A Song For The Ages

The next day dawned clear, the crisp air of the valley sharpened by winter's touch. Feiyin walked alongside Elder Fjord, their steps leading toward the shadow of a mountain unlike the others around it. Even from afar, Feiyin could sense something strange. The air seemed heavier. His oscillation sense picked up a density, as though space itself pressed down, condensing every breath and every movement.

Fjord's mouth curled in a proud smile. "You feel it, don't you? That weight isn't in your mind. This is one of our greatest treasures, the legacy of an ancestor who reached the Astral Chakra Realm. He left us this mountain, forged from his essence qi and alchemy, to serve as a crucible for all generations."

Feiyin's gaze swept up the slope. Giants young and old strained against boulders that dwarfed him in size, pushing them up the incline, sweat rolling like rivers down their colossal frames. The ground shuddered beneath their efforts, and the sound of stone grinding against stone filled the valley.

"What's its purpose?" Feiyin asked, fascinated.

"This mountain," Fjord said, laying his enormous hand on the stone, "multiplies gravity and suppresses essence qi circulation. For our people, strength begins with the body. Our path is to feed essence qi into flesh and bone, making them stronger. A stronger body produces stronger qi, which in turn strengthens the body further. The cycle builds without end. Here, under this suppression, our youths train to master that cycle."

Feiyin nodded slowly, his mind whirring. The concept resonated with his own philosophy of forging a perfect foundation. To test himself under this weight- it was too good of an opportunity to ignore.

"May I try?" he asked.

Fjord's booming laugh echoed. "Of course. Let's see how far a little giant can climb."

They approached a row of boulders. Each was massive, easily twice Feiyin's height and many times his weight. Frost feathered their sunless sides; thin rimes shattered under his palms like brittle glass. Without hesitation, Feiyin set his hands against one. His muscles flexed, prismatic essence qi threading his tendons with quiet light. The stone shifted as he dug in his feet and pushed.

The instant he stepped onto the slope he felt the mountain take hold. The air grew viscous, sound dulled, and every heartbeat seemed to echo inside his ribs. Gravity dragged at his bones; breath left his lungs in heavier bellows than it returned. His essence qi slowed, streams once swift now felt sluggish, like rivers choked with silt. In his three dantians, the qi cyclones tugged against an unseen weight, their whirlwinds compressed to tight, grumbling knots.

Feiyin gritted his teeth and drove upward. Stone rasped, his shoulders burned, his calves knotted. A chiselled marker at the path's edge read 3333 meters- the mountain's full height. He passed the first etched notch- 1000- and then another- 1500.

By roughly 1100 meters, his breath came in clipped bursts. Prismatic essence surged to support him, but the suppression gnawed at its flow, forcing him to trim waste, to route qi through narrower, cleaner paths. He learned to match shove with exhale, to let the boulder's roll feed the next pulse of strength.

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Halfway, around 1666 meters, his legs began to quiver. His Essence qi circulation threatened to dam entirely. He coaxed it to move, leaning on his conception meridian where the moon-cool thread of yin guided the current. Sweat soaked his clothes; in the winter air it steamed, then frosted along his forearms. Below, a ripple of movement at the base- Fjord straightened, young giants pointed, but no voices carried up. Only the wind and the scrape of stone.

He pushed on. Somewhere beyond 2000 meters the battle shifted. Muscles still screamed, but the louder enemy was in his skull. Stop here. You've done enough. The thought slithered with each heartbeat, more persuasive than pain. Feiyin narrowed his world to three things: the boulder's weight, the rhythm of breath, the thin silver thread of qi he kept moving no matter what. He used his oscillation sense to find the slope's micro-tilts, nudging the stone into invisible grooves. He pictured the boulder as a pendulum he could set swinging, each step catching it at the exact instant momentum wanted to die and lending it a fraction more life.

At 2300 meters his qi nexuses stuttered dangerously; the cyclones in his dantians trembled on the verge of stall. He bared his teeth, rolled one more shoulder, set his feet… and ground up another dozen meters.

At last, around 2400, the boulder stopped answering. It felt fused to the mountain; his tendons burned with strain and gave no more. Every fiber in him refused to budge.

He let the stone settle with care and stepped back, chest heaving, vision edged in stars and black spot. The world swayed slightly before he recovered, but in his heart pride burned hot and clean.

Only then did Fjord climb to meet him, a booming laugh rolling up the slope. "Ha! You made it higher than most would believe. You reached roughly 2400 of 3333 meters- that's a height our seventh‑phase clansmen strive for. Truly, you are a little giant."

The younger trainees stared wide‑eyed, some gaping openly. To see a human- so tiny compared to them- reach such a height filled them with shock and no small measure of respect.

Feiyin wiped his forehead and gave a tired grin. "Not bad… for a first try."

The elder clapped him on the back, nearly sending him sprawling. "Not bad? Hah! You've carved your name into this mountain today.""

Later, after they descended and shared a hearty meal of roasted meat and dense bread, Feiyin felt his whole body buzzing with strange feedback. His limbs, which had been weighed down so brutally moments ago, now felt almost weightless- as if he were floating whenever he moved.

His stomach growled fiercely, a deep hunger rising like fire, his body demanding fuel to mend and grow stronger. Fjord only laughed when he noticed, eating his fill as well. "That's pretty normal for a vigorous young man."

Feiyin then sat cross‑legged, circulating his essence qi. To his surprise, it coursed through his meridians more smoothly than before, like rivers freed of debris. The sluggish resistance that had choked his flow earlier under the suppression of the mountain was now gone, replaced with greater clarity and sharper control. His three nexuses pulsed in rhythm, steadier and fuller, the suppression having tempered them instead of weakening them.

Even more, he felt his yin refinement progress subtly shift. The lingering potency of the yin refining pellet resonated with the strain of the mountain climb, accelerating the process as if the mountain itself had joined hands with the pill. He sensed his refinement had sped forward- nearly two percent closer to completion.

He exhaled slowly, eyes gleaming with anticipation. This mountain was no ordinary training ground- it was a forge for both body and spirit. And Fjord, watching him with pride, added, "Tomorrow, the clan leader will want to speak with you again, and I'm sure he'll be surprised as well."