A Song For The Ages

The climb up Heavy Mountain had become almost a ritual. The air was thin, heavy with pressure, every step threatening to drag Feiyin's body down into the stone beneath his feet. Yet he pressed forward, Darak's shadow towering at his side, and Elder Fjord not far behind, the giant elder's laughter echoing like thunder among the slopes.

"Still climbing on those tiny legs, boy?" Fjord bellowed, the corners of his wide mouth creasing with mirth.

Feiyin smirked, his breath steady despite the strain. "Tiny, perhaps. But they've carried me further than most would expect."

Darak barked a laugh, hefting the massive boulder he pushed daily as part of his training. "He's right, Elder. His legs may be small, but stubborn as a mountain goat's. He doesn't stop."

Fjord's deep eyes gleamed with approval, though his tone shifted to something more measured. "Endurance is good. But endurance need a direction, or it will be like a river with no banks, destroying your body. Today, let us give your current some shape."

They rested upon a wide ledge carved naturally into the slope, the valley sprawling below like a sea of stone and green. The oppressive weight of the mountain eased slightly here, enough that conversation flowed.

Feiyin listened intently as Fjord reached into a satchel at his side, withdrawing a stone tablet inscribed with ancient marks. The grooves pulsed faintly with lingering essence.

"Most giants," Fjord began, running a massive finger over the carved patterns, "will never go beyond what you see here. These are sigils- artificial patterns etched into flesh, carved into the marrow of our being when we step into the Eighth Phase. They allow us to form our cultivation spirits to fit with our body path. But they are… borrowed power. They never become truly ours."

Feiyin frowned slightly. "Borrowed? Yet they are formed within your own body."

Fjord's chuckle was low, almost sad. "A leg of iron replaces the limb, but it is not the leg you were born with. Sigils serve us, yes, but they are tools bound with flaws. A body that bears only sigils will always carry a mark of foreignness in its spirit."

Darak interjected, his tone curious despite his pride. "And the rare ones- the ancestors? They did not use sigils, did they?"

Fjord's expression grew reverent. "Two of them. Only two, in all our long history, formed true innate runes within their bodies. Their flesh sang with the resonance of the world itself. With those runes, they birthed cultivation spirits that no artifice could match. Both ascended to the Arcane Celestial Realm and stood as generals under the Jade Celestial Dynasty. Pillars of our race, masters of both body and alchemy."

Feiyin's heart stirred. Alchemists? Again, the link between refinement of the outer and inner, between pill and body, presented itself.

"What allowed them to succeed where others could not?" Feiyin asked softly.

Fjord leaned closer, his voice deepening. "The body, boy. The body is already tied to the elements, even before qi is refined. The heart beats with fire. The lungs breathe with metal. The liver bends like wood. The kidneys flow as water. The spleen grounds as earth. These are the body's sacred treasures. Our ancestors sought to polish them as one polishes ore, until runes could form naturally within."

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Feiyin felt the words like chords resonating in his chest. He thought of his oscillation sense, of the way he harmonized ingredients in alchemy, and realized the parallel. The body as the cauldron. The Organs as the ingredients. Essence qi as the flame.

Darak tilted his head, curiosity overcoming his usual bravado. "So every one of us already carries the seed of runes inside?"

"Seeds, yes," Fjord rumbled. "But most never bloom. They lie dormant, unless tempered by will, by trial, by aid of nature's wonders. Our ancestors used herbs, beast essences, rare minerals. They treated their own bodies as alchemical furnaces, each heartbeat a strike of flame, each breath a distillation. This was how they approached sanctification."

Feiyin murmured, almost to himself: "Alchemy does not belong only to cauldrons. The body is the cauldron."

Fjord's massive hand clapped his shoulder, nearly toppling him under the weight. "Hah! You see it. That is why those two ancestors were both alchemists. They knew the principles of refinement and applied them to their very flesh. Purify, extract, refine, fuse, transform- each stage mirrored in the organ's tempering."

Darak grinned, eyes narrowing at Feiyin. "Then tell me, Fei, if your body is a cauldron, what kind of pill are you brewing?"

Feiyin allowed a boastful smile. "One the world will acknowledge."

The conversation deepened as the sun sank lower, its red light washing the mountain in fire. Fjord's voice grew solemn as he traced the implications.

"The Cultivation Spirit, when it awakens, is born from the foundation of the body. If the body carries only artificial sigils, then the spirit carries those scars. It must be fed constantly, its hunger never ending. But a spirit born from innate runes…" Fjord's gaze turned distant, as if seeing an age long gone. "…it feeds you. It grows with you. It is eternal."

Feiyin shivered slightly, not from the mountain's chill, but from the truth in those words. A spirit that sustains rather than drains… He imagined what his prismatic qi might become if it resonated with true innate runes.

"Elder Fjord," he asked, his tone hushed, "what of the legends spoken of in the records? Of your origins?"

The elder's chest swelled as he recited, voice reverent. "Long before the Jade Celestial Dynasty, before records were etched in stone, it is said we descended from Titans. Beings the size of stars, who could pluck worlds from the heavens and devour them for breakfast. They needed no qi, only their flesh, their marrow, their strength. To us, they are myth. But in every Giant heart, the dream remains-to walk toward that glory, to sanctify flesh until it echoes the divine."

Darak nodded firmly, pride and ambition in his eyes. "That is why we climb, why we endure. Not to become mountains, but to become the stars themselves."

Feiyin's mind whirled. Essence qi as song. Flesh as treasure. Two paths that are mirrors of one another. He felt as though a veil had been lifted. His prismatic essence qi, born of harmonizing elements, was not so different from the Giants' quest to excavate elemental treasures from their flesh.

When they parted ways for the evening, Feiyin lingered on the ledge, watching the last light fade. His thoughts played like strings on a zither.

If the organs are treasures, then each must be refined. If the heart is fire, then each beat must burn like the pounding of a great drum. If the lungs are metal, then each breath must temper like the notes of a bronze horn. Each organ is not only a treasure, but an instrument, and together they will echo the song of the body, so that it may harmonize with the song of the world. This is truly alchemy… turned inward.

He closed his eyes, placing a hand over his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat under the crushing weight of Heavy Mountain. The rhythm echoed the resonance he had discovered through music, through oscillation. His path and the Giants' path were converging, two rivers meeting in the same sea.

Feiyin's lips curved into a quiet smile. "Perhaps… my cultivation spirit will not only sing with the world. Perhaps it will be born of it."