Fates Parallel Chapter 57 - Memory

With their project completed, Jia and Eui were somewhat at a loss for what to do. It had given them time to decompress from their stressful encounter with Yan Yue, but they had put things off to do it. Yue had been continuously sending them letters asking when they would actually be embarking on the next mountain expedition with increasing urgency. Jia also knew that Hayakawa probably didn’t appreciate her disappearing into closed door training so soon after making their agreement.

Since they could meet both of them during Ienaga’s lessons at the training field, that seemed as good a place as any to start. Naturally, there was no triumphant fanfare for their return to lessons. Ienaga gave them a small nod, while Rika and Eunae greeted them happily and inquired after the results of their project.

“Come on! You spent all that time working on it, let me see! I still haven’t even started mine!”

Jia shook her head ruefully at Rika’s enthusiasm.

“Sorry, Rika. We’re not going to show anyone until we present it to Murayoshi. If he doesn’t approve, we’re going to have to start over, anyway.”

Rika pouted in disappointment, but didn’t press the issue any further. Soon, they got back into the usual routine of practice. While Jia was considering how to approach Hayakawa, to her surprise it was Hayakawa who approached her.

“Miss Lee, would you care for a spar? Just regular practice this time.”

“Of course, as long as it’s not as intense as last time.”

As promised, their sparring was just some low-impact practice, and while Hayakawa set a difficult pace, soon Jia was comfortable enough to converse while they practiced.

“Sorry for disappearing right after our agreement. I had a bit of a flash of insight that I needed to act on.”

Hayakawa shrugged, and Jia was envious of her for being relaxed enough to emote bodily in the middle of sparring.

“It’s no trouble. Besides, you haven’t actually received anything from my end of the bargain.”

“That’s true, though just your promise already carried quite a bit of weight. Actually, about that—do you think we might be able to plan a trip to the mountain peak soon?”

“I don’t see why not. Give me a list of names and we can go as early as next week. Who would you like to bring?”

Jia told her, and Hayakawa actually paused their spar and frowned.

“Most of those I understand, but who are those Qin students you named?”

“Zheng Long and Han Yu are friends of Yan Yue—they arrived here at the same time. Inviting them is part of an agreement I have with her.”

Hayakawa cast a sidelong glance towards Yan Yue, who was getting bullied by Rika in a sparring match that was a lot more intense than necessary.

“I said it before, Miss Lee, but I worry that you might be playing rather dangerous games without fully comprehending the consequences. I feel compelled to express my concern for you, as one of my subordinates.”

Jia smiled wryly and took up a stance, prompting Hayakawa to resume the spar.

“I’d prefer that you did so as a friend. Then I might actually feel comfortable explaining. For now, all I can say is that you’re probably right, but I’m not doing it by choice.”

Hayakawa’s expression was complicated, but she just sighed and shook her head.

“Very well, Miss Lee. Just be careful.”

---

After the lesson was over, Jia informed Yue of the plan for the trip to the mountain. She could still barely stand to look at Yan Yue, so the conversation was straightforward and brief. Afterwards, Ienaga asked Jia and Eui to remain behind. Once the other students had left the training field, Ienaga regarded the pair of them with a deep frown.

“Something’s wrong with you two. What is it?”

Jia hesitated—she was used to her teacher’s curt manner of speech, but often forgot just how attentive a mentor she could be.

“I’m not sure what you—”

“Don’t try to lie to me, Lee. You two have been stagnating for months, and since you brought that Yan girl, you’ve been backsliding. I had some hope when you went into closed door training, but nothing has improved. Explain.”

Jia squirmed awkwardly under Ienaga’s unyielding glare. Just how much could she explain? Actually, was there any reason not to just tell her everything that had happened with Yan Yue? She cursed internally as she realized that as simple a solution as that would be, it would doom Yue to returning to Qin to be traded like a piece of property. No matter how much she hated her, Jia didn’t want to let that happen.

Ienaga mistook her silence as reticence and turned to Eui.

“An, since Lee is apparently unwilling to explain, perhaps you could enlighten me.”

Eui glanced nervously at Jia, and then sighed.

“Uh, well you probably guessed that we ignored your advice and continued on the path of joint cultivation.”

Master Ienaga crossed her arms and frowned, before nodding.

“Obviously. Is this why you two haven’t been able to progress?”

Eui nodded in confirmation.

“We’ve been stuck at a bottleneck ever since we broke through to the second stage. We’ve been making up for it by practicing techniques, but recently our cultivation has hit a complete standstill.”

Ienaga sighed in frustration.

“I warned you girls that this would happen. Joint cultivation requires perfectly synchronized cultivation. This sort of bottleneck isn’t unusual—you can only effectively cultivate together, but your cultivation bases are no longer close enough to do so.”

That wasn’t quite their problem, but it was close enough to the truth that Jia wondered if Ienaga had any insights that might help them.

“That’s why we’ve been in closed door training. We’re trying to realign our cultivation so that we can start making progress again.”

That actually was true, and it seemed good enough for Ienaga, who nodded.

“That’s probably your best option, aside from dissipating your ki and starting over. If you insist on pursuing this path then the only other option I can recommend is that you try practicing and meditating the same techniques for a while. I’ll consult with Hwang about finding a technique that you can both practice safely.”

Eui and Jia bowed and thanked Master Ienaga, who shook her head and sighed.

“You two are a handful. I’ve never had such troublesome students before. Alright, go on before I change my mind and force you to restart your cultivation here and now.”

“Yes Master!”
“Yes Master!”

The two girls spoke in a chorus and bowed their farewell before hurriedly rushing off. Ienaga wasn’t one to use hyperbole, which meant that she really had been seriously considering making them abandon their paths and start over.

---

With only one week left until their trip to the mountain peak, Jia decided to double down on her efforts to learn how to resist Eunae’s gaze. First, she decided she wanted to try to learn objective recall. Even if it was unlikely that she could do it at her level, she felt like being able to see past false perceptions was the key.

In the archive, she picked up as much material on the subject as she could find—most of which was in the form of books, since the technique came from the mage colleges of Goryeo. Unsurprisingly, Dae was already present in his usual spot, and he looked up with a start when Jia dropped her heavy load of books on the table across from him.

“Oh! Miss Lee, nice to see you again, hehe. I’m afraid I haven’t made any progress on your predicament as yet.”

“That’s fine, Dae. Do you remember the conversation we had way back about eidetic memory and subjective experiences?”

Dae blinked a couple of times in confusion before nodding.

“I believe so. Why do you bring it up?”

“I want to try learning to recall objective experiences. Like what you told me back then. Thinking about a memory and being able to spot things that I missed when I actually lived the experience.”

Dae grimaced.

“Miss Lee, I told you back then that it was nearly impossible for houtian mages to accomplish. Most of the known methods explicitly require a do—”

Dae’s eyes widened as he cut himself off, but he shook his head after a moment.

“No no no, even if you have a domain, there’s no way that you have the mental capacity to recall your experiences objectively at the second stage.”

Jia frowned—it wasn’t like Dae to be so pessimistic.

“What if it’s just for a little bit? I don’t want to recall everything with perfect objectivity, only certain things.”

Dae shook his head.

“It’s not just about how you remember—you have to change the entire way you store your experiences in the first place. It’s far too taxing for a houtian mage to maintain, and you won’t know which experiences you need to recall objectively until you reflect on them.”

“What if I do know which ones I want to recall objectively. What if I could anticipate when I was going to need that objectivity? For example—when under a mind-altering illusion.”

Dae opened his mouth to argue, and then paused.

“Wait, I hadn’t thought of that. All the books I’ve read on the subject assume maintaining the technique at all times, but if you only needed it for brief moments...”

Dae shoved his pile of books aside and reached across the table for one of Jia’s. He began quickly flipping through it as he mumbled to himself.

“...specialized meditation...enhanced perception...domain...aha!”

Dae spun the book around and pointed at the passage he had found. Jia didn’t bother reading it, since she knew that Dae was going to just explain it anyway.

“The technique is a form of meditation, but instead of drawing in mana it uses the domain to focus on the self. High level mages maintain this form of meditation at all times, and the mana expenditure is significant. The divine essence of a xiantian cultivator is orders of magnitude more efficient than mana, so it’s trivial for them, but for a houtian cultivator, you wouldn’t be able to maintain the technique for more than a few minutes without running out of mana.”

Jia’s eyes lit up with excitement. Hadn’t she already done that before? Or at least something similar.

“So that means that I can do it for a few minutes at a time?”

Dae nodded eagerly, his tail beginning to wag in excitement.

“In theory, since you have a domain. I suppose most of these texts were written with the assumption that since it required a domain, anyone practicing it would by definition have to be in the xiantian realm. This might actually work!”

Lee Jia began reading through the technique while Dae went through some other texts, taking notes to highlight the relevant information for her. It turned out the technique wasn’t quite the same as the introspective meditation she had done before.

For one thing, it required intense concentration—she had to focus her domain into herself and commit every single bit of it to her awareness. Normally, the domain sensed so much information that her mind naturally filtered a lot of it out, like an ongoing noise that you stopped noticing after a while. Now, Lee Jia had to bring every last bit of that noise to the forefront of her mind.

It was a little bit reminiscent of the combat meditation she’d used to awaken her ki—ironically something she’d rarely actually used in combat, but Ienaga had called it that and it stuck. Meditating so intently on one’s body while actually using it made even the slightest discomforts magnify tenfold. This technique aimed to do that not only with the body, but the mind and soul as well—something that was only possible through the use of a domain.

According to the books—which had a very Goryeon viewpoint—all disciplines would inevitably access the parts of the self that they didn’t directly cultivate, expressed through the development of a domain. The domain wasn’t a well-understood concept, academically. Each person’s was a little bit different, and understanding one’s domain was a crucial aspect of cultivating in the xiantian realm.

Jia wasn’t sure what that meant for her, but she supposed that her unified cultivation had resulted in the early development of a domain—forming the domain through the connection between her three aspects, rather than the other way around.

Lee Jia set aside the books and freed her mind from distraction. Luckily there was quite a bit of overlap between this technique and some of the meditation techniques that she had been practicing and refining over the course of months. She focused her domain inwards and meditated on the flow of energy through her body, mind, and soul.

With each breath, spiritual essence would be absorbed through her domain—even without actively cultivating, this was automatic—that essence would then enter her body through the metaphysical connection to her domain, and travel from her head, to her heart, then finally to her dantian. At each point, some of it would split off to enrich and empower her three aspects.

She still wasn’t sure what her domain did with the mana, but it used quite a lot of it. What was left, then travelled down to her heart, where some of it was captured in the flow of her bodily ki and transformed by her affinity into lightning elemental energy. Finally, the remainder—she realized with a sudden flash of insight that it was only the most pure, uncorrupted essence—entered her dantian and gathered into the tiny swirling ball of liquid qi within.

After that, there was nothing left of the essence that she had taken in, only a few infinitesimal motes of corruption that were rejected and expelled through her exhalation. Jia focused intently upon maintaining her state of self-awareness while allowing herself to once-again perceive the world around her.

Immediately, she realized why the first step of meditation was to release oneself from worldly awareness. The sensory overload was completely overwhelming—it was like the physical pain of combat meditation and the emotional flood from joint qi meditation both at the same time, while also bearing a stress headache from thinking too much. Actually, that headache was rapidly getting much worse as she tried to maintain her focus.

Lee Jia tried to take in her surroundings, but it was nearly impossible. She saw Dae—heard him saying something—but she didn’t have the focus to make out what he was actually saying, or interpret his expression. There was just too much at once. Every rustle of movement, every scent on the air, the taste of her own mouth on her tongue, the buzz of some insect, the very thoughts in her head—every last experience was screaming for her absolute attention.

She tried to maintain focus as long as she could, but the pain just kept mounting until it hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced. After that point, it soon drowned out every other experience and completely shattered her focus. At some point, her vision had gone completely white, but she hadn’t lost consciousness.

When she returned to her senses, she was breathing heavily, and there was an odd, coppery taste in her mouth—blood. She reached up to the wetness on her upper lip and her hand came away sticky with fresh blood. She tried to swallow, but there was more blood in her mouth than she realized and she began to hack and cough as she choked on it.

“Miss Lee! Are you alright, what happened!?”

Dae fussed over her as Lee Jia finished her coughing fit and wiped her nose and mouth off with a sleeve.

“Ew. I’m fine, Dae—uh, probably. I think I just got overwhelmed. You were right—that technique is definitely not meant for low level cultivators.”

“Did—did it work?”

Jia shook her head.

“I don’t think so, I just remember—”

Jia opens her eyes, her vision is swimming and she’s unable to focus, but her senses are sharp and her domain misses nothing. Dae has an alarmed expression and asks her what’s happening, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Her blood pressure is rising at a dangerous rate, and the smaller vessels are starting to burst. In a forgotten corner of the archive, a flying insect is struggling in a spider’s web—

“Oh my ancestors, everything! I remember everything! Dae, it worked!”

Jia went over the memory carefully in her mind. Despite having been unable to think about anything other than the pain, she was still able to perfectly recall every last sensation she had experienced for a period of—

“Thirty six seconds?”

Dae raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Uh, I guess it’s not just what I see and feel. My mind was working in overdrive that whole time. I was able to maintain that state for exactly thirty six seconds—well, thirty six and a little more than a half. I know that because apparently, I kept track.”

“Oh! Huh, that’s rather impressive since all you seemed to be doing was screaming, bleeding, and drooling.”

Jia blushed and slapped Dae on the shoulder.

“You could have left out that last part!”

She knew it was true, though. The difference between the subjective experience and the objective memory was jarring, to say the least. Lee Jia frowned and crossed her arms.

“Well, I don’t know if this is going to work for what I wanted, but it’s a start. I’ll just have to keep practicing it.”

Dae’s eyes widened in surprise.

“You’re still going to use it? After—that?”

Jia shrugged and smiled wryly at Dae.

“That was just a first attempt. It could have gone better, but it was still pretty successful. Maybe I’ll get better at it with practice! It can’t hurt to try.”

Dae glanced pointedly at the unsettling amount of blood that covered the front of her uniform and her sleeve. Jia blushed and turned away.

“It can’t hurt much! Okay!?”