Maria awoke ying in a field of knee high grass. She was back. She was whole. She felt young again. The three months spent in the little white room had turned her from an 80 year old woman with dementia, waiting to die, into a version of herself she had never thought possible. She called up her personal status, confirming once again what she already knew.
Personal Status: Maria Lizapeg
Level: 3 (Soul: 1 Mind: 4 Body: 1)
Race: Primordial Savage
Qi Domain : Base - Saturating Stage
Skills: Visualization (Novice 3) Mental Energy Manipution (Novice 1) Meditation-(Novice 1)
Talents: Architecture, Visualization
Gift: Unknown
Aura Marks: Weight of History
She had opened her Mind Pace, and reached the First Domain of Mind. She had recimed everything the horrific disease had taken from her, and much much more. Her memory felt crystal clear, and her stream of thoughts was lively and energetic in a way that she knew it had never been before. Cultivation was amazing.
The sound of murmuring voices brought her out of her thoughts so she sat up to take a look around. The field was crowded. Even standing up, she couldn’t see through the sea of people. People were milling around talking to one another. Peacefully. The crowd of naked people were mostly overjoyed to see another person after three months in isotion, although it was a bit awkward. It was an incredibly comical sight to Maria, who imagined the world's rgest nudist festival was in full swing. Then she saw a man leap into the air. As she was only 5’5” and couldn’t see over the crowd, she could see this man, because his leap allowed him to travel in an arch that peaked at over 30ft in the air.
“First Domain of Body” Maria thought to herself. “Right, I'm a psychic now.” Formed a mental image in her mind pace, and released it from her mind aperture. A silver strand of qi reached out from her head into the sky and formed a silver eye at the top of it. Maria turned the eye around in a circle, before retracting the qi back into her mind. Maria took a moment to review the images the eye had captured. The scene reminded her of her sight from the pyramid, where she had been towards the bottom and was able to clearly view the sea of people. She estimated at least a million humans were in the field. There was a massive river that split the pins a bit to the east, but besides that there was just endless grass and people as far as the eye could see. Although it wasn’t as crowded as the desert had been and everyone had a few couple feet between them, it made Maria feel custrophobic to be in such a huge crowd. Not knowing what else to do, she headed for the only ndmark in sight, the river.
Along the way she saw several more people leaping around the crowd sporadically. She continued on her way not paying any mind until one of them nded almost directly in front of her, giving her a massive start.
“Hello my name is Daniel.” The man said. “A bunch of us are trying to gather everyone who has reached the First Domain to the riverbank. We want to talk, share experiences and figure out what to do next. Everyone who has reached the First Domain is welcome to participate in the discussion. We still haven't found anyone who's reached the First Domain of Soul and if we did we don't know how to recognize them. Qi sight allows us to find those with a mind Pace or an awakened heart easily. If you're interested, come to the riverbank there's a rge gravel bank where some of the others are gathering. If you see any one at the First Domain of body or mind please spread the word.
Without giving Maria a chance to respond he simply leaped away and continued scanning his surroundings while flying through the air. Maria blinked and thought about what he had said. There's no nothing else to do. I'm interested in what other people have experienced during CCC. I guess those of us who have progressed the farthest we'll have to figure out how we're all going to live. Logistics communication, everything's gone, we'll have to build it again. Maria headed towards the river deep in thought about what the infrastructure of the new world would be like; she would probably get to have a hand in making it after all.
Maria continued towards the river scanning the surrounding crowd with her qi sight. She found herself unable to determine the cultivation of others at a gnce. Although she could tell that every single person she id eyes on had some level of qi it was hard to tell how much. She knew that she was at the peak of the saturation stage. After that point she had found it near impossible to take in any more qi to her reservoirs. she didn't know what the First Domain of Qi would even look like or if she would be able to see it. How did he know I was in the first domain? She thought as she continued walking. Maria saw Daniel talking to a young man and focused on him. He definitely had more qi than her if how his body looked in qi sight was a good reference for that. The qi coming off of him looked different than other people's, more clumpy for ck of a better term. It was strange and Maria caught herself staring. She decided the quickest way to learn all this was just to go to the meeting and ask people. With so many people gathered together here they're sure to be many others first domain cultivators. Maria didn't really know anything about body or soul cultivation. Her main focus during CCC was making sure that her mind was whole again and regaining her ability to actually interact with her memory and function normally. All the qi that she had was a product of simple accumution during rest and meditation.
Although she had done a lot of meditation as it was a very constructive activity when it came to self-guided mental healing. She felt very lucky that she was able to finish constructing the mine Pace before her time had been up. The super dense qi had been extremely helpful. The surrounding qi was currently less than one tenth of the density that it had been in CCC. It would have taken her months to construct the pace in this environment, maybe even longer, as the real world had all manner of distractions. Having a rge block of uninterrupted time to focus on healing and improvement had been a remarkable gift. Maria found it hard to imagine what other people's experience in CCC was like. Perhaps no to CCC experiences were equal as everyone had their own individual needs and desires to work towards fulfilling.
What had been an incredible experience, now almost felt like a dream. The constant background during CCC had made her perception of time funny. That combined without the need for eating or any other normal necessities made it feel like it wasn't real, even though she knew it was. Apparently qi was enough for the body to subsist on for a long time, especially in high concentrations. No doubt this would be a huge boon in a world that held 8 billion people and had lost all its previous infrastructure. Deaths from starvation would be minimized at least.
Maria pushed away negative thoughts as she finally reached the river and found the massive gravel shoal. She could see people on the other side of the river but it was at least 200 meters across. She figured a first domain body cultivator wouldn't have any trouble swimming it despite its rapid flow. She made her way down the rocky path to the shoal and towards the small group of people sitting at its center. As she approached an old man covered in tattoos spoke to her without getting up or even opening his eyes.
“Join us in meditation, as we wait for more to arrive, when the sun is fully overhead, we’ll start.”
Marina stared intently at the man but chose a seat on a rock that was slightly removed from the group and sat down. She didn't mind waiting, although she wondered who the old man was. The qi surrounding him didn't seem any different from hers to her senses. There had to be some way to see mind and soul cultivation. Judging people's capabilities seemed like an important subject of research. A way of confirming what someone’s cultivation was would be important technology.
Maria thought about how much the world has changed. What would people do now if there was no need for food? Most people would not really need to do anything. Just being somewhere where the climate was temperate and you had access to qi, one was free to do whatever they wanted without fearing of dying to the elements or starvation. Some of the most fundamental ties that bound civilization together in the old world was the need for food and shelter. With sufficient intelligence and resources, it became more efficient to join together as a group to find food and shelter together as well as protecting oneself from predators. If the need for food and shelter disappeared Maria wondered what people would do with their time. Even in the modern era, most people spent their time working to provide for themselves. Now all they needed to do was keep breathing and they were basically fine. Although she assumed most people would rather not sleep in a field or on open ground it probably wouldn't be dangerous, just uncomfortable. People would still want things. Maria firmly believed it was human nature to want to better one’s own environment and that of the people around them. They would desire certain comforts and luxuries, but they were starting from nothing. To regain some of the comforts and technologies of modernity there was massive work to be done. They were starting from the stone age but with knowledge from the information age so hopefully it wouldn't take them as long to get it back, as it had to make it there the first time.
Maria pondered on the priorities of life in the new world. Sustenance, shelter and protection from predators were still a priority, especially to children and those with lower cultivation levels. Besides those, Maria felt the most important goal was to not forget the knowledge of the old world. Scientists and engineers needed to be found and their knowledge preserved for the future. Some knowledge of more advanced or niche technologies was sure to be lost, but she was determined to preserve the knowledge and lessons of the past and not let the thousands of years of prior human civilization be lost to time. She was a historian after all, it was her responsibility.
