There were TWO Asura Stones.
One was a black stone, representing the portal to another dimension. It was conceptually a black ink tattoo.
The other was a black pattern of ink... well, it was a variety of poisons, but it acted as ink. It was conceptually a black stone.
These two separate objects were reflections of each other, and this created a strange connection between the pair... According to 'Research', changing the stone into the black pool of 'ink' on his palm was more shifting the object to show another side rather than actually transforming it.
This also explained why locals didn't use this method to carry thousands of pounds of stuff around as body art. Each object would require adding a conceptual duplicate, interlinking the two, blah blah blah... And without knowing the details, locals would have to use expensive ingredients and reagents and supply STUPID amounts of power to achieve this.
He glanced over at the two girls.
This new research DID imply that there were two 'Mr. Whiskers.' One lizard conceptually made of ink, one ink conceptually made of lizard.
Huh.
While slightly annoying that this new data made it difficult to deliberately 'tattooify' all kinds of stuff, it DID explain why artifact creation was so complicated. You either had to make two objects and modify them both to bind to the other... or make something so AMAZING that reality does the work for you.
Like this Asura Stone.
As far as 'Research' could tell, this stone broke out of realities normal rules not because it was DESIGNED to transform, or because of the (frankly) astounding materials used to form it.
No, the feature that made reality modify this object was more basic.
This rock was a corridor to a sealed, forgotten realm of life and death struggle, the Asuras War that had armies of demigods and immortals fighting for all time. The energies being released from this stone were from sources so strong, so oppressing, that this Realm modified the stone itself as a sort of defensive measure.
The rock became so powerful because MOST of the amazing energies on the other side of the connection were being forced into the stone itself, rather than being free to contaminate this plane of reality.
...Now though it was trying to use Adam as an extension of the rock.
This energy wasn't being supplied to help him, or to power necromantic rituals, or to provide rare energy types and Poison spiritual energies.
All this power? It was the thin leaks of energy that was unable to be suppressed by this Realm.
He glanced at the slightly pulsing veins of energy that had formerly been scars, the tattoos on his body slowly becoming reinforced. With 'Research' examining the entire process, it was clear that the energy was slowly modifying Adam's tattoos in reverse, creating something physical connected to them the same way this world had created conceptual versions of the physical Asura Stone in the past.
Not sure what it was trying to turn into though.
Adam felt another surge of poisonous and venomous spiritual energies being supplied into his tattoo network, his flesh sizzling before his Cultivation Cells adapted. Again.
Right, research or not, interesting or not, randomly binding powerful and strange objects to one's self was an important decision that Adam should be more cautious about in the future. Basically, that whole rant Sister Quan gave before he distracted her with that purified Yin energy pool.
At this point, with the damage being shared over his whole tattoo framework and his Cells having adapted so many times, he was basically stable now. The spikes of pain were far and in between, his recovery had become near instant, and he was tired of meditating on a mound of powdered bones in a dark cave.
...Then again, Sister Quan COULD benefit from having more time to utilize this energy. And little Tianshi was basically an energy sponge at this point, a black hole able to devour random power for Mr. Whiskers to modify for her own growth.
Sigh. Fine, he would stay for a few days... but at least ADAM was going to wait outside.
Even without massive piles of dead bodies slowly converting into skeletons and zombies, this cave was creepy.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
This 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' (Version 3.0103) was both easy to apply and frustrating to use at the same time.
Sister Quan focused, trying to keep her face calm and relaxed as tiny spikes of pain hit her thoughts.
While Little Tianshi could just absorb energy without issue at any time, Sister Quan was not nearly so lucky. Her progress of 'Cell Conversion' had been progressing at an average rate... maybe a bit slower even.
So when Adam found this Yin spiritual energy pool, filtered it, and increased the quality of the power within... this was like being gifted coal in winter. Her progress had skyrocketed, even if the pressure on her system and the pain being endured had increased as well.
When casually followed, the 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' was basically painless... but slow. Theoretically, it was possible to convert one's entire body in less than a few burning joss sticks of time, not even 8 hours would be needed. Only, you would go mad with pain and possibly become a mindless husk, so... not the best idea.
As frustrating as it was slowing down the groups progress, the pure energy that meshed so well with her abilities was a rare opportunity... and Sister Quan knew that these were rare and valuable. She wouldn't waste this chance, even if she had to suffer slightly.
A small wave of Yin liquid made her repress a chuckle, Little Tianshi and Mr. Whiskers having a splash fight. Unlike her, Little Tianshi didn't feel any pain or discomfort while absorbing nearly ten times the energy that Sister Quan could. It was a bit frustrating that a little girl could just... absorb all this power while playing around.
She blinked as a wave of power suddenly pressed against an internal, conceptual barrier.
When had her cultivation base advanced so far!?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam's meditation session (Mostly working with Rockette to ensure her energy storage was distributing converted energies in the ratios he preferred) was interrupted by a pulse of energy from the cave behind him.
He blinked. "Ah. Sister Quan has reached Sixth Order Warrior."
...Aw. For a few days there, they had been Fifth Order besties! Now he had to spend weeks to catch up.
Ah well, at least he could have Rockette drain this area dry of power and they could finally MOVE ON. Adam had previously held high hopes for a big adventure here, but clearly had arrived too soon... instead of a frantic battle against an army of undead, it was a relaxing walk followed by finding lots of treasure.
That wasn't cool. That was just... helpful.
This was a problem of having great senses and abilities related to such. It would still be several months before that initial spike of spiritual energy even reached the nearest town, forget about some stuck up guy finding the clues, summoning an army of his fellow disciples, and coming to take the treasure away.
Apparently, if the 'hero' shows up TOO soon, it isn't an epic fight for hope and justice. More like a shopping trip.
...Lord of the Rings would have sucked if Frodo had taken the ring to Mount Doom before the bad guys had that army going.
"Hey Gandalf, let's fly those eagles to that volcano and..." followed by "Oops, sorry, I accidentally destroyed this all powerful mentally crippling ring. Turns out that it takes more than week for it to take over a hobbit."
Woo. Throw a celebration.
Adam sighed. To be honest, he wasn't really unhappy. It more felt like he HAD to complain, or risk some sort of karma strike. Considering how conceptual this Realm was, it may even be a literal possibility. Probably best to stay humble, keep an eye open, and breed some spirit beasts.
This disappointment was just due to luck really. A normal Cultivation expert would have taken weeks to even notice the initial return of this 'Heavenly Treasure', time that would have had a small army of animals being attracted, consumed, and converted into an ever strengthening and growing undead hive mind. Doesn't help that this cave seems to be a mystical object as well.
Right, this mystical cave thing. He had gotten curious while up here. The spike of energy was very recent, so how could all these animals (And the few skeletal cultivators near the bottom) even have time to show up here to die? The cultivator bodies were a bigger mystery, how could so many show up without teams being held outside for emergencies, without obvious trails from their people coming to investigate?
A bit of exploration and some 'Research' tests had shown something interesting: This cave wandered.
The Asura Stone hadn't formed in the Yin pool recently, it had likely happened years ago. No, the reason Adam felt that energy spike was actually because this cave had wandered nearby a few days ago, showing up and releasing that deadly yet attractive energy to the wilds.
Rockette loved the stuff, as a side note. Not a single unit of spiritual power escaped her hunger as Adam relaxed at the cave entrance.
...Could he refine the cave itself? Creepy or not, a land structure that could travel about could be useful.
Adam glanced at the ash-like white bone fragments that spread from the entrance. It was one of the many signs showing the edges of this cave's domain, the reach at which the cave itself modified reality from the sheer history of death that had occurred here.
The process itself seemed easy enough.
Saturate the object, create a spiritual connection (The default method was to apply one's blood, the source of life, to the object), and then constantly immerse the product in your own powers, allowing the concepts of yourself to intertwine with the target until both change enough to become connected.
...Now how to do that to a whole damn cave system? Not like it branched or anything, but the object (moving or not) was massive in size. The cave of undead was probably forced to move after enough death energy built up, causing the object to shift away somewhere else like a rubber duck in a bathtub after a kid was tossed in.
Well. Best give it a shot anyway.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The three guards left at the surface took another step back. Unlike the seven down in the cave, watching over the two girls, these three were the 'strongest' and 'most reliable', and from what they could tell, 'useless.'
However, doing ones duty didn't stop being important even if your protection client could make powerful cultivators explode, ignore deadly attacks, destroy all energy projectiles, find threats miles away...
Sigh. Yeah, useless.
Anywhere else, the might of the Burning Sword Sect was nowhere more apparent than with members like them, the Elder Guards. The fights to enter their ranks were numerous, and even if they were not the most powerful or well known members, any of the lowest of the low belonging to the Sect Guards were formidable warriors able to fight without rest for weeks.
But this Burning Sage was unpredictable and outside of all known limits!
Initiates and Grand Masters had died at this boy's hands, back when he was clearing those back area slums. Foes that would have required all ten guards considerable time to fight off just... popped as Young Master Chongsheng idly wandered by. Mighty attacks just... vanished.
The explosions back then had not been from attacks or resistance, but from the Young Master testing various abilities on the frantically wailing 'mighty foes, here to teach this damned boy a lesson!'
Those who had nothing for him, whom were in the way of Adam's research yet still wished to fight... just sort of popped. Like a wet paper bag full of meat slurry.
It had been a little disturbing, even for these guards who had seen true war in the past. Not so much because of the gore, a Cultivation grew by climbing a mountain of corpses... the fear and horror was due to how pointless resistance had been. Powerful attacks ignored, clever tactics undone, and massive forces of gang members who suddenly revealed themselves to be trained foreign soldiers hidden in the city... evaporated.
When a child could absently 'pop' military forces with his thoughts, what use were they? At this point, the Guards acted like servants. Holding supplies, watching the Four Eye Flame Bulls... by now, ensuring the girls traveling with him were protected was the closest the group had come to achieving their primary mission.
Then again, considering that this young boy could detect danger from far away without issue... sigh.
The three watched Young Master Chongsheng suddenly step away from the cave and take a meditation stance beyond the white circle of bone powder, facing the cave opening.
...He was up to something again, wasn't he?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam was cheating.
Rockette was supplying a massive wave of unconverted Blue Energy, Adam passed her his much more limited 'Battle Qi', then the pair used his massive spiritual sensing ability combined with her ability to dominate power... and cheated.
A thousand units of Blue energy, tainted with one unit of his Qi. He used spiritual manipulation to carefully taint these massive pools of power with his own flavor, even as these energy clouds began to infuse the ground and infest the cave.
After all, this cave was just too damn big. If he had to rely on his internal Qi to gain ownership and begin refining this wandering cave, it would take literally decades of constant effort to even get started. At that point it would be faster to ignore this place, increase his cultivation base, and return in a few dozen years to try again.
But now... He felt the walls and floors shift slightly as the tainted Blue energy began to soak into the groundwork. Layer by layer, Adam's energy began to ooze like thick pudding into the cave, the gas like power directed with Rockette's almighty control.
There was resistance... weak resistance. Not that this cave had a mind or anything, more that the years and years of frantic battle and death had soaked pure rage and death into the floors and walls themselves. This cave had been tainted by years of combat, centuries of battle and betrayal, of greed and solemn determination.
Through these passages had traveled animals and beasts, villains and heroes, the innocent and wicked... and thin traces of their souls tainted this, the land of their death.
They did not submit quietly to their fates, as pointless as their struggle had proved. Why would these fragments submit to this boy?
Adam responded to these strange half thoughts and fragments of memory as a massive tidal wave. Mountains of Blue Energy crushed away all opposition, as inch by inch was conquered without issue by his guiding touch.
It wouldn't be fast. Even after soaking this cave with tainted Blue Energy, it was still just tainted energy in the end, not pure Battle Qi. To obtain this strange wandering cave, Adam would have to repeat this process... slowly attuning the entire structure closer and closer to both Blue energy and Adam's spiritual signature.
Glancing at the cave, Adam sighed.
Well, the girls didn't seem done with their cultivation sessions at this point anyway... might as well take his time and do this right.
The night slowly passed as a child covered in glowing black tattoos stared at a strangely glowing cave, his left eye dripping blue fire as energy flowed from his form like a wave.
Ever so slightly, the strange cave material shifted color. Ever so slightly lighter, ever so lightly purified.
Sigh. This would take a while.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan had only just started to stabilize her unexpected cultivation breakthrough and reinforce her new meridian route when something shifted.
The air smelled... more clean. Slightly more pure... but not of snow, or washed clothes.
This air was of a dark night, with the soft scent of a wood campfire burning away.
Little Tianshi's fight paused. "Mr. Whiskers says that Master is doing something impossible again."
Her eyes carefully examined the room.
The bone piles were... ever so slightly shifting. The Yin pool now had soft ripples, even when both the girls and Mr. Whiskers stayed still. Something in the glowing walls had... altered. More bright, twisted and dim.
Her eyes narrowed. "This better not be another attempt at him blowing himself up. Again." It was like Adam TRIED to hurt himself, it was just frustrating!
Tianshi blinked. "Mr. Whiskers isn't sure what he is doing, but says that Master's actions has tripled the spiritual energy levels down here." The lizard had sunk back into her arm at this point. "And the energy density is only increasing. Rapidly."
Sister Quan held in a scream of frustration. "I'm sure Adam has a full, reasonable explanation for all this." She paused. "Well, a full explanation anyway." She wouldn't trust his idea of being reasonable at the best of times, really.
A sudden hiss made the group flinch and look at the walls closest to the entrance... and the only exit.
The glowing stone walls was being invaded by a soft black glow, the black threads leaving a white color behind... Not the white color of bones that the group had gotten used to, but a new white that looked like fine ash.
And the black markings that were slowly devouring the walls looked suspiciously like Adam's new body tattoos.
Sister Quan's lips firmed, slightly frowning. "Did I include telling us when he does something impossible in my last few rants?"
Little Tianshi blinked... and looked shifty. "Yes?"
Sigh. "You tuned me out when I was giving them, didn't you?"
The little girl stabbed her finger into the air. "YOU CAN'T PROVE IT! I KEPT MY EYES OPEN THE WHOLE TIME!"
Sister Quan nodded. "Even when you fell asleep?"
The self confident grin was huge! "OF COURSE when I... fell... oops."
She hummed. As frustrating as Adam could be, he wouldn't put them into danger... just not consider how surprising (Horrifying) some of his actions could be viewed as by others.
Looking at the blushing and concerned little girl, she nodded to herself. There was time for a bit of a lecture recap.
After all, what would the Sect do if she allowed Little Tianshi to be as wild and unthinking as her master?
Better safe than sorry.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The process was convoluted but surprisingly boring as well.
Taint the energy involved, continue to infect the entire cave system, and then slowly refine it. Layer after layer, Adam could feel his power slowly draining into the stone... but the process had one very obvious side effect the longer it went on.
The compression of the power and the reinforcement of the conceptual nature of the wandering cave... Every moment, there was a soft crackling in the air as thousands of individual stones and pockets of space crumbled, it twisted... tighter and tighter.
Not that Adam could really pay much attention. While he had much energy at his disposal thanks to Rockette, it still needed his spiritual signature. It was only a small fragment of his overall power, but that fragment was needed all the same.
And this cavern was massive!
Every segment required more and more energy to push out in the necrotic spirits and remnants still haunting the dark depths. While Adam was making progress, every inch conquered was painful and slow.
So it was understandable for there to be certain things missed during the process.
The most obvious issue? The cave was shrinking. Rapidly.
By the time Adam felt the process slowly taking less and less of his mental energy, the cave was more of a... pit.
He wasn't even halfway done, and he was already staring at a very surprised pair of women and several guards. Clearly the original cave structure, composed of rough stones and rock that have been twisted and tainted for eons, had lost the majority of this material during the refining process.
The mini glowing stones and radioactive tiles had all compressed and combined into something more like a purified bathing area. Circles of ash and bone fragments had converted into white regular blocks, with only a small area of soil around the outside edge still considered part of the original cave structure.
Sister Quan had at some point composed herself, and was standing in the Yin energy pool, looking more than a little exasperated. "Why good evening Adam. How nice of you to drop by! Why yes, we really appreciate you taking the time to explain to us what you are doing when you're in the middle of rebuilding the entire landscape that we're relaxing in."
He glanced at little Tianshi, who seem to find most of this amusing.
...It would be really convenient if he was able to talk right now.
Blinking with what was hopefully a very explanative excuse, he closed his eyes and continued working. Angry or not, this was a process that would not be paused or delayed.
Not could it.
This refining process was both incredibly easy and incredibly cheap... and in compensation, incredibly inflexible. Five minutes or a thousand weeks, this step had to continue.
...On second thought, this might be the reason she was so angry. Or at least, this would likely become one of the reasons she's so angry, once the situation was fully explained.
Right now, his older companion was probably angry because he evaporated the mystical bathing pool and turned it into an open-air bath. It wasn't like either of the people involved were suddenly exposed or anything, they had proper bathing suits... But Sister Quan was clearly in full annoyance mode.
On less terrifying topics, even for a newly designed process this was going exceedingly well! While those several miles of cavern had basically collapsed into nothing, the resulting material was dense on a conceptual level. No longer slate or granite or any other local materials, the few remaining purified stones seems both too light as if to float away, and so solid and structurally sound that it almost hurt to stand near them, as one could feel a strange otherworldly weight settling upon their soul.
They also had a very nice aesthetic. If Adam could figure out how to replicate these, he would totally use them as floor tiles in his bathroom.
...Did this count as his bathroom now? Not that he would use the Yin energy pool as regular bath water or anything, it was still a cultivation treasure after all.
The interesting part was the dome of air that was considered connected to this conceptual mobile bathhouse/open-air sauna. While the pool itself was the main focus, the energy being released was gathered and directed in a swirling pattern...
If visible from outside by someone like Adam with spiritual energy vision, it would look surprisingly like a snow globe. Just with the energies of the pool acting as rainwater or snowflakes.
Looking at the situation... On the positive side, while taking an enormous amount of energy and unknowing amounts of resources (considering how much rock and soil had been consumed during this process), the result was clearly a valuable newly created treasure.
This Yin pool included the spiritual vein beneath it. With the compression of almost an entire underground mountain range of valuable heaven and earth crystals, the pool would be self-sustaining and able to generate more and more Yin energy. Yin energy that had been purified and refined to an absurd degree.
That alone raised the value of this new treasure, this 'Wandering Yin Pool', to unthinkable levels... Even considering other known treasures, an energy generating resource was unusual and highly sought after. Wars had been fought over much less!
Then again, on the negative side...
Adam had just stolen several mountains worth of stuff. And compressed it into an area the size of a living room.
The only reason the entire group wasn't now standing inside of a massive crater... was because the initial cave went so far underground before finally ending up at the Yin energy chamber. If somebody was willing to go down the hole that was currently hidden under the new spa pool that he just made, they would find an absolutely massive cavern.
A very large, very unstable, very goddamn dangerous cavern.
Sister Quan hadn't even had time to get angry at him, and Adam already knew this was a terrible situation!
Thankfully, the nature of this conceptual world meant that there was an infinite amount of down for people to accidentally mess up, and hopefully any damage would be located only in the area that they were currently wandering through... give or take a dozen square miles.
After all, he had mostly stolen a lot of things in a downward direction. Technically, the resulting sinkhole should only affect a relatively small area... even if the resulting hole would be surprisingly deep.
Yeah, let's get out of here.
...After he could move again.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Tianshi relaxed in the energy pool, watching older Sister Quan tap her foot while standing next to a meditating Adam.
Her Master was busy like always, doing something unusual and probably impossible.
Not that she hadn't been scared, having an entire cave slowly melt away to reveal the surface was not something anyone normally expected. But in retrospect, the process has been smooth and almost relaxing, especially if you ignore the fear of the unknown.
Thankfully, she hadn't had an accident or anything. For a moment she thought the entire cave system was going to collapse, sealing them away forever... in the dark with the bones.
But she was a big girl now, and terrifying adventures involving corpses and undead would not be enough to make her have an accident!
Though one of the guards might have.
Honestly, part of the reason she felt so calm and confident was because of Mr. Whiskers. He had settled down inside of her spiritual network moments after feeling the spiritual signature of the one modifying area. And if Mr. Whiskers felt everything was alright, then it probably was.
Her thought process cut off sharply when the entire world shifted suddenly to the right, light and shadow twisting in a torrent as the outside world transformed into sparkling colors!
...She blinked. Huh.
The guards were carefully examining the crystal walls that now sealed in the energy pool.
Walls that suspiciously looked like Rockette.
...They were inside Master's Martial Spirit, weren't they.
...Sister Quan was going to have a fit.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Her eyebrow twitched. "What do you mean you accidentally fed your disciple to your Martial Spirit!?"
Adam was slumped to the ground, his body drained of nearly all resources, even as Rockette continue to try to refill his Battle Qi reserves. "Not fed, technically. Just..."
Wow, that had been an exhausting experience. Next time that he decided to absorb a mountain or two in an attempt to save time and money by stealing an energy pond, he was going to make sure to have a higher cultivation base.
She glared down at him. What?
Oh yeah, he had been talking. "You can't really store living things into a body tattoo using the same ability that Mr. Whiskers is doing without a lot of spiritual energy being invested. Since I didn't want to harvest the bodies of the guards to supply the power needed to convert Little Tianshi into an entity that could easily transform shapes, I thought it would be easier and safer to just transfer the entire Yin pool into Rockette instead."
Damn, still couldn't move. Oh. "Also, harvesting guards or members your own Sect to be used as living materials out of convenience is both morally wrong and not actually convenient if you look at the situation long enough."
She grumbled. "Well at least some of my lectures are getting through."
Did she think he didn't listen? Of course he did! Mostly. "Anyway, once I'm no longer close to going unconscious from energy loss, I can summon back the pool and everything will be all hunky-dory."
Sister Quan gestured to the bottomless pit now exposed after Adam took his new toy. "And what about that?"
Right. "We still have a guard right? I mean, I think one of them was up here, maybe two, while I was working...?" So. Damn. Tired.
What? Right, important stuff. "Have him, or her, or... you know I never did ask for the gender preferences of our guards before. Anyway, have them drag me away before this whole area collapses. As for my Disciple and the other guards... Should be more comfortable where they are, since Rockette can easily give them any items they need by transferring it into the 'Wandering Yin Pool'."
A distance rumble echoed.
Adam slumped a little more. "It would be nice if we can keep the animals and the wagon, but uh... Yes, please hurry."
If he ended up dying because of a fancy bathtub, he would feel really embarrassed later on.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Tianshi found her new location to be quite interesting!
The new room was embedded in a crystal cavern, but there actually was an exit. It led to a large series of connected caves in a grid format, each one with a different color and strange symbols etched into the wall.
It didn't take much exploration before one of the guards realized that each room had a single type of spiritual energy in it!
True, the poor bastard discovered it by nearly catching himself on fire, but he did earn the credit for figuring out the situation.
While wandering around, the entire group found the situation fascinating. Each wall was slightly changed by the energy that they contained, and inside the strange structure, complex tubes of gas or liquid could be seen flowing, nurturing the chambers that they passed!
If this was actually her Master's Martial Spirit, how much energy was stored here!? They had explored dozens of rooms already, each one dedicated to purifying and distilling the essential essence of a single energy!
A shout had everyone head back to the energy pool... which now had a large pile of supplies piled up in a small mound near the entrance. A confused guard looked up. "It's some of the wagon supplies, though I'm not sure how it showed up in here."
Hmm. "Rockette?"
The world softly chimed like fireflies in the night.
Nod. "It was Rockette. Which means that we probably have to be in this area to get stuff in or out."
Ding!
She nodded again. "Yep. Can we get out soon?"
Ding. Ding, ding!
Tianshi nodded. "I don't know what that means, so I'm going to assume 'yes'."
Ding!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The Twin Tailed Flying Serpent carved the air as it followed it's Master's command, the landscape passing quickly as the treasure source grew close.
He had been lucky.
Already in flight over the grasslands, in transit homewards from the moon silver mines, he had nearly injured his mount when the pulse of power directed him southward... Some heavenly treasure's birth calling him to claim it, destiny herself singing a siren's song of future riches and power...
Hopefully only to him!
His eyes were drawn to the gaping hole in the earth... A cavernous stone maw, waiting to consume those who dared to trespass its depths.
It was a scar in the land, a wound that seemed to promise both reward... and death.
The soil shivered as his Serpent landed, but he was favored by the Gods... For he was first to arrive, and the true winner of this competition that most of his potential rivals had never knew they had joined!
By the time others detected that soft signal, he would be long gone... or ready to defend his new property!
Absently sending away his mount in a guard patrol, he lept into the dark depths.
...It was a long fall. Every moment, he fell faster and faster... the torn rock walls passing at greater speed... had he EVER been this deep before!?
At long last, the vertical shaft began twisting as the depth increased. Finally he could use his Battle Qi to shred his velocity, the soft walls of earth and rock crumbling under the pressure as he avoided catastrophe and twisted deeper.
As his energy lit up the growing depths... even this high he could see caverns untouched by any mortal stretching into the distance, with miles to explore!
...SHOULD he share this? A naturally opening mine like this was rare beyond measure, saving years of effort and tons of trash earth and waste that would have normally needed handling.
His greedy eyes flashed... then were reluctantly pulled back with a sigh.
He was lucky to be closest upon the mines birth, but there was no method in hands to reclaim that signal that called him in the first place. Competition would come.
With a more noble atmosphere, he reluctantly continued the mapping exploration to send data back to his Sect. It would take weeks for anyone else to detect this place after all, might as well get contribution points while they were so easy to gain.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan glared. "What do you MEAN she won't come out!?"
Adam grumbled. "We sent her and the guards most of the supplies, including the long term camping materials and reserve stuff. Little Tianshi made a good point that all that junk was safer inside of Rockette... then had the guards set up camp in a crystal room in there."
One his Martial Spirit had set up gleefully. Apparently she loved company.
Sounded pretty comfortable in there too. The Yin Spring cave was so cold it attracted certain energies from the rest of the cavern system which condensated on the walls... it generated a very small stream of spiritual energy 'water' just from the cold energies generated from the pool.
Well... relatively small? If it WASN'T spiritual energy water, it would have still been enough to support a drinking group of around three people or so per hour. WITH the dense mystical energy, a sip was enough to fulfill one's liquid needs for a few days, depending on their cultivation level.
Conceptual energy water was apparently valuable too, according to the reports of the Guards examining it.
Well, that was reason enough to keep an eye on the stuff. Rockette was watching the process and carefully modifying the energies being exposed to the Yin Pool within... It shouldn't take too long before the liquid generated could support a small stream or two... maybe enough to water a pasture like area?
Adam blinked as a soft hand began poking his cheek. "I'm sorry, what?"
Sister Quan was pouting. "You just... stopped and began staring at nothing."
He sighed. "Yeah, I'm going to keep doing that until I get used to watching and tracking the people currently squatting in my Martial Spirit like hobos."
That place had been designed for utility first and foremost after all, a network of energy storage caverns... not a campsite.
The wagon jerked again, the ride a tad more jerky without all the weight holding it stable. "Right, so the argument that our little Tianshi gave me goes like this: They can unpack and store all kinds of stuff safely inside the caves for future use or for inventory check; Traveling will be easier and safer, as will cultivation and sleeping; And aside from the reinforced and enhanced Yin Pool accessible within, the spiritual water generated within will help her stabilise her cultivation base."
She blinked. "The what?"
Adam absently had Rockette pass one of the unpacked cups stored within the caves to his hand, a thin stream of clear glass-like liquid dripping from space to fill it. "Yin energy is conceptually cold, and I store a LOT of odd energy types within Rockette."
He passed the cup over, the cold liquid within making more water condensate on the outside of the material. "That cold energy converts some other power stuff into this liquid. I have Rockette doing experiments to determine how it is done, how to enhance or improve the final results, yadda yadda. But the guards within seemed VERY interested in this stuff."
The conversation was interrupted by a stunned voice... right, there was a guard or two out here too. He was FAR to used to ignoring them. "That... that IS Soul Water."
Sigh. No, that didn't explain anything. "Soul Water?"
The guard nodded, her voice stunned. "The Sect tends to find a few mouthfuls of this within some of the colder areas of the world, not that we are always successful at retrieving it. It can enhance cultivation, combat poisons based on Yang enhanced energies, increase the potency of pill refining or medical crafting... I've even heard rumors of rare weapons quenched in this stuff during forging gaining mystical properties, not that any Sect would dare risk such valuable liquid that way."
Adam summoned another cup and took a sip. "Tastes good too."
Sister Quan looked at the cup in her hands with mixed emotions. "I... I suppose this kind of thing should be expected. Compared to rebuilding a Sect's library while bored or stealing a rare Yin spring, accidentally learning how to make super water shouldn't even shake me at this point."
She took a sip... and smiled. "That... that is lovely!"
Adam hummed. "Maybe, but I am more than a bit concerned about what would happen if I used it to make alcohol." Little Tianshi didn't SEEM to have any unnatural urges toward drinking after her 'incident', but better safe than sorry.
The wagon jerked again. Despite the mountains of stuff stored in rings, there had been building supplies like wall segments and stuff loaded into the under storage area... and putting them in Rockette had clearly been a bad decision. "Right, point is everyone seems happy in there at the moment. Tianshi said they would come out when it was time to camp... but I am more tempted to join them instead when the nightfall arrives."
Sister Quan blinked. "Wait, what? How!?" She waved a hand at Rockette, balancing impossibly on his right shoulder. "How can you enter the caverns when she is already inside you? Wouldn't that... like turn you inside out or something?"
Adam blinked. "Why can't I? It is a conceptual place, inside a representation of my soul's power... but it is still a real area. The guards brought in their storage rings and stuff without problem, for example."
She paused. Hmm. "A campsite with no possibility of ambush, that doesn't require setup nor teardown when traveling... Can you store the Oxen in there?"
Well, he could store PEOPLE in there, so yeah. "The Four Eye Flame Bulls would need a grass area. Rockette apparently can convert waste into energy and purify it..." And hadn't THAT been an odd moment. Thank you Rockette for making a bathroom area in the Crystal Cavern. "But the animals would likely feel better if I absorbed some grasslands first."
And... the suspicious look was back. "A few hours ago you were nearly unconscious and frantically whispering for us to 'flee, flee this land'. And now you want to do that again."
He waved it off. "FIRST of all, we got lucky that the meadow didn't collapse into a pit of despair and darkness." No. Wait. That wasn't helping his argument at all!
Cough. "I mean, FIRST of all! THIS time I will just be stealing a few miles of soil and plant life. Worse that happens is the road becomes more smooth for a few days, and it's not like that junk material is being THAT useful right now."
Well, not useful for HIM. The animals and whatever probably liked having grass and stuff, but any animal that wasn't VERY strong had already fled the area once they felt Rockette's power. Or fled from the wave of weaker (But still powerful) Spiritual Beasts that had been fleeing the region.
Point was, free real estate!
She... didn't look really convinced. "Adam."
Ouch... that sounded judgemental. "Yes?"
At least she LOOKED calm. "Why so much? Why not a small patch of ground?"
Well, at least that was something he could answer. "Right, you saw how much the Yin cave compressed, right?"
She nodded. It was... well, it was a bit obvious, he supposed. "I had to take that much material because I didn't just want that cave or that small pool. I needed the CONCEPT of the pool itself, the Yin Pool and all the materials used to generate it, or I would have only gained a few dozen gallons of useful liquid instead of a self reinforced, Yin generating pond."
He waved at the prairie. "Look at that grassland. It has very little if any spiritual energy, very little conceptual presence. The soil is of mixed quality depending on what random plant grew there and what animals or humans interacted with it. The grasses are a variety of species, albeit ones that compete for survival over the course of decades."
Adam glanced at the soil. "I could grab a small clearings worth with no issue, stuff it in Rockette, and be done with it... but it would be mortal soil, weak plants, and need oceans of energy to improve it."
She seemed to catch on. "Or you could grab large quantities of this low quality stuff and refine it into conceptual soil and spiritual grass."
He grinned. "Exactly! It would need almost no additional energy to support its own existence, it would repair and regenerate itself automatically, support any gardens or plants automatically and produce better results... the grass would be similar! Far more robust and full of energy, a stronger feed for not just the Four Eye Flame Bulls but any future creatures as well!"
Adam winced as the wagon jerked against another pit in the ground. "Though having a smoother road would be equally desired at this point."
The woman ignored the hopeful looking guards and the complaining child. "Well... This is unclaimed territory. Mostly because there really isn't much to claim here."
He waved a hand. "I can feel a few spiritual herbs and stuff, but yeah it is all common junk."
She considered the benefits... fine. "Right, can you send me and the guards to Rockette's caverns first? It should be safer there."
Adam smiled. "Sure! Now that I have tested the 'Claiming' technique once, I have already improved it a lot at this point." Seriously, thank you 'Research'! So much saved trouble. "Ah... just a minor point, the transition method to get inside the caverns may look a bit disturbing."
She blinked. "What?"
A massive spiritual Rockette phased into existence, a crystal maw chomping the wagon, the oxen, the guards...
And suddenly Adam was standing alone on the Prairie.
Well, that went well!
He sat on the grass, meditating as his energies began to slowly corrode the surroundings with light blue fire. The tainted spiritual energies rapidly began to claim the area outward like... well, like wildfire.
As the flames raced into the distance, he had a thought...
How many of those random trees would he have to consume to form a conceptual version?
...Let's find out!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
This was soothing.
Liquid flames danced onward, a vague concept that expanded Adam's thoughts while he focused deeper.
The flames soaked into the soil, and Rockette worked closely with 'Research' to mark every inch, every step... a long sample collection process.
It was very ordinary soil. Some processed by bugs or moss, some exposed to natural energy or drained by near plants or animals or beasts. Some could retain more water, some had various interesting minerals or stones... but nothing amazing. Nothing magical.
But in a way, that just made this more interesting!
There was a real, definite line between the real and the conceptual. A border or barrier, something that denotes a plot of soil and the ideal of 'Soil'. It wasn't simply the mixture of dead plants, rocks, and various minerals and liquids... it was more.
Soil, or earth, was something... larger.
Thoughts drifted as his Blue energy expanded and tasted existence.
Soil. Dirt. Earth.
Cool... or on fire. Molten, or frozen. Obsidian or Magma.
Conceptually, earth was... inertia. The resistance.
It was stable. Change came slowly, but it never ceased.
These plains would grow. Would decay. Would burn. Would rot. Would grow more.
And not as a single cycle, nor as a single concept... but many layers, many units, many segments... each slowly changing on their own paths.
Even now, as his power and fire spread, the acceptance of the earth was... methodical. Not truly resisting his demands, not fighting his desire... no, it was fine with Adam claiming large swaths of material.
It simply demanded that the proper investments be made.
Size... was hard to understand. Hard to convey. It was... difficult for a mind to contain.
Take a boulder, and one would think "Oh my! This must weigh a lot!"
Take an entire meadow, stretching into the distance in every direction... and even a fraction of an inch in depth was a massive weight. An immense volume. An unfathomable amount.
Adam was going to take more than that though.
Not... not too much. Stability was (In retrospect) important.
...But a foot or two of topsoil would be fine, right?
This massive grassland wasn't uniform of course. Here, rock thrust up from some massive boulder larger than any city, there a pit dozen of meters deep... it was impossible for a normal person (whatever that was defined as) to carve off only a top layer.
But Adam was cheating.
Too tall? Convert anything not interesting into energy, speed up the conversion. Too deep? Skip it, save some power.
And if he ensured that the path he was planning on taking happened to move some rock about and fill in some ditches... if the route was suddenly level, above standing water level, and straight? How lucky!
Anyway, there were a few odds and ends that cropped up as he examined the materials. Some soil samples would not really play well with others, not without some cheating. Not every plant needed the same concentration of materials after all... and that meant his new conceptual product would have to either ignore the issues of real life or accept this.
While it was COMPLETELY possible to have 'Plant anything it will be fine' dirt, there were downsides to that path. First, it required a high saturation of spiritual energy to work when it was forced to ignore reality that much. Second, it increased the difficulty when transplanting something outside of Rockette's control.
So... something that was still 'Soil', but less magical.
Sorting the data, Adam paused... and grinned.
Well... if he can't combine all that stuff easily, why not give up?
With a few thoughts, the samples were sorted into squares. A grid, one corner sandy, the far one more like clay... thousands of squares of samples, with bands of material differences carefully separated into clean columns and rows.
The grid was thousands of squares long in every direction, and entire sections appeared and vanished as 'Research' carefully found similarities, differences... relationships.
As the flames expanded, samples were created... squares were reduced. And as the grid stabilized, Adam began to cheat further.
The data could be extrapolated.
Here was a space where a square of soil containing more clay, less of this mineral, more of that type of mulch... There a spot where a more bog like property could fit...
The grid began shifting again as many soil samples that were NOT collected were imagined and tested. There were no clues about what types of plants could grow there... and maybe no plants currently COULD exist in those spots...
But it was not the job of 'Soil' to support growth, or nature, or life. It was only meant to endure, to exist. It was stability.
A mountain with no grass was not a failure. A sand dune with no shrubs was not a shame. The ocean floor, far below the level where even the harshest fish and plants could exist, where oxygen could never reach... it was not a waste.
The moon's surface, with barely any atmosphere at all, was still a type of 'Soil.'
As more and more flames soaked the vanishing surroundings, Rockette was carefully restricting access to the newly carved growth caverns as the grid of 'Soil' slowly began to shift into a more stable landscape.
This would be one of many.
After a conceptual 'Soil' was formed, another and more would be designed far away from his Disciple or Sect member, or the many guards. There, Rockette and 'Research' would use moments where Adam was less busy or sleeping to begin testing and gathering deeper data... how these plots of land handled various Spiritual Energy saturations.
Because, theoretically, once the concept of 'Soil' was fully integrated into his Martial Spirit... it could be increased in volume by 'Growth'. A slow growing but renewable resource... VERY useful in the future.
It took less time than expected, even after increasing his standards and requirements.
For one thing, very little spiritual energy was in this soil. It accepted changes easily.
For another, the consumption process was vastly improved. More bang for less buck, as it were.
His attention drifted to the plants.
The spiritual herbs and vegetables found during this absorption process were... not really similar. Each one seemed to use different, organic (ha) methods to cultivate, to become able to absorb and refine heaven and earth spiritual energy.
There really wasn't a single pattern to improve or steal from, which was why he had only improved the energy manipulation arrays back in the Sect rather than improving the crops themselves.
That said, he COULD make some quick adjustments.
These roots seemed to resist rot better than those over there... these leaves were larger, but those absorbed energy better even if more fragile.
It was... not genetic manipulation. Not like he was used to in the past. No, this was... very advanced cross breeding. Each new sample of weed or herb showed... options. Variety.
After some internal debate, he decided to just... put it off for now. This was a lifetime work rather than an afternoon job. Plants that seemed to be terrible choices somehow had amazing energy retaining rates, or those that looked healthy seemed to somehow lack the nutrients of others.
So for now, samples. EVERYTHING was stored away for later review, and for now Adam just had the healthiest and most energy retaining samples undergo testing over the 'Soil' grid to see which squares could most support the various crops.
The bushes and trees were far less annoying, because there were so few of them. Grab some samples, toss the mess to 'Research' and Rockette to find out where they needed to be planted, good riddance.
As time slowly passed, Adam felt a... pulse?
...Huh. Well, Sixth Order Warrior had been easy enough to reach.
Then again, converting miles and miles of material into spiritual energy was bound to have SOME side effects. Especially after dumping the excess directly into his spiritual network like some kind of buffer.
Slightly short sighted, really.
With a grimace, he felt his teeth clench as his meridian routes SCREAMED in pain, the unprepared spiritual network torn as the third path was drilled into being, following the twisting binding path within his body.
Adam's first three routes had formed loops of cultivation, one in each leg and arm, one to his head, one in his torso, and one to his heart area. Seven paths, seven reinforcements of his nature. It had strengthened the muscles, or the concept of power.
His now stabilizing route was composed of another three routes, twisted between the seven loops, binding each loop like a vine climbing a trellis... it had focused on his ligaments, on his joints, on his tendons. It had just finished establishing the concept of flexibility... of instant movement.
Even as his body continued to flame blue fire, Adam could feel his impurities being expelled as something indefinite within was changed. Sixth Order... a new boundary, a new limit. Once these three meridian routes sealed, stabilized, and collapsed into each other... the final three spiritual paths could be carved into his soul.
He could see the possibility of Seventh Order... and of Rockette, his Martial Spirit, evolving again.
A spiritual flex had the impurities still oozing from his flesh vanished into converted energies.
Another thought pulsed his domain... From his heart to the edge, it was now 27 meters radius.
That was, without tricks, a massive increase in range... a full orb of absolute energy control.
His storage space alone should be about 100 million units now, not that it really mattered. As far as he was concerned, it could be treated as unlimited potential from this point onwards... though the process of breaking through to the Sixth Order had also drastically improved Adam's ability to sense energy as well.
It REALLY improved the absorption process of all this material, especially as he could now more accurately delimitate which areas were to be converted to power and which were to be gathered.
He couldn't help a small smile... No one to witness the gross process of expelling gunk, a fairly smooth improvement in his cultivation base, no accidents or issues with material collection during the process...
This had gone great!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan groaned. "Everyone alright!?"
A very, VERY distant voice piped up. "Yes!"
She blinked. "Little Tianshi?"
Yeah, that was distant. "I am over by the tent!"
Sister Quan looked around... at the very flat, expansive crystal floor. And yelled. "WHERE IS THE TENT?"
The distant shout came from a different direction. "Four Guards Reporting from the Yin Pool. We can see the Supply area somewhat Southwards."
...Which way was South!?
She nearly screamed when little Tianshi popped up out of nowhere. "HI! I asked Rockette and she said everything will be fixed soon."
God, she was too young to have a heart attack. Calm. "Did... did she say WHY everything just... flew away into the distance like that? I think I saw my spare bag go... that way?" Was THAT South?
The little one blinked. "Huh... no. Didn't ask. Rockette?"
Ding!
They both blinked. Huh.
Wait. Sister Quan glared at... well, nothing. There was nothing close by to glare at, but she tried very hard. "HOW could he advance to Sixth Warrior!? He hit Fifth Warrior less than a day or so ago!"
Little Tianshi grinned as her older sister figure began stomping back and forth. "A NORMAL person would take years if not decades. A NORMAL person would just... pop or something. A NORMAL person would at least wait a week or so instead of making me feel like a failure by achieving stuff in hours that took me literal years!"
Ding?
She glared harder. "A NORMAL person would NOTICE when out performing everyone! But if I complain about this, I can GUARANTEE you that he would just say something... something infuriating. Something maddening. Like 'Oops, sorry I took so long!' or 'I have a lot of stuff to do, I can't stay so weak forever you know!'"
No. Calm. With a sigh, she sat in a slump. "I'm not even angry really. He does so much that breaks common sense that I should have stopped comparing him to normal standards long ago... but even so, I feel I have to say something. If I don't tell him when he is breaking the rules of normal understanding... won't he just drift farther off?"
Little Tianshi nodded. "Mr. Whiskers says if you didn't act as a foil, he would just... wander away. Maybe eat a god or accidentally create a planet or something."
...Why did that sound possible?
No. Too much stress.
She stood with conviction. "Well, I refuse to let this bother me any further. I will give a SMALL lecture about breaking through to a new Order of cultivation while his friends are inside his Martial Spirit, then we will... just move on."
She began stepping. "Rockette, can you move us both to the Yin Pool? I know a few guards are there, and I don't want to deal with any of this before I can take a relaxing bath in an energy pool more valuable than a smaller Sect's yearly income."
As she and the little (giggling) girl vanished into the distance, Rockette continued to shift things... closer together.
Next time, she wouldn't just expand everything equally. What if Adam's Disciple had shown up a few dozen miles away from her shoes or something? Better to keep the entire area stable and just expand outward from the edges next time.
With a 'Ding', she went back to work. Things were easier when she only had to manage a few cities worth of rare energies.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
A wave of fire suddenly reversed course and rushed back over rock and stone, the grass and soil long devoured. It swirled in waves as it flowed towards a young lad with blue hair covered in shimmering tattoos, his left eye glowing as it absorbed the mass of energy.
Adam grinned. "DONE! And I recovered most of the energy cost this time by fueling 'Growth' with the ambient spirit energy while consuming the area."
He DID accidentally destroy his outfit, but that was such a common occurrence that he had replaced the outfit within moments automatically. "Right, best check the trail before bringing back the cart... I just know Sister Quan would object if I had to move the path around after this."
A brief reshaping of his domain and some sensing... so far so good!
The path was flat, MUCH less meandering than before, mostly towards the direction they wanted to travel in, and a foot or two above the rest of the soil. Well, rock now.
The edges were basically ramps so they could deviate from the path if desired without just dropping off a curb or something, but at least water and whatever would not build up on the path.
And if there were a few odd bridges and tunnels... well, whose to say they didn't exist before? Point was, this could save a LOT of time and annoyance.
With a grin Adam stepped forward, a ghost of Rockette suddenly rising from the earth to consume his body as he vanished.
And paused.
A rumpled set of ten guards were standing a bit away from an amused little Tianshi and a NOT amused Sister Quan.
She raised an eyebrow. "Do you know WHY I am angry right now?"
...uh. "No?"
She nodded. "Let me clarify then, because I know sometimes there are concepts that don't always make sense from your point of view."
Crap.
She held up a finger. "Having me consumed by a massive mouth was surprising, but I am getting used to that sort of thing at this point. That was a bit irksome, but I got over it easily."
...Good?
Another finger. "I am letting you get away with abandoning our conversation mid progress for similar reasons, and because Rockette is a dear one who gave us a crystal screen, showing us your work as you progressed. It reduced a lot of our concerns to see you actively uninjured, instead of being isolated alone without knowledge of what was going on."
Well. WOO! Good job Rockette!
Ding!
Oops, stay focused. Another finger. "You broke through your cultivation base while all of us were INSIDE your Martial Spirit."
...Ah. That... that was a good point.
Shit. Though she doesn't look THAT annoyed.
Sister Quan nodded. "Up until the actual change, we were able to watch that... and so we are all aware how unexpected the situation was. How sudden it occurred. It is understandable that it caught you off guard."
Huh.
Oops, the anger was back! "That said."
She had a heck of a glare! "AFTER you advanced your base, you did NOT check on us. Or tell us what happened, or verify that we were alright. If it wasn't for Rockette's care, I would still be walking for miles just to regroup with the others."
She poked his forehead. "Don't. Ignore. People. Under. Your. Care."
Sister Quan gave a heavy huff. "It is an important lesson to learn now, when everything went alright. But if we had been injured or killed due to negligence, I know it would have made you suffer emotionally as well. Learn from this."
...Damn. He bowed. "I am sorry, Sister."
His decaying thought process was broken when little Tianshi hugged his legs. "It's alright Da, Rockette was watching over us."
Adam wiped a few tears away and patted her head. "No, Sister Quan is right. I am used to having so much power that I naturally protect those I care for around me... it didn't occur to me that my normal safeguards may not work during cultivation breakthroughs that could distract Rockette."
Sister Quan joined in the hug as well. "You are only going to become more and more powerful. Even somewhat normal Burning Sword Sect members can eventually reshape the world with small actions... learning automatic self control and restraint is always part of advancing your abilities. Or at least it should be."
Even the guards nodded.
Still... for a moment, Adam just... hugged them both.
Right, enough sad stuff. "So where did we put the Four Eye Flame Bulls?"
Little Tianshi giggled. "Rockette tried to put them in some cave she called the 'Grid Soil Cave', but ended up making a new 'pasture cave' instead."
He blinked. "Why?"
Sister Quan harrumphed. "Because your 'Grid Soil Cave' was so big we lost them instantly. You have these strange square land plots that are as huge as ten cities wide each! And there are thousands of them!"
She led him towards a lovely glowing crystal cavern with a number of tents already set up and some... messily arranged luggage. Took time to clean up the mess he had accidentally made, apparently.
The woman waved at a side cave. "The 'Pasture Cave' is a compromise. Rockette has a 'Soul Water Spring' in there that she is still messing with, it is surrounded by a meadow that is fairly large on a Soil Square that she says is great for our future Bulls... but it ISN'T so large that we need a scouting team just to find the exit again."
He blinked. "So water is taken care of for now?"
A nod. "Which is confirmed, at least for the moment. Good thing too, drinking Yin spiritual liquid can be dangerous, even if soaking in it is fairly safe. For women, anyway."
Adam sighed and fell onto one of the foldable chairs established near the fire pit. Huh. "So Rockette can change the area for you as well? I didn't know she was so artistic!"
The floor was white carved stone of course, but the fire pit was more a series of heat related energies being pumped through a convoluted series of crystalline tubes, creating a grid that some Spirit Beast meat was grilling on at the moment.
His Disciple sat close. "Yeah, but the crystal houses and stuff got messed up when you reached Sixth Order. So we are back to the tents."
...What? "How did I mess them up?"
She waved upwards. "See this crystal room? Used to be a cupboard."
...Now that he looked at it, that DID seem to be a 'small handle' up in the sky. A handle over a dozen people tall.
Huh.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
By the time Adam woke up the next day, Rockette had made major changes.
The campsite now had smooth crystal screens surrounding it, displaying Rockette's 'normal' form currently buried beside the new roadway. A smooth dome that showed where Adam had entered the caverns from now covered the ceiling of the cave.
...Not much was left out there. A rock road, made from brown, gray, and black stone. Just... going away in two directions in a straight line, a wide path that had gentle slopes on either edge leading into the wide expansive rocky nothingness.
No grass, no trees... not in most directions anyway.
Aside from the visual display, Rockette had reformed the internal surfaces of the caves as well.
The floor now was a matte white with ridges for better grip when walking, and in the middle of the camp the fireplace had been entirely replaced with a spiral staircase AND ramp leading downwards.
The next level was dedicated to 'Soil'. The left led to the 'Pasture' caves, where the Four Eye Flame Bulls were mindlessly grazing.
Side note, the animals were (As mentioned before), nearly brain dead. A valuable trait to have when joining the party of Adam (All jokes aside) because they were too dumb to flee in terror when detecting Rockette's passive energy emissions.
She represented a weight of spiritual pressure normally found in epically strong Spirit Beasts, things able to easily consume nations of people... not a 'safe' feeling.
So being dumb helped a lot when one shoves those same beasts INSIDE the 'dangerous' feeling Martial Spirit.
That said, having test subjects has drastically increased Rockette's ability to find a work around. Now that Adam had breached Sixth Order Warrior, her control of energy (While still all encompassing) was now easier to automate.
So... theoretically, she should be able to control the reactions of beasts from now on.
Maybe.
The issue WASN'T a lack of control. She had been able to dominate her own powers instantly, no problem, from day one.
No, the signal being transmitted out and detected by the Spirit Beasts was something more... finicky.
When she released all control, her energy crushed others. Obvious.
When she restricted ALL output though... it created a void. Which made ambient spiritual energy try to rush in to fill it. Which created pressure, which crushed others. Annoying.
It was like a capacitor. Two plates, one charged heavily, the other not connected... but being so close to a powerful source of energy CAUSED the unconnected plate to rearrange its own energy flow in reaction.
So to stop scaring ALL THE THINGS, Rockette had to detect ambient spiritual power, MATCH IT, then carefully make adjustments following the natural ebbing and flows as the energies shift.
If she missed, the amount of difference was detected as 'power levels' by others.
But if she matched it? BAM, zero energy detected, no stampedes of creatures, and maybe they could hunt some fresh meat without Adam having to run all over the place.
Well, that was the goal. Rockette was using the Four Eye Flame Bulls (Brain dead buddies!) to verify the theories that Adam had come up with using 'Research', but it LOOKED like it would work.
Anyway, that was the pasture cave on level two, on the 'South' exit. Not sure WHY Sister Quan wanted Rockette to label each cave entrance with the cardinal direction and content description, but whatever made her happy.
The other three exits on the second level led to 'Soil Grid', 'Soil Planting Grid', and 'Soil Energy Grid'. No point in going there, Rockette was using it to experiment with new samples, fill out some data about how to raise various plants gathered, and test what energies worked best for supporting those results.
No, his Disciple, Sister Quan, and the guards were all down on the third floor.
South, the Yin Pool. North, the (mostly not experimental) Soul River. East, the newly created 'Cultivation Caverns'. West, the 'Workshop'.
Yin Pool didn't change much, although Rockette managed to stop the walls leaking water by controlling the energy distribution and stopping outside power from drifting in. While valuable, that stuff made the floors slippery... Now that Adam knew it was possible, he shifted the process to the northern cave instead.
Yes, though he tried to make a Soul water pool to match the Yin one, it didn't work out that way. Carefully mixing Yin energy, the combined spiritual gas mix from Rockette's reserves, and then enhancing the process through experimentation?
It made WAY too much output.
So the north cave had a massive spring that formed a deep, wide, and long river afterwards. Once it reached the edge of the cavern, Rockette was using the excess to create streams upstairs in the pasture and to supply various 'wells' on the top floor.
Eventually those wells would be replaced with a tap system once the tents were put away and crystal houses were constructed. Again.
But for now, easy water access was gladly accepted by the group in general.
As for the actual spiritual energy reserve caverns, the ones first built by Adam for future use?
Not connected.
The group was DAMN lucky they didn't visit some of the more dangerous ones when they had first entered. The 'Blue energy' and 'Green energy' caves would evaporate them if they had stumbled inside, not to mention the various poison or toxic rooms.
And who knew what the 'Binding' cave would have done.
Adam was 99% sure that 'Binding' was some form of soul energy, and at that level of purity and concentration the possibility of a human just evaporating their own soul by accident when touching it?
Yeah, bad.
Oh, and the Asura Stone had shown up here. Because of course it would.
Adam had shifted his body inside that carefully quarantined cavern earlier and it had been... trippy.
Floating in the center of the hollow room, the black stone had slowly rotated. Lightless sludge dripped to the floor, forming a black pool. White smoke, like bone fragments or lost souls, drifted upwards to fill the ceiling with clouds.
And drifting between? Echoes of lost thoughts, forms that shifted and vanished... Not quite spirits, not quite real.
The poison from the black pond was inscribing a version of Adam's own tattoos slowly into the crystal walls of that place, while the white energies being released above were corroding a separate but complimentary pattern above, as if the crystal walls were not solid but composed of a similar fog.
It was strangely beautiful.
A slowly swirling storm of godly energy, deadly poisons, and the strange interactions between the two.
But no, it wasn't going to be open access like the other caves. And if he ended up 'collecting' other stuff this dangerous, there may end up a whole bunch of bubble like caverns inside Rockette, separate from all her other treasures and passengers.
As this third floor seemed to have become a gathering area.
Rockette had moved the cooking surfaces and tables down here, along with the bathrooms and some fountains. She had good design tastes, really. Even basic walls had interesting patterns and shapes.
Maybe instead of building housing on the top floor, they could just move the tents down here? All the storage stuff had been moved into the west cave, into the Workshop's storage rooms. So they could put the camping stuff there and make the top floor into a rest area and observation level.
He smiled as he reached the white table, seeing a plate being set towards him with breakfast. "Thanks Sister Quan... I admit, I slept better than I thought I would."
She hummed, ensuring little Tianshi and the guards had full plates as well. "I admit, everything else aside... I felt much safer than when we were camping. Rockette really put a lot of effort in making this place homelike."
Don't think of the girls. This is home now. Smile, damn it. "Well, I think we should talk a bit about the changes in this place, some basic rules, and stuff to watch out for."
That got the attention from everyone. Even Mr. Whiskers, currently eating some eggs from Tianshi's fork, had paused.
Right. "First! These three floors are going to be stable. While some of the Soil grids will be shifting and expanding over time, the nature of this structure will be established as a rigid concept by Rockette directly."
Seeing some confusion, he coughed. "So if I increase my cultivation base, it will NOT affect this area again. No more massive expansion of stuff or earthquakes or whatever."
A general 'Ahh' feeling waved across the room. Good. "Second, the guards."
The woman he assumed to be the leader of the guards nodded. "Yes sir?"
He sighed internally. "You guys need to be more useful."
Seeing the depression, he waved a hand. "As I improve in control and cultivation, I can detect that all of you are very strong, and very capable. I even got enough spiritual sensing ability at this point to determine when you are trying to hide from me now!"
...They didn't seem super happy abut that. Move on. "My problem is that we are not a normal travel party." Wow, those were some dry looks. "Anything that can escape my detection would be able to kill all of you. And my Sect companion and my Disciple."
He sighed. "Anyone strong enough to overpower my energy control would be able to wipe us out as well." A pause. "Well, you guys I guess, my Martial Spirit seems to become more sturdy and sort of made me recursively durable. I would likely live long enough to escape to this space and recover, even after a so called 'fatal' attack."
Adam shook his head. "The point is, spending your time working so hard for such little reason is a waste of ALL our potentials. I'm not putting up with it any more."
The head guard looked hesitant. "What are we to do then? Our honor requires we don't abandon our mission."
He nodded. "If your leadership has an issue with my decisions, I will be surprised. When I left, they were BEGGING me to help others cultivate and improve faster, to raise the ability of their various groups. It was... very obvious. Why else stick a hundred people to 'protect me' when I was in the company of a Sect Elder?"
He took another bite of the eggs. Lovely. "I would argue that having you ten improve your cultivation and strength while under my authority would do nothing but impress your various departments and increase your reputation. It would not be considered a derogation of duty."
There was still some hesitance... but they eventually finished their strange gesture language and agreed. "Yes, Young Sage."
...Damn, another nickname. "Right, if my observations are correct you normally work in shifts of three or four people?"
A nod. "Three on duty, three on support, three resting, one overseer. Thus we can continue protection detail without needing to stop for sleep, supplies, or meals."
Yeah, holy crap. "From now on there will be two guards, one for my Disciple and one for Sister Quan. Two for support. One overseer. The other five will be stationed here, in the caverns, to cultivate."
He waved to the east. "Those cultivation caves are being actively adjusted by Rockette to match your own energy needs as accurately as possible. It is based on guess work and what energies we detected from you during this traveling period... we will improve it after I have a chance to examine your various cultivation methods, techniques, and rate of advancement towards your next Order of cultivation."
One of the other, normally silent guards (Only the leader spoke, most of the time), raised a hand. Adam blinked. "Yes?"
The man shifted. "Sir, normally it is protocol to not reveal our faces, names, or allegiances during a deployment. It is for our own safety and security. Can I ask how you managed to engrave our names on the Cultivation Caves over there?"
He paused. "Did I?" When? "Rockette?"
Ding!
Ah. Adam smiled at the worried man. "Right, it isn't a problem. Neither I nor Rockette actually know your names at all, so after she made each cave matching your spiritual network signature... she cheated."
Sister Quan paused, fork about to serve more eggs to the little girl. "Cheated?"
He nodded. "Since she didn't know their names, she translated their spiritual network signature into text. It looks like gibberish, but if you match the pattern the 'concept' makes you understand it as 'This is Mine'."
Right, back to food. "So basically, your brain translated 'This is Mine' to your own name. No one else can read it, so it isn't an issue."
Seriously, having fresh eggs and cheese after all these days of travel in a world without advanced technology? Adam had to start ripping a few of those storage rings apart as soon as possible, Rockette NEEDED to steal the idea. Mmm.
The awkward silence made him reluctantly pause eating again. "Yes?"
Another guard checked with their leader... who nodded. "Well, some of our cultivation methods are... a bit private. Secret to families and so forth."
Adam blinked. "So? If you don't want me to take your abilities, make them more powerful and safer to use... then just abandon it for the duration of this journey. I'm sure I can make something easy to follow that will enhance your systems without conflicting with some passed down, half understood, badly written accident waiting to happen."
He flinched a little at Sister Quan's angry expression. "But they are! Half the work I did to make all those 'revolutionary' new methods was just throwing out large chunks of text. Hell, some of the cultivation methods seemed DESIGNED to make you explode a shoulder or something."
Sister Quan paused her glare at his impoliteness and... looked contemplative. "You know... you may be right."
Seeing the stunned look from the others, she shrugged. "I don't know about your methods, but my friends told me they had several deliberately sabotaged sections in their methods that they were verbally told to ignore or modify. It was a security method in case a rival family or someone from outside the clan got access to the scrolls. It isn't done with the methods taught to me by the Sect, but not everyone outside has that level of clout."
Adam sighed. "And a lot of the cultivation stuff I got to research was methods and techniques that were so unsuccessful and unpopular that they got sent down to the first floor of the pavilion."
Still. "I doubt anyone has been able to actively test cultivation ideas on themselves while creating modifications though... so I am sure I can enhance anything these guards are currently training in. Or find something better."
Little Tianshi seemed full. "Why not just use Master's Essential Cultivation Method? It is easy, everyone was super impressed by the speed of improvement."
Adam chuckled. "Well, they can't." He waved at the guards. "They are all at a higher cultivation than I am, and I am creating each new version of the 'Essential Cultivation Methods' by reviewing what my 'Seven Pulse Cultivation Method' does during advancement."
He ignored the stunned older people at the table. "See, I designed MY cultivation method through experimentation to enhance each individual loop of my method to the most extreme level possible. Without my spiritual energy control and sensing abilities, not to mention my ability to multitask and examine all seven meridian routes simultaneously, well..."
He shrugged. "Most people would just pop."
Oh, seemed like most people were done eating! Neat. "Anyway, I learn a lot in the process. After a few experiments I can determine what areas HAVE to be cultivated, and what areas can be easily ignored without causing damage or whatever. Then I do a few more tests to simplify the process, reduce the danger of cultivation deviation or recoil, and add a few safeguards to ensure if something goes wrong you just... stop cultivating. Instead of exploding."
She sighed. "So you can only design up to Sixth Order now?"
He chuckled. "Oh, once we settle down or after I find a few more treasures I'm sure I will be able to catch back up again. Sometimes it is nice to improve slowly over time, you know?"
Adam blinked as Sister Quan stomped over to the Cultivation Caves.
She seems motivated. Good for her!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The group ended up spending a couple of days (Or maybe a week or so) in the caverns getting the base set up and more comfortable.
The Third Level now had a series of crystal rooms on the diagonal areas of the cavern, while the Workshop Cave was being filled with more and more tools and separated areas for Adam (And a few of the more interesting but nameless guards) to work on projects.
A good portion of this time (at first) was spent learning from the guards (Some less reluctant than others) and using Rockette and 'Research' to... well, tear it apart.
He DID learn some stuff not covered in the many texts and scrolls and jade slips he had read... but not much. In return, each of the ten guards had a green jade slip custom designed for their own use.
They contained:
A full deconstruction of their cultivation method... Or at least, the one they shared. A couple felt shifty and may have supplied a different method to keep secrets. Whatever, their loss.
One full review of their current body, the effects cultivation has had on them so far, and (if there were problems), custom techniques to recover from issues related to those past methods. Adam had forbid them from practicing (Or in a few cases, continuing to practice) his 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' (Version 3.2144)... at least, not until they had a more stable spiritual network. Should reduce pain during their future conversion.
The cultivation method (supplied by them) redesigned and revised! Because some people would rather give up on progress than abandon the legacy of their family, and Adam could understand that. At the very least, the easier to understand and follow methods could act as guidance when their OWN, unmodified methods led them to roadblocks.
Finally: A list of Battle Qi techniques and skills that Adam considered generic and useful. One that could clean small areas (Well, less than a house sized area, which was small-ish), another that would gather water in dry areas, another to shift soil to better make traps, shelters, and so forth.
Basically, a list of survival and quality of life skills that wouldn't need you to gather poison frogs or inject bird juice into your skin or whatever.
Seriously, some of these 'battle skills' he reviewed needed stupid components to be trained properly. The heck.
He then ignored their praise, shoved them towards the cultivation caves, and spent the last few days (Weeks) relaxing on the top floor 'Observation Level' in some very comfortable reclining chairs.
Crystal supports that needed some padding (Easy enough to get from the supplies), and BAM! A few days of relaxation! Totally not slacking off at all!
Sister Quan and little Tianshi enjoyed the days too, since they were not really involved. It was mostly focused on getting the guards used to their new routine, ensuring the Four Eye Flame Bulls wouldn't fall over from shock when released outside again (Thank you, nearly brain dead animals!), and seeing what kind of fruit drinks could be made when mixed with Soul Water.
They uh. They joined in on the fruit juice testing thing.
Half pineapple juice mixed with half orange juice was Adam's personal favorite. That combo plus an equal amount of cool Soul Water was... just a wonderful way to start the morning.
Also, it was hot out there and he didn't want to get back on that stupid wagon for a while. Until Sister Quan complained or something interesting passed by, the goal of the day was to not be productive.
...Well, Rockette was being productive. Her testing on the Soil grid was ongoing, she was shifting the caverns around all the time in small ways, she acted like an instant assistant when someone needed an object stored elsewhere or if they had a question.
But he had asked her, and she was having fun.
...Could rocks enjoy fruit drinks? Something to test when they got traveling again.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Eventually, Adam was voted to continue the trip towards the (now not so distant) 'Ash Forest'.
The initial haste of travel had worn off, now that they had a safe and secure portable camping site with access to amazing cultivation caverns, useful and (previously) rare Soul Water, and of course (For women) the Yin Pool.
But even with the new laid back atmosphere, the guards and Sister Quan suggested moving on... especially as more and more flying Spirit Beasts began showing up in the sky heading towards where Adam stole the energy pond so recently.
...So yeah, getting further away seemed wise.
Problem was, only Adam had to actually cross ground now that everyone else could relax and spend time in the Crystal Caverns. It didn't take long for the tyranny of the majority to decide he should set up the wagon, get the bulls hooked up, and follow the (only) path forwards.
And yes, it WAS hot out there. Especially now that any moisture soaked into the rocky soil since all the plant life had been consumed... this mass of exposed rock just absorbed the heat like nothing else.
Oh, and the Four Eye Flame Bulls loved this new temperature. Adam could ignore it easily enough, having adapted his Cultivation Cells to Blue energy flames previously, but these beasts LOVED the increased heat. Their travel speed nearly doubled, even after Adam moved some rock sheets from nearby into the back of the wagon to stabilize the stupid thing after all the luggage had been shifted away.
So. As long as he shifted the vehicle into Rockette each time a Cultivator flew overhead, the group (Party of one!) was able to travel without issue or conflict along the flat, boring stone path.
Yes, he knew this was his fault. He could have wasted some time and let Rockette slowly grow Soil Grid instead of sucking up so much material to jump start the process. Knowing that didn't make this now repetitious and mind numbing trip more bearable.
Time passed.
Every meal time, he would join the (Far more relaxed and comfortable) group for a wonderful dish or two, let the Bulls graze away happily in their new pasture cave, and complain a little before getting back to work.
And when night fell, he admitted that the newly crafted beds were... SO much better than the past caravan OR the tents.
Overall, not having to set up or tear down camp saved a lot of wasted travel time... not to mention that food could be prepared and served without stopping the wagon as long as Rockette relaxed on the thing while Adam ate up.
So while they had 'lost' a lot of time according to their own informal schedule, it was rapidly being adjusted as the speed increased.
The body conversion of the Four Eye Flame Bulls certainly helped as well. Now that they were eating grass and herbs from within the Pasture Caves (Full of concepts and spiritual energy) and drinking lots of Soul Water, their bodies began following the enforced cultivation method much more easily.
Adam wasn't suddenly mutating them on a large scale or anything... he wanted them to become a breeding pair eventually, and cancer or infertility would really mess up those plans. But as their cells slowly converted to the new Cultivation Cell standard, he DID encourage the big things.
More energy efficient, less damage from cell replication (Age), faster and more optimised digestive system... they had been improved previously, of course. But now?
They were healthier, had a more powerful and conceptually significant diet, and... Adam was bored out of his mind while stuck guiding a wagon and STARING at the two things.
At one point he started changing their skin colors out of sheer frustration and only stopped when Sister Quan caught him a few hours later with two confused polka dot monstrosities.
...She made him change them 'back to normal', but thankfully she didn't remember what normal WAS for those two creatures. Because Adam hadn't bothered to pay attention to skin tone at any point, and while he had lots of logs marking all the changes he really wasn't certain which of the thousands of colors were technically the right ones.
Both of the bulls were fire truck red now. And their kids would be as well. If anyone asks, they were bought that way and shut up because he didn't want to get in trouble for something so pointless.
To be fair, it wasn't like anyone else could TELL him what they should look like. They both had been bought near the end of their life cycle, and whatever color these creatures had been in their youth had long since faded away.
...Though it would have been easier to figure it out if he had CHECKED before just... messing with all sorts of stuff.
He was considering modifying the male Four Eye Flame Bull's horns again (The female had cute little stubs now, but despite how laid back the creatures were it felt cool to give the dude some sharp head ornaments) when Adam actually saw something interesting.
Grass.
After several weeks of high speed travel... they had finally reached the edge of the consumed plains! Well, not yet, but in a day or so when they got to that distant green line on the horizon!
WOO!
...His happiness vanished fairly quickly however once the wagon actually ARRIVED at the more normal landscape.
Because the road went back to a bumpy, annoying mess.
And his Four Eye Flame Bulls were now younger, faster, and stronger... which meant MORE bumpy.
Well... these creatures WERE happy with hotter situations...
A pulse of thought applied 'Qi Forms: Press' to smash the grass flat and the soil upwards, 'Heat Modification' to incinerate the greenery and melt the low quality rock and soil into a goo, and a firm application of 'Fluid Manipulation' to force the damn material to remain in a road like shape.
It... it was a bit tricky to do.
His first attempts were done too close to the wagon. The bulls LOVED the nearly molten path, and even sped up... but the wheels of the wagon were wood. So uh... yeah, had to start using 'Heat Modification' to prevent the wagon from exploding into flames.
But after the (Small) fire issue, he found the situation was much improved! The hotter the road, the easier for the Four Eye Flame Bulls to travel. Took 'Research' a few seconds to figure out why... the creatures were ever so slightly manipulating the heat energy in the road to both make stable footholds AND to create a bit of extra propulsion, so they could move quicker with slightly less energy than just walking.
Rockette was feeding more experiments to 'Research' to see if this could be turned into a general ability for the others, as 'Lava Striding' could be useful if/when they finally reached the 'Ash Forest'.
Point was though, Adam once again had a smooth ride and could put up with being the only person NOT relaxing with fruit drinks on this journey.
And with only a tiny amount of 'Qi Forms: Press' used behind the wagon, the road left behind was smooth, only slightly (extremely) hot, and free for others to use!
He felt a bit smug about this solution, really. Building a road dynamically like this was much more tricky without the super simple drones to do the work for him.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan sighed as she relaxed in the so called 'Beach Chairs' Adam had set up on this uppermost layer of the Crystal Caverns. "Any changes?"
Little Tianshi was sharing some fruit with Mr. Whiskers. He seemed much healthier these days. "Master caught the wagon on fire and is now making the bulls gallop on a river of lava."
...Of course he was. She looked at the dome of crystal (Yes, she ignored it when she could) and just... blinked.
Blue fire roared over the entire wagon, as the bulls bright red flames seemed to leave a trail, near white flames marking their eyes and spewing from their nostrils with each snort. The road was a dull red glow that was melting in the path of travel and hissing steam after the mad construction passed.
And Adam was laughing hysterically, His body covered in bright blue flames and a solid black network of poison tattoos. His left eye glowed bright white, and his hair seemed one with the blue tongues of energy flying in the wind.
Some strange part of her wanted to smile.
He looked like he was having fun.
She carefully relaxed in the chair near little Tianshi, and sighed at the comfort. "Have you finished your study packets?"
The girl glanced away. "Mostly?"
Ah. "What is the problem?"
The girl sighed. "I... my reading exercises. Adam taught me enough to read his jade slips and stuff, but his stuff is so much easier than these other sections. His stuff just... says things. But everything else I read sort of... wanders around."
She snorted. "I can see that. Did I tell you the first texts Adam read while in my care were my personal Cultivation Notes? When Adam saw 'normal' texts, he thought I was tricking him or playing a prank. He STILL complains about how flowery and wordy everything is, and he read most of the Sect Repository of Knowledge Pagoda's first floor in like a day."
Little Tianshi blinked. "Wait, I think Master showed me one of those... You mean those were real?"
Sister Quan chuckled. "Oh yes. 'Compare thy powers with the sky, the flight of thought doth circle the inner workings of the heavens of which all things turn, but yet not', or 'Do not consider the following, for it shall lead you astray'... Yeah."
The head guard nodded her head. "Before the Young Sage analyzed my own cultivation method, I thought I was supposed to guide a Qi strand through a series of meridian nodes at specific times to advance... but instead I was supposed to AVOID those areas, and that entire subsection was actually a warning. Could have killed me in the future."
Seeing the horror in the little girls eyes, the older guard chuckled. "Cultivation is considered against the heavens you know. Living longer than expected, gaining power beyond humans... it is a struggle against even the concept of bonds and restrictions. Death is just one of the outcomes one can expect to occur at some point, if not worse."
Sister Quan nodded. "A strong will and acceptance that bad outcomes can occur will help you greatly in your cultivation journey. Sometimes you have to risk everything to either break through the heavens or die as an unknown unfortunate."
One of the more quiet guards grumbled. "Or some random baby will wander up, simplify a cultivation method treasured by your family for a thousand generations, and make Cultivation safer than farming."
The leader smacked his head as she headed back to the cultivation caves. "There will always be someone stronger, faster, and better than you. Be glad that you discovered this by having that genius help you advance rather than kill you and take your possessions."
Sister Quan looked back at the child. "How many more worksheets do you have left to work on?"
Tianshi wilted. "Five."
Hmm... not terrible progress. "Well, bring them over and we can work on them together." Glancing at the cavern wall... Adam's muscled body flexed, the flames flowing like a lover over his body as laughter filled the heavens, his joy clear.
Damn. He did NOT look younger than her. And she HAD just sat down... and this chair WAS comfortable. "...In an hour or two. Best to finish our drinks first of course."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The wagon wouldn't stop burning.
Nearly a week of solid traveling while coated with Adam's Blue energy flames had sort of... half claimed the thing. It wasn't HIS exactly, but the binding energy of his fire had sort of... merged with the wood.
The thing just slowly glowed with blue flames... the wood itself was slowly shifting towards a more white color than before, if it even was made of lumber at this point. The biggest change Adam discovered this morning.
Because the wheels didn't sink into the molten road anymore. It just... treated it like a solid surface.
Yes, this was useful. But uh... note to self, soaking materials in extremely dense and conceptually powerful flames for literally a month or so had side effects.
It wasn't surprising that other Cultivators hadn't figured this out. It took a TON of energy to do what Adam was doing, and even people several Orders or even Realms more powerful would have run dry of energy in an hour or so.
THEY couldn't recycle energy, or keep it from escaping after coating the wagon, or generate more power passively than most Sects could imagine.
So yeah. They now owned a burning wagon.
On the plus side? Tianshi, Sister Quan, and the guards could touch the wagon without issue. The flames didn't consider them acceptable fuel sources.
Down side? It took ACTIVE effort to keep the thing from burning clothing, equipment, and so forth. Nearly had an issue when the girls tried to get on the thing after discovering the flames were 'safe'.
Also, this was... less than subtle. 'Exploding fireball wagon' was awesome when tearing up the road with a pair of demon bulls, but uh... not when visiting towns or whatever.
Thankfully they had passed most known towns long ago, it was why Adam had no issue with just carving a new road into the world as they traveled along. But on the way back? Yeah, could be a problem.
The few trees inside Rockette were young, and not really conceptual existences yet... so just in case, she had set aside a small cave to grow lumber. If Adam couldn't make their wagon stop glowing and stuff, maybe he could make a new one from those trees.
There were a couple of years or so before they had to head back to the Sect after all, they had time to find a work around.
Oh, and you can't use the wagon to cook. Little Tianshi thought it could save time when riding around, but when she placed a steak on one of the seats it just... evaporated into gas.
...How hot WAS this thing? Clearly that was just... impossibly warm. Like, you could dip a hotdog into molten lead and the heat difference between the two would actually cause a layer of gas to form around the thing, protecting it for a bit from damage... and even when the two come in contact, the hotdog wouldn't vanish or something.
Point was, the little girl was left staring at a now empty pair of tongs and a missing meal.
Heh, he could probably kill a Spirit Beast by just riding too close when passing the damn things now.
...Shit, he better check that. If he accidentally immolated people because the Wagon thought they looked shifty, it would be HIM that would get in trouble!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
After a bit of experimentation, Adam found a... half successful workaround.
By replacing the stone slabs being used as 'stability weights' on the underside of the wagon with a VERY high capacity storage formation, the excess flames being generated would be sucked into the underside of the cart before burning everyone and everything.
...Until it filled up.
At which point it turned into a massive pillar of fire, if Adam didn't absorb it directly into Rockette.
But at least it DID make the thing look mostly normal for the next day or so... And it would rumble a warning fairly obviously just before incinerating everything in the area.
So, problem solved!
It did pretty much ensure that Adam was the only one riding the thing now. The entertainment of creating waves of molten rock for a road died off pretty quick, and eventually he just... traveled.
Life fell into a bit of a routine really.
Hide from the Cultivators that passed by or tried to investigate the strange 'flame road', travel via stone lava wave with the bulls, then relax inside the caverns for meals or naps.
Rockette had some minor success with some collected bushes and fruit trees with her Soil experiments. The right amount of Green energy and some minor amounts of heat, Soul Water, and proper lighting? Well, getting stuff to grow rapidly and out of season was fairly easy for the Martial Spirit.
Sister Quan had the trees and bushes added to the third level of the base, where the workshop and cultivation caves were. She made a good point that the green added much needed color to the white area, and it was easy enough for Rockette to make some flower beds and pots to raise the trees and bushes safely.
The Martial Spirit was happy enough handling the annoying stuff like watering and checking for weeds and whatnot, and the others liked having some living plants nearby.
So while not ALL the various fruits and stuff they had access to had been cultivated yet, they DID have fresh apples, oranges, and blueberries. No pineapples, blackberries, strawberries... and honestly, Adam wasn't sure these fruits even matched what he was expecting from back home... uh. Back in the Worm Realm.
His brain just... matched things up that were close. The actual words didn't sound or spell the same as what he remembered, but the concepts were similar...
Point was, they had lots of apple juice, orange juice, and blueberry jam. Because one of the guards had a really good recipe for blueberry jam. Considering that many advanced cultivators eventually gained the ability to convert heaven and earth spiritual energy directly into nutrients, a vital step to allow them to cultivate without eating or drinking for years at a time?
Well, it was impressive trivia for such a powerful person to know.
Some odd stuff DID happen with Rockette's testing. Some plants when put in the wrong conceptual soil mutated. Heavily. There was a blueberry bush in a swamp like zone that had turned purple.
Not the fruit. The bush. The damn bark and twigs and leaves were all purple. The berries were ping ball sized and white (of all colors, why white?), and testing showed they were VERY poisonous.
Tasted awesome too. Not a tang, but yes? Slightly sweet... but only Adam had a tattoo of raw corruption and venom and poison and stuff, so no one else could enjoy the treat. More for him! Woo!
...He should name them officially at some point before Sister Quan gets 'Cursed Berries' stuck as their commonly accepted title. Jealousy was so sad.
Other trees were going a bit odd too, but neither the bushes, trees, weeds, or grass being examined matched stuff from the various books or notes. Adam's guess was that no one had tried planting plants from THIS region into Soil samples from THOSE regions, and these seeds and saplings were very unlikely to travel that long distance and be exposed to those environments and energy patterns otherwise.
After all, normal cultivators had to have several miracles line up to find a 'Heavenly Treasure' herb: A place that was conceptually powerful; One that was exposed to dense spiritual energy; One that had a compatible seed, plant, animal, or mineral in said spot; And finally, that no one and nothing else had FOUND it first, and that the object in question didn't automatically cultivate enough to shift forms and run away ON ITS OWN.
Adam had some pretty awesome advantages here.
He could easily duplicate samples, allowing one plant to be set up in several Soil Grids and exposed to all types of super pure spiritual energies... or even custom mixes, if Rockette finds an interesting power combination.
And no one could steal it, or stumble on the area, or accidentally damage the sample. If it somehow gained a form that could travel, it was simple for Rockette to hold the target until Adam chose what to do with it.
...Eugh. What would he do if his onions or whatever turned into babies or little cats or something? Could he still eat it? Gross. Plus, if a cabbage turned into a small lion or something, it would still be a cabbage... would it even stop moving after being cut up?
He made a mental note to have Rockette run the data by 'Research', so that crops could be harvested or isolated before becoming sentient. Cause... he didn't need a zoo of apple trees wandering around or a crop of potatoes developing a fetish for being consumed.
At least the girls were interested. A few weeks during the trip they started asking about the other 'Soil Grid' rooms, why they existed, why they changed... and several people got involved in watching over the experiments.
Because while the apples, oranges, and blueberries were all appreciated... what really caught everyone's attention was the entertainment value!
Plant apple trees in a desert Soil cell? Normally it should die, but add these water energies and those earth power traces, and BAM! A mostly stone tree that formed strange granite apples! Because why not.
Most of the suggestions didn't amount to much, though some bushes and trees were pretty looking or odd. A few of the grasses turned out well enough... The Pasture Cave's fodder was upgraded to the newly named 'Flame Grass', and the Bulls loved the stuff.
Still counted as grass, but the new species had a huge natural temperature. Weeds and other plants just caught fire if planted near the stuff, and it didn't even need watering! Just lots and LOTS of sunlight.
No good generic 'Lumber' tree were found yet, and... well, Adam needed more tree samples to really improve his chances of success. More bush samples, more... well, more everything.
So for now, the people not cultivating would waste time randomly making suggestions about combinations of plants, energy, and Soil types. Some of the guards even gambled about whose choices would turn out more useful... well, whatever kept them happy.
But eventually (Finally)... They all had reached the Ash Forest!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Little Tianshi blinked.
It looked like snow.
In every direction, white powder. The trees had a white coating, with soft red glows within the leaves showing odd shades, bizarre flowers shimmering heat. Thin wandering trails of liquid lava covered the 'forest' floor, and thin white strands stuck up as if normal grass had grown while drained of color.
Unlike normal snow, the white power drifted... upwards. And in swirls.
The bushes were most decorative. The same white leaves, but a charred black network of stems also exposed a few bright white 'flowers', composed of layers of ash that hadn't fallen yet.
She could feel Mr. Whiskers... flinch. It was of nature, but also of decay. It grew, but it grew hand in hand with death.
She nodded. "Neat."
Adam slumped. "'Neat' she says. We travel for literally months, to a location designed to most compliment your nature and Martial Spirit, to this location specifically to help you understand the stranger cycles of nature... and it's 'Neat', great."
She cautiously patted his shoulder. What little of it she could reach, anyway. "It's... very neat?"
Sister Quan laughed. "Brother Adam, don't forget that to a child... useful stuff is appreciated, but can't compete with 'cool' or 'fun' things."
He waved his arms. "Look at it! Those trees grow while ON FIRE! How crazy is that!? Like, as it grows the outer edges instantly forms burned surfaces and ash, creating a layer that protects the growing portion within! I don't know if you could DESIGN something that amazing!"
Little Tianshi blinked. "But it is still a bunch of trees." Seeing his depression she tried again. "Very pretty trees? Like, I would tell everyone that of all the trees I've seen..." Uh. Where to go with this? "That these were some of them."
Her master groaned. "I could have picked somewhere cooler if you hadn't been drunk at the time. If someone had told me, 'Adam! Want to see a forest of lava, ash, and coal?' I would have been all 'YEAH DUDE!' or something."
One of the guards grunted. "Can we go back inside the caverns? It is hot as..." Glancing at the child, he coughed. "It is hot."
Adam blinked. "Right, you guys haven't finished converting your body cells yet." He paused. "Wait, shouldn't your cultivation level protect you from this amount of heat easily?"
A nod. "Doesn't make it any cooler out here."
Master waved his arms. "IT IS TOTALLY COOL! Look, ASH COVERED TREES! Right over there!"
The guard turned to the crystal on the boy's shoulder. "Rockette, could you please?"
Most of the group vanished.
She held in a giggle as Adam slumped. "I... but it is a huge forest!" He waved weakly. "Trees! That one over there is like... huge... eight people couldn't hug it..."
Better distract him before he sees how amused Sister Quan was. "Master, I have to agree, that. That is a big tree."
Operation 'Make Master Feel Better': Huge Success!
Mostly.
The boy sighed. "I... I guess I should just consume the whole place. Get some samples, let Rockette duplicate the place if little Tianshi needs it to cultivate in later." He watched the soft falling ash drift in the wind.
He hummed. "Maybe these trees will do interesting things if I plant them underwater. Or in a swamp or something."
Sister Quan had a wry grin. "Are you just going to take all the interesting places we find?"
Her master shrugged. "Why not? Would the Burning Sword Sect do otherwise if THEY could go collect neat places?"
Well, it was a good point. Cultivators, from Tianshi's limited experience and the stories Mr. Whiskers told her at night, tend to just collect anything interesting or useful like squirrels.
Even if they can't use the valuable material or ancient methods, they would hoard them for years in case it might become useful, even if only as a negotiation aid.
Still, it was overly warm out here. "Can I watch from inside Rockette?"
Adam sighed. "Sure, and take Sister Quan with you. This will take a while, might as well make everyone else comfortable."
As the ghost Rockette ate her again, Tianshi watched Adam quietly sit in the ash... his body somehow calmed and relaxed as trickles of blue fire began to spread from his body.
Watching his blue hair drift in the wind as he became one with the white landscape...
It really was neat.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Third Elder Cho slumped in her chair, nearly alone in her office. Her real, actually secured office... not the public one that had all kinds of spies, recording formations, and everything else expected when one was a powerful figure in the Sect.
She could have secured THAT office too, but then she wouldn't know what they thought they knew that she knew about what she thought they knew that they thought they had overheard.
So, security here, theater out there.
But right now, she didn't feel secured. "Just... start over."
The shadow winced, still on one knee. "Yes ma'am."
She took another sip from her favorite glass. Just water, couldn't risk impaired decisions at this point. The shadow reviewed the list. "None of the agents, the marked ones or the ones that we are tracking without marking, have caught on to the swap."
The only good news.
He continued. "As far as the Sect is concerned, the Burning Sage is just doing research and donating large sums to the orphanage system."
She snorted. 'Large Sums' indeed. So many contribution points had been donated via Adam's instructions that not only was the local orphanage flush with resources, but the accounts of ALL the branch Sect orphanages were stuffed as well. Hell, they were better funded than the Forging Department!
The man continued. "The ten guards with the target left the drop updates as mentioned, and reported the destruction of a fairly well funded bandit crew, a massive number of deaths related to the town they visited, again bandit related... and uh."
She sighed. "Yes, our boy just... gave away a massive number of cultivation methods and techniques to assist a wealthy and powerful young master with... cooking ambitions."
Just... why!?
A cough. "Yes. Updates were a bit sporadic after that, but last we knew they were in quadrant 8b34i, eastern side."
...Damn it, she was terrible at remembering those maps. "I am too old and too tired to look shit up right now. Where the hell is that location?"
A wince. "You remember the reports of a 'Demon road to Hell, that consumed the lands and drove life away in terror?'"
What. "Yes?"
A nod.
She glared at her glass... but no, it had to stay water. "Damn it, boy. How is evaporating a massive swath of land being subtle!?" Not that she had a damn clue how he had done it, but 'impossible' seems to be the boy's bread and butter.
The Elder slugged the stuff down, water or no. "I have no clue how some powerful old bastard hadn't caught up to him and started cutting him apart to find his secrets."
The man moved to another report. "From our sources, even though the 'path to purgatory' is expanding towards the wilds at a rapid pace, no scout or cultivator can determine why. They even sent a First Order Saint to determine if it was some sort of powerful Spirit Beast, but found nothing but a trail of lava and strange tracks."
Sigh. "Well, at least luck is on their side." Because hiding from a Saint? Damn hard.
She groaned as she looked at the extra notes. "Hopefully the child will take things easy from now on, save me some headaches."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam felt his spiritual senses following the heat source, the power far below the ash and soil that kept exposing lava and pushing forth raw energy.
Should he take this volcano?
Because this whole field, the entire forest, was growing on a massive shield volcano.
The entire structure was built almost entirely of fluid lava flows that pour out in every direction from a central summit vent that he could feel located further in the woods. It formed a broad, gently sloping cone of flat, domical shape... the trees somehow grew between the thousands of highly fluid lava flows, these basalt lava streams that spread widely over great distances.
He could sense these rivers of stone that had cooled as thin, gently dipping sheets... and the roots that somehow pierced DIRECTLY into the magma for their conceptual energy requirements.
...It would counter balance his Yin Pond. Maybe.
If he collected enough of it.
His senses began to follow the hardened tubes filled with magma deep into the underground... and then followed it further.
If Adam wanted to avoid the whole 'You took the ground now we are going to die' thing again, it would be best to gather the needed material from... quite farther down.
As his mind explored underground and blue flames began consuming a 'winter' wonderland, Adam began to consider where to shove the place once he collected it up a bit.
Assuming that this Yang Volcano doesn't merge completely with the Soil Grid, then he may have to have Rockette move the Soul River Cavern. Or merge the Yin Pool and Yang Volcano caves and try to balance the pair.
The day moved on as a boy and his rock slowly burned away in a blue firestorm.
There were worse ways to pass the time.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Okay, slight issue.
Adam fell into the Crystal Caverns. "Right, who wants to take a quick vacation? We've been traveling a long time, really had some stressful situations, and I know a bit of down time could really help everyone recover!"
No one turned away from the top floor viewing dome.
Well, that had a low chance of working anyway. "And I am sure everyone needs a bit of time to rest and what not, and I just gained access to something to work with. I'll just quickly head down a couple of floors, see how to include the new Yang Magma Pool into the setup..."
Sister Quan just pointed at another chair. "Sit."
With a slump, he fell into the chair.
One of the guards offered little Tianshi some of the mostly flavorless but safe to eat berries that had become an ongoing snack as the group watched the landscape explode upwards.
...It was pretty in a way.
A few minutes later, Sister Quan hummed. "So? How did this happen?"
Yeah, might be in trouble. At least Rockette didn't care about the situation. "So after laying claim to the Ash Forest, I thought... why not take the source of energy below it? Wouldn't be much of an Ash Forest if it was cold."
Another explosion, and the unending pillar of magma grew larger as it hurled into the sky.
Adam coughed. "Right, forgot that volcanoes in general form when there is great stress and pressure from below. And while the mass of material was heavy and dense enough to prevent eruptions and just slowly ooze rivers of basalt lava everywhere BEFORE I got involved..."
The lake of lava was cooling into black stone that fractured and exposed bright red liquid with every shift of material. The massive pit would fill in faster though once that pillar of conceptually hot liquid stone started to fall down from its current journey skywards.
He sighed. "Well, I consumed the Ash Forest. And the Shield Volcano it was resting on. And to ensure I gathered the concept of a Yang energy pool, I needed much more material than that."
What area he HADN'T taken was mostly gone now due to the shockwave and the enormous tsunami of hot gas that followed. "Well, I went downwards in a small, vertical column to ensure the ground wouldn't collapse on us again."
Sister Quan hummed. "Everything else aside, I appreciate the feelings behind this action. But still." She waved at the torrent of energy that had yet to even begin falling back to earth. "Why is it doing THAT."
He winced. "Well, by reducing the size of my conversion, I needed to go deeper to get the same amount of stuff." The air out there was just shimmering with heat. "Much deeper."
Rockette summoned some Soul Water for him to cool off with, which was appreciated. "So I took everything on top that was holding much of the pressure down, then created an express exit for the pressure straight through the REMAINING material that had held back the heat and pressure for eons... all at the same time."
The lead guard hummed as she watched the storm of stone and flames outside. "That would have killed us. All of us."
Adam sighed. "Yeah, it destroyed three or four layers of me too in the initial blast. Just burned my bodies to ash before I could transfer in here. It's going to take me HOURS to fix the damage."
Sister Quan was getting better at ignoring comments like that. "How long is this going to continue?"
'Research'?
Ah. "At least a month before I can move Rockette farther away from here safely. Well, safely for me, much longer if one of you want to do it."
She looked contemplative. "Well, we had best take advantage of this. There are energies and materials being exposed here that we are unlikely to ever find normally, and NEVER from a place this safe at the same time. Plus, just watching this is helping me understand some concepts of fire, flames, pressure, and yang energy flows that were unclear to me in the past."
One of the guards nodded. "It is common to see Cultivators stand in thunderstorms or floods to better understand reality, this is far closer and far safer than could be expected."
Little Tianshi was already getting tired of this though. "I mean, it was cool for the first bit, and I guess it is neat now... but it's going to look like this for like days, right?"
Adam nodded. "Honestly, even after this area stabilizes and the concepts swirling here force most of the energy back into itself, it may not change for years. Maybe ever."
She nodded. "Right, and I ALSO don't need to worry about this level of understanding for years. I haven't even reached Third Order Warrior yet, it may be decades before I need to understand whatever is causing..." She waves as the wall of liquid rock spewing into the heavens. "All that."
Sister Quan snorted. "Don't be like your master. It is perfectly normal and acceptable and FINE to take longer than a month or two to advance your cultivation base."
Adam nodded. "Plus you are using a safer and slower version of my cultivation technique anyway. If you matched my rate of advancement, that means you are doing something wrong."
The little girl glanced back at the molten reversed waterfall. "Still, I can come back later and not miss anything. Master, you said something about a Yang Magma Pool?"
He sighed as he led the girl towards the central spiral staircase downstairs. "Yeah, it is SUPPOSED to be a Yang energy pool, but it keeps melting stuff. Even if Rockette says it doesn't hurt, I don't want her to be continuously melted just holding onto the thing."
The others stayed up top, watching the clouds flee the molten stone intrusion as a new ocean of black stone and red lava filled in the pit that once was the Ash Forest.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
This was getting annoying.
Place the Yin and Yang Pools in the same room?
Massive amounts of steam, the Yin side generates more frost in protest, the Yang side melts the crystal in the area, and a very, VERY slim section in the middle becomes a strange stable mix of white and black energies.
Like, two pools the size of houses creates a strand of unity as thick as a single paper edge of stability, while everything else is just a mess.
Adam had two circles. Where they touched? Not much of a problem. Everywhere else? Blarg.
He could make more, tiny Yin and Yang pools (Rockette had to force them to be stable until they eventually stabilized, which would theoretically take years), but that just created MORE edges that were freaking out about being so close to their opposite.
Any patterns or design choices had downsides. Some grid patterns and stuff actually stabilized large sections of contact in the middle... but those made the outside, non targeted edges just more angry and explosive, into ice clouds or heat waves.
He even tried to cheat by going full three dimensional, attempting to create two orbs of Yin and Yang energy floating in midair.
Yeah, not doing that again. It created EXPONENTIALLY more surfaces not in contact with each other. Created so much explosive conflict that Rockette actually GAINED energy from the experiment, which would need to be examined later as a possible new power source.
Didn't help solve the issue though.
Anyway, the 'Why not make floating pools of conflicting concepts' idea made a mess so bad he had to wait a week for the area to calm down enough to take it apart and try something else. Not that the group was going anywhere with that apocalypse outside.
Sister Quan had been a bit smug. Something about learning to plan things out more and how he 'Should not smash stuff together to see what happens' when his testing materials were so few.
Adam guessed she had a point. He was a bit lucky his attempts didn't somehow combine or destroy his working materials.
...The explosion had been pretty awesome though. Yin and Yang energies sort of... vibrated out of sync with reality when they come REALLY close in contact to each other. 'Research' had a field day, and Rockette had chimed in about the results for hours afterwards.
Still, no bad consequences (Other than a forced break) had occurred, so it was probably fine.
On a more domestic note, one of the guards had managed to get some AMAZING results with growing potatoes, or some sort of root vegetable, a few days ago. They were about a pound each in weight, were nearly tasteless, but still managed to have MORE than the expected amount of nutrition.
Which had been a GODSEND for a very bored Adam.
These tubers were great filler for other dishes! The lack of flavor didn't matter much because they had a great texture and could taste like whatever they were cooked with while adding lots of good stuff for a growing kid. They also grew in enough numbers to easily act as 'filler' to make other dishes stretch farther with fewer ingredients.
But that wasn't the reason Adam had been so thrilled... no, the real prize was that in the process of examining the new potatoes, Sister Quan had revealed a number of 'Common Use' Qi Techniques that Healers had long sense considered 'obvious and well known', ones that no one had bothered to share with Adam.
It was fascinating! Skills to determine the ingredients of medicine (Or liquids, or food, etc), ones to determine the effects something would have on a designated patient (Or consumer, or pet), all kinds of tiny skills that were just done automatically to ensure that the patient wouldn't react badly to a medication plan...
And now ADAM had those 'boring, why share them' skills to play with.
'Research' LOVED it. These were the kind of detecting skills that he had been forced to create work around tricks for, using his stupid amazing absolute spiritual energy manipulation ability. These were far more basic, way more efficient, and required almost no multitasking or advance sensing abilities to use!
Well, not yet at least. For Adam, these were the starting blocks for his next advancements, not the final product.
With this, Rockette would be able to share basic information about stuff that entered his Domain automatically! Poisons or allergenic materials, all exposed by having his Martial Spirit get close enough to run her techniques on them automatically.
And with only a few hours of development and ability improvement, 'Research' was able to increase the amount of testing done when working with plants in the Soil Grid by over a dozen times!
True, there were enough combinations of plant, soil, and energy options to still require a stupid amount of time to completely map ALL the possibilities, but progress was progress! This one lucky incident might have saved decades of work, how COULDN'T Adam be happy about it?
...Still, after some time had passed? He had to go back to the mess in the 'Oh God Run' cavern.
Damn it.
The Yang pool tended to turn into molten crystal fairly quickly, which then solidified with the Yin pool's lower conceptual temperatures and... yeah, twisted material in odd shapes with even more odd properties. And now there was a whole room full of the junk.
Sigh.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam was grumbling as the paced back and forth. "There is no shape, not two dimensional, three dimensional..." No one would ever know about his four dimensional attempt. "Nothing that will make those two ponds work together. Period."
Sister Quan was busy working with two of the guards making something that smelled delicious over there, but little Tianshi was here to hear his woes.
He waved. "I am missing something. Something obvious. I KNOW Yin and Yang energy can be balanced. It is a trope! Shows up everywhere! And I know, I know... Most cheat with rare objects or plants that already did the tricky balance thing first. Or use some amazing (But carefully undocumented) secret ability to automatically do the hard part."
The girl was nodding along. "I'm sure you can figure it out, Master." Mr. Whiskers was watching from on top of her head, but still gave a 'claws up' as well.
Adam grunted. "Eventually I WILL, even if I have to give up and just try random things until I get lucky. But I have some AMAZING cheats of my own! I mean, how can some moron find inner balance with a 'Heavenly Yin Yang Lotus' or whatever but I can't use 'Research' to smash this mystery open!? I am smarter than a plant!"
He paused. "Am I? Maybe. Plants here can eventually cultivate into other shapes, have no limit on natural lifespan... Dang it, I may be dumber than a plant." He pointed firmly at the giggling child. "BUT! But no one has PROVED that yet! Not with science!"
The boy resumed pacing. "So until I see evidence, I will assume I am smarter than most plants, at least smarter than most plants within my age bracket. Heck, I would go so far as to assume I am smarter than plants TWICE my age!"
Tianshi nodded. "So... 28?"
He blinked. "Actually, I think I had a birthday a month or two ago. Then again, I rebuilt my body completely this year, so I may have reset my age to zero back then, and now I am at some fraction growing closer to my first birthday."
Adam hummed. "Huh. Then I would either be smarter than the average 30 year old cultivating plant, or smarter than the... little over a year old turnip or something."
His disciple blinked. "What, I missed Master's birthday!?"
The boy nodded. "Yeah, time flies when you are on fire riding a flame wagon with burning bulls."
The girl stomped, frowning. "Da, this is important! I don't want to miss your birthdays! I wasn't able to get you anything! We didn't even give you a party!"
Aww. He couldn't hold back a warm smile as he pulled her into a hug. "Being able to travel with you and the others is all the presents or parties I need. Besides, I'm not sure I will bothering getting older anymore, and I have so much money and contribution points I may have already destroyed the Sect's bartering system..."
Right, if anyone asks that wasn't his fault. "Point is, to me? Fame, money, power, all that... I have that. I tend to gather it by accident if I am not careful. But good people that care about me, like how Sister Quan and I care about you? That is really important, you know?"
Daww, she's blushing. "Still need to have a party. I'm telling Sister."
Adam couldn't help but chuckle as the little one ran off to tell the others that he had 'hidden' his birthday from the rest. Truthfully, time slipped by so easily that Adam had to have others or technology help him remember dates, anniversaries, and so on.
But as he watched his little disciple begin to order around the guards not currently cultivating, to set up a 'Birthday Supper'... well, that small part that missed his other loved ones felt a little less painful.
He turned back to the mess of the Yin Yang Cave, feeling far more relaxed... and blinked.
All that damage had destroyed Rockette's additions and restrictions... and Soul Water was flowing from the strange mess in there.
A lot of it.
...Now that he thought about it, didn't Soul Water come from the Yin energy pool plus some 'other' energies?
It took moments for Rockette to convert the mass of mess into spiritual energy, store it away, and move the core concepts of the Yin Ice Pool and the Yang Magma Pool into a massive pond... full to the brim with Soul Water.
And...
And.
Balance.
The Soul Water created currents and flows, with the Yin pool shifting to the top and the Yang pool sinking below. Hot currents of energy would clash with the Yin pool, cool, and flow away to the edges. Cold currents of power would sink to the Yang pool, warm up, and rise up towards the surface.
While the currents shifted, it both generated new streams of Soul Water... and consumed other streams that were too cold or too warm. The flows of the water created a never ceasing pattern, a shifting path of change and conversion...
The ice in the Yang pool vanished, shifting into more of a white energy glowing stream.
Below it, like the depths of the sea, the Yang pool stone fragmented into a black gloomy hard surface that seemed to be bottomless.
And betwixt and between, crystal clear liquid swirled... pulling and pushing white and black streams of energy that became more and more clear.
A soft mist of Soul Water filled the room... but it all seemed to be settling... No, even reinforcing the cave. It was shifting the material of the crystal walls, just like how the Yang pond had melted the stuff into goo and the Yin pond had nearly frozen the area.
A thought had duplicate Yin and Yang pools form on the left and right side of the cave... and the change in their behavior was noticeable.
Before, the Yin pond would actively damage anyone not female who even got too close to it. And Before, the Yang pond would slowly consume the surfaces it touched into glowing red goo.
But with the stabilized Yin Yang cycle dominating the cave... the two seemed stronger. More stable.
Now, the Yin pond was a milky white color... a reflection of the moon.
The Yang pond had drastically shifted from a red glow... as the red magma hardened into a black surface that radiated heat. It was now more of a meditation platform than a 'relaxing, melt your body off' bath.
Huh.
Adam cautiously moved forward.
The Yin Yang cycle just... pushed everything away. It was self reinforcing, and already Adam could feel that Rockette no longer needed to force it to be stable. The Soul Water mist on the other hand felt far more pure and powerful than before... It was slowly dominating this cavern.
Even as he moved toward the Yin pool, he could feel Rockette adjusting the Soul River Cave to duplicate the production method here, stealing the tricks shown by the Yin Yang cycle to not only increase the liquid production rate but raise the quality of the final product.
The Yin pool was...more shallow. If Sister Quan and little Tianshi meditated here again, it would only be a few inches deep... but the conceptual nature was astoundingly improved from before. Far more pure, closer to some ancient state, some higher level.
It didn't attack his presence, his nature... but he felt no draw to the silver surface.
Yet the Yang platform called him.
That surface was hard and warm, but not painful. When his steps touched that black surface, a strange other worldly heat soaked into his clothing, bathed his skin, and began to soak into his muscles and bones.
His Cultivation Cells LOVED it. Stress and tension he hadn't even recognized just... fell away.
Without thought, he moved to the center of the black stone and sat in meditation.
Adam was never really balanced.
He had always moved forward into things he found fascinating.
Oh he tried to cover flaws, build up weaknesses... but in his nature, in his core being, he was someone who sought extremes.
This Yang Platform was a form of his extreme, one of the many steps in his path. Fire was in his name, was one of his first powers, was a heavy part of his life... and while he was never against the softer arts, the subtle options...
Well, the harder choices and bold moves had always been a favorite of his.
In a way, as he felt the energy soak into his inner Adams, he knew he could grow faster and stronger if he forced himself to understand and follow the Yin Yang Cycle, if he became more moderate and balanced, if he restrained his ambition with caution and so on.
...But would he be himself then? Or just a man trying to conform to what was 'best', or 'strongest', or 'normal'?
Somehow, as he slowly burned in blue fire on a black platform of pure male spirit and potential, that didn't seem to be his way.
His mind drifted as he fell into a relaxed state on the warm black stone.
...Could he cook an omelet on this thing?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan pointed again for Tianshi. "Look! Another one!"
The viewing dome was still a relaxing place for the adventure team, even if night and day were impossible to detect due to the heavy ash and cloud cover. Consequence of being so close to the continuous eruption, so oh well.
The near white liquid rock created enough visibility to see things though, which was nice.
His disciple pouted. "I... where!? Why can't I see them!?"
Her current guard chuckled. "Elementals, especially young ones like this, don't live long. They are side effects of huge energy explosions, and most will use up all internal energy moments after spawning. Only one in a hundred thousand live long enough to become stable."
Tianshi was staring at the strange shadows outside with determination. "But I've been looking forever!"
Sister Quan giggled. "You either have to be lucky or raise your cultivation level to improve your senses. Still, things should settle down as the area grows accustomed to the constant impacts."
The little one absently pet the snoozing whiskered dragon in her lap. "Did Master decide where we are going next?" Seeing the exasperation on her Sister's face, she waved. "I know, I know, can't go anywhere till this mess calms down a little. But still, where next?"
The older woman sighed. "Well, we are still talking about it. Our mission was a bust, since Adam absorbed the whole forest and didn't see a single 'Ash Blossom'. He is pretty sure that the strange 'flowers' reported were those odd ash patterns on the bushes, but they were just byproducts of the bush growth. Nothing conceptually useful and no actual material involved other than waste embers and ash... looks pretty though."
Most of the time, odd items like those tend to be useful or have some secret involved... not so in this case.
She watched the chaotic flows outside. "Since wandering around here would just be a waste of time, we are checking the nearby maps to see if there is anything interesting but unclaimed for the child to 'acquire'. I... well, I am trying to make sure whatever we take doesn't start a Sect war."
Seeing the child's confusion she leaned back in her chair. "Right, so... half the reason these places are unclaimed AND unfought for is because they are cumbersome, massive, hard to defend, and provide few if any rewards."
She waved at the mess. "This forest was well known, explored often... but in the end, it was just odd trees. No other Sect could absorb the whole thing and dump the forest into their own Soul Grid, or pull out a volcano and construct a Yang Platform. All they could do is send people to meditate and hope they learned useful stuff, or search around for more portable treasures."
The child's guard nodded. "Adam's ability to condense the landscape into a portable resource, one even capable of being embedded into one's Martial Spirit... wars were fought for far less."
Sister Quan grunted. "Don't remind me. That stupid 'Contusion Crystal'."
Hearing the other chuckles, little Tianshi pouted until they gave in. "The 'Contusion Crystal' was an unknown jewel found inside a stone skull hidden at the bottom of a lake. Two Sects discovered the fake fossil when an unrelated fight drained the liquid from the area."
Another guard took up the story. "After a truce, all they could determine was the odd object was able to absorb massive amounts of Battle Qi without change, thus it was 'Clearly' super valuable and important and everyone should fight over it."
Sister Quan grunted. "I won't talk about the casualties, and our own Sect managed to avoid most of the fighting, but it got stupid. Betrayals, traps, infiltrations... and no one knew what the damn thing did."
The guard nodded. "Eventually the casualties got so high that it was starting to become dangerous for everyone else. Some Sects risked being dissolved, others were forced to combine or abandon the area... eventually the nearby larger Sects stepped in as moderators, to settle down the conflict ravaging the area."
Sister Quan sighed. "A dozen Sects gathered together, spent a month studying the stupid thing... and one person managed to decode some half eroded instructions on the fake skull, exposing the control method and use of this crystal everyone was dying over."
The lead guard chuckled. "It was terrible." She grinned at the curious child. "It was a meditation assistant."
Tianshi blinked. "Huh?"
Sister Quan nodded. "Some people have problems concentrating or focusing on cultivation. This 'Contusion Crystal' was crafted by a famous past Master Cultivator, to teach his younger students how to properly cultivate."
...The girl blinked. "That... sounds useful actually."
All the adults chuckled, while Sister Quan shook her head. "Potentially, but no. All it did, despite absorbing the energy of over a dozen Saints and masters, was two things."
She held up her fingers. "First, it forced you to calm down. Second, it forced you to sit down properly."
...
What?
Tianshi waited. Everyone else was grinning. "Well? Did it put you in a trance to meditate or something?"
The Sister shook her head again. "Nope. Just... slightly relaxed a single target, and forced that target to sit down in a formal stance that hasn't been used in literal centuries. Only forced it once too, and was easy enough for anyone not a beginner to resist... so you couldn't even activate it during a fight or something for a surprise attack."
Another guard laughed. "It was VERY badly designed too! Despite thousands of people charging the stupid thing it would run out of power less than an hour later."
The lead guard chuckled too. "In other words, it wasn't storing unlimited power for some mysterious purpose, but was a bucket full of holes that wasted the power in a strange way that was impossible for those people to easily detect."
Sister Quan sighed. "So yes, compared to THAT mess, Adam's creations are BEYOND amazing. Just his Soil Grid and plant experiments are enough to set up a dozen Sects, ignore the insane thing he put together with the Yin Yang Cycle cave."
She paused. "Right, before I forget: Never tell anyone about Adam's Yin pool, Yang platform, or the Yin Yang Cycle pond. That would make powerful Sects from everywhere hunt him down."
One of the other guards snorted. "Not that it would matter much, other than being messy when the boy explodes them."
He wilted under the lead guards glare. "I mean, that would be bad and we shouldn't joke about it."
Sister Quan stood up with purpose. "All of that aside, let's take a break for now and get something cooking. We used up a lot of reserve snacks and prepared dishes for Adam's late birthday as it was, time to experiment with the new crops!"
Some of the guards groaned. They had ended up being the taste testers for hundreds of odd berries, fruits, vegetables and herbs by this point.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam was trying to be subtle.
It wasn't going well, but the point was the effort.
Right now, Rockette was... slowly shifting. Using the powerful spirit energies that soaked the exposed lava flows, she and Adam were trying to push her crystal form further and further away from the center of the ongoing explosions.
Without Adam having to catch on fire to do it.
Because otherwise, Adam would have to go out there personally, burn a few layers of conceptual self, and sprint towards any direction but here in a bid for safety.
And that would hurt.
There were TWO problems so far: First, lava striding was much easier when you had legs. And Rockette was (while a pretty crystal) still a rock. Adam was trying to cheat by using precisely controlled energy as a substitute while she tried to shift the local materials slowly.
Second, lava striding only worked while on lava.
And Rockette was currently bumping against the edge of the liquid material.
That SHOULD be good, but her body was still too close to the toxic clouds and waves of overly hot gasses that were constantly being expelled by the former forest.
So... this was all a work in progress.
With a sigh, Adam turned his focus over to the Soil Grid and the tests ongoing there.
Absorbing the Ash Forest had answered a few questions that 'Research' had asked and Adam couldn't answer. Such as how to force plants to adapt to impossible situations without instantly dying, which had vastly expanded Rockette's testing roster.
So now the Soil Grid had cells that connected to the Yin pool, cells that were nearly entirely composed of Soul Water, cells that were mostly rock extensions of the Yang platform... and all kinds of combinations thereof.
He had even begun to have vague thoughts about forming essential versions of the more popular elemental energies. They would be useful at some point, surely.
According to the Wuxing or 'Five Elements', there were five primary energies formed AFTER Chaos energy spawned Yin and Yang: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth.
Not exactly the 'Earth, Fire, Wind, Water, and Heart' from the kid show, these were used as... conceptual components that formed further essences or 'Ways to ideal concepts', or the 'Dao'. Like, they would break down into more and more specific energies like 'Swordplay' or 'Recoil' or whatever.
And while Adam was not obsessed about finding his own 'Dao', or 'Path that represents an Ideal Concept', in many Realms the '33 Daos' or '33 Heavenly Essential Energies' were fundamental to the existence of those places.
The top of which? Chaos, Ying, Yang, and the Five Elements.
That was a all a bit off track really... point was, Adam was considering getting a few energy sources put together to see if these new power instances could improve with exposure to this 'Yin Yang Cycle' pond.
That said, these things were odd.
Take the 'Metal' element for example: While theoretically this should include silver and mercury and all sorts of stuff, it mostly was formed from a golden color material. It was strong against 'Water', but weak to 'Earth'... Maybe because metal comes from the earth? And unless you counted rusting or something, water didn't do much to metal or metal tools.
'Fire' though, weak to 'Wood'? Strong against 'Earth'? Honestly, Adam felt that should be reversed... ah well.
Concepts didn't have to make sense really, they just needed to be enforced.
For now, Rockette was building up those five energies for future use. This location was currently a great source for 'Fire', 'Earth', and 'Metal' energies, and until it stabilized down Adam would take advantage of that. Free stuff is awesome, after all.
'Metal' would likely run out first, as most of the material being exposed with the lava was just more and more liquid earth, but the absorbed 'Fire' and 'Earth' would be useful.
'Water' and 'Wood' might be a bit tricky to collect, unless he finds an underwater forest... Note to Rockette: plant some Ash Trees in some Soil Cells filled with Soul Water, see if we can force that to not instantly explode or something. Those trees were impossible to begin with, they could probably adapt to any odd soil if steps were taken.
Anyway, Adam honestly wasn't sure there WERE oceans on this plane. Then again, it was possible (due to the stupid large scale of everything here) to find a freshwater lake larger than the Atlantic.
Hell, it was possible to find an entire realm of water inside a water fountain if you were lucky enough.
...Either of which, if found, he would have to be cautious to not drain before careful examination FIRST. Not many people depended on empty grasslands or lava hellscapes to survive, but if Adam stole the only freshwater source it could devastate any local society.
And Sister Quan would rant again.
Anyway, 'Fire' wasn't the same thing as 'Volcano', so he couldn't finish that job here. And he wasn't entirely sure that the Wuxing concept was the one being followed in this Realm either, although it DID fit the limited documents examined from the first floor of the Sect's pavilion.
Eventually he needed to find a way to solidify energies into a pure physical form. It would make condensing those new 'Essential Energy Sources' far easier if he wasn't smashing power together until it gave up complaining.
Like, he still WOULD if he ran out of ideas... but that was a risky (And fun!) last resort.
A quick thought, and a glance... The unattached energy caverns inside Rockette just continued their work in the background for now. Good.
Speaking of background work, only 'Research' was used actively now.
'Purification' had somehow attached to the boundary of Rockette. Anything that passed through her was cleansed, examined for harmful material, refined... Even moving around in here had long term health benefits at this point. It applied to Adam's recursion as well, so attacks would be cleansed as they pierced his bodies... free power, woo!
Of course, this 'Purification' applied to the spiritual energies being gathered and released from his Martial Spirit as well, internally and externally. Useful stuff.
'Growth' was also a passive now. The caves all applied this boost automatically... albeit in different ways. They helped people and animals cultivation grow, they ensured healthy crops and (In the future) safe child or animal growth.
And deep below, the energy caverns were using the impurities discovered by 'Purification' as fuel to improve both the quality and quantity of energy being stored in Rockette.
Only 'Research' really worked as an active ability now, though the trade off was clearly worth it. Although he couldn't force 'Growth' on something now, Adam could feel these powers acting as a... a young form of Concept within his Martial Spirit.
And if 'Research' also became more refined, a background process... well, that didn't seem to be a bad thing at this point, not if it was boosted like the other two abilities were.
Rockette probably shouldn't be able to converse with 'Research' so easily though, now that Adam thought about it. The ability was almost becoming a separate thing, in a way.
Meh, whatever. The changes were all positive as far as he could tell, so there was no reason to freak out every time something went strange or off in his life.
More fascinating was the odd vegetables Rockette found! Cabbage for example.
Over here? Normal. In that grid cell? Ash Cabbage. Pretty, but useless. Oh, and 'Ice Cabbage' could be used as an emergency water supply, although after melting the things it tasted... well, like cabbage soup. Watery cabbage soup.
Honestly, the more bizarre the tests got, the more useless and odd the results became. Who needed a 'Lava carrot'? Well, besides the Four Eye Flame Bulls, they loved ALL the flame, lava, and fire produce grown.
Mind you, most of that stuff was ACTUAL energy, not some odd color plant. Energy you could touch, even if it wasn't good enough to form the 'Sources' Adam desired.
Theoretically, the bulls shouldn't be able to gain ANYTHING from 'eating' the stupid things... but they did somehow. Could even leave bite marks in LIVING FLAME APPLES, with impossible marks just... floating there. Like a cartoon.
Conceptual consumption was strange.
Well... whatever. Back to the 'Subtle' attempts at running away from the constant flame explosions.
...Maybe set off ANOTHER explosion under Rockette?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan said no.
Then she put a blanket ban on ALL explosions for at LEAST two more weeks.
Which was really unfair. Explosions are like... super useful.
Like, not really recently, but... there were probably a LOT of times when a good bang was really, REALLY helpful.
Anyway, Adam was slowly getting the job done the slow, boring way.
Absorb material near Rockette in the direction away from most lava. Let the liquid push her forward. Repeat.
Sure, she was sinking further and further below ground. And yes, now the 'vision' displayed on the top floor was generated using spiritual sensing rather than just capturing the visual spectrum.
But Adam didn't need to burn up, progress was being made, and technically Rockette was well hidden... Like, SURE it was safe, but damn it, SO. SLOW.
So when they were far enough away to only char the outer layer of his skin, he stripped nude, launched his body outside, and hurled into the distance while his body radiated ever increasing heat.
It was only a few hours later, once he was safely away from the heat... when one of the guards mentioned that he COULD have worn clothing with his personal flames protecting them.
Which was a bit embarrassing.
He was just so used to the idea that being covered in fire would result in charred clothing, odd smells...
Anyway, now he was only traveling in constant shadow from the ash clouds rather than fleeing at high speed while resisting combustion. That was a VAST improvement!
He now wore some basic black robes with a hood, his body enhanced with Qi, and every step forcing his speed to nearly float over the terrain.
Each step heavily dropped the temperature... heat 'immune' or not, it felt great getting away from the now never ending fire storm. He unconsciously shifted more to the left as he ran.
He hummed. "This... this is far less annoying than riding that wagon. Why didn't we do this before?"
Sister Quan's voice echoed from Rockette on his shoulder. "Well, for one thing we had a lot of stuff to bring with us. Even if you ignored all the things in the storage rings, the Wagon had supplies for a camp to be established."
His Martial Spirit 'Dinged' again. Little Tianshi sounded happy to watch the trip from in there. "Everyone else had to sleep and stuff in the wagon between guard shifts. Not everyone can just run for days like you, Master."
Humph. Wimps. "They need to improve their constitution then."
One of the guards grumbled loud enough for the crystal to hear it. "WE could run that long, but not those we were guarding. And again, tons of stuff to carry at the same time too."
Adam chuckled. "Yeah yeah. Fight for ten days and live without water, yadda yadda."
The lead guard chuckled, her voice soft. "Well, aside from the contribution points spent on all those storage rings..." No clue how much he had spent, but it was a lot. "Well, if we literally carried you three, the wagon, AND the bulls... would it even be a journey?"
Sister Quan's voice was dry. "The epic tale of the Burning Sage and his gentle shoulder ride towards destiny."
One of the few male guards. "His vigilant trip into the unknown while being burped because he was a big boy and ate a large meal."
Tianshi was giggling, but another guard jumped in. "I'd find all this more funny if he wasn't so accidentally competent that we ended up being spectators for most of this whole trip."
Adam sniffed with arrogance. "I'll have you know that I knew exactly what I was doing easily 10% of the time."
Not really, he knew he tended to get distracted... but it got little Tianshi to break into loud laughter, so whatever.
The crowd would come and go, the travel speed was faster and less annoying than the wagon... but eventually the rest went to sleep as Adam just... kept going. Slightly that way now.
He could go back and take a nap inside Rockette... but it was nice out here. Almost three months stuck in one area makes all this freedom so tempting... sleeping, even in the comfortable beds provided in the caves, could wait.
His steps were smooth as he spread his domain up through the ash cover. The air up there was still tainted with energies from the distant volcano... how lovely.
...Wait, where the hell was he heading?
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam made breakfast for everyone and waited until they all had something on their plates. "So we are lost."
Sister Quan paused. "Huh."
He nodded. "Yep. Rockette floated in lava for a while, then I ran a long way with no guidelines or stars or whatever."
Wait. "Hang on, is it possible to determine direction via star guidance?"
A few guards blinked before the leader patted her mouth clean. "No, not really. There are a some tools we have that always point back to our Sect, and some locations have items that are connected to them... but the stars can shift patterns in odd ways."
Damn. Probably because 'orbiting' doesn't really work with a never ending plane for humanity. Not even sure that stars are actually massive orbs of flaming gas here either.
...Then again, he had felt... SOME sort of pull. Not a true calling, more an unconscious adjustment, as if the ground was ever so subtly shifted or tilted towards one direction or the other.
Adam sighed. "Well, we are somewhere. There is still cloud cover so I can't easily tell what time it is without using my Domain to peek through the stuff, and we are too far from any town for me to detect people."
The lead guard nodded. "We can use our Sect compasses, do some calculations, and we will know at least how far away we are from home. Then we can look at the maps, draw a circle that large, and... well, it would help make our guesses less worthless."
Adam blinked. "That seems... nearly not worth the effort."
She shrugged. "You can detect things miles away. The more complicated methods are really really annoying, I would rather have you head in a straight line until you detect a town or city and we can ask directions."
One of her guards chuckled. "Especially since we can all relax safely until we find someone."
Her gaze turned toward her subordinate, who swiftly went silent. "Meanwhile young Sage, I can use the time spent searching to put my people through some... remedial training."
Several of them gulped.
Adam chuckled. "Well, I guess exploring unknown lands comes with the job."
Sister Quan sniffed. "No, normally exploring unknown lands comes with being lost."
Meh, same thing.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Hours later, and he was sure.
There was something that pulled his attention. Out there, now slightly in that direction.
It was soft. Not a person, or some sort of Simmy designed draw, or even some strange spell or energy or technique... No.
There was just something... home like. Familiar.
His thoughts drifted as he ran.
It was... not like the Burning Sect or the Realms he visited in the past. This was more a new home, like a place he had just moved into but hadn't had time to unpack.
And the source was a kind of resonance in his skin. A song that was too soft, or a touch that didn't quite reach.
It was his tattoos.
They still pulsed with silver and black patterns, though the beat had grown very, very slow. It was mostly not noticeable to others, a sort of movement almost outside of view that made them glance back at his patterns every once in a while.
But these complex shapes had been growing in conceptual power as they constantly consumed the poisons, toxins, hatred, curses, and tainted energies being spewed by the Asura Stone spinning inside Rockette's secluded chamber.
They were true curse marks at this point. If not for Adam constantly forcing his Cultivation Cells to adapt and grow through contact and conflict with those dark energies, his flesh would have melted away weeks ago.
And now, something in those curse marks were being called 'home'.
...How interesting.
Adam's traveling pace was unstoppable, as he crossed rivers, leapt over ravines, and flew up mountain sides only to dash down on the other expanse.
Was he worried? About that unknown call, that distant hum?
No, not really.
The curse tattoos were not all evil or anything after all. Full of resentment, hate, and rage generated from godlike beings that slaughtered each other endlessly, sure... but the power itself?
In much the same way that Life is not pure generosity or goodness, Death is not pure selfishness nor rampant hatred. They were connected, a process, a cycle.
Poison, while bad for those attacked and utilized by those attacking, also protected.
Nature was full of fragile animals and plants that could only survive by killing those who would prey on them, giving up their own life so that their children and fellow species could, through elimination if nothing else, live longer and with less danger.
Deadly creatures that made themselves bright, attractive, obvious... a desperate attempt to say, 'Notice me! And then leave me be or perish.'
Not done deliberately, at least not back on earth. Here? Cultivation and concepts allowed people, plants, and materials to develop towards ideal goals. To alter themselves on a fundamental level.
He blinked as he dove beneath a branch.
Didn't that mean that delicious things became that way because they desired to be tasty?
...Did food here actually have a vore fetish?
Damn it, this is why thinking was bad. Now he had to worry that his pancakes had an odd sexual attraction to the 'most important meal of the day'.
Like... crap. If he was wrong, then who cared, but what if he was right?
Damn, and he couldn't talk to anyone about this because either everyone already knew and were fine with it, or they DIDN'T know and he would give them a sudden, life long, unavoidable mental trauma.
Right.
From now on, ALL food was coming from Rockette's Soil Grid farms. In fact, forget cultivation, THIS would be his focus. He had already been worried about his cabbage screaming or something when he had a sandwich, he didn't need a horny cucumber trying to tease him into making pickles.
More left now. He had to dodge... some sort of snake? Well, it was gone now, Adam had a good pace going and wasn't willing to stop for every Spirit Beast that tried to eat him.
...That would make HIM the fetish fruit in this scenario, right? But he didn't want to be eaten by random monsters or anything.
But... did the monsters KNOW that? Were they only attacking because they assumed humans desired to be eaten, since all vegetables did?
...No, probably not.
Adam stopped mid step, staring into the distance.
What. The. Hell. Was. He. Thinking?
Right, he had been running for like three days now. Or longer.
With a solid nod, he had Ghost Rockette consume his body as she dug herself a soft spot underground, a safe place to spend the night.
It was WAY beyond time for a good nap.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sister Quan blinked. "Adam?"
He was being cleaned by random blue flames, his left eye a dull ember, his black tattoo slowly pulsing over his pale, ghost like skin. "Oh. Hi." He nodded. "I sleep now."
She... moved out of his way. "Everything alright? We noticed you seemed to be... very focused."
The boy staggered slightly as he moved to his room. "Cursed Tattoos are guiding me. Should be fun. Also, don't eat food anymore." His body shuddered. "Don't ask why."
Well... that was concerning. "Are... Are you alright?"
Adam was... clearly out of it. "No, sleepy. Also, having strange thoughts about perverted veggies." He blinked. "You didn't hear that." A nod. "Now sleep."
She watched him wander away. Right.
Sister Quan turned to the concerned guards. "We need to let him sleep this off. I don't think he was actually eating or sleeping all this time..." Did he even take water stops?
The lead guard frowned. "I assumed he was taking short breaks during the other shifts... I will ensure his habits are tracked in the future."
She gave the armored woman a smile. "Thank you, that would make me feel far less worried."
A quick clap. "Well, it is technically time to start making breakfast. Someone will make sure little Tianshi doesn't wake him up?" Another nod. "Good, I don't want him getting out of bed until he sounds slightly less insane and paranoid."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam blinked.
Right, sleep was important.
His body was technically healthy, and theoretically sleep was optional... but clearly sleep still did SOMETHING useful, as he felt far less dull and bleary.
He wasn't even entirely sure what he had been thinking towards the end, all he had were some notes scribbled near his bed: "Don't trust the tomatoes" and "All pickles are perverts".
The messages were written horribly, like a drunk guy was trying to warn society about aliens but passed out half way through... only 'Research' made it legible.
Side note, 'Research' had presented some results that... he didn't really remember asking it.
Both a detailed plan about how to raise animals without encouraging sexual deviance (What?) and a list of what seasonings would be most useful to produce here in the caverns.
...Well, at least half that was useful. Not that he spent a lot of time thinking about the sexual freedom of animals normally, but why should he care about the emotional or physical preferences when it came to lunch meats?
Uh. Best not to think about it.
He blinked as he exited his crystal bedroom, the sunlight catching him off guard. Around... noon? Maybe early afternoon? Huh.
Sister Quan looked at him with a... slightly worried smile. "Morning! Do you feel better now?"
Adam blinked. "Uh... yes?" He stretched a bit. "Something about being outside, free to run, and feeling that distant pull... it really put me in the zone."
One of the guards finishing her lunch looked up. "Pull?"
Adam accepted a plate of food, some absent thought trying to get his attention as he began to eat. "Mmm. Yeah, The poison and stuff in my tattoos has been looking for something." Another bite, but he pointed to the... whatever direction that was.
Did the sun rise in the East? Like, it didn't actually orbit, but did society all agree which direction the sun should travel?
A cough made him refocus. Right, the pull thing. "Should be fine as long as everyone stays inside Rockette, but there is certainly something over there that is calling the Asura Stone's energies."
Sister Quan sighed. "The same stone that created an underground pit of zombies and poison?"
He pointed again with a grin! "Exactly! Should be interesting."
A couple of the guards exchanged glances. "Sir, do you think the area pulling you is also poisonous?"
He blinked. "Probably?" Well... "Now that I think about it, maybe not. My tattoos are full of curses, rage, depression..." Seeing their expressions, he coughed. "But yeah, probably the area will be poisonous. Yep."
The lead guard hummed. "Well there are only a few places near the Ash Forest considered famous for poison. Death Rose Valley, which is closest to the mission site. Corpse Bog, a fairly famous swamp. The Twisted Mountain, though if THAT is where we are going, it will be a long trip..."
Another guard grumbled. "I heard the Miasma Glade killed a few people recently, so it may be acting up again. And there are a few graveyards and battlegrounds that are constantly full of undead, but I doubt any of them are significant enough to call the Young Sage over any sort of distance."
Sister Quan sighed as everyone began to finish their meals. "Which of them are most unlikely to be useful or interesting?"
The female guard chuckled. "Probably Corpse Bog or Miasma Glade. Though I don't know what could have made the Glade to begin killing again."
She sighed as she moved even MORE food onto a surprised Adam's plate. "Then we are probably heading to one of those. Have any details?"
One of the other guards glaced at the leader who nodded, and spoke. "The Bog is just a huge swamp. Few trees, a few bushes, but mostly a gray moss and murky water. All kinds of snakes and submerged Spirit Beasts, the moss itself has dangerous spores, the water is... not healthy. The dead tend to rise fairly easily there."
She continued. "As for the Miasma Glade, it is a bit more mysterious. A small shrine to an unknown god, and a purple mist that fills the area. Touch it and it has different effects, depending on the person and the time of day."
Another guard chimed in. "Heard about it from a Sect member. Early in the day it simply confuses and redirects people to be lost in the area. The Mist acts like a mild sedative and causes many unprepared people to fall asleep near the shrine. Don't live long after that."
The original guard frowned at her. "Yes, but the other effects are worse. Flesh rotting, incoherent rage and self mutilation, corrupted energy infusion... And worse, new effects can happen at any time."
She glanced back at Sister Quan and Adam. "As for the temple, no one who planned on opening it has managed to return. The one witness who avoided entering himself went mad, refused food and water, and eventually died screaming."
The woman pointed at Adam. "If we are going there, NO ONE ELSE can go outside."
Sister Quan jerked. "I should say not! That sounds horribly dangerous!"
Most of the guards snorted. The Lead actually chuckled. "If it is the Young Sage, he'll be fine."
Adam quickly finished his second portion before a quarrel could start. "WELP! Best get back to running!"
His female Sect friend blinked. "Wait, we aren't finished talking about..."
RUN AWAY!
