Every type of qi has a feeding and overcoming element. Fire feeds Earth, which feeds Metal, which feeds Water, which feeds Wood, which feeds Fire, completing the cycle. Likewise, Fire overcomes Metal, which overcomes Wood, which overcomes Earth, which overcomes Water, which overcomes Fire, completing the cycle.

  Should your qi come into contact with the qi of another cultivator, whose qi proves stronger depends on several factors. The first is your cultivation level. While there are only slight strength improvements among those at the same level, someone at a higher level will be much stronger than someone at a lower level. The second is the level of the spiritual root. A stronger root can have a far greater effect than a weaker one. The third is the root type. If your root is of the type which feeds the other’s element, they will be temporarily strengthened against your qi. If, however, your root is of the overcoming type, they will be much weaker against your qi.

  Once you have enough practice with your different roots, assuming that you are like most people and possess more than one, you will learn to use the roots separately, so that you don’t waste energy attempting to use a Metal or Earth root to move water. Once one can do that, all one needs to do to strengthen both their spiritual root and their qi, thus allowing them to better strengthen their cultivation, is to conflict their qi against another cultivator.

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  The greater the difference in strength, the more effort one must put into resisting, and the more one benefits from doing so. If, however, your resistance fails, you will cease benefiting from it until you can resist again. One stops improving the strength of their muscles once they collapse on the ground from exhaustion, and likewise one stops improving the strength of their roots and qi once they collapse their qi pressure. For this reason, it is usually better training to resist someone only slightly stronger than yourself for several meals of time than to resist someone much stronger for only a few heartbeats.

  Be warned, however, that one should never send ones qi into another’s body while training in this manner. As one person’s qi is not adapted to the meridians of another, doing so will usually damage the meridians, damaging or even crippling the cultivation of the other. The attacker will also often have their qi corrupted by the damage they caused, as the damaged meridians release corrupted qi aligned to another down the channel you created with your qi, and some of it will therefore enter your meridians.

  There is a safe method for sending one’s qi into another, known as dual cultivation, but that is covered in a different section.