When Bai Xiaochun thought about how the Burning Stoves Kitchen and Administration Department wrongly assumed that he had mastered ‘lifting the heavy as though it was light’ back then during his battle with Xu Baocai, an idea suddenly crossed his mind.
“The reason that they assumed I understood how to ‘lift the heavy as though it was light’ was due to the level of ease with which I had controlled the small wooden sword. But the actual reason for this was the extraodinary power that the small wooden sword possessed after it was refined.
In fact, I am not actually skilled in manipulating the wooden sword. As for lifting the heavy though it was light...” Bai Xiaochun furrowed his brows and simply sat with legs crossed in the yard. Looking down at the wooden sword, his eyes lost focus, and gradually became bloodshot.
After a while, he suddenly raised his right hand and the wooden sword flew out. It vigorously cut straight ahead, the wind whizzed and it blew up quite some dust and dirt off the ground. Bai Xiaochun’s brows furrowed even further. He made some hand signs with his right hand and pointed again. But this time, he was not pointing at the wooden sword, instead, he was pointing at the rock that recently got pierced by the wooden sword.
With a point of his finger, the huge rock violently shook. After it rose a chi off the ground, the Qi in Bai Xiaochun's body became unstable. With a rumble, the rock fell down again.
(ED note: one chi is equal to ⅓ of a meter or 1.094 ft.)
The distress Bai Xiaochun felt disappeared, as his eyes gradually brightened up. With great determination, he circulated the spirit Qi inside of his body and pointed out again.
Once, twice, thrice…
Time flew, and in a blink of an eye, half a month had passed. In this half of a month, Bai Xiaochun was focused on controlling and moving the rock almost every second. This rock was almost triple a person’s height, and it weighed no less than seven to eight hundred jin. Even with Bai Xiaochun’s peak of the fifth level of Qi Condensation, it was still not easy to completely control that rock.
(ED note: one jin is equal to ½ kg or 1.1023 pounds)
However, because his cultivation was well-refined, Bai Xiaochun was able to try. If anyone else at the peak of the fifth level of Qi Condensation were to try, they would lift this rock for a couple cun at most.
(ED note: one cun is equal to 3.33cm or 1.311 inches)
Looking at it now, Bai Xiaochun had realized that the biggest struggle he had with controlling this big rock was not the lack of spirit Qi, but because his control over it was unstable. Oftentimes, despite the fact that he clearly still had spirit Qi inside him, the supply would break on its own.
“Changing the spirit Qi into silk strings and moving it with a constant speed so that the silk string will never break. That is the key to manipulating objects.” There was a spark in Bai Xiaochun’s bloodshot eyes as he hoarsely mumbled.
This was just like how ordinary families made noodles. If the noodles were pulled too quickly, then the noodles would break. But if it was too slow, then the noodles wouldn’t be very long. Thus, it was important to maintain a stable level of strength so a person could do it with ease.
As for cultivating the skill of manipulating objects, if one wanted to reach the peak level, then a person would need to be capable of maintaining this stable level of strength. Naturally, this would increase the difficulty.
“I get it. Lifting the heavy as though it was light does not mean everything literally. Controlling heavy things with a feeling of lightness is just a superficial message. The true meaning of this is not referring to the object but the control of spirit Qi! ”
“The total volume of my five levels of Qi Condensation is refered to as ‘heavy’, and transforming it to become a thin but prolonged silk string is refered to as ‘light. If I can do this, then it would be lifting the heavy as though it was ‘light’. And looking at its visible performance, the speed will be controlled with ease.” Bai Xiaochun’s face showed signs of excitement. After solving this riddle, he raised his right hand, and the rock far away immediately trembled and quickly rose into the air.
As if there was an invisible hand grabbing the rock, it launched into the air with a -hu- sound and headed straight towards Bai Xiaochun. But in the middle of the air, the rock paused and slammed into the yard, blowing up dust and dirt.
Bai Xiaochun did not give up and continued trying. After another half a month, he found himself unable to keep his spirit Qi in a stable prolonged line of silk string no matter how hard he tried.
Even if he managed to do it sometimes, because the rock was too heavy, the string of spirit Qi would be disconnected due to the unstable flow.
But if he was controlling the small wooden sword, this was no problem at all because it was not as heavy as the big rock. Thus, Bai Xiaochun