At the absolute center of Zhenjing, Li Yuan stood in the most fundamental place of his entire inner world.
This was not just a location. It was the point where all understandings met, where all meaning was filtered, where the stability of the entire spiritual structure was maintained.
The Core of Consciousness.
Before him—or more accurately, around him in every direction—was the manifestation of the Understanding of Water that served as the anchor for the entire Zhenjing.
Not physical water but the pure essence of what Li Yuan understood about water—the gentleness that could wear away stone, the flexibility that never lost its true form, the ability to flow without resistance but with constant power.
"The Understanding of Water is my Core of Consciousness," Li Yuan mused, feeling the stability radiating from this center. "It is the filter through which all other understandings must pass. It provides the qualities—gentleness, patience, adaptability—that ensure all understandings work in harmony, not in conflict with one another."
He remembered when he first realized the need for a Core of Consciousness—thousands of years ago, when his understandings began to grow in number and complexity. Without an anchor, without a stable center, everything would have become chaos—the Understanding of Fear conflicting with the Understanding of Tranquility, the Understanding of Chaos destroying the Understanding of Order.
But with Water as the Core—with its natural properties to flow, to accept, to not resist but adapt—all other understandings found a way to coexist.
Water does not reject Fear; it flows around it. Water does not fight Chaos; it finds a pattern in the turbulence. Water is the perfect mediator, allowing all opposites to coexist.
From this Core of Consciousness, Li Yuan felt a resonance that spread throughout the entire Zhenjing—a steady pulse, a rhythm that never stopped, that kept all understandings connected and integrated.
Right beside the Core of Consciousness—or more accurately, surrounding it in the first layer—was something even more fundamental than the individual understandings.
The Space of Questions.
Li Yuan stepped into this space and felt an immediate change.
This was not a space with a defined landscape like the space of the Understanding of Water or Fear. It was a space of pure possibility—a place where questions were yet to be answered, where curiosity was still in its purest form, where ignorance was acknowledged without shame.
"The Space of Questions was the first thing I created," he remembered—or more accurately, the first thing he discovered within his own consciousness. "Before there was understanding, there were questions. Before there was an answer, there was curiosity."
Here, questions moved like living entities—not in the form of words but in the form of vibrations, resonances, unrealized possibilities.
"Why does water flow like this?"—the first question he remembered, still here, still vibrating despite being answered thousands of years ago.
"How does ice store memory?"—a new question, which was just beginning to be answered on the ice continent.
"What happens when a phase changes?"—the question that was in the process of being answered now, in this very cultivation.
And thousands of other questions—some already answered but which remained as a reminder of the journey, some still open, some not even fully formed as coherent questions yet.
"The Space of Questions is the trunk of my spiritual structure," Li Yuan realized with a new clarity. "It connects the roots—the Core of Consciousness of Water—with the branches—all the individual Understandings."
Questions move up and down here, like nutrients flowing in the trunk of a tree. From the roots rises a curiosity that sparks new questions. From the branches descends an insight that changes the way the questions are asked.
This is a living system, a breathing one, that is never static.
Li Yuan stood in the center of the Space of Questions and felt this dynamic—the questions that rose, the answers that descended, the constant transformation from ignorance to understanding and back again to a deeper ignorance.
"This is why cultivation never ends," he mused. "Because every answer only changes the question, it doesn't eliminate it. Every understanding only opens a deeper level of questions."
"The Space of Questions ensures that I am never satisfied, never stop, never think that I am 'finished.' As long as this space exists—and it will always exist, because it is a fundamental part of who I am—I will continue to ask, continue to search, continue to dig."
And then Li Yuan felt something even bigger—a structure that connected everything, that gave an organic shape to what was previously only an abstract cosmic circle.
The Tree of Meaning.
Not a physical tree but a spiritual structure formed from meaning itself—a shadow of meaning, as he once thought, a form without form, a sound without sound.
"I didn't intentionally create this tree," he realized. "It formed naturally when my Zhenjing reached a certain complexity. When the understandings began to be too many to be organized in a flat structure, Zhenjing responded by forming a hierarchy—not a hierarchy of power but a hierarchy of connection."
He saw with his inner eye—or more accurately, felt with an awareness that transcended sight—this structure:
Roots: The Understanding of Water as the Core of Consciousness, anchored at the absolute center. From here, all spiritual nutrients flow, all stability originates.
Trunk: The Space of Questions, connecting the roots with the branches. Questions rise from the roots, carrying the energy of Water—a quiet but persistent curiosity. Insights descend from the branches, bringing back the wisdom that has been obtained.
Branches: The eighteen Understandings, spread in a pattern that is not random but which follows a natural logic of how they relate to one another.
Li Yuan felt the organization of these branches—not in a physical sense but in a sense of resonance, in a sense of how they clustered based on affinity.
There were branches that carried Understandings related to Nature and the Cosmos: Water (as the root but also as a branch), Sky, Breath, Oldest Breath—all that related to the fundamental elements of existence.
There were branches that carried Understandings about Inner States: Silence, Existence, Soul—understandings about fundamental internal states.
There were branches that carried Understandings about Emotions and Feelings: Fear, Loss, Anger, Emotion itself—understandings about the affective responses to the world.
There were branches that carried Understandings about Cosmic Forces: Chaos, Chaos Qi—understandings about forces that transcended personal experience.
And the other understandings were spread on branches that related in subtle ways but which felt intuitively correct: Body, Wrapping, Doubt, Home, Memory.
"The Tree of Meaning filled a void I felt," Li Yuan realized. "Before this structure was formed, there was a sense that the understandings were floating in Zhenjing without a clear connection. But now, with the Tree as a framework, everything has a place, everything has a relationship with the others."
And most importantly: This Tree is alive. It grows. Every time I reach a new understanding, a new branch grows—or an existing branch expands. Every time I ask a new question, the trunk vibrates with new energy.
"Zhenjing is not a static realm but a spiritual organism that is constantly evolving."
Li Yuan returned to the position between the Core of Consciousness and the Space of Questions—the place where the roots met the trunk, where stability met with dynamism.
And from here, he began the true cultivation.
His goal was not to add a new understanding—he already had eighteen, and adding a nineteenth now would be premature.
His goal was a deeper integration—specifically, to bring what he learned about ice into the Understanding of Water in a way that fundamentally changed the nature of that understanding.
"Water is not just liquid," he mused, feeling the resonance from the Core of Consciousness. "Water is three phases—solid, liquid, gas. Ice, water, vapor. And all three are manifestations of the same essence."
"To truly understand Water, I must understand the transformation between phases. I must feel—not just know intellectually but feel at the deepest level—that the change from ice to water to vapor is one complete breath."
"And to do that, I must bring that understanding into the Core of Consciousness itself. I must allow Water—as the anchor of my entire Zhenjing—to evolve to include not just the liquid nature but also the solid and gaseous natures."
He sat—in a spiritual sense, because in Zhenjing there was no physical sitting—and began a process that would require a very long time.
The process of bringing the resonance of ice into the Core of Consciousness. The process of integrating the three breaths into the fundamental structure of who he was.
Around him, the Tree of Meaning vibrated with anticipation—the awareness of a spiritual organism that something important was about to happen.
The roots would become deeper. The trunk would become stronger. The branches would expand.
Because when the Core of Consciousness evolves, the entire Zhenjing evolves.
And when Water—which is the filter for all other understandings—reaches a new depth, all other understandings will reflect that too.
"Three breaths," Li Yuan began the internal mantra—not words but resonance.
Solid. Liquid. Gas.
Ice. Water. Vapor.
Storing. Carrying. Scattering.
Structure. Flow. Freedom.
One essence. Three manifestations.
One breath. Three phases.
Transformation. Cycle. Eternal.
And the cultivation began—at the center of the center, in the heart of Zhenjing, in the place where all meaning met and from which all understanding flowed.
Depth after depth.
Like a root that grows into deeper soil.
Like a tree that searches for nutrients that never run out.
Without end.