Moon Cultivation [Sci-fi Xianxia]

My introduction to Water also took place in a cave.

In fact, four out of six of Yellow Pine's Gardens were located underground.

There were both practical and technical reasons for that. Caves provided natural insulation from external influences, allowed for better control of atmosphere, humidity, and temperature fluctuations. Ideally, such conditions made it possible to maintain a stable ecosystem, one that breathed and lived in harmony with their qi type.

That wouldn't have worked in Black Lotus, since it had been built mostly on fertile plains. Only one edge of the school reached a small canyon, but even there, it had been more beneficial to construct the Air Garden instead.

Yellow Pine had a clear advantage — an excellent mountain right next door, where anything could be carved.

The Water Garden was larger than the Disco Cave and consisted not of a single space, but an entire network of caverns.

A man-made expanse over half a kilometre in diameter, with a high, uneven ceiling covered in stalactites, from which water constantly dripped. Stalagmites were few, found mostly in the side chambers, whereas in the central chamber, there was a lake. A vast, glowing lake, radiating a soft blue shimmer and occupying most of the space. Narrow footbridges and walkways without railings ran across the water's surface, allowing one to walk from point to point, though most cadets glided across them, leaving a frost-trail in their wake.

The walkways were slippery, and anyone not trained in Water was better off staying off the lake, unless they wanted to end up in it.

The upside was that this cave was completely sealed and isolated. The environment inside remained stable, with no pathogens present, so there was no need to wear armour.

The worst you might carry out with you was a chill from the damp.

The water in the lake wasn't stagnant. It slowly drained through fissures in the bottom, while fresh water came from an artesian well, drilled back during the early days of the school's founding. It was pumped to the ceiling, where it spread across the stalactites and trickled down again.

For lighting, they used free-standing, autonomous lamps. No ceiling fixtures or wall mounts, meaning no wiring at all.

And while the stalactites were impressive, the real beauty of the cave came from the fountain structures.

There were dozens of them: tall, short, slender, massive. They erupted from the centre of the cavern, from the edges, even from the lakebed. Some fountains served purely decorative functions, but in the Gardens, there was no such thing as just decoration. Every stream of water could, and occasionally had to, be subjected to a cultivator's will to infuse the water with Qi.

Strangely enough, though, the water itself didn't retain Water Qi. Just like the air in the Air Garden, qi collection and essence refinement here required a medium — dust.

Not ideal. Dust was only used because very few plants could survive in a constant sandstorm.

Water, in its default form, was a comfortable environment for plants. The lake was filled with lilies, lotuses, pink, not black, water orchids, and pads of floating foliage. From niches in the cave walls, blooming vines hung down, their leaves catching the droplets that hung in the air.

The cave's atmosphere was humid but not cold, filled with the scent of damp moss and tropical flowers. The air was thick, almost too alive with fragrance. But it wasn't unpleasant, not like in the Disco Cave.

Water felt welcoming, like an old friend.

My guide through the experience was Kasper Lo — short, fair-haired, calm, and constantly smiling. He didn't talk much and moved as if he were gliding just above the ground.

We didn't go straight to the lake. Our first training session took place in one of the side chambers.

It was smaller, maybe five or six squares in size. Inside stood three marble basins: perfect circles carved from a pale, matte stone. Their edges had been worn down by years of dripping water, and the surface was smooth, polished by time itself. Benches stood in a semicircle around them. Four cadets were already seated, spaced far apart, staring into the water as though the meaning of life were hidden there.

From the stalactites above, water dripped steadily into the centre of each bowl. Every drop sent out a ripple, clear at first, then blurred as it expanded. The ripples hit the edges, rebounded, and cancelled out at the centre. Excess water simply spilled over into carved stone channels around the basins.

The cave floor was wet, but since this chamber was higher than the main lake, the water drained downwards and didn't pool.

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It looked beautiful.

And made absolutely no sense, this was just physics, not Qi.

The scepticism must have been clear on my face.

Lo gave a small shake of his head.

"We don't learn to control Water Qi," he said quietly. "We learn to be Water."

I looked at the basin. It just sat there. Catching droplets in the same rhythm it had for centuries.

"So… this is a kind of philosophical demonstration?" I asked, not bothering to lower my voice.

Immediately, four cadets shot me glares of silent outrage.

I glanced around. There wasn't even a bloody sign saying 'Silence, please'. This wasn't a library.

"Not quite," Lo replied gently, still gazing into the basin. "This is the philosophy."

"But not Qi," I added, more softly this time.

"If you're after something more practical: fifty percent of all Water Qi enlightenments happen right here, in this very cave. Just sit. Watch. It matters more than you think."

So I sat on a cold stone bench. He remained standing. The cadet already sitting on it shifted away from me to the far edge.

I was bored out of my mind.

They say you can watch flowing water forever, but this water barely flowed. It existed in a strange balance between movement and stillness.

I tried, genuinely, to focus. After a few minutes, I even started noticing more: how the rhythm within the cycle shifted from one droplet to the next, how the ripples interacted, how little splashes formed…

"Flow and stillness," said Lo. "Water is the only qi that's always in motion even when it appears still. Its strength, its essence, lies in continuity."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cadet at the other end of the bench shake his head slightly at Lo's words. Then he actually spoke up.

"Most newcomers want to learn how to shoot streams or slice enemies with icy blades. But they don't realise that those techniques are just the surface. True Water begins when you understand that stillness and motion are two sides of the same coin."

Are they all this spiritually enlightened around here?

"Mm-hmm," I said, and stood up sharply, with determination.

Apparently, that sense of determination disturbed the cadets more than anything I'd said earlier. They shot me another round of indignant stares, as if I'd spat in their teacups.

"I'm a Fist!" I explained to Lo. "My core is Strength. Determination. Hardness. I'll consider mastering Water only when I see it can harmonise with my foundation. I think we should continue with hardness. Show me ice!"

"But ice isn't hard," Lo noted calmly.

"What do you mean, ice isn't hard?" I asked, baffled.

"Ice is just a pause in motion," said Lo.

"Black Lotus?" asked the cadet in front of the other basin.

"Yeah."

"Did you bring any Point Essence o? Still have some left?"

"Haven't decided what to trade it for yet, but I've got enough orders." I waved the edge of my hand above my head "Up to here."

"Pity. Any chance we could exchange contacts? I'd take it for units, even with a markup."

"Why not," I agreed. He wasn't the first, and I saw no reason to brush him off right there and then. "Can't guarantee fast delivery, though."

We exchanged contacts, and after that, I finally got Lo to take me to the cave where they practised ice techniques.

This one wasn't quiet or philosophical, it roared, cracked, and hissed with the sound of projectiles and targets colliding.

Essentially, it was a shooting range, where water projectiles, in all three states of matter, were launched at targets.

The cave had a wide central trench with rows of ice-block targets and steel walls coated in half-melted frost. The targets themselves were made of thick ice. They were durable enough to take a few direct hits, but brittle enough to give clear feedback on strength and precision.

Cultivators were launching projectiles made of steam, liquid water frozen mid-flight, or pre-formed crystalline needles, spikes, and spears. Most worked at a controlled pace — one shot, a pause, regeneration, stabilising their breathing. Only one girl, at the far end of the cave, kept up a continuous rhythm, releasing thin ice needles in time with her heartbeat. Her face was flushed, as though she had a fever.

I paused at the entrance, watching closely. This reminded me of the Fist Garden back at Black Lotus. Only without the flowers beneath the targets. Even the air here was filled with Qi, never mind the water. But the water in this cave didn't flow freely. The central trough where the projectiles were launched had drains. The holes that carried the meltwater away, likely straight to the fountains on the lake, to water the plants.

I wasn't sure how beneficial cold meltwater was for flora. I didn't delve into the mechanics of the Garden, I had a different task.

"Do you have any basic techniques you can demonstrate?" I asked Lo. "Or do you need special permission to act here?"

"Over there," he nodded toward the far wall, where a row of ice sculptures stood: human silhouettes, plants, animals, even chimeras.

They'd been created by cultivators shaping the ice, then stepping back to destroy them with other techniques, or melting them down and starting again from scratch.

We walked over, and I got a proper look. No one chased me off like they had in the Fist Garden. In fact, Lo and I weren't the only observers here. And there was something worth seeing. Some of the sculptures were genuine works of art.

Art that existed for mere minutes, at best. Then they were destroyed. Calmly, without sorrow or hatred.

To Water, it was just another cycle.

And there was a reason for that. Ice techniques weren't practised in isolation. Otherwise, this entire cave would've been choked with ice, and it would've taken ages to thaw. On top of that, it turned out crystallisation techniques came with a built-in drawback just like the Mad Monkey's technique. Instant crystallisation required the removal of excess heat. And some of that heat ended up in the cultivator's body.

Meaning: sustained crystallisation could overheat even a strong cultivator and lay them flat with heatstroke.

To counter that effect, the ice had to be melted, or converted into steam. Steam or mist techniques, in turn, extracted heat, including from the cultivator themselves. Ideally, the techniques had to be balanced so that the entire heat exchange happened outside the cultivator's body.

But even in the world of cultivators, the ideal remained elusive.

Which meant that a technique that froze enemy formations by converting steam into frost could, if done wrong, cause a sudden and sharp change in the cultivator's body temperature. In the hands of a careless user, it could be seriously damaging.

It all looked flashy and effective, but it came with so many downsides, I started to wonder whether it was even worth the trouble.