempting to maintain a self-sustaining water spout in the pool before him when he heard movement from the trees and turned to find Raya emerging from the foliage, stepping toward the pool.

“Nahar. You must come back now. You’ll need time to get ready; the harvest feast will start in a few hours."

Ah yes, the harvest feast, and why does he need hours to be ready? Well, because he was declared the next leader and priest of Sivlar.

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