OtH 1.16 - Burning Knowledge

I wanted to express my gratitude for all the support I have received. It matters a great deal to me. Thank you so much.

Aarick hadn’t really understood what Lurona meant, calling his previous enlightenments partial.

He did now.

He had absently noted being set on his feet, now well outside the garden, but even so… The world was made of fire.

He could feel the universe in his head, the connection to fire. He could feel memories emerging:

The heat of a campfire he had lit with his father, the smell of smoke, and slowly browning marshmallow that suddenly bursts into flame and the spreading crinkly charcoal of carbonized sugar. The smoke of wildfires turned the air orange and red, the smell of woodsmoke heavy in the air while the sun was fat and swollen gold. A gas stove burned with blue flames as his small hands made an omelet, his mother carefully watching with a soft smile.

Countless memories of fire emerged: the smell, the taste, the almost too much warmth gathered near a fire, even as his back was cold, what it was like to burn his mouth with too hot food, the scar from brushing his wrist against a sheet-pan of cookies. The flavor of smoke and char in grilled food. The sugary smoothness of crème brulee. The heated air pushing against his skin in the winter, fresh from a fiery furnace, and the same for a shower.

And all of these feelings were tied together because he knew what fire was.Those memories emerged, too. Fire was chemistry. Fire was a burning oxidation that happened so slowly in our own bodies, and explosively with gasoline fuel. Chemistry, biology, physics, and engineering all worked together with fire. And the meaning of fire added its own layer. Fire was invention and creation, it was home, it was life and death in a spinning cycle. It was a terrible weapon whose greatest form raged through forests and cities. It was purification, a destruction so pure that corruption ceased to exist. It was the ur-creation of mankind, the invention that made all others possible, the divine spark stolen and used to make mankind like the gods themselves.

It was all these and more. His connection to fire was exactly that, his.The connection resonated with his own beliefs, memories, sensations, and knowledge.

For a moment, while he was connected to world, he could feel the fire that burned in all things. The literal reactions were a slow fire that occurred everywhere, plus the metaphorical fire that was passion, destruction, transformation, and so much else. Most especially, he could feel it in the plants nearby.

They had a small portion of literal fire, the burning heat, flame, or smoke a part of them, but that was a small part of what they were. Mostly they had the condensed metaphorical weight of fire. It had been bound together by qi and become a part of what the plants were. Now they were an engine of fire, drawing in ambient qi and converting it into more fire laden qi.

The connection dimmed, eventually becoming no more that a spark.

He could feel it, however, how that spark was the potential to grow into that full connection. And he could still dimly feel the fire qi in the air, a warm embrace, a gift of his new connection.

Aarick came back to himself, shaking his head as his body once again became the center of his focus.

Reodan was looking at him, his eyes sharp and focused.

“An enlightenment, Sir?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah.” he said, his head still a little fuzzy.

“Do you think it was your focus before, Sir?” he asked.

He shook his head in response.

What would be accurate to say? What would I even call engineering?

“I, uh, learned as much as possible about various natural forces. Fire, just happens to be related to a lot of them,” he said. “If I was going to describe my focus… I would need to call it stability and motion, kinetics. Especially when it comes to earth and metal.”

Reodan merely hummed a little, before replying.

“I will see if Lurona wants to do something with that knowledge. The earlier a connection is forged, the more powerful it tends to be. The ability to undergo enlightenments before you form your dantian could be a powerful tool for you. Obviously, the fire qi here made connecting to fire easier, but your previous understanding must be profound to have managed it with so little exposure.

Do you have a sense of any other things you might understand well enough to gain an enlightenment.”

What else might I understand well enough?

Honestly, if just a reasonable knowledge of physics is enough, then the list could be huge. I already have a partial connection with sound, and I didn’t really delve into it at all. I have fire already, but I might be able to get heat/cold as well. Kinetic energy, earth, and metal like I already told him. Those were the major basis of mechanical engineering, even if I am only just starting. Light should be doable, and maybe some more esoteric things like life, if my biology knowledge is enough. Honestly, if the more esoteric options are available I might be able to get a lotof different options. Could I get a connection to technology? What about some of the greater things like gravity, space, fusion, atomic, or stars? I should definitely be able to get lightning, at least.

How much should I tell him, though? Lurona knows that I am from somewhere else, but even the excuse of recovering my previous cultivation might not be enough if I do too much.

“I think,” he said slowly, “I would like to talk with Agent Lurona about this. If and when she is available, of course.”

Reodan nodded in reply, before he spoke. “I will see if she has time later.”

They walked slowly away from the garden, Aarick still lost in his thoughts.

-sure, I could argue that knowledge should be shared, but what based on the Eldritch, knowledge actually canbe dangerous here…

He barely noticed as they walked down the stairs to the lower section of the gardens.

-my connection with fire doesn’t actually give me much practical knowledge of what fire is. It is more of a metaphysical connection, it isn’t like I understand the chemistry of fire any better…

And from there he only noticed when they were back in his suite, the door blending back into the wall.

“Sorry,” he said with a small smile. “I’ve been a bit distracted.”

“Understandable, Sir.” Reodan replied. “Enlightenments can be a very powerful experience.”

“Yeah,” he said, trailing off for a moment. “It was more than I was expecting, though I wasn’t really expecting an enlightenment at all.”

He received a nod in response.

“Few can predicted when an enlightenment with come, Sir,” he said. “You are in the unique position of bringing up old memories and knowledge. Usually you would have acquired the enlightenment when you gained enough knowledge.”

For a brief moment, Aarick remembered his college and high school classes. The image of people suddenly zoning out as they connected to the universe filled his mind.

A new form of standardized testing. Use qi sensitivity to prove that you have sufficiently understood the chapter on thermodynamics...

He snorted, shaking his head.

“I need to go inform Imperial Agent Lurona, Sir,” Reodan said. “Do you need anything before I go, or would you like me to arrange another servant in my absence?”

“Uh, no. Thank you,” he replied. “I’ll just take a moment to read.”

Reodan left in a silent blur and he settled back into a chair with a book on his lap.

The book continued to be an interesting read, though he found himself distracted by idle thoughts as he read The Empire’s history.

Most of the focus was placed on various historical figures, particularly the nobility. They engaged in wars with each other constantly, even if they were not always obvious. So much of their competition was through money, influence, their heirs, and so on… that outward signs of war were rare. Physical battles on a large scale were almost always simply the final blow to a noble house that had already been brought low. A few, however, had turned out to be an elaborate trap. The noble house having allowed themselves to appear weak in order to bate out their enemies.

All of the politics was morbidly fascinating, but all of this lead him back to the question of why?

Is this just human nature? You give us a ridiculous lifespan and we waste in on games of power? I suppose it would at least be a game that stayed interesting. So much would probably stop being entertaining if you live long enough.

Why not spend it on something more meaningful though?

That was the other part that was bothering him. Merchants would discover some new technique and use it to gain wealth, then marry nobles or become elevated to nobility. And then that was it. The techniques almost never spread. Some got out and became public knowledge, but that was rare. And those came almost exclusively when The Empire purchased a technique for themselves.

I know that I am thinking on an entirely different time scale, but this drives me nuts. I just came from a technological culture. Sharing knowledge is how things progress.

And that didn’t mention how much was lost. When noble families died, their techniques and knowledge died with them.

More knowledge was found and spread through finding hidden realms than anything else.

And that is another thing entirely. Why the hell are there random subspace pockets filled with stuff for people to find?

From the text, a few of the hidden realms appeared to be designed to test people. You needed to be below a certain cultivation level, and often age, to enter them.

Those ones were more straight forward. Some kind of legacy designed to test and reward talented individuals. Aarick assumed that access to those might have been restricted to particular group in the past, though a few seemed to have been deliberately left for anyone to find.

Are these people trying to leave a legacy, or some kind of doomsday library for the future?

A few hidden realms had become accessible when whatever kept them running became unstable and allowed people entry. There were probably a lot of those that no one ever mentioned, as the ones in the book were only discussed because they were either in areas to public to hide, or their emergence into this world had created noticeable signs.

There many types, and they were often dangerous, but they were almost always very profitable as well.

And they were a part of the history of The Empire for a few reasons. Obviously, their discovery led to wars. The nobles fought over these just like they fought over everything else. And, when nobles were forced to share them, the knowledge inside often spread to the entire empire.

And, buried within the text while discussing trade deals for rare materials that had lead to the rise of new noble house, he finally learned the actual name of The Empire. It was Yisutan.

He actually smiled a bit at that.

It’s nice to finally have a name for it. Calling it The Empire all the time was awkward.

The text mentioned materials being exported from Yisutan in exchange for materials that were not found here, but still didn’t mention the name of the other empire or empires that they were trading with.

I swear. It is like Yisutan is trying avoid mentioning any of the other empires at all.

Well… I suppose it doesn’t matter for the most part. Yisutan is already ridiculously large. And the distances to the other empires are ridiculous.

Or maybe this has to do with the whole “God-Emperor” thing. Hard to have a unique god if you are always mentioning the other gods too.

‘Oh yeah, we are ruled by a god-emperor. You know, just like all the other empires?’

Wouldn’t even need to be the emperor behind it. People do weird things with religion at times.

He considered. Unfortunately, that was just as likely an explanation as anything else. One person decides to honor their god by reducing the mention of the other empires, and then another, and before you know it the other empires might as well not exist.

His mused was interrupted by a polite knock at the door, followed by a familiar blur that resolved into Reodan.

“Sir. Imperial Agent Lurona would like to speak with you.”