Without a variety of techniques one’s cultivation will stagnate. While the advancement techniques can allow one to go past the great bottlenecks within their cultivation, there are other, smaller bottlenecks, which may hold one back from reaching the point where they may advance. Furthermore, there are simple manipulations of qi which every cultivator should know about, as without these techniques one merely gets the health and longevity benefits of cultivation, but not any of the benefits to their performance or any of the abilities which the manipulation of qi can give them.
The first such technique is the enhancement of the body. By focusing qi on an organ, the performance of that organ is enhanced. This can be done to any organ to improve its function, but is most common with the skin, to make it harder to penetrate, the muscles, to make one stronger, or the lungs, to let one draw more energy from the air and become less tired. If one focuses on a specific spirit root when doing this, it will add additional effects to the enhancement, though some enhancements may not be desirable, like how Water qi focused on the intestines can cause loose bowels.
The second is an offensive use of qi. If one focuses their qi into the palm of their hand, one can throw it at a target by willing it to fly like one might throw a rock or spear. If one focuses on a specific spiritual root when doing so, the bolt of qi will take on properties of the element, with it being a more accurate representation of the element the better the quality of the spiritual root.
The third is a barrier, a defensive use of qi. Much like how focusing qi on the skin enhances the ability to resist damage, this also allows one to resist damage, though an attack does not need to hit the user in order to be stopped if one uses a barrier. This allows it to add and extra layer of protection besides the skin enhancement and any armor the cultivator is wearing. It also allows one to protect another. To produce a barrier, one merely needs to form the qi bolt from the last technique into a blanket or a sheet, and either wrap it around themselves or place it in between an attack and their target.
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The fourth is movement. Once one practices with their spiritual root enough it will advance to Heavenly rank. This will allow it to lift them. The method to do so varies by element. With Fire and Water it may be used to push off of the cultivator, as it is their qi and therefore they should be able to resist its negative effects. With Earth, Metal, and Wood, it is most common to hold onto, stand on, or attach oneself to an object of that element, then move it, thus moving oneself.
The fifth is attack. As one can move and manipulate objects of their element, one can throw those same objects at a target. This often involves sharp rocks or sticks being thrown with more force than one could throw it by hand.
The sixth is Dual Cultivation. As the writer mentioned previously, it is possible to place one’s qi within the body of another and not only not harm them, but improve their cultivation. This is based on the same idea behind qi tempering. When inserting one’s qi into another, however, great care must be taken to not damage their meridians. Your qi will clash with theirs, and may damage the other’s meridians merely because the conflict happens inside of them. One possible solution to this is to place a large surface area on the two people together, one with large amounts of meridians in the area, then merely allow ones qi to slightly leak from ones body. This will insure that the qi only permeates into the foreign meridians to a small degree, and that the person is well equipped to resist, even should the other person have a higher cultivation level or an overcoming spiritual root to theirs.
