It definitely sucked. Learning Society Standard was fucking hard. It was seemingly impossible. Comprehend to the best of my ability… My ability is shit! Talent? What Talent? Ken thought as he finished his third, 10 hour session of mind-boggling study.
Society Standard was a nguage created by a colboration of experts from multiple Societies over most of an age, which Ken learned was roughly equivalent to 400,000 years. Even if he lived for 1,000 years he would never completely learn it but he quickly understood that it was not his goal to learn it all. This nguage was simply the most conclusive and effective nguage in the universe, and continuing to learn it no matter how little, would help him comprehend the concept of nguage, and hopefully understand his Talent.
The Societys’ goal when creating this nguage was to create a form of communication that worked for all beings that had reached the First Domain of Qi. As a by product Ken learned that reaching the First Domain of Qi wasn’t really anything special on a universal scale, and although he was now superhuman when he compared himself now with that of a few months ago, babies born to First Domain races would often be born at the Cleansing stage, and reach the First Domain of Qi by the normal time of maturity for their race. Basically Society Standard was a universal nguage for First Domain races. One wasn’t even qualified to begin learning this nguage until they reached the First Domain of QI, and differing levels of skill in this nguage was a prerequisite for joining a Great Society.
Society Standard was not spoken at all, instead a communicating party wrote symbols of Qi in front of themselves, and the targeted party could “listen” with their qi sense. To a being with no qi sense, it would simply appear as two parties existing within a certain vicinity of each other and not doing anything. Since qi sense was omni directional, you didn't have to be looking at the other party or even be within earshot. If one’s qi sense reached a rge enough scale, it would be possible for a person on earth and a person on the moon, to have a normal conversation. Another fact that totally boggled Ken’s mind, was learning that qi sense scaled inversely with qi density. Increases in qi density meant that qi sense was more restricted, it made sense and wasn’t the hard part to wrap his head around, until he learned that the most qi sparse regions of the universe were empty space. As in outer space. In outer space qi sense could be maniputed to stretch over unimaginable distances. Society Standard had freaking grammar rules that only came into py when communicating at distances of over 30 lightyears! Ken decided he could probably skip memorizing those.
Ken continued to complete training cycles, building up his body, and filling up his mind with alien nguage. The work outs were enjoyable, and Ken felt his body growing in ways he hadn’t even considered possible. At this point he could probably break a slew of world records for flexibility and endurance, and he was finding his ability to control his body exactly as he wished was very assuring. Studying SS continued to be mentally overwhelming, but he remained interested. The only example he could think of comparing it too was ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. After studying it enough, he had an epiphany when he understood why this nguage had caught his interest. Simply by learning this nguage, but especially its concepts and rules, he was learning an incredible amount about the Great Societies. Language intrinsically held a great amount of information about the people that spoke it. By studying a nguage of Earth, one could learn about the customs, beliefs, and ideas of the people that spoke it, and the same was true for Society Standard. The more beings that communicated using a nguage, the more knowledge could be gleaned from it. Theoretically, if someone created a nguage that was able to be understood and used by every being in the universe, then it could be said that that person understood the universe entirely. Ken became determined to continue to give his best to the headache inducing lessons, because he felt the information he was gaining was incredibly valuable, and he had the feeling that after Celestial Closed Cultivation came to its end, he wouldn’t have hours to sit around learning SS from EIS and practicing communicating with the silvery figure.
Even though SS had ignited his interest, that never made it any less complicated or challenging to learn. Before CCC Ken had thought of talented people as people as geniuses of phenoms that raced ahead of others and set themselves apart with their outstanding abilities. However this image of talent was nothing like how EIS or the Great Societies saw it: A facet of reality that was tied to your consciousness. Since the concept of Language had marked his consciousness when it came into being, he was considered to have a talent for nguage. That was it. Somewhere in all that nguage could be, there was a part that had touched him, personally. To find that piece, that concept, and understand it, was to comprehend his talent. These new revetions caused Ken to curb his expectations even further. It was possible for him to live for thousands of years and never even comprehend the talent he had come into being with. The concept of nguage was just that huge. That being said, the more Ken learned the more he believed that learning SS was his best shot at comprehending his talent. It was lightyears ahead of anything else in its inclusivity and usefulness. Although it was apparently possible to have multiple Talents, he only had one, and he wasn’t about to leave a whole Category of his capabilities to stagnate.
Ken had begun his endeavor to cultivate his talent on his forty-third training cycle. If his calcutions were correct then CCC would only st for seventy-two cycles. As the days ticked by, and Ken continued to make steady progress, he also began to feel an increasingly intense nervous excitement when he thought of entering the new world. Ken also occasionally checked himself out with internal qi sense, and found his qi density still increasing despite ignoring it in his training. Some of his thirty meridians had little strands of qi reaching out from them and drifting around aimlessly, but besides that there weren't any major changes.
As his body cultivation progressed further, Ken reveled in his sense of ease and harmony that he felt with his body. For the entirety of his life, his body had been the weakest link in his pilrs, and now that it was approaching the level of his mind and soul, he could understand why it was a requirement to harmonize the Pilrs before he could break through. His soul was his “meaning” and tied to his continued conscious existence. Although there probably existed ways to force it to break through, it would no doubt come with some extreme negative consequences. His soul refused to break through in such a way. Ken had his doubts that this self imposed “rule” was the same for other cultivators and didn't expect that every First Domain cultivator had been forced to jump through the same hoops.
On his fifty-seventh cycle in CCC, Ken reached the third level of Body, and received another new message.
Congratutions! You have reached Level 4!
It was honestly underwhelming. In his preconceptions leveling up involved fanfare and an instant increase in power, but Ken had come to view his Level as a simple tool for tracking his improvement. Reaching a new Level WAS significant, but its significance came from the growth he had undergone to reach a new level, not from gaining some new power in an instant.
Another thirteen cycles passed before Ken reached true harmony with all his pilrs at the peak of the base domain. Celestial Closed Cultivation would be over in just two more days. He had learned an incredible amount during this period and grown in ways he hadn’t even fully understood.
Under EIS’s advisement, Ken spent the final two days resting, meditating on his experiences, and pnning for the future.
As his time in CCC ticked down, Ken felt ready to face the new world. If he had to comment on his time spent here, he would simply say: “It worked.” As far as he understood, the entire point of this whole period was to help individual beings ready themselves for the new world in ways most meaningful for them and Ken felt that EIS had done a terrific job. Not that it made him any less nervous, emotions were weird like that. Ken waited in contemptive silence, till he received a message from EIS.
Congratutions! Pnet: Earth has completed Celestial Closed Cultivation!
Global Status Report: Earth
Consciousness Level: 4 (Soul: 3 Mind: 4 Body: 3->4)
Qi Domain: Base (Adaptation) -> First (Drawing Stage)
Number of Unique Species: 15.6 Million -> 15.9 Million
Number of Unique Conscious Species: 2154 -> 2731
Number of First Domain Races: 2 -> 6 (Primordial Savage, Primordial Wanderer, Ancient Dark Scavenger, Ancient Depths Octopod, Ancient Finned Terror, Ancient Pack Hunter)
Holy shit. Six.
Congratutions! You have reached the First Domain of Qi before pnet Earth!
You were a cultivator of all three Pilrs both before, and after the breakthrough of Earth
BE ADVISED: You, Mind Body and Soul, have expressed an concept: Preeminent Cultivator
You have cultivated an aura mark: Preeminent Cultivator
Ken surveyed his surroundings with his external qi sight active. When he had bcked out and gone into the whirlwind of new experiences that had been CCC, he was watching the sunset with his pets nearby. Now he was sitting in a small clearing. His perception started registering his surroundings when he froze in utter shock as he observed a symbol, written in qi floating at the edge of his qi sense range. It was one of the most basic beginner words in SS and it meant…
“DAD!”
“Sunshine?!”
“DAD!”
Ken took a second to respond because he didn’t know how to feel about calling his golden retriever “son”, even though he had raised him from a few weeks after birth. He opted to use a more complicated symbol and hoped Sunny could understand. It transted to something like,
“Familial delight and closeness”
Sunshine didn't respond in SS and simply jumped on him, tail wagging and trying to lick his face. He was HEAVY. Damn boy what were they feeding you in CCC?!
Ken spotted a dark shape moving through the trees on the edge of the clearing. Rain the tabby cat, now the size of a rge dog, bounded into his qi sense range and started fshing SS qi symbols.
“The butler returns! Welcome back!”
The giant tabby cat rubbed up against him. The new world was different, and he liked it.
