Xe Dian felt her body shift... and woke fully.

Blinking wearily, she felt a blanket fall off as she moved on a... chair?

A distant 'BANG' made her focus. "THE FIGHT!"

An absent voice answered her concerns. "Not really much of a fight."

She blinked... Right, the strange boy and his mystery guards. She felt her body relax slightly as she looked down at the blanket. "Is this yours?"

He nodded. "Sister Quan saw that your stress from battle and the shock from all that Soul Water trying to heal you was making you go into something like a healing trance. Drinking more of the..."

The blue hair child paused. "Point is, your body badly needed sleep. She's the one who gave you the blanket."

...And she HADN'T woken up when a stranger got that close? She clearly HAD been out of it. "Well, I'm still grateful. How goes the battle?"

Brother Adam pointed towards the distance. "The wolves are dead, and your Sect brothers and sisters are receiving lessons from my people on how to dismantle the bodies. Well, the ones mostly intact. As for the Vine Lion, that's still going on over that way."

...The black armored fighters had clearly drawn the fight much further away from the defensive caravan, and even from this distance she could see shapes dodging and random bright lights. "How... How long was I asleep?"

The boy shrugged. "An hour or two? Honestly, the fight would be over already if my people were allowed to fight without restrictions." He glared at... was he STILL drinking tea!?

...He took another sip. "Bluhgh. Anyway, that lion is one of the first Spirit Beasts I've seen in a long time that is part plant. My guards are trying to either subdue it for examination, or kill it with as little damage as possible... Meh, whatever keeps them busy."

She watched him flinch after another sip... and pour out the drink into a nearby hole. One presumably formed from the past samples. Huh.

She stood up. "Right. Rest or no, I need to get my people organized."

The boy nodded, even as he began to make another cup of test tea. "Take your time, there are no other Spirit Beasts for several miles and that test subject won't cause you problems."

Larger Sects sure looked at the world differently, huh?

Over the next two hours, she got things sorted. Thankfully her younger Brother and Sister Sect members were distracted by the nice, high level guest Cultivators teaching them how to harvest the Beast Cores, edible flesh, and craftable components from the (MANY) wolf carcasses... not having these wide-eyed, fresh face younglings underfoot was a massive relief, honestly.

The merchant clients were all VERY happy to not be consumed and lost to the wilderness, but it took time to dismantle the defences, recover what merchandise could be salvaged from the frantic defense building, and try to settle the beasts of burden.

Yeah, the Serpent Horses were NOT happy... getting them to calm down enough to hook back up to the carriages took hours alone!

By the time the caravan was prepared to move, she found her young Sect fellows had finished their impromptu class and was being led through some meditation exercises by a young looking lady. "Hey, thanks for taking care of my people. I'm Xe Dian."

She smiled and shook her hand. "Sister Xiao Quan. It's lovely to meet you. I'm sure Brother Adam mentioned me."

Right, blanket lady. From her spiritual senses, she wasn't even at the Xiantian Realm yet... possibly a younger member on a quest like her own ducklings were. "A pleasure. I can't thank you or your people enough for helping our people out of a dire situation."

Sister Quan chuckled. "If you want to settle the score easily enough, could you introduce me to your clients? Our team has been traveling in the wilderness for a while, and we need ALL KINDS of supplies and some such." Gesturing at one of the piles of wolf pelts, she grinned. "Hopefully they may wish to buy some of these materials as well."

Sister Dian snorted. "Well, hope away. The whole time I was trying to wrangle the group together I kept getting requests to talk to your people... if for no other reason, than to buy the fresh meat. We've been eating dried rations and travel bread for weeks now."

Sister Quan got... an odd look in her eye. "Interesting... tell me, would you say they were willing to be taste testers for some fresh but odd food Adam's been growing?"

She blinked. "What?" Hang on. "This isn't like the tea thing, is it? I won't have my people or those under my guard be experimented on."

Yes, that was a shifty look. "No? Only Adam eats the poisoned stuff. No, we have a whole lot of odd fruit, strange herbs, and unusual vegetables... a LOT. Other than the high spiritual energy levels, they are completely safe to consume."

Her eyes narrowed. "Then what is the catch?"

Sister Quan slumped. "The taste. Ranges from bland, to super spicy, to sour, to... anything. I've been using our guards to help us study and categorize stuff, but... but there is just so much to check! Most of it isn't enjoyable to eat, no matter HOW good for cultivation it may be."

Hmm. "No odd side effects?"

The other woman snorts. "LOTS of odd side effects, but those are easy to detect and we have Brother Adam eat those. He also eats the poisoned ones and the more strange stuff, like the fruits made of fire or water."

What?

Seeing her expression, Sister Quan pulled an... apple? Or an odd mango? It looked like blue glass. "This is one of our more valuable discoveries when we examined our produce. No official name yet, although Adam's disciple calls them 'Wapples' since they are water apples. Feels like gelatine or jelly, turns into liquid water when warmed up in the mouth."

She looked at the thing. "Adam had to eat it first, because we have a similar fruit that looks almost the same and is made of some sort of acid." She frowned. "He still eats the acid ones. Says they are 'tingly'." An eye roll. "Boys."

Sister Dian blinked. "May I?"

Accepting the Apple, she examined it. Slightly cool, an almost rubbery texture when squeezed... no 'leaking' to the touch. A cautious bite... almost instantly her mouth was full of crisp, clean water... with maybe a hint of fresh apple taste to it. Very lovely!

Her mind raced.

A plant (bush, tree, or otherwise) that could produce these? A harvest of potable portable preservable water? SHE wouldn't mind having a few on hand, and the caravan would surely see the benefit.

Moreover, something was off about it.

She nibbled near her last bite mark... and her mouth filled with water again.

This water was... sort of compressed. Not physically, it almost stored itself in a twisted way inside itself... one bite was MORE than one mouth full of water. "This is amazing!"

The other woman nodded happily. "It may be one of the more normal results of Adam's gardening, but I think it has the most potential for trade!" The woman glanced to the side and whispered. "So, willing to help me meet a few people?"

Storing the rest of this... 'Wapple' in her own storage ring, she nodded. "Alright. And... you say the other types of food are less... interesting?" A nod. "Then I am willing to have a minor amount of taste testing. But only if they volunteer. And I must observe it all."

The fact that she herself knew some techniques to determine if food was safe to eat? Well, no reason to tell anybody. Trust but verify, after all... the safety of her people was paramount.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam was trying to be patient.

Sure, he and Rockette MIGHT have redirected an attack or two, and MAYBE used some Momentum Redirection through his Domain to alter a few vine attack trajectories... but he mostly stayed out of the fight.

Sitting here.

Wasting damn time and poisoning himself.

Yes, he could just rip the lion's head off. Or drain it of energy, causing its body to die from shock. Or move at high speed and crush the damn thing.

But his guards had asked to help out, and so he would just... nudge things a bit.

After all, even though his guards were very powerful, normal Spirit Beasts battles had consequences. Deaths were near zero probability here, they WERE professionals after all, but with a beast this strong? Major injuries were expected.

Not that Adam would tolerate it.

Another 'nudge' gave one of the guards time to dodge, her form a near shadow as she carefully retaliated. Capture or 'clean kill' were both far harder than just wiping a monster from existence, after all.

He himself was trying to focus on the tea thing.

It had developed into a little hobby at this point, the taste testing and such. Something that didn't require thinking about, and was achievable while flying backwards during travel. Not like he could do much experimentation or tinkering... but only minor wind redirection was needed to ensure safe tea drinking conditions while moving away from scary swamp land.

Right now though? He was using the tea drinking to help distract himself.

For some reason, just letting other people fight? NOT jumping in, slapping stuff around? Way harder than he expected.

Adam forced himself to move slowly as he measured more dried leaves.

Had he always been one to just... leap at everything?

...Yeah, probably.

He sensed a younger man from the merchant group move close. "Young Master?"

Blink. Right, he did sort of show up and save everyone. Respect still caught him off guard though. "Yes?"

The young man was older than Adam and Sister Quan... but his attitude made it difficult to consider the guy as an adult. "I overheard your female companion mention that you were interested in trading for odd plants." He moved a wooden box onto the tea table.

As the case opened, he saw a grid of small wooden dividers... and a number of oddly shaped seeds. Cubes, spirals, and more... with colors of all types!

The man grinned. "I may have a bit of a personal collection. Told my wife they'd be useful some day."

Adam grinned as he placed the smoking cup to the side. "Tell me more."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam over paid.

Adam over paid by a LOT.

He knew it. The merchant knew it. The guards and little Tianshi inside Rockette knew it. Sister Quan didn't know it yet, but she would find out at some point and Adam KNEW he would get some rants.

It didn't matter.

NONE of that mattered.

Rockette had over a hundred new seed samples, and they were genetically AMAZING.

Because the man wasn't a farmer. He sold advanced, very expensive ovens. Custom designed with rare materials to ensure better results. Bulky, annoying to move, yet powerful and well built.

Adam bought ten of those too. And yes, he knew he would get a rant about that at some point, even if Rockette had already installed them in the Crystal Caverns.

Anyway, back to the point: This man did not buy and sell plants or seeds or saplings.

It really, truly was his personal collection. One his wife nagged him about, one that he treasured, one that he spent far too much money constructing and way too long searching for new items to include.

A labor of love, to the point where even with the extreme prices being offered... the man refused to sell the entire case. It had taken convincing, money, and offering a few rare seeds produced by the Soil Grid Gardens... and in the end, Adam only got one of each seed.

But for Adam? One seed was enough.

Adam had gone to one of the wagons, paid to be a passenger, then zoned out as he meditated. To the point where Rockette had to handle moving people in and out of the Caverns, and ensuring Sister Quan could access the funds and deposit whatever she was buying.

Adam however, was focusing within.

Rare plants are sometimes considered the lifeblood of Sects, a reproducing treasure that requires far less work than rearing Spirit Beasts, and far safer to boot. Some of the more rare trees or bushes were protected so tightly outsiders weren't sure if they even existed.

Seeds in general however, are cheap. Dirt cheap.

The reason why? Near impossible to grow.

Every plant needs certain things to flourish. Specific temperature ranges, humidity levels, soil moisture content, mineral content, shade patterns... even one being off could kill the more delicate greenery.

But conceptual plants? A billion times more complicated.

Sometimes this plant would need to be grown near a particular metal. Or be burned to ash at a specific moment in the growth cycle. Or eaten an unknown number of times.

Worse, what if a seed needs to be planted in a place full of hate? Or in the corpse of some other, older plant? This was a conceptual plane after all, it was entirely possible that the length of the planter's name might affect the result somehow.

It was why this man's seed collection had so many samples of each one, and why he was (reluctantly) willing to sell ANY of them: a cultivator needed dozens of each seed sample to ensure at least a few may grow to some extent.

And if it was a rare plant? Hundreds, maybe thousands of seeds... still might not be enough.

Adam watched a new cavern inside his Martial Spirit form, filled with a duplicate Soil Grid. His energy levels plummeted, then Rockette's excess stores began to fall... as he substituted power to ensure speed of completion.

Because this whole cavern, so large in scope and so distant in scale?

This was JUST for experimenting with one. Single. Seed.

His body slowly grinned a demonic smile as he forced more and more Soil Grids into new caves, uncaring about the enormous energy expenditure as he required the Soil samples to duplicate far faster than the default rate.

It wasn't a waste. After 'Research' finishes the various tests, these growth chambers can be sterilized and used again. Before, he was allowing Rockette to use a single garden for the various tests mostly because the test materials were generic stuff from the Sect or the wild.

Nothing neat. Nothing cool.

As he made a few dedicated caves to continue to grow the many successful food combinations already discovered by his people, Adam winced. Right, maybe that was TOO much of an energy expenditure.

He would have to make do with only seven Soil Grid Growth Caves.

For now.

Eyes sparkling, Adam ignored the world as seven massive fields of potential began to be planted with duplicated seed samples.

Seeds from a personal collection.

Seeds so rare, so impossible to grow, that Sects didn't bother to sell them or search them out... but belonging to plants so amazing, these worthless products cost a fortune to gather.

No wonder that dude's wife was pissed at him. It was like spending your retirement funds to buy moon rocks or paint chips from famous houses. A niche item collected by a strange fanatic.

Adam watched those so called 'worthless' seeds be duplicated and planted into soil types ranging from the mundane to the impossible. ONE of them would work. Probably.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Tianshi was watching her Master move the Soil Grid Garden... then make six more. "Huh."

Mr. Whiskers suddenly focused on one of the screens Rockette had set up. She blinked. "That one? Uh... Rockette?"

Ding!

Huh. It was a spiritual herb seed called the 'Elven Forest'. Rockette of course recorded all the details that the gushing merchant had mentioned over each sample, but this was an odd one.

It would theoretically grow deep underground, unseen by anyone... then in one night, become a dense tropical forest. All the roots were just part of this one plant, and the deeper an intruder would investigate the more valuable the materials within would be.

And the more dangerous.

The thing basically devoured plants in the area for samples, and produced a massive habitat for nearby animals and people. Their waste and byproducts from hunts or whatever would become nutrients for the forest itself. Due to the nature of the forest, and how it promoted harmony through subtle chemical means through pollination, most people considered it a harmless wonder.

Until someone tried to attack it.

Cut down a few trees? Nothing happened. The unused lumber would vanish into the forest as an additional food source.

Try to catch it on fire? The forest becomes a death trap. Safe water becomes deadly just before being drunk or gathered. Massive branches would fall on targets with unusual accuracy. Unseen pits would open. Footing became hazardous.

Wandering people would vanish.

It created the myth of secret elves hiding away from society, defending their home from any who didn't respect the trees... though if that was true or not, it was impossible to say.

Tianshi watched the 'Elven Forest' seeds being planted... and glanced concerned at the ones sinking into the more scary looking Soil Squares. "That... isn't going to make a haunted woods, is it?"

...There was no 'Ding'. Which was slightly concerning.

Another seed in a different cavern was suddenly being planted, drawing the concerned girl away from her thoughts. "Ooh! That seed is glowing! What does THAT one do?"

Ding!

...It grew a perfectly normal tree.

Upside down.

Roots up in the air, leaves under the dirt. The roots absorbed wind and air and stuff, the leaves acted like compost. Normally farmers would plant near the thing because the soil was healthier nearby.

...That was a bit boring. It didn't even have a fun name... just the 'Compost Tree'.

Lame.

Ooh! That seed has tiny wiggly bits on it! Neat!

AWW! Why did Rockette change the display screen? Go back to the wiggly plant!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

There were too many seeds.

Adam knew, intellectually, that he couldn't dedicate all seven gardens to just research. But emotionally, he wanted to science so hard! All that raw, juicy science, right THERE!

With a sigh, he moved on to gathering a preliminary overview.

The concept was simple: Staged testing. Get SOME data to drastically reduce the testing requirements, maybe allow Rockette to test two or more seeds at a time on one field.

First test: Which Soil Grids can make these seeds germinate.

These things are fickle, but it was easy to determine whether or not a seed was TRYING to grow within an hour or less. Visually, not much changes... but the seed's attempts at absorbing spirit energy was obvious.

There were 131 seeds Adam got from trade, and most only could grow on less than five Soil Grid garden plots on the whole, massive grid. Rockette could match up seeds with vastly different requirements so that one Soil Grid Garden cave could test several at once.

It helped a little... so far the best combination was a group of really fickle seedlings, eight of which could be tested at one time on one Grid without conflict.

Still... the next stage would require time, no matter HOW optimized the growing environments were. He could get SOMETHING within a day or so, but since he had already promised Sister Quan to give the crops a bit of time... best let Rockette determine when to harvest.

Currently, he was able to detect around four harvesting phases using spiritual sensing: Initial budding, when the seed stops sprouting; initial growth, when the plant first matures but before fruit or seeds are prepared; initial production, the first time the plant produces fruits or seeds or edible leaves/roots (Sometimes more special than following harvests); and final production, the harvest just before the plant dies or goes into hibernation for winter.

Each of these stages could be detected because the plants suddenly absorb more or less spiritual energy, which was child's play for Rockette to track. Sadly, she had learned these tricks not by watching Adam's garden, but by watching the Pasture Caves.

Because the flame plants THERE were not being sanitized by Adam's paranoia every day or so.

Oops.

Anyway, it would take time to build up some base statistics on each seed, which growth periods to focus on, and how those stages of growth affect the harvested results. Once the data was gathered, it would take LONGER tests to find out what spiritual energies would produce what changes over which length of time... though 'Research' would make some useful estimated guesses to start with.

Adam frowned.

Now that he thought about it, even the original seeds and stuff from the old Soil Grid gardens could use these tests.

Rockette: Use two Grids to gather base data from our old plants, four for the new stuff, and one for the most promising results we stumble upon. When the old plant's data gathering catches up to the new stuff, dedicate all six fields to experimentation.

Ding!

Good.

Eventually, the Soil Grids would finish copying over and he could begin making more safely... Well, mostly safely.

For now, it shouldn't be an issue. Rockette took the emergency growth caves Adam had made back when he planned on building dozens of Soil Grids, moved them down to the Second Floor of the Crystal Caverns, and replaced the former location of those Soil Grid Caves with two new caverns: Food Caverns and Material Caverns.

Food Caverns had plots of land dedicated to each combination of plant, soil, and spiritual energy mixes that produced edible products determined to be 'successes'.

Material Caverns had the various trees (for lumber), cultivation enhancing resources (Don't add to your meatloaf! Not normal seasoning!), and odd, hopefully useful plants that produce tradable goods. Like the berries that light up when exposed to poison... could be useful to detect invisible attacks or someone trying to 'enhance' your food.

So now, after some shifting, the Crystal Caverns were now a bit different.

First level, the observation floor and/or the relaxation deck. Lots of seating, with a central spiral staircase/ramp when done with watching the outside world. Has some decorative plants and Soul Water fountains, pools, and other such features.

Second level, the production floor. Pastures for the Four Eye Flame Bull (Chickens?), with side caves attached for future farm animals. The Food Caverns and Material Caverns, set opposite to each other so no one makes a dumb mistake when going to collect something personally rather than have Rockette do the harvesting. And something that... well Adam hadn't asked for.

Apparently, Sister Quan and a few guards asked Rockette to make a Garden Cavern on this floor. Purely for relaxation and viewing nature, it was a shifting network of Soil samples, plants, and more that were determined not to produce anything interesting as far as food or materials for construction were concerned... but that looked pretty and smelled nice.

You know, without also attacking the mind or whatever.

Adam felt his focus wander the new cavern. Most of it had interesting flowers, some trees with pretty leaf colorings or the more odd wood bark patterns (Glowing, shaped like stars, etc). The cavern was large, Rockette was doing some energy manipulation to make the roof look like sky, the dirt paths and gravel trails meandered without point through the greenery.

...It was kind of nice.

Meh, it can stay.

Third level, the Habitation Floor. Cultivation Caves, the Yin Yang Cavern (With Yin Pool, Yang Platform, and Yin Yang Cycle Pond within!), Housing and Communal Areas (embedded into the circular walls of the main chambers), Workshops, and Storage (Food, trade stock, traveling supplies, etc).

Little Tianshi's 'Tree House' took up the ceiling of the Third Level, and expanded upward in strange directions since Rockette expanded the space as the little girl built up her plant based housing. The Martial Spirit was doing quite a bit of background work to make sure Adam's disciple didn't accidentally break through to the Second Level in her house expansion... some spatial manipulation might be involved.

The Soul Water river was moved like the Soil Grid Garden test caves and the Asura Eye Cave... no longer available to anyone inside the Martial Spirit, caves detached from the floors themselves, only reachable by Adam or Rockette. Same for the Energy Cavern Network, where purified Spiritual Energy was being harvested, gathered, cleansed, and increased.

His plan? Anything too dangerous would not be part of the official 'Caverns', so to speak.

Just... hidden away in crystal caves, only himself and his Martial Spirit at theoretical risk.

Shifting the caves around a little, Adam realized that the Asura Eye seemed... lonely. The black stone with its white eye was... just sort of drooping in the cave of pulsing poison and power.

Aww.

Alright.

Bouncing with eagerness, the eye blinked... and appeared on Adam's forehead.

Everything shifted.

Just... not in one of the normal directions... it all drifted... inward? No, he had just traveled to... uh. Not North, South, nor Southwest? More Dennis, or Denniswest?

No, that didn't seem right.

Anyway, the world was different now. His mind was easily connected to the small, fist sized stone relaxing on his forehead, the object itself rotating around and looking at... Oh.

Right, he was sitting in a wagon.

Because they had joined a caravan, his guards were fighting that interesting Vine Lion, and he MIGHT have gotten too excited about the new seed supply.

Adam stood slowly, stretching his muscles. Right.

Let's catch up with everyone.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan turned to the volunteer merchant group. "This is batch NC1v4! Please write down your thoughts, but eat slowly... sometimes the taste changes if you finish too soon!"

NC1v4 was part of the NC, or Non-Cultivator Series of produce. They may have low level spiritual energy within, but not enough to damage a healthy person with no cultivation base.

This was from batch 1, a vine like plant that no one could easily identify, and this was variant four, grown with a higher clay content in the soul and with strong earth aligned spiritual energy. Hopefully, the berries produced would taste more interesting.

Each time a batch was selected, she tried to process it several ways for the testing. Raw of course, boiled, steamed, juiced (In this case), fried, baked, grilled, and dried.

They already had a few good results from this level of thoroughness! One of the root plants that had previously been considered worthless gained a strong, nutty flavor when baked or grilled, Sister Quan had Rockette add it to the production caves almost instantly after taking a bite of it! The stuff made an amazing crumble topping for pastries!

A glance to the right however made her want to groan.

These Frosted Tiger Sect cultivators were... far less useful.

Another wave of 'Ooh!' showed that the C2v14 fruit was being distributed.

Their opinions were just... useless.

It didn't matter what the plant tasted like, or what the texture changed to, or how large or small the product was... to the cultivators, they only cared about one thing.

Spiritual Energy Density.

Which, while important, wasn't what they were testing for right now.

After all, Adam could easily determine the best, optimized ratio of energy mixes to ensure healthy and rapid plant growth FULL of useful power for a cultivator to advance with.

That wasn't the point, as strange as that concept was.

No, they were trying to find the best tasting, easiest to absorb, least dangerous Spiritual Herbs possible so it could be introduced to the Burning Sword Sect for mass production. Eventually.

So getting a dozen cultivators saying how awesome everything is? Not that useful.

She held back a grumble as she reached the first tasting station, belonging to a nice young lady. "This root is primarily plant and earth aligned, with minor amounts of colder spiritual energies. How was it?"

The girl looked up with wide eyes. "It is amazing! WAY better than the cultivation pills I get per month, and easier to absorb energy from!"

She nodded. "And what about the raw version? Or the juiced root?"

The child seemed far more hesitant now. "It was... nice?" She looked a little green. "Yeah, it was fine."

Sister Quan wanted to grab the kids shoulders and shake her. "You don't HAVE to say that for all of them. Just because you didn't like one method of spiritual root preparation does NOT mean that we will make you leave the taste testing."

The child seemed to hold back something, looking sick. "NO NO! I love the... juiced... root."

Oh god, she was trying to force herself to drink it, even looking like that.

Sister Quan gently took the samples away. "I am working with Sister Dian, and neither she NOR I wish you to force yourself to consume something you do not like."

Damn, she looked like she was going to cry. "But... but it is the best cultivation resource I've ever had! I need to be a good cultivator, I can't say no just because it tastes like... like that!"

She winced. Bad memories from living in the orphanage, where even in the good years getting a powerful cultivation pill or herb meant suffering through hardship for even the chance of improving one's advancement.

Sister Quan gently hugged the girl. "Don't worry, we have LOADS more herbs and spiritual plants that need testing... this isn't even a fraction of the stuff to be tried, don't force yourself to suffer like this."

She quietly tried to settle the emotional child. "Right now, you are helping out your Sect AND our own by letting us know which methods these new, never previously discovered resources should use when during preparation. If you force yourself to accept a terrible method, it may force your future friends and Sect members to use those preparation styles as well."

Seeing the horror, Sister Quan chuckled. "Now, please document truthfully which methods made C2v14 taste good, and which ones should be avoided. You won't be punished."

Getting the far less stressed child to nod, she moved on to the next tasting station.

...The boy was turning red.

Sister Quan wanted to scream. "Are you allergic to root vegetables?"

He looked shifty. "Mrnooo?"

She glared. "Are you sure?"

The boy drooped. "Mraybe."

Damn it.

~~~Broken Addventure~~~

Sister Dian felt the young man from the Burning Sword Sect move up next to her. "Done with your meditation?"

They watched the guards continue to fight the Vine Lion in the distance as he responded. "Yeah, for now. Managed to find one of your caravan merchants with a personal seed collection! What are the odds?"

Considering that merchants were weird people, pretty high actually. It was almost a requirement that the ones she got to know had SOME sort of odd collection. That one guy with the rock collection went bankrupt because he didn't have room for more merchandise since his wagon was full of gravel. "Anything neat?"

Brother Adam sighed. "Maybe? I gave Rockette the samples, but it will take time for them to grow."

She blinked. "Rockette?" Sounded like a stripper. In the distance, a guard managed to grab a vine before the beast disconnected it... yeah, the monster was being worn down pretty badly at this point.

Adam held out his hand... and that strange crystal Spirit Beast appeared in his hand. "My Martial Spirit. She's like a storage ring, so I get her to hold my stuff."

Her brain stumbled.

What?

She looked closer at the... happy looking rock. "What the hell!?"

Adam bounced the rock on his palm, her happy 'Ding!' ringing in the air. "Yeah, it's super useful when traveling." He pointed at his guards. "How long have they been fighting?"

Just... let it go. Powerful Sects had bullshit treasures anyway, how was this any more bizarre than that one girl who had a talking sword? THAT wasn't even a Martial Spirit, just some heavenly treasure that wouldn't shut up about stabbing people.

She focused on the fight. "At this point, the five are doing shift work. Every hour, the fifth one replaces the most tired member of the assault... been going on for a day or so."

Adam frowned. "That... that is too long."

He snapped his fingers, the resting guard appearing knelt before him. "Report."

The woman nodded. "Sir, the Spirit Beast has a stamina recovery ability and medium level regeneration. At the current rate of Qi depletion, we will successfully restrain the beast within two days, seven hours."

Glancing at the nearby former battle ground, still covered with blood despite attempts to cleanse the area... his frown didn't change. "We won't be able to travel for that long... won't the smell attract more monsters?"

A nod. "Two unrelated Spirit Beasts have already attacked since the battle has started, we have managed to handle both additional assaults... but the delay in the main offensive allowed the Target to recover significantly and slowed our progress."

He sighed. "Look, your main task was to delay the beasts until the caravan could recover and the defenders were healed." He waved at her. "Sister Dian is recovered, your job is done. Let me help."

The woman frowned. "But sir! Just... just another day or so!"

Adam sighed again. "If you FORCE yourself to decrease your time estimates, would it also increase the chance of injury? Or even death?"

A reluctant nod.

Adam walked forward. "Tell the others that I will provide an opening, nothing more. Then they can capture the beast."

She seemed relieved! "Thank you, young master!"

Sister Dian followed along curiously. "What are you going to do? The creature has strong skin and fierce attacks."

Adam grinned. "Between you and me? I have a little friend I am taking for a walk, and she wants to help out a bit." He hummed. "Poor thing was pretty lonely before we met, and really wants to make herself useful."

As they neared the conflict, one of the other guards appeared next to the boy. "Sir! We are prepared to assist!"

He nodded. "Right." And... then he paused. "Oh... new order, don't tell Sister Quan what I am about to do, don't want her freaking out about this."

The guard paused, her stance weary. "...About what?"

Adam glared at the still attacking beast... and then everything went quiet.

She couldn't move.

The guard couldn't move.

The massive lion was frozen in mid attack, its sharp claws mid air and tentacles mid swipe.

The strange boy grinned... "Asura Eye: Inner Conflict."

Something she couldn't quite see on his forehead pulsed...

And the massive Spirit Beast collapsed to the torn soil, quivering.

...No one moved.

Adam blinked. "Right! That should do it." He turned his normal looking face and blinked at everyone else. "Well? Capture it, please!"

Five shaken 'Yes Sir!' later and the monster was moved to Adam... and swallowed by a ghost like clone of his supposed Martial Spirit.

...What. The. Hell.

Adam clapped. "Good job everyone! Now, guard squad: Are you rested enough to continue or do you need to change shifts?"

The five knelt. "Sir, no Sir! We can continue duties!"

He nodded, turning and walking back to the camp, Sister Dian absently following. "New orders are to guard the perimeter, one to continue protection detail for Sister Quan, and another to interview the merchants AND the Sect disciples. I want a full list of merchandise for sale, NON merchandise that MIGHT be for sale, and any treasures the cultivators may be willing to trade for techniques, resources, or cultivation guidance."

"SIR!" And they were off.

Adam sighed. "Now... now I have a limited amount of time before Sister Quan returns to the others and either my darling little Tianshi spills the beans or the Head Guard reports on my actions. That is going to suck."

...Somehow, Sister Dian felt he deserved everything the other nice lady would be ranting about.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan tapped her feet. "Again."

Adam stayed knelt on his knees. "I will ask others when purchasing large amounts of materials when the amount spent is above 10% of our total funds BEFORE spending all that money."

She nods. "Why?"

He winced. "Because spending too much can cause us to be targeted by others, can cause the merchant to be attacked later by unscrupulous people, can damage future negotiations for other products. Because there is a difference between 'generous' and 'wasteful'."

The guards were keeping perimeter, only the leader and the two on protection duty watching nearby. Little Tianshi was chewing on one of the more interesting food results, a pinecone formed mostly of hardened tree sap that acted like sweet candy when chewed.

Sister Quan began pacing. "I'm not actually angry that you spent so much, especially as 'rare seeds' are not only more valuable in your hands but were on the approved purchasing list we talked about a few days ago." She paused. "Why am I annoyed?"

He sighed. "Because I didn't mention it to anyone."

She shook her head. "No."

A pause. "Because... uh. Because I reshaped my Martial Spirit's Crystal Caverns without warning people?"

Another shake. "No, it is your Martial Spirit, you can change it as you like as long as you don't inconvenience the people inside. Rockette was very polite about warning us when the caves moved around, it wasn't a problem."

Adam struggled... "I got nothing."

She groaned. "You decided to make a big purchase... then ACTIVELY DECIDED to turn around and LIE to me!" She gently smacked his bowed head. "That. Isn't. Right! I try to be very understanding, and I always point out things I think will help you... I can't do EITHER of those things if you act as if I am an enemy!"

Little Tianshi nodded. "It isn't mature to run away from your obligations."

He glanced at her. "You are like, eight years old. I'm like... super mature."

Sister Quan gave him a head pat. "Of course you are." She gently turned his head to look at her. "Now, when were you going to tell us that you were going to let that scary eyeball grow itself on your face?"

Oops. "FIRST of all, I just let it hop on for walkies. Because she looked all sad and lonely in her poison cave, and SHE isn't the one who poisoned my body, mind and Soul."

The woman had a dry expression. "Walkies."

He paused. "Yes? I mean, she gave me the puppy eye look! It was like... half effective, but it was there!"

Little Tianshi stopped licking her sugar-pinecone. "That 'Asura Eye' sort of broke the Vine Lion... what did you do with it?"

Sister Quan pointed at the girl. "GOOD POINT." The finger moved to poke at Adam. "What did you do with the scary, house size cat plant thing." She paused. "You aren't trying to breed it with our Four Eye Bull Cow/Chickens or something, right?"

He huffed. "No! The bulls are a couple, that would be cheating their relationship. Plus, I think the female Bull's fire would burn him if they tried."

Adam shrugged. "Since his mind fractured from the Asura Eye's attack, and we don't have a mating pair... Rockette is trying to plant him."

Everyone else paused for a moment. The lead guard raised her hand to gain attention. "Is the Vine Lion going to show up in the cave gardens? Brain dead or not, I do NOT want to leave it somewhere it can wander away from."

Sister Quan interrupted first. "No. First of all." She frowned. "WHY are you trying to plant the massive cat?"

Adam shrugged. "Well, 'Research' says genetically... the thing is over 70% plant material to begin with. The guy can live on water and sunlight with only minor issues, so... it might procreate through budding rather than intercourse."

Tianshi's guard hummed. "Should keep the guy fresh at least. If it doesn't work out, we can just butcher him for parts when the Sage gets bored of it."

Tianshi blinked. "Mr. Whiskers says your best bet is to cut off the largest vine hidden under the Vine Lion's spinal cord. That is the former plant stem it grew from, so if you can get clippings to grow from that you should be able to begin raising more of them. Well, more of the plant, not more Vine Lions."

Another moment as the group considered a garden harvest full of baby lions tethered to base plants. Adam grinned. "Rockette?"

Ding!

He smiled at the little girl. "Thank you, my little one."

She blushed. "Mr. Whiskers doesn't think there will be a huge success rate... it is rare when a plant based creature can grow long enough to become mobile like that big lion was. And when they DO manage it, they tend to eat all their brother and sister plants to get stronger first."

Adam grinned. "Easy enough for Rockette to handle." A plant that can produce animal meat? Sounded like a meat tree or meat vine to him!

Wait. "Hey... if the monster didn't need to eat us, why dominate that wolf pack and try to kill us all?"

The little one paused, Mr. Whisker's head emerging from her hand as they mentally talked. She nodded. "He says it was probably that wiggly seed you got from the oven seller. It's not the same species, but it has a low level psychic field that encourages other people to plant them, to help them grow, and to eventually submit to their will."

She looked confused, unlike the guards. "Not sure what that means?"

Sister Quan looked confused... before the lead guard whispered. She jerked back. "Tentacles!?" And... the two began whispering furiously.

Adam ignored everyone. Wasn't HIS fault the thing grew so quickly. Or that the guards in his Martial Spirit found it so hilarious.

At least he got Rockette to censor that video feed before Tianshi saw too much.

Her guard patted Tianshi's head. "I'll tell you when your older." Seeing Sister Quan glare, she coughed. "Much older."

Adam coughed as well. "So, that same mental field attracted the Vine Lion? Even as a seed? Scary."

Sister Quan had a pretty big blush but looked serious. "Warn the seller, I do NOT want to continue attracting every plant creature looking for a mate as we travel." She saw Adam's expression. "NO Adam."

Oh well, so much for a bunch of free garden samples. "Fine."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Xe Dian just... stared at the guard. "You are kidding me."

The other woman shook her head.

She had nearly died... no, her whole team and ALL her clients had almost died... because one guy somehow got ahold of some vine rape seeds for his personal collection.

Deep. Calm. Breath.

Killing the client is wrong.

Calm. Center.

Killing the client is almost ALWAYS wrong.

Peace.

...Maybe maim him?

She gave a crisp nod and turned in place to find the bastard. Barely willing to say anything, she pulled the man away from the others along with his wife, who had been part of the taste testing group.

A glare. "You have a seed collection."

The couple looked... concerned at her attitude. But he nodded. "Yes? I just sold part of it to the cultivators who saved us."

She nodded. "And you have, IN that collection, some 'wiggly seeds'."

His face lit up. "Ah! The 'Haunted Vines of Mystic Wood Paradise'! They were a... " He winced. "A bit expensive, and I had to trade several other things at a discount..."

His wife snorted. "Nearly made him throw everything out. Spending such a massive part of our budget on 'wiggly seeds' like that. Honestly."

Sister Dian nodded. "Good news! You get to either destroy all of those seeds or sell them today to Brother Adam. I vote for burning them."

His wife clearly didn't care, but HE did. "WHAT! WHY!?"

RAGE. "Two reasons. First? Those are rape seeds. They rape men or women to mentally dominate them. Then? They use their new slaves to spread seeds further, care for their new masters, or, and this is the fun part... To call potential Spirit Beast Mates, allow the hosts to die and be consumed, and allow the processed corpse left after digestion to act as fertilizer."

They both blinked. "What?"

She pointed. "Did you notice? You are carrying your seed collection. On your body. All the time."

He looked down at the leather strip holding a wooden case to his back. "What? Of course I am! What if I need a seed really suddenly?"

His wife took a step back. "Honey?"

He waved her off. "No, this is all silly. I just really enjoy my collection and like to keep it nearby. So it is safe."

His wife seemed hesitant. "You... you normally leave it at home though." She blinked. "Why... why didn't I notice how unusual this was?"

Sister Dian glared. "The longer you are in proximity without being aware of the danger, the stronger the mental hold it gets on you. Now that I know, I can resist it easy enough... but I think we have been encountering so many monsters on this trip because I have been 'encouraged' to head off trail so often."

God she felt humiliated.

The man's wife blanched. "Dear, put it down."

He... was hesitant. "Really? Are... are you sure?"

She touched his shoulder. "Love?"

Looking physically pained, he slowly placed the case down. "I... I can get the rest of my seeds back, right?"

Fuck no. "Maybe. If getting rid of that one sample gets rid of the mental effects."

...Even then, she was tempted to burn it all. Nearly killed her and everyone else because two plants wanted to get it on. God damn it.

She glared at the case as she carefully picked it up. "Where did you even FIND something this dangerous!?"

The couple were hugging each other, looking with fear at the innocent looking container. He gulped. "I... I thought I was pretty lucky. I had never seen something like that being sold at the Frosted Tiger Sect before... the seller seemed a bit sketchy, but I didn't distrust your Sect when our caravan had just applied for an escort mission."

She blinked... and glared. "Tell me more."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam watched the new Pasture cave, this one a garden with some massive green vines wiggling about slowly.

Rockette had found the optimal growing combination of soil, spiritual energies, and conditions... now there were dozens of Vine Lion spinal plant fragments being slowly grown in the area.

The women (And by force, little Tianshi) were avoiding the area.

Thankfully, unlike the rape seeds, these vines just wiggled. As far as their research could tell, growing a massive fighting Spirit Beast like the Vine Lion was actually an unintended side effect. In fact, two of the guards recognized the plant once Adam started some sprouts growing over here.

It was commonly known as the Steak Shrub. A rare bush, one that grew meat like fruit to attract carnivores to the area. The beasts would fight over the fruits, leaving blood and corpses from the conflict as fertilizer... all for the cheep price of a few delicious smelling growths.

The problem? If a monster fell ONTO the Steak Shrub while near death... There was a small chance that, if it should recover, the plant and the animal would combine and grow stronger. Basically, mutate into a new monster.

The resulting creature, in this case the Vine Lion, would eat the other predators, would (since it is now part plant) eat the other Steak Shrubs in the area... and then generally be an issue to the creatures in the area.

They could live longer with less food, they were less driven by animal instincts, their life span increased... these various 'Plant Beasts' caused more than a little local havoc on the wildlife.

It was for this reason that the Steak Shrub, while well known, was fairly uncommon to see or find in the wild... Even when disastrous 'Plant Beasts' DIDN'T spawn from them, animals and cultivators would hunt them down for their fruits or destroy them to protect the locals.

Considering how odd the spirit energy combination was to GROW these things were, Adam wasn't surprised that normal Cultivators were unable to move the things locally and raise them, no matter how appreciated they were.

Also, wiggly plants creeped people out. Didn't help that it was mentally associated with the rape plants in everyone's mind right now, either.

Seriously, Adam wished he had been warned better before sending that through the Soil Grid garden testing caves. God damn memories. And a few of the more socially experimental guards had seemed far too interested about Rockette trying to find a non-mind-whammy version of the 'BDSM Bush' as they called it.

...As long as he wasn't involved, whatever.

Seriously, he knew Sects did stuff that was embarrassing for outsiders to know about, some of the 'Dual Cultivation' methods listed in the knowledge pagoda seemed more like fetish material rather than actual cultivation techniques after all, but honestly.

He did NOT want to be known as the 'Burning Sage who brought Perverted Plants' to the Sect.

That kind of crap got you labels.

What was the phrase? Save a million people, that is great and all... but you have sex with ONE goat? BAM, nickname.

Adam, the guy who reconstructed all our cultivation methods. Neat.

The Burning Sage, created the Four Eye Flame Bull Chickens. Strange, but cool.

Vine Sucker: The dude who redesigned those rape vines. Nope. Nope nope nope.

With a wince, he mentally acknowledged that one day in the future, Narwhal would LOVE to have a small room with a 'safe' BDSM Bush. And that, him being the pushover he was, he would eventually genetically modify the desired plant from these horrible source materials.

But damn it, so embarrassing. And it was corrupting little Tianshi too! His little girl was sweet and innocent, and she wasn't even going to hold hands with anyone until she was over a century old and he approved of the other guy/girl/sentient radish FIRST.

Maybe not even then!

...His disciple might have a bit of an overprotective father figure.

He glanced at the wiggling tentacles. Each one had green bulges, like beads, growing along the length. Which wasn't helping the girls accept them as 'safe for work', honestly.

The bulges started off green, over time turned white and the size of tennis balls, then eventually (theoretically) became a bright red football sized meat lump. At some point.

Unlike normal plants, these thick tentacles grew up from the base, from the soil. The fruits produced were thus less mature the closer they were to the ground. Initially, these meat pods were also very sour, a defensive mechanism to encourage predators to only consume the mature tips of the 'lure'.

The majority of the actual plant was below ground, ready to consume any conflict generated gains gathered. Even if the whole vine is torn off, the plant would recover.

Thankfully, with the correct ratio and levels of spirit energy, these vines only really required Soul Water and sunlight. Though 'Research' DID find that providing some Fire Salt or other seasoning could affect the tastes of the resulting meat. Theoretically.

Something to test later.

Right now, there were only sour immature meat pods with wiggling tentacle 'lures' waving around in here. It was strange to think that a rare situation could cause these innocent plants to almost act like a necromancer, transforming near corpse meat puppets into powerful plant predators.

...Hopefully these things would taste good. The girls really didn't seem eager to butcher the (future) baby Four Eye Flame Bullchickens. Cowkens? Chickbulls?

Damn it, he was terri-bull with names.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Hmm.

Adam poked another Steak Shrub. The odd vine wriggled, the meat bulbs wiggling in the process. It would be a while before they could be harvested, the most 'ripe' pods were only at the white stage of growth.

Rockette had worked wonders with 'Research' again. She found a combination of spiritual energies that nearly tripled the growth rate of these Shrubs, which was extra impressive as any OTHER ratio of energies tended to stall or even kill the plants being watched.

So far, she had found three working patterns: The initial, 'normal' combination of earth, plant, and light energies; A second, 'rapid' combination of Soil, Tianshi's Green energy, and Binding energy; And this... 'WTF' combination... Decomposition, Life, Plant, Yin, Yang, and Binding spiritual energies.

The 'WTF' combination would NOT be used outside of Rockette's careful attention. Almost instant explosion if you were not carefully monitoring the stuff. It was NOT stable, even if it massively increased the 'natural' growth rate of nearly all the plants in the Soil Grid gardens.

Tianshi however was pretty excited that her personal Qi was so amazing to wildlife. Probably should have been self evident, considering how much her plant based Martial Spirit loved the stuff.

Anyway, with the 'WTF combo' being used exclusively, Rockette only had to experiment with the Soil Grid plots being used and the 'extras' added to the new Steak Shrubs.

This was one of the ones 'seasoned' with Fire Salts. Adam carefully moved one of the pods to the side... as far as they could tell, the extra ingredients got added to this protective liquid layer as the 'meat' nodes developed.

Carefully touching his tongue... yeah, Fire Salts seemed to be adding a liquid spice rub to the final product.

It lined up with the other experiments. Little Tianshi's 'Sugarcone' pinecones had already been ground up and added to that section of meat plants over there... they seemed to be producing a brown sugar like glaze, which sounded like they would be amazing. Hopefully there would be some caramelized meats in the future!

Especially in here, where there were no flies or insects to be attracted to the sweet sap sauce being produced.

Adam stood carefully, moving between the waving rows of plant life. Everything seemed to be going fine, as far as he and his Martial Spirit could tell.

Sure, some of the initial 'Seasoning' attempts didn't work out. Before Tianshi's Sugarcones, they had high hope for the Shrubs covered in 'normal' sugar, using the last of their reserves to give it a shot... it was pretty much ignored by the plants and made a mess.

Mr. Whisker's suggestion that they grind up the girls favorite treat however was a major breakthrough! Not only was it far more accepted by the Steak Shrubs, but the hardened sap candy treat was a fully renewable sugar substitute for the kitchens!

He chuckled. Being useful elsewhere didn't stop his little Disciple from using that as an excuse to fill her tree house with Sugarcone saplings. Her whole place had a slightly sweet smell now, and Sister Quan got pretty upset when the girl messed up her appetite before dinner.

Dinner, by the way, was MASSIVELY enhanced now.

The Frosted Tiger Sect members that guarded this caravan were VERY happy to trade with Adam's people... and much MORE happy that his group had so many new FRESH foods to share in return.

This meant that not only did 'Research' and Rockette have many more plants to test and grow, but that the resulting products FINALLY had a massive number of (willing) taste test subjects! They worked through the backlog at a mad pace.

Successes so far? Sugarcones was a quick hit, of course. Brine Melons, found later, not only provided an additional source of salt for refinement but was a flavorful liquid that made Spirit Beast meat taste even MORE amazing after a bit of a soak. Strange colored fruits that LOOKED like oranges... but had different flavor profiles, one which was VERY similar to lemon, another nearly identical to lime.

Also, the apples.

For some reason, apples mutated the most often and showed the most odd effects. Like the water apple, or the caramel apple (Kitchen loved them!), and so on and so forth. Adam had a theory that, since the apple showed up in so many creation myths, the fruit was more fundamentally adaptable and flexible due to the conceptual thoughts attached to it.

So there were a LOT of apples.

He wanted some more normal stuff too, but uh. Yeah, as far as food, water, and shelter were concerned? Adam was economically independent from the rest of the world.

Passing the Pasture caves, he grinned at the eager whispering from within.

The four eggs had hatched, which had caused quite a ruckus within the caverns.

The baby animals looked like short squished fuzzy piglets, with itty bitty horns, four eyes, bright red skin and fur, and that slightly too large head thing that most babies had going on.

The girls (and more than a few of the guys) loved them!

Adam himself had managed to sneak one of the babies away for a quick cuddle hug session. The things were super clean, barely needed to pee or poop, and were too young to fully catch on fire... so they felt like soft furry hot water bottles.

Tianshi already tried to take one as a pet, so uh... probably good that Adam wasn't planning on harvesting the things for food anymore.

Thank you, Vine Lion. Your sacrifice will always be appreciated.

...Shit, was that thing actually dead? "Rockette?"

Ding!

Oh thank goodness. NORMALLY ripping someone's spine out to harvest the goodies within meant passing on from this mortal coil, but this was a plant/cat/zombie thing.

Ding.

...Huh. So... it died from the collapsed mind, NOT from being ripped apart?

Plant zombies were scary things. High levels of cultivation made survivability pretty amazing to begin with BEFORE adding on top high level regeneration and durability.

A thought had Adam appear outside, back in the wagon his team had 'rented' from the caravan merchants. He stretched. "Report."

One of the on duty guards appeared to his right, knelt. "Sir. Four on shift report no attacks since the caravan has adjusted the trade route being followed."

Yeah, those wiggly seeds had been messing with a LOT of people. Glad the rest of the damn things were consumed into Rockette's care, even if he DID end up paying that oven guy more money. "How much longer till we reach the next trade stop?"

She glanced at her notes... wherever the hell THOSE had been hidden. "Three days at maximum speed, five days at current pace."

Well thank everything. "Anything to note?"

A nod. "The lead caravan defender, Xe Dian, may have been targeted by others in the Frosted Tiger Sect with this most recent attack. Unknown members within their organization or traitorous elements hiding within managed to sell the seeds responsible for the many issues she encountered to the merchant you traded with."

He frowned. "...I'm not sure I can do much to help. Not if I understand the culture of relationships between Sects, I mean."

A sigh. "Yes Sir. While within our Sect you may act fairly unilaterally, it is considered a family matter when outsiders are concerned. If she requests aid, officially makes a deal, or attempts to contact her higher superiors in an effort to officially open relationships with us... then you may act in numerous ways."

She shrug. "Otherwise, it could be considered an attempt at infiltrating the Sect or a similar style of immoral activity."

Adam was... not happy about this. "How serious was this attempt?"

The guard tilted her head. "Best case scenario, she could have left her customers to die and the Spirit Beasts MIGHT have stopped after acquiring the lure seeds. More realistically? It was an attempted murder of all the Sect cultivators, the clients, and the young lady."

No. Not happy at all.

He glared at nothing. "Since I shouldn't go stomp on a Sect just to kill a few roaches, what options DO I have?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Xe Dian held in a groan.

The caravan had moved quickly away from the bloody combat zone, and with those DAMN seeds now officially 'gone' she had quickly discovered that a number of the previous 'short cuts' so reasonably added to their route were all STUPID.

DAMN. STUPID.

At this point, she was concerned that she was losing her touch... mind manipulation seeds or no. Or maybe there were OTHER methods used as well to 'encourage' her odd actions.

She hadn't checked with her comrades before accepting the mission.

She hadn't questioned the (strangely) young Sect members being allowed on such a 'high profile' mission.

She hadn't wondered why such a 'high profile' mission was available with no competition or arguments, which was especially odd as that higher ranked sexist asshole had ensured even the most common jobs were fought over once she showed interest.

Well, either the fight allowed her to break free of whatever drugs or techniques were used on her, or the shock at finding (And removing) those seeds had helped clear her head... because the new trade route being followed DIDN'T aim towards horrible, deadly areas.

This was a DAMN good murder attempt. Or maybe they expected her to escape from the situation (she had managed so before, after all), and this was a social attack... have her be the only surviver, then rant to the Sect that her ineptitude got young children killed.

Honestly, she thought she had previously understood rage.

But she burned. Ice in her veins.

So. Angry.

Try to kill her? She was without social power, an orphan who fought for her steps with vigor and tenacity. Death attempts were common and accepted part of her lifestyle. She was stronger than them, and would prove so again.

No, her murderocity was being fueled because they were going to kill these (annoying, bratty) KIDS in the attempt.

Don't fuck with children.

It didn't come up often, but it WAS her bottom line. Bad memories.

Even killing the merchants wouldn't have pissed her off this much... this near blind rage.

The hot knife in her eye jerked when she noticed Brother Adam walking up. "Yes? If it is about the next tasting session, Sister Quan and I planned on waiting till the next rest camp..."

He shook his head... and she blinked.

Had his left eye always glowed like that?

Adam grinned, and... his teeth seemed a bit too sharp. His mouth slightly too wide... his eye glowed, even though the sun still shone above. "Sister Dian... I've been told you have suspicions."

Hold back the anger. "About the attack?"

A nod.

She grit her teeth and nodded back. "I know people with the power and motivation. I do not have proof."

The longer he grinned... the less human the boy looked. Was... was his skin pulsing? His smile was beginning to look unnatural indeed. "I assume that, even if you did acquire evidence, it would be less than useful considering how... talented your theoretical opposition has proven?"

Her face twisted into a scowl, and she checked... none of the kids were close. "Yes. Even if I had proof, the person is known for getting away with 'possible' rape and 'unprovable' murders. I've only resisted the other attempts through my years of social networking and being cautious."

Adam's eye flared. "Oh." Blue smoke drifted from sharpened teeth. "Oh my. That... that is not acceptable."

Thankfully she was used to the more... odd parts of the cultivation lifestyle. She bit back her anger. "Acceptable or not, I do not have the political clout to make the needed changes."

The boy hummed. "Is your Sect leadership corrupt? Or only a small section?" He gazed at her. "If it is an unwinnable situation, the Burning Sword Sect might have an open spot for those who defend the young rather than save themselves."

She honestly felt a bit touched. "No, it is only a specific Elder." She did air quotes. "Supposedly."

Ah, his deadly smile was back. "You know, I recently became fairly powerful in my own Sect." His fingers began flipping several... jade slips? "Tell me, if you gave massive contributions and rare knowledge to the Sect..."

Adam glanced at the Sect children. "If your fellow Sect members, during a single mission, managed to become more powerful and willing to tell everyone how you managed to increase their cultivation base and assist their training..."

A grin of nightmares. "How much political power could you gather?"

She responded in kind... Rage burning like frostbite inside. "If, assuming someone might be offering such assistance..."

The boy nodded.

Her thoughts drifted.

The near death moments. The sabotage. The lies. The scandals. And now, trying to kill children, annoying or not.

Do NOT fuck with her, damn it!

She couldn't, wouldn't promise everything in return... but she would trade a lot.

Her eyes met the boy with a blue flamed eye. "I'm listening."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan was looking at him again. "Well?"

Damn, it hadn't even been an hour! ONE of these guards was narking on him. "We just had a bit of a deal, signed a tiny contract. Nothing big."

She didn't seem convinced. "And?"

He shifted. "I didn't trade anything I promised to the Burning Sword Sect. Or to Big Fatty Lui, or the stuff I gave to the guards."

Adam gave a weak smile. "So uh. Technically it was just a few tiny jade slips. Nothing big!"

They were technically eating dinner, even though Little Tianshi and all the guards were watching the ongoing entertainment. The lead guard even had those berries that tasted like popcorn, and was sharing the Fire Salt toppings with his little Disciple. Traitors.

Sister Quan seemed to take a deep, centering breath. "Just... just give me the highlights. So I can feel less worried that the Frosted Tiger Sect will start farting lasers or something."

...Shit, that would have been awesome!

Seeing her glare, he must have shown something on his face. "HIGHLIGHTS! Right, highlights."

He coughed. "Well, like I said, we just had a bit of a talk or so, and a bit of a contract. In return for some of my resources..." Some Soul Water, a few of the tastier cultivation produce, and some spiritual energy stuffed cultivation circles for her and the kids... "She would provide me access to any and all cultivation methods and techniques that she personally knows and practices."

Seriously, he needed to find out how valuable Soul Water was to other people. It wasn't uncommon for a Cultivator to kill themselves rather than give away cultivation secrets, and Sister Dian nearly THREW hers away once he started listing the benefits.

He nodded. "Then I reviewed her methods and current spiritual network, wrote some methods to repair the damage done to her system and cure some old wounds she had, developed a customized version of 'Gentle Rebirth Body Cultivation Technique' that would kill anyone who didn't match her Soul signature..."

Seeing their expression he held up his hands. "I didn't want her sharing it! And I warned her first! This way if someone else tries to force her to share it, they get what they deserve!"

Sister Quan groaned as she leaned into the table. "Adam, you just... Eugh. Why."

He coughed. "Also I am going to train her brats and make custom cultivation plans for them."

She glared at the boy. Yeah, she heard that. "And in return? What is her half of this contract?"

Adam blinked. "Didn't I... I mean, I just told you, she told me her methods and stuff."

A groan. "WHY did you just boost her natural talent, fix past defects, and give a lifetime of benefits to someone you met a few days ago for basically FREE!?"

He shrugged. "She is being targeted by a powerful Sect rapist who just tried to kill all the kids outside."

The room stilled, other than a few guards who had been investigating. They were nodding to the others.

Sister Quan nodded. "I will extend the meditation classes with the children after their taste testing sessions. Please have their lesson plans ready in a day or so."

Adam took another bite of the pumpkin (But actually apple) pie.

It was good to have understanding friends.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Seeing Sister Quan finish her meditation session, he walked to the front of the class.

...Yeah, these kids were too young to be out here with this level of danger.

Adam forced the rock below to melt, rise into a compressed block, and stepped up to see them better. He was only 15 after all, not super tall either. "Good afternoon everyone! I am Chongsheng Adam. Please, call me Brother Adam."

Good, they seemed to be paying attention. "I represent the newer generation of the Burning Sword Sect, and Sister Xe Dian has signed a contract with my people... a contract that directly involves all of you."

A few of the younger children gulped. "I'm sure you've seen for yourselves that your elder Sister fought hard for each one of you, and has supported you on this perilous journey so far... but it wasn't enough."

The clients watched with the guards silently as Adam began to pace. "She was worn down. You were surrounded. Resources were dwindling." He glared. "Death was likely."

He stood tall. "Did it feel good? Being helpless? Being weak? Not able to even decide your own death, but to cower and wait for others to determine your fate?"

Silence.

Adam nodded. "I've been hurt. So hurt that survival was measured in hours, where frantic decisions determined my future rather than dedicated plans. I've been attacked, with and without support, by situations and people who thought they were stronger than I."

His left arm flinched. "I've had my body reduced to near meat, my Soul invaded, my mind assaulted, my Soul devoured by the abyss." Even after so long, those memories still haunted him on some level.

Adam looked at the fascinated children. "You are not expected to kill demons or consume god like beings like I have. Nor do we expect you to marry a world ending multidimensional crystal computer. The fate of planets won't balance on your shoulders, nor the future of an entire race or two. Instead, the stakes are far fewer, far more easy to understand."

He pointed at Sister Dian. "She is risking her future, her life, and more... to give you a chance. Just... just one chance. To learn." A glare cowed the group. "A chance you WILL take advantage of, yes?"

A scattered "Yes?" responded.

His frown made his left eye flare. "I said, you WILL learn, you WILL work hard, and you WILL appreciate the debt being paid on your behalf... is that clear? Let me hear a 'SIR, YES SIR!'"

The kids nodded. "Sir, yes sir."

FIRE burst from Adam's body. "LOUDER!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

Better. "Good enough."

Adam began pacing again, the blue flames wandering on the still molten rock below. "I don't expect results. I will get them, but I do not require you to do anything impossible. I require no miracles. Give me a serious effort, a good solid attempt, and I can give you the lessons I learned through torture and experience."

Good, Sister Quan was holding back Sister Dian. "Before we start, I would like to explain what our goals are, what the schedule will be, and what resources I am committing to this endeavor."

He blinked, as a girl with seemingly no backbone managed to raise her hand. "Yes? Please start and end any question with a loud 'Sir', if you don't mind."

She gulped. "S...Sir, what about the clients... Sir?"

Adam nodded. "Good question, though it would have been answered shortly." He snapped, five guards knelt to his right, not touching the molten stage. "I have a rotation of five guards defending both the clients and ourselves. It is part of the contract to ensure the successful completion of this mission while still allowing us time to improve your abilities."

His head tilted. "Will that be all?"

The girl shivered. "Sir... yes? Uh, Sir."

Right. "Good. Back on topic."

Adam used Qi Forms to make a stone wall behind him, lowered the temperature to solidify the mess, and had Rockette pass him some chalk. "First, our goals. Raise your hands for this one, who here dreams of becoming powerful?"

Only the most cowardly or socially awkward failed to join the raised hands.

A nod. "Then I must ask a serious question, please keep your hand raised if you wish to answer it." He stopped and looked at the crowd. "What is power, and what makes a person powerful? I warn you now, there is more than one 'correct' answer."

He waved at a young boy. "Sir, Power is having a high cultivation base?"

Adam pointed. "Remember to end answers with another 'Sir' during class, but that is commonly accepted. Most Sects will look at your Realm and Order Level and give instant judgements when it comes to worth, resource allocation, and mission levels permitted."

He flexed, pushing his Domain over the group. "Though there are exceptions. Do I feel powerful?"

Many nods.

He shrugged. "I'm not even an Xiantian warrior yet. Still Sixth Order Houtian Warrior. If you judge me based only on my official cultivation base level, I am weaker than several of you."

...The children were staring at the pillar of molten rock that Adam was still standing on.

Adam continued. "So I think this proves that there are exceptions to this rule. Fighting above your own cultivation level is hard, but doable. Reaching more than one Order level or even higher up though? You need to be an unusual individual."

He began pacing again. "Someone else, tell me another form of power. Another method of becoming strong enough to do as you wish."

The hands were more hesitant, but they were still there. "You, back left."

She stood cautiously. "Sir, uh... political power?" Seeing him look expectantly, she blushed. "Uh, Sir."

Adam nodded. "I tend to combine this category with social power and social networking. The power of connections, of having 'friends in high places'." He shrugged. "I find that many times, that 'friend in high places' ends up being me, but I am also more than willing to support other people into becoming stronger on their own."

He pointed at a (slightly less annoyed) Sister Dian. "Your leader, Sister Dian, will one day become one of those high placed friends. Talk to her. Ask her for advice. Talk to each other, and if someone needs help offer it. When danger comes, protect each other. If someone betrays the group, treat it seriously."

A hand waved at the still kneeling guards. "My people work together, they work smart, and they are stronger for it. My Sect, even now, is updating centuries of tradition to better protect themselves and future members... because they know that a stronger base of cultivators is more valuable than only having one powerhouse or two in the Sect."

He grinned at the children. "My goal, and your goal for the near future, is not to simply improve... but to transform your whole group into a single team. A network of friends and possibly family that will comfort you when sick or hurt, who will feed you when hungry, who will defend you from assault... and to whom you will gladly do the same."

Adam waited... good, the idea was conveyed. "Moving on, the schedule. After this talk, I will be meeting with each of you individually for separate consultations. Ones already paid for, so don't worry about the costs."

Seeing the confusion, he grinned. "This next part is technically a secret, so I won't officially say anything... but I promise that after we have a bit of a talk, you will understand the state of your current cultivation, have methods to repair any damages done to your body, and have a good idea of where your cultivation methods will lead you."

Several children glanced at a nodding Sister Dian. Yeah, from Adam's sensing ability it was clear she was already using the data he provided... good, should save some time. "The plan is to travel in the morning, have meditation classes after lunch, and individual cultivation lessons in the afternoon."

Inwardly Adam sighed. THAT plan had required a hefty 'donation' to the caravan as a group. Their original trade schedule was screwed up because of all the attacks so far anyway, and luckily Rockette's garden produce was good bribe material... but they WERE merchants. So yeah, payments made.

Focus. "Now, the part you are likely most interested in, the resources I will be supplying to improve your advancement rates."

Several of the boys and girls had sparkly eyes... the taste testing had shown them that Adam's group had lots of treasures and (for some odd reason) a willingness to share them all.

He made rapid marks on the rock wall, and pointed at it. "This is a cultivation circle. It keeps spiritual energy from crossing the boundary, nothing goes in or out. I will be creating empty ones for each of you... and filling it with dense energy that perfectly matches your own cultivation method."

Mmm, stunned silence. Delicious. "I will also be continuing the taste testing as expected, as well as supplying a few spiritual herbs that taste good and have high energy levels. And water."

Some confusion, before that one girl raised her hand again. "Water?"

Adam glanced at Sister Dian... who shook her head 'no'. "Yes, water. Certainly not an incredibly powerful water type heavenly treasure that Sects have nearly committed suicide trying to obtain." Did that do it? No, she just looked exasperated.

Meh, he wasn't good at hiding stuff anyway. "Super normal water, but don't waste it or it makes older cultivators get SUPER angry at you. Seriously, I have gallons of the stuff, but NO, 'Adam did you spill it!?' and 'HOW COULD YOU' and blah blah blah..."

Sister Quan's shoe smacked his head. "I mean, it makes young, attractive, SUPER NICE cultivators get all pissed off." We good?

...We probably good. "Don't waste the water. Also, you got to say the 'Sir' thing during class, alright?"

The confused girl nodded. "Sir, yes Sir?"

This was fun! "Well done. Now everyone get a glass of normal water and drink it while I work my way around the room. Just practice your meditation until we can talk a bit."

He was super good at this!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Dian was in a daze. "Why did he say all that."

Sister Quan was grumbling. She had got her shoe back, but her sock was all dirty... really hadn't thought that out. "I'm ignoring it. Makes life easier."

The lead guard was pursing her lips. "Did he say he is married?"

One of the male guards was grumbling. "Was the Yang poison a god like being? Or are we talking about the poison eye thing? Or did he just eat a god at some earlier point and I wasn't there for that bit?"

Sister Quan snorted. "I'm pretty sure he is either a descended deity or a constantly reincarnating Soul. Either way, he is trying VERY HARD to be a normal boy, so don't mention it."

Sister Dian frowned. "He isn't doing a good job at faking it."

Sigh. "Well, he stopped constantly burning himself and cutting bits off, I am taking any improvement as a step in the right direction."

Xe Dian... let it go. Angel or Demon, the boy made a deal in good faith and was holding up his end of the bargain. "I hope it isn't another high Realm Cultivator doing one of those incarnation methods."

Seeing Quan's confusion, she shrugged. "It's talked about among the more questionable cultivators. Either splintering your soul into a thousand bits, letting them experience life, and recombining to better understand the cycles of life and death... or consuming the souls of weaker cultivators to gain control over their corpse to hide from pursuers."

The lead guard spoke up, her voice soft. "Our Sect has procedures for people like Adam who suddenly become stronger. The possibility of some being incarnating or some dark technique has been attempted before, we are a large Sect, after all."

She nodded at the boy. "He was tested by the Sect when first admitted. His soul is the correct age for his body, his soul is of this plane's harmonic signature, there was no demonic or angelic energies, no transformation technique active."

Sister Quan frowned. "Not sure those tests would work now. Not that it matters."

The head guard nodded again. "One of the Elders used to be a reincarnated nature spirit. She was called the 'Plant Sage'. It is why the Sect orphanage gardens are so massive and well maintained." He was called the 'Burning Sage' for a reason, after all.

Sister Dian frowned again. "Should we be letting him talk to the kids alone like this?"

Sister Quan and the guards paused. Blinked. And blanched. "NO, No we should not. ADAM!"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam nodded. "Yeah, you would have had ALL the cancer when... Oh, one second. Yes?"

Sister Quan walked up and began pulling him away from the little boy who for some reason seemed close to tears. "Adam, why don't we do the interviews and you just... supervise?"

He smiled. That would save so much time!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam stretched, then went back to his notes.

Training the kids had been delayed. By two weeks now.

First of all, these kids were NOT as advanced as he assumed. His first guess was that these kids were around Forth Order to Eighth Order Houtian Warrior... Some looked pretty old after all.

Uh. No.

He brought his initial concerns to the Lead Guard and Sister Quan after the medical scans, his concern that these absolute babies were somehow wounded in an undetectable way. That they were clearly crippled.

Because these kids ranged from Second Order to Third Order. Only two of the oldest children had broken through to Fourth Order, passing through the first barrier of cultivation.

But... they were so old!

...His concerns were shot down pretty quickly by the older cultivators.

Sister Quan, being Sixth Order, was a prodigy. It was why she was allowed to travel with Adam in the first place, her astounding progress was a blessing to the Sect.

Because... those barriers, the ones Adam basically ignored before and was about to face again?

They were a BIG deal to other, NORMAL cultivators. Outside massive Sects like the Burning Sword Sect, reaching Seventh Order? It was enough to become a King.

A leader of a nation. One individual, able to FOUND a nation... stories of Seventh Order children of only 13 years old or so creating a kingdom? Yeah, those existed.

Sister Quan hadn't even reached twenty years yet, and she was Sixth Order... but a good portion of her progress was her position. An orphan at a major Sect was more blessed than a Sect Primary Disciple being carefully raised by those weaker and smaller organizations and kingdoms.

Sects like the Blazing Sword Sect or the Frosted Tiger Sect had better cultivation pills. More Spirit Beast Cores. Access to cleaner, more concentrated spirit energy. Advanced cultivation techniques, and Senior Sect Brothers and Sisters to teach them.

So these children having such restricted bases was... sort of understandable.

Adam held back a sigh, continuing to review the medical results.

No, the real problem he found? He had assumed someone had poisoned the whole lot.

Cancerous growths, atrophied meridian routes, hundreds of tiny wounds, curses, trash traces, and of course foreign spiritual energy pollution.

It was sobering how hurt these little ones were... and how little they knew it.

They couldn't even FEEL the knife at their throat, the fangs on their spine.

Again, bringing up these concerns to the others in his group? They just... showed how much he didn't understand normal cultivators.

Poisoning yourself? That was the basis of cultivation.

You spent most of your youth and beginning shoving anything powerful inside, hoping your useless fractions of cultivation method would hold your corpse together until breaking through to the next Order level... using the advancement of your skills and the gain of knowledge along the way to purge some of the taint from your system as you go.

This... this was why powerful Sects had more powerful kids... more 'talented' children.

Because normal cultivators, if such a thing exists, started by drowning in filth and tainted power. They forced gunk into their soul... and struggled to find themselves enough power to eventually clean it away, becoming more powerful in the process.

The rich and powerful just bathed THEIR children with powerful medicines, rare treasures, rich herbs and Spirit Beast meat... some even forbid their children to eat or drink anything but pure spiritual energy infused water, to reduce impurities as much as possible when establishing their foundations.

Yet even THOSE children had to accept the non-perfect medicines. They build up immunity to the astounding potions and pills, lowering the effectiveness of the resources as traces build up in their bodies.

But these kids? They were 'normal'.

They were filthy. Corrupted. Hurt.

And Adam refused to accept that as 'normal'.

So... it had been two weeks.

One week? Creating healing and cleansing techniques. New ones, heavily restricted versions that were impossible for anyone without Rockette to perform.

Step one, shift your internal Battle Qi to match the patient... or generate a custom mix of free Spiritual Energy to do so. Cleanse it heavily, merge it with the patient.

Step two, force the patient to activate techniques using that donated energy but under Adam's absolute control.

Step three? Now that Adam was actively controlling someone else's internal Qi with HIS level of spiritual sensing... he could apply the hundred other created techniques.

There were benefits to doing things this way. Big ones.

First of all, it wasn't inserting Adam's cells or body parts into the target... which was good for many obvious reasons. No concerns that he would convert these kids into overwritten clones of himself, for one.

Secondly? If someone examined these children, they would only find conceptual records of them healing THEMSELVES with impossible skill. No evidence that Sister Dian or Adam did anything... another layer of deniability should problems occur.

But most importantly, this forced the cultivator patients to FEEL their own body doing impossible tings. Controlling their power in impossible ways. Obtaining unimaginable results.

In short? This would create a memory that could inspire these young ones to greatness... especially if they paid close attention.

The second week was a heavy work load.

During the day, the new 'class' drank 'normal water', ate spiritual rich foods (Still taste testing, it was going well!), and then simply rested in customized Cultivation Circles that Adam carved into the resting camp area.

Each one was designed by Adam to match the most compatible energy mix for that child... and the energy density was HEAVY. To the point where the youngest kids had trouble sitting still from the weight.

And that pure, unclaimed energy that so heavily pressed upon their bodies? It forced out impurities. It saturated their flesh. Flowed through their spiritual network, even without cultivating.

ESPECIALLY without cultivating.

After all, these kids had followed weak instructions... well, weak cultivation techniques when judged by Adam. Techniques that sacrificed stability for rapid growth. Methods that destroyed the foundation for powerful bursts of energy for last moment attacks. Skills that tore the Soul to condense their potential ever more quickly.

To Cultivate was to defy the heavens, sure... and from what Adam could tell, at least PART of that act of defiance was being able to survive the wounds you gave yourself while searching for power.

So the children bathed in power (No really, those tubs are only full of 'normal' water!), they consumed rare treasures (Only existed in the Soil Grid), they meditated while guided by a young woman of power and skill every day...

And every night, Adam forced raw power that matched them on a personal level to flow through their flesh.

Today? The children were so full of energy that, if they dared go against orders and allowed themselves to cultivate, all of them would easily break through to their next Order. Even before taking action, their bodies had gone a baptism, a cleansing.

Adam set down his notes, and nodded to the guard. "Bring the first one in."

A nervous young girl, not even 8 years old, walked into his tent. "Sir?"

He waved at the couch. Sister Dian thought it would be less scary to lay down on one of these than on a bed, considering the other connotations beds might suggest. "Please lay down, I promise this won't hurt at all."

She hesitated... but followed orders. He nodded. "Any questions before I begin?"

The child bit her lip. "What... what is going to happen?"

Adam leaned on one arm. "First, I will ensure you feel no pain." Not everyone could endure what he had, after all. "Then, I will guide the energies you already gathered this last week and use them to heal your body."

She still seemed slightly skeptical. "But I don't feel hurt."

He nodded. "In your case, you damaged your spiritual network... your internal meridian routes as well. It wasn't even from improperly cultivating your technique..." He had collected copies of ALL of these trash methods so far, most methods were just rubbish with enough working bits to fool people. "But we will cover that later. Finally, once your wounds are cured and your spiritual network cleaned of any irreverent energies, I will use the remaining energy to tune up the rest of your body to be a bit stronger."

She clearly bit back further questions... and the trust shinning in her eyes was a bit much for Adam.

Thankfully, he WASN'T one of those bastards who set up elaborate plans to steal souls or cultivation bases or what not. Lucky for the child, especially.

He would reward this trust.

A touch and she was unconscious.

It was the best Adam could do... to ensure that no memories would be saved from his next tortures to her body. Because the spiritual network was built into the Soul, and Adam needed to mess with stuff... if she was awake, or sedated, the pain would STILL ravish her mind and possibly cripple her.

He initiated his own soul transformation process. Thin crystal scales began to surface under his skin, his face locking up into a peaceful state as his body hardened. Cracking showed that his limbs were shattering... then sliding against each other, rocks tumbling in strange patterns.

This combination process was something Adam rarely did. His Recursion ability was already good enough of a defense normally, there was no reason for him and Rockette to work together.

Normally.

His crystalline fingers tapped the tiny girls forehead... and her body twisted as she unconsciously tried to scream.

Blue fire ravaged her body, her mind, her Soul... her spiritual network.

Even as he felt the impurities light up into embers and vanish, he felt Rockette inject raw energy patching her Soul Signature into her body... not yet... NOW!

Gripping the power that was even now combining with the surrounding Qi, Adam got to work.

Unrelated concepts... consume. Medical residue. Consume. Tainted energy. Consume.

Damaged meridian routes?

Consume.

Her body jerked as over half her pathways, cracked and fragile... future sources of pain and weakness to be discovered when trying to break through to Fourth Order... they were ground down by the Blue fire. Destroyed completely.

Now...

"Flesh of the Avatar."

Using her body, her Qi, her wounded flesh... target yourself. Find yourself.

"What is the Flesh?"

The bindings and trappings of life. The restrictions that hold us back, but encourage us to grow. Our past, but also the guidelines that shape our future. A wounded body.

"What form should Flesh be?"

Not just the DNA or the heritage of the parents. This young girl was a cultivator... one whom defines herself, one whom fights against the heavens! She should be bound by her faith, supported by her focus, and driven by dreams!

"How does Flesh regress?"

The blue flames consume. Her Qi consumes. Her body demands the wounds be devoured and used as fuel for rebirth! Would THIS hold her back!?

"How does Flesh move?"

By will. By choice. By drive. She will not be denied.

"How does Flesh heal?"

By sacrificing the weakened fragments to build a more perfect whole.

"How should Flesh progress?"

She would decide the future, Adam would decide the now.

Like a river, her body twitched and mutated. Raw flesh grew... and died. Bones cracked and grew anew. And fragments of a Spiritual network grew together... wider... stronger... more open. Even paths previously ignored and left to atrophy were rebuilt powerful and healthy.

The changes were obvious.

Her hair was longer. Her skin more fair. Her limbs slightly longer, her back slightly more straight.

Pity her entire body was covered in filth being expelled in massive quantities, the impurities being forced to evacuate her system.

An idle wave of Adam's hand had blue flames evaporate both the gunk and the gas it tried to become... and again, his crystal finger tapped the young girls forehead.

Most of the energy had been consumed. Especially regrowing her spiritual network, that had annihilated her reserves. A solid week of advanced nutrition and spiritual power, vanished.

But... there was SOME left over.

His face slowly grew a grin as he began making... slight changes.

More efficient lungs. Stronger organs. Denser bones. Resistant skin. Healthier immune system.

Just... a few, tiny enhancements. Nothing big.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Dian let out a massive breath as the little girl exited the tent. Slightly lost, clearly confused... and from her growling stomach, VERY hungry. "Are you alright?"

The child blinked. "I... don't know?" A massive growl made her blush. "I'm very hungry, Sister Dian."

Sister Quan was ready, handing over one of the more dangerously powerful cultivation dishes that Adam had prepared earlier. "Eat this slowly, and if ANYTHING feels wrong I want you to stop instantly and tell us. Alright?"

Her nod was... distracted, all focus on the delicious smelling omelet glowing with sprinkled Fire Salt on top. The thing was stuffed with spiritual herbs. "YES!"

The older women chuckled as they continued to try and scan the girl with their spiritual senses. While Sister Dian was more powerful, Sister Quan had dozens of techniques DESIGNED to determine health and safety... and was using them all. "Go sit and rest a bit."

Both watched with concern as the little one ate away with no worries.

Sister Dian glanced at the little boy who was now entering Adam's medical tent. "This is... so nerve wracking."

The other woman nodded. "I trust Brother Adam very much... but on the other hand, he DID make Four Eye Flame Bull Chickens."

Xe Dian blinked. "What?"

She nodded. "Don't let Adam get bored when messing with something. Or someone." She waved at the tent. "I told the Guard to watch and make sure that if Adam looks... distracted... then she will force a break. Give us time to make sure he doesn't do something... to helpful."

...Sister Dian leaned in. "Is that why his Disciple has bright green hair? I think it glows. And might have small flowers in there."

Sister Quan blinked. "Huh. Wonder how I missed that." She nodded. "And maybe. Hard to know."

The pair glanced at the waiting group of children. Dian sighed. "I got more than a few little ones who would LOVE to have glowing hair."

Sister Quan nodded. "The guard will ALSO call for intervention if the children get Adam excited to try something." She sighed. "That's what I'm MOST worried about. I still remember wanting to have a wings when I was a kid... would I have been smart enough to NOT ask for a set if a guy like Brother Adam had wondered along?"

Sister Dian blinked. Hadn't she wanted to be a unicorn as a child? Or at least to have a cool horn?

An old urge suddenly wondered if she could ask... no, if nothing else it would be a bad precedent in front of the kids.

...Maybe later.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Damn. That... that took forever.

As the last kid walked out of the tent, Adam collapsed onto the 'operating couch', mentally fed up.

It would have ALL been easier if he had just made more Cultivation Cells. It would have been SO MUCH EASIER. Drop in the cells, convert the rest, shift everything... done.

No, he wanted to ensure that no one outside his Sect could make those. At least, not until he knew more about the Frosted Tiger Sect leadership's corruption situation.

So he basically used mind control on something WITHOUT a mind. On the children's internal Qi. USING that control, he forced their fragile systems to rebuild themselves.

Theoretically... Hopefully? Their repaired spiritual networks would 'remember' this action later on. Use the process as a template to make future cultivation breakthroughs less dangerous, more productive.

At the very least, since all the modifications were done by 'their' own power, the changes wouldn't be rejected by their future cultivation progress. Hopefully.

Adam mentally sighed... Give the kids another week of spiritual energy saturation to rebuild their emptied energy reserves? All should be able to easily advanced to the next Order level. No problem.

If he let them use that shit.

No, seriously, at least the cultivation methods at the Burning Sword Sect were all found on the lowest, trash tier of the pagoda. Adam EXPECTED those to suck, you needed contribution points to see the easier to train and more powerful things higher up the levels.

These kids though.

Absently, Adam held jade slips in his left hand... and began to work.

Part of the medical checkup way back then was letting Adam review the cultivation methods of the kids... far too many being way too willing to SHARE those methods without even giving a complaint.

Maybe they also knew it was all trash?

First, summaries.

Adam began reviewing each child's cultivation method... and started ripping out data.

First, a summary of the ACTUAL results of their cultivation, not what it SAID it would do.

Second, Adam reviewed the stated GOALS of the individual methods... and started testing stuff to see if he could fake the desired results with the provided techniques if he just shifted a few things around.

...Damn this was tricky, annoying work. Would be faster to just make a new thing from scratch. Safer and stronger too, no doubt.

Still, progress was made. Over the rest of the night and during the travelling next day, Adam was absently progressing through the many methods the kids were following.

Third, now that he documented the results, the goals, and had finally made some progress? He marked down the modified methods to achieve those goals, documenting what was still lacking if he couldn't figure out some random fluff statement in the method.

A quick check... Rockette?

Ding!

Good, the kids were being forced to recover and relax, he had lots of time to get this done.

Fourth, on these jade slips... improvement.

Not improvement in power, or flashy abilities, or to further improve the stated goals of each method... no.

Foundational improvement.

The fourth chapter on these slips in many cases weakened the results of the cultivation methods. Attacks were more restricted, defenses less flashy, refinement or energy attraction from nature? Slower.

But the energies gathered would be cleaner, more refined, more processed. The meridian routes would include a 'maintenance cycle', a cycle designed NOT to improve cultivation but to ensure the other meridian routes would not atrophy or decay again.

It would vastly lower the difficulties breaking through the future cultivation barriers.

This wasn't quite his Houtian Realm Essential Cultivation Method, though it may have stolen a few hints from there. Instead, Adam heavily based this 'maintenance cycle' on Sister Dian's customized cultivation method.

This way, her Elders would (accidentally) assume that the improvements taught to these children came from her brilliance. Oh my, who saw this coming? Give her more rewards!

Hopefully.

And if his own Essential Method got a bit of refinement in this process? Well, he was improving it all the time anyway. The idea of a cycle dedicated to restoring the cultivation user's base system seemed useful and easy enough to include... sort of a companion cultivation method, one used to restore foundational support rather than to enhance or advance your network.

But Adam was running into an issue.

What he had here? It was good enough. Heck, it was probably amazing to some people, no doubt. But... he was lacking data.

After all, he was only Sixth Order Houtian Warrior. Seventh Order was the next Martial Spirit Evolution, the second barrier to cultivation.

And he felt he needed to know more before finalizing these lesson plans.

Adam tried to subtly glance at his guard... she seemed distracted enough. "I'm going to meditate a bit, could you come get me in an hour or so?"

A nod, and he was alone in the tent.

Excellent.

Quickly his Domain impressed a series of Formation Patterns into the carpet... and below it, into the stone far beneath.

A spiritual energy boundary.

He fell into a meditative stance, his mind focusing. "Rockette?"

Ding.

Power.

POWER.

Blue energy filled in the bounded column, spiritual gas thickening... denser...

Not quite liquid.

But close.

Outside, it forced itself into his flesh. Through his skin, into his muscles.

Inside, all seven meridian paths PULSED with his heartbeat. With his life pulse.

Rockette and 'Research' watched closely as the seven cultivation paths within his body... began to carve a conceptual cavern in his heart.

If he was a normal cultivator, this would form his Qi Sea. The depth and width and length determined by his actions and the strength of his foundation.

However.

Adam had seven routes... one for each limb, one to his head, one in his torso... and one that was tied to his heart, the conceptual core.

And now, a massive cavern was being dug into his spiritual network.

Deeper, wider... the hole became a lakebed, a bottomless pit... the mysterious ocean bed.

This... this was the spiritual ocean.

His internal Qi Sea.

This boundary was important... now, cultivators could use this massive reservoir to vastly outlast the energy reserves limits of lower fighters. This was still a gaseous sea, it wasn't the concentrated and more powerful energies of future realms... but it WAS a major step.

Adam watched with fascination... and more than a little confusion.

Where was the boundary? Had he already crossed it? The restriction he was supposed to struggle and beat to advance this far?

His thoughts were thrown into disarray further as his OTHER six meridian routes connected to his Qi Sea.

The deep, bottomless Sea... now had six other deep pits being carved in around it.

Like connected lakes... though they grew deeper and deeper, wider and longer.

One acted like a ring, surrounding the Qi Sea itself. This was his chest route, and it acted like a moat... he could FEEL it acting like a spiritual barrier, the first to defend his inner energies.

Four acted as regulators, as buffer zones. They would ensure that heavy energy use by his limbs wouldn't lower the power available to his actual attacks... that simple reinforcement and attack resistance using only his arms and legs wouldn't affect his own attacks or defences.

They would drain those four Qi Lakes FIRST, before draining his Sea.

Finally... a thin but impossibly deep steam lead to his mind. Easily missed, and with a focused purpose... His mind Qi Stream was not meant to attack or defend.

It was to ensure he wouldn't lose focus, wouldn't fall to mental attacks... a dedicated Qi Stream that supported his consciousness.

Seven Paths.

Four Qi Lakes, that allowed his limbs to fight without restraint.

One Qi Moat, that protected his internal energies from injection attacks.

His Qi Sea, the reservoir of his spiritual network.

And his Qi Stream, protector of his consciousness.

As the Seven Paths stabilized... as his Seven Pulse Cultivation Method produced this new, Seven Path Cultivation Method result... Rockette formed before him, vibrating.

Cracking.

With a shatter, crystal shards flew in every direction... and Rockette's evolved form began to sparkle.

DING!

...Adam blinked. "Uh. You got little hands."

Ding!

Rockette had... an itty-bitty body. About the size of her head, she now had... floating crystal shards, that led to smaller floating crystal shards... that led to recognizable, organized tiny rocky fingers.

No legs, her torso looked like a stalactite really, floating there... but she now had two arms and hands. And of course, her floating head.

She raised both hands in the air. "DING!"

...Daw, she could change her facial expressions! Sort of. It looked like an illusion within the crystal rather than a sculpture now, and each new image was less like an animation and more like seeing one of those holographic posters, where you just managed to change your viewing angle and could see her cute smile.

He gently patted her head. "Good job! I'm glad we were able to safely break through!" But he was going to research the HELL out of why it didn't match ANY of the stories told by other cultivators. What the fuck.

Leaning back, using Blue flames to get rid of his impurities (Sigh), he examined the changes in Rockette. HIS changes were straight forward... he gained his Seven Paths and Qi Sea (Plus extras!), and this time the conceptual reinforcement aspect was focused on his flesh, muscles... but mostly on his skin.

Seventh Order Warriors had skin like strong leather at the very least, on top of everything else they gained along the way... it was puncture and stab resistant, and the first step towards mortal weapon immunity. Eventually, weapons without Qi reinforcement would just... fail. Even an arrow to his eye would just be ignored. Conceptual defense of the boundary between self and the world.

Well, he could ignore it now ANYWAY thanks to Rockette's innate ability. Recursion was awesome!

Speaking of which...

Adam watched Rockette as she twirled around the room, swinging her arms everywhere. And then looked deeper.

As expected, 'Recursion' was improved. It was common for older abilities to change as other Order and Realm levels were reached... but it wasn't an obvious shift in this case.

Adam didn't gain MORE recursion, not more layers at least... he gained expanded functionality.

Using 'Recursion', he could not just absorb damage by passing it within... now?

Now his inner Adams could send damage OUT.

When Adam attacked, his inner Adams could now join him with a slight delay... for no additional Qi cost.

Each attack was half as strong as the layer above it, of course... but if he used a bolt of fire, the 'echo' attacks would almost add up to a second, equally powerful strike.

Free, extra damage during all fights? Yes please! Especially if he could learn how to have each Adam focus on different effects rather than just duplicate his efforts.

Grinning, he focused on the second, most recent, NEW innate skill.

'Mass Creation', the ability to convert spiritual energy into matter.

By default, it would create more Crystal like Rockette. But, for an increase in spent energy? He could duplicate any matter he had a full spiritual scan of! It would take a bit of practice before he could duplicate complicated objects with lots of parts or whatever, but if he had the power to burn then he could create raw material.

Problem was, the energy costs were staggering. And not just staggering to normal people, the massive energy costs were expensive to ADAM as well.

If he used up ALL energy reserves right now, INCLUDING the energy generation rates of his Poison Cave and the Yin Yang Cycle Pond? He MIGHT make a hundred pounds of raw crystal.

If he wanted basic copper? Maybe a few ounces.

There was a reason for this stupidly high cost though... this wasn't just 'good' copper.

This was conceptual copper. Copper with a history, with the proper reactions one would expect from a metal untainted by outside influence or society, or even nature!

But Adam had needs for his spiritual energy collection. Sacrificing the Soil Grid gardens was not an option, MOST of his energy reserves were not optional at this point.

He frowned. Was... was he going to have to wait? To let this skill be black listed until he could advance his cultivation base further? That seemed... so wasteful.

Rockette spun as she floated to his side. "Ding?"

Adam mentally listed his thoughts to the Spirit... and her face was replaced by a smile. "Ding!"

He felt his Crystal Caves shiver... and something shift.

Ah.

She had attached the concept of 'Mass Creation' to the Material Caverns. Specifically, to a new cavern she designed... the 'Quarry Cavern'.

Even as he watched, trace amount of ore began to slowly spread like roots into the newly designed floor of the room.

He grinned. "And the costs?"

She waved both arms back and forth. "Ding!"

...Damn, that was basically free. Slow, but free... and eventually profitable.

And considering his energy storage was... Damn, 10 quadrillion? A lot. Wait, what was his domain range now? Holy hell, 0.7 kilometers? As a RADIUS!? He could restrict that, right? He didn't want to FEEL that much all the time! That would be gross!

No, stop. calm.

He took a relaxing breath. Good. "Rockette, keep our domain from expanding more than I previously used. Can we concentrate it or something?"

She bounced with a smile. "Ding!"

Good. "Right, thank you. Now I can finally get some stuff done... I'm sure I can finish those jade slips with this extra data at this point!"

A quick glance. Awesome! The formation held up! Not even a little of his cultivation breakthrough was exposed! Finally, he was able to get something useful done without freaking everyone else out in the process!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The guards and Sister Quan and Dian all stared at the tent.

One of the guards fidgeted. "I can't feel anything. Like a maw has consumed the world." His eyes widened. "It... it hasn't right? That thing didn't follow us, right?"

A more reasonable guard was glaring at it. "I hadn't realized how much energy the young Sage gives off unconsciously... but now that it is gone, the difference is very clear. Like trying to sleep in the wilderness for the first time after living in the Sect for years... all expected noise is missing. It feels wrong."

Sister Dian felt confused. "Why not just ask what is going on?"

She flinched at all the pitying looks she got before the lead guard gave a sigh. "Best case scenario, he is fine and tells us all about it later. Worse case, we disturb some horrifying ritual and it kill us all... just because we are curious about whatever the hell is happening in there. "

Sister Quan sighed. "Rockette told me he is fine, but even she feels... different somehow. It's probably best for us to wait a bit."

The tent violently shivered.

Everyone stepped back.

Sister Quan nodded. "In fact, better to wait... from a bit farther away."

Everyone agreed.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam grinned at the last jade slip.

Finally!

Rockette was floating on his shoulder, tiny hands playing with his blue hair, but he would not be distracted!

...Actually, how long had he been at this?

"Ding!"

Huh. Wonder why no one came in to tell us it was time to get moving.

Adam frowned. Unless... unless they HAD moved on. Leaving him behind. Not like he would notice while behind these spirit energy barriers.

It wouldn't be a HUGE issue, little Tianshi and five of the guards were still in Rockette after all... And thankfully, the breakthrough process to Seventh Order was focused on the massive areas WITHOUT passengers, even if Rockette was now shifting stuff around a little.

So they were fine, if likely confused about why Adam hadn't gotten the gang together for breakfast like usual. Or more reasonably at this hour, lunch.

A pulse had the formations drop... and energy RUSHED inward.

...That shouldn't have happened.

If anything, his area should have been ignored. Like a ghost or something. He began examining the situation with 'Research'... and blinked.

Huh.

Imagine the world like a flat bottom pool.

Imagine ten meters of water, the spiritual energy filling said pool.

Adam had TRIED to create a column of space, from bottom to top, that would just... exist. Like a pillar. When a wave hit it (searching techniques, etc), it would create ripples... but not much else.

Rockette's cloaking technique was designed to examine the waves coming in, match them, then push the same thing back out. Hopefully preventing ripples, making their power harder to 'see' or notice. That was the goal.

...Looks like that didn't work as intended. Instead, Rockette was examining the waves... then pushing out matching ones. EQUALLY matching ones, not just the top parts that go up and down, she also was pumping out the ten meters of water below as well.

So... instead of 'no ripples' because his Martial Spirit was becoming talented at 'blending in'... she was instead making a 'Normal Spiritual Energy Field' and DOUBLING power in the local area like a pump.

There were no ripples because she was pushing them all away by sheer volume. Creating a permanent dome of 'water', all of it flowing away from Adam but 'feeling' like 'natural' energy.

On the plus side, Spirit Beasts couldn't detect her presence, and thus didn't flee in terror.

On the minus side, Spirit Beasts felt a swelling of power... and were more likely to drift in Adam's direction to find this 'richer land' to then conquer.

All that aside, the important bit? Adam was acting like a neutral spirit energy spring while just walking around.

And when one of THOSE suddenly vanishes, THAT becomes noticeable. VERY noticeable, even to the cultivators with weak spiritual senses.

He opened the tent flap.

And closed it.

Yeah, they were all out there staring his way. Damn it.

With a weak grin, he walked outside. "Afternoon! Good news: I finished ALL the training slips for the kids!"

The guards just seemed relieved. One guy nearly bounced with joy. "The mouth is gone, the mouth is gone!" Weirdo.

Sister Quan gave a nod. "And... what was with the feeling of doom and such in your tent?"

He winced. "Yeah, that's my bad. Rockette's 'Cloaking' technique acts more like an area wide spiritual chaff ability. Can't detect where we are, but everyone CAN detect that we ARE in the splash zone. When I hid in a formation, it instantly cut off her effect... I'm sure it felt strange."

The lead guard however hummed, her face reserved. "And why, exactly, did you set up such a formation to begin with? Your cultivation circles don't cause this type of feeling."

Adam shrugged. "While trying to redesign some stuff for the kids, I felt like I didn't have enough information to safely plan out stuff far enough out. I won't be here, after all, if something goes wrong later in their lives... I needed to make sure the information would result in safe and stable cultivation."

Sister Quan and the others nodded... it seemed reasonable enough. Though there was still an atmosphere of suspicion for some reason. Why?

Meh. He waved at the tent. "Anyway, after the mess I made back in the Sect when breaking through to Fourth Order, I thought it would be best to hide any odd reactions in the tent when I reached Seventh."

Adam paused. "Also, I reached Seventh Order, just in case I forget to mention that later on. Went a bit odd, but I'm not sure why. Good odd, but still odd..."

He walked passed the group, whom seemed slightly disconnected from reality as they thought about that. Hmm. Yeah, it was lunch time. "Personally I think it has to do with me cultivating seven optimized paths simultaneously through conceptually important areas. I'll know more once I get my Disciple to break through herself." Eventually.

As he went looking for where the caravan had set up lunch (They HADN'T left him behind, Yay!), a guard mumbled behind him. "He's not allowed to do that, right? It took me two years to... The breakthrough required me to eat this rotten... and the smell..."

Meh, they would be fine.

Thankfully, his body advancement didn't come with the expected annoyances. Now that each limb had its own reservoir of Battle Qi for reinforcement and enhancement, he had been a bit concerned that it would mess him up.

Things like launching himself when trying to stand up, or accidentally snapping his clothes off or whatever.

As far as he could tell, that wouldn't be a problem! Well... not for now.

That said, he was going to practice his martial arts privately FIRST. Because the first attempt at 'strengthening' himself was likely to be embarrassing, and most likely painful. He had a bit of history at that.

The Burning Sword Sect Patriarch frowned, his meditation disturbed by the hidden signal in the walls.

That... that was a priority one signal. Such things were one of the few, VERY few priority signals allowed to actually interrupt his cultivation sessions... especially considering that life and death can be decided by a single mistake while progressing.

Settling himself, he allowed his spiritual pressure to activate the encoded message unsealing his cultivation chambers... his personal aid bowing at his feet. "Yes?"

The man silently passed a note, the Sect Leader raising an eyebrow.

So... not an invasion, not a revolt, not a local calamity. Even more unusual.

He didn't bother reading the paper, his senses ignoring the false surface data to decode the hidden patterns within the material itself.

He felt an eyebrow raise... the lack of detail THERE implied that this was beyond secret in nature. And vital to the Sect of course. "Clear the area, bring her in. Secure pattern G3 as well."

The entire facility went dead silent as the grave as Third Elder Cho arrived. Thousands of formations sealed the two cultivators away from the world as she knelt. "Patriarch, I bring impossible news."

She had better, this level of security not only cost expensive resources but would heavily disturb Sect security for days. Still, little Cho had always been a favorite of his. "Take your time."

A nod. "I received the emergency message from the Burning Sage's escort team."

He blinked, settling back in surprise.

Every high status guard team was allotted one of the very few 'Transfer Cubes', passed down by the Sect from one of their most powerful Elders, long sense passed on or transcended to another plane.

The items were beyond amazing, each pair able to transfer their contents to each other... once. Then they would become too unstable and decay away, forever lost.

Valuable? Yes. So costly that many guard details would be nearly exterminated before attempting to use them, so impossible to replace that wasting one on a non emergency was actually a criminal offense within the Sect... not that many knew they existed. Too risky.

He frowned. "Is the boy alive?"

A nod. So at least it wasn't a frantic plea for survival or a ransom demand, or a notification of failure.

Little Cho, not even a hundred years yet already a respected Elder, continued. "Young Burning Sage, Brother Chongsheng Adam, has..."

Her eyes glanced at the sealed room.

...Curious.

She pulled forth a pair of jade slips, pushing them forward. "He had thoughts about the ongoing experiment, ones that may require some minor change to our procedures. The consequences could be dire."

Her eyes spoke of deception as she gestured subtly to the two slips.

...Even now she couldn't trust their security?

Well, his curiosity was certainly sparked.

His hand gestured, the slips pulled to his possession as she continued. "I thought it best for you to decide how to handle the situation."

...How curious.

His spiritual senses examined the jade slip... and paused.

A short message, describing two massive data structures. 'Healing Techniques for Cultivators', and 'Healing Techniques for Civilians'... and both were enormous in information.

Each detailed scanning methods, examination tricks, medicine alternatives, Qi applications... a medical treasure trove, obliterating the treasured knowledge of their Sect by offering easier to use, less difficult, and more effective abilities.

More than that, the 'Healing Techniques for Civilians' had a massive amount of techniques designed to allow cultivators to heal those without a cultivation base, without poisoning the flesh or causing their bodies to collapse.

His hand didn't shake, but that was only due to his years of willpower strengthening. "I... see. Indeed, I understand why this would need to be considered."

To his surprise, Third Elder Cho shook her head. "That slip just has a few suggestions, it is the other that needs your consideration."

He couldn't hold back his expression, though it was limited to widened eyes. What... what could be more sensitive than enough medical knowledge to revolutionise the Sect, easily returning thousands of his best people to fighting condition? With impossible techniques that would allow the Burning Sword Sect to heal the masses of common people that supported them from behind?

The Patriarch turned to the second slip with slight concern.

And blinked.

...Soul Techniques? No... Not just the twisted abilities those demonic cultivators used to corrupt the innocent or defile the dead, these were... Soul medication techniques!?

His internal energies flexed accidentally, his mind racing.

Soul damage was currently a secret burden on every Sect.

The more powerful cultivators become, the more common the Battle Qi faced in battle would be laced with conceptual and Soul targeting energies. That alone, ignoring the many possible ways to hurt oneself while training, created untreatable damage over time.

A wounded Soul could both cause harm to the body and prevent harm from being healed. It reduced recovery rate, restrained the ability to understand the unseen, slowed spiritual energy absorption, and opened flaws in other attacks and techniques during a fight.

Some of the most vile evil cultivators could even rip open the flesh of a healthy person if untreated, and sometimes even use taboo methods to allow Soul attacks to infect others.

Powerful cultivators did what they always did: They adapted. Learning how to shift their meridian paths to avoid blocked areas, altering attack patterns to put less strain on various wounds, sometimes learning new body refinement methods in an attempt to cover the many issues... Committing suicide if they discovered themselves to be infectious carriers of tainted Soul attacks.

But in the end, it was a major reason why the older a cultivator got without advancing their power base, the harder it became to advance or break through cultivation barriers. It was the primary cause of older people slowly losing the power of their youth, as workarounds failed to address the problems and damage built up.

This was why Adam's jade slip, filled with his 'useless' Soul analysis and treatment options, were so deadly and vital. Forget wars, if information was unwisely distributed entire other PLANETS and REALMS would invade this one... A wave of blood to acquire what was sitting in such an innocent data tool.

Adam's note complained that even 'minor' injuries could take 'years' to recover from, when using these 'wasteful and useless' tricks. He only included them so that the new medical trainees could learn how to detect the Soul, how to analyze it, how to contact the thing.

The Patriarch felt even more shock as he realized that each of these impossible abilities were only training exercises to eventually learn and apply the abilities listed at the END of the jade slip. Abilities that made his blood chill.

Soul transference. Soul dispersal. Soul conversion. Soul reunification. Soul consumption. Soul duplication. Soul decay.

And most horrifying of all, the complex, impossible, ultimate skill listed as 'Adequate'?

Soul Manipulation.

The ability to rearrange yourself or others on an untouchable level.

His eyes flashed towards Third Elder Cho. "Who else?"

The woman grimaced. "Aside from myself, he shared it with Sister Quan and the leader of his team. The lead guard managed to prevent the others from being shown, and convince him to keep this topic... private. His disciple is thankfully unaware."

Some would say both jade slips were equally world shattering in importance.

She knew better.

A scratch on the Soul smaller than a paper cut could destroy your ability to advance to the next Order, if one was unlucky. It wasn't uncommon for major battles to take decades to recover even partially the power lost in combat. Healing even the tiny wounds that built up after decades of training might vastly improve every aspect of a Sect Disciple's life... Doing so in only a few years? Impossible. That would be the works of miracles.

When she had received the emergency transfer, she had felt fear that her worst concerns had materialized, then relief when it was simply cultivation technique and ability slips.

Even a bit of anger that such a valuable resource had been lost.

All those thoughts had vanished when she examined the second jade slip.

The lead guard had been RIGHT to use emergency protocols. The included written report just emphasized HOW right to a greater degree.

Quietly, the Patriarch gently turned the jade slips in his fingers, spiritual senses still reading impossible things. "I will summon the ancestors after this. They can secure it properly. Can the medical department learn these skills?"

She sighed. "No. The medical ones, maybe half... eventually all of them, though we would need to raise a few dedicated cultivators to train their life in pursuit of individual advanced methods. If lucky, we will have twelve Disciples able to use the twelve most advanced medical abilities in only twenty years or so."

A glance. "As for the... other... I dare not let anyone even try. Not without your direct oversight."

He nodded, thoughts moving. "The lowest tier methods would theoretically allow the so called 'Minor ..." He glanced meaningfully, unwilling to even say 'Soul' out loud. "... Recovery' technique to be learned. But we would need a treasure, something that we can have stolen or traded for... an excuse for why our people can eventually recover from incurable wounds."

She nodded. "Brother Adam may have a solution. His guards report that he is gathering and growing an entire wilderness worth of amazing plants and cultivation resources, ones never seen before and with unusual effects." She passed the paper reports, now (for safety) the only copy, to her leader. "He is attempting to find beneficial products for our people... we can choose one of the odder, harder to grow ones and claim it is the cause for..." She glanced at the second jade slip.

The man blinked. "He's... doing what now?"

Sister Cho sighed. "Yes, it might save some time to finish reading those guard reports first."

The two looked at the several inch thick stack of documents.

The man sighed. Well. Best get started.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam winced. "But it helped me out a lot! Look, I even improved little Tianshi's Houtian Realm Essential Cultivation Method! Now she doesn't have to change methods just to break through that Seven Order barrier."

Sister Quan glared. "That girl isn't even Third Order yet."

Well, yeah. But eventually, right?

She sighed. "And what if something went wrong? Even if we can't help you, which... well, I'll admit you are cutting new paths in the world of cultivation..." She frowned. "We wouldn't even know if your progression was dangerous to US. To the kids."

They both glanced at the Frozen Tiger Sect's disciples. They were marching alongside the slowly moving caravan, with little Rockette waving her tiny arms in encouragement from the lead wagon, her cute 'Ding!' echoing in the air.

Adam frowned. "I... I see the point. Though my formation would have prevented almost any results as far as 'Research' could tell."

She sighed. "You said you had issues? Problems getting through the Seventh Order barrier?"

He shook his head. "The opposite. I didn't even feel restrictions before reaching the next level of cultivation. It went FAR too smoothly... Not sure why."

A shrug. "Your Martial Spirit controls all energy, and energy is a major part of advancing. Even without your strange methods and techniques, I didn't expect many issues to crop up when you progress. It is why I feel so frustrated that you are so quickly improving... I know I will be left behind, and I don't want to be useless."

He snorted. "I can destroy a few cities or build a forest no problem, but I need you for something harder and more difficult." He pointed at the guards and the caravan. "Understanding people, translating 'common sense' into something I can try to work with, interfacing between me and 'normal people'."

Adam chuckled. "I never needed help getting power or treasure, I've always needed help getting friends and companionship."

They fell into a friendly silence, Sister Quan with a soft smile and Adam wondering if he could enhance his limbs enough to do a flip without standing up now.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

With the children treated, each having their own modified cultivation methods, the caravan was finally ready to pick up the pace and get to the nearest town.

That's not to say that the caravan wasn't HAPPY to be delayed. The goods Adam 'offered' to modify the schedule ranged in value from 'not bad' to 'HOLY CRAP, THAT BE VALUABLE'... although, since it was all free to Adam anyway, he didn't mind being 'taken advantage of' in this particular situation.

He... was not impressed. "That's a 'Trading Village'?"

It was less than ten houses, even if they were more large than usual. The defensive wall was also barely six feet tall, more useful for denoting the edge of the property than stopping attackers. Most of the houses were formed from prairie grass and mud... which considering the lack of trees nearby, made sense.

Sister Dian shrugged. "Technically, though this is more a dedicated supply station than anything else. Several Sects deploy disciples, food, water... nothing special. Their people get some practice defending a 'town' with no risk of consequences, and traders can get safe drinking water and food rations."

She grinned at the disappointed boy. "I'm sure the merchants were grateful to have you bribe them and supply practically free high quality food and drink... to avoid reaching a 'town' where they have to pay a good sum to buy normal water and dried food."

Adam looked away. "It IS normal water. For some definitions of normal." And... sighed. "I am not good at bartering."

She snorted. "You are GREAT at bartering... for the other side. If Sister Quan hadn't stepped in, you would have buried them under treasure and wandered away."

Humph. "Well, I guess it is a good thing we are getting normal supplies! Maybe I can save some money by only offering meals to the children from now on..."

He ignored Sister Dian's sudden concern and snapped his fingers. A guard knelt. "Get the resupply list from Sister Quan, verify that the Lead Guard doesn't have anything to add... get it done."

She saluted and vanished... well, vanished to most people. Sister Dian tugged his sleeve. "Hey, you... you were kidding about cutting me off, right?"

Adam walked on... but sighed. "Yeah, I was kidding. Did you review your modified cultivation technique?"

A nod, but a frustrated one. "Your version is a fraction the length of mine, covers more topics, has better warnings... clear language. It was pretty frustrating."

He wasn't sure if bad documentation was a cultural norm, a result of some sort of copy protection, or if living in a universe of concepts made writing down anything WITHOUT flowery language more tricky.

Adam had never had issues like that, after all... but he was able to resist stuff normal people couldn't honestly. On the other hand... if every manual you ever read felt like bad poetry, why WOULD you try to make something useful (but dry) like a VCR manual?

He watched the wagons unloading parts harvested from the Spirit Beasts destroyed recently, making room for the soon to be purchased goods. The cultivators, while still children, were doing THEIR job of staying out of the way and trying to create a stable perimeter.

Stepping further away from the chaos, he watched. "Will it be enough?"

She blinked. "What?"

Adam waved at the kids. "Will this be enough? To get you the leverage to fix the problems at home."

...No, she was still staring at him like an idiot. "Once I report to the Sect, bringing even a few of these children home with all the clients dead from battle would have been considered a huge merit. I would have been praised for salvaging anything out of an impossible situation."

She waved at the off duty children meditating in their cultivation circle. "Having no casualties, with all these little ones advancing their cultivation base? 'Personally' assisting them with their cultivation methods, using 'mine' as a base?" She snorted. "Hell, making these brats act like a unified group rather than a bunch of whiny self confidant accidents waiting to happen?"

A wave. "THOSE are miracles." She pointed at Adam. "Don't even get me started on meeting up with a wandering team from a powerful Sect, establishing good relations, opening trade negotiations, 'convincing' you to allow my people to act as quality testers with the Burning Sword Sect's restricted cultivation materials?"

Sister Dian chuckled. "Even those who see through our little deal will only be MORE impressed. This kind of political action, where there is compromise without betraying our moral code or our Sect loyalties? This shows leadership skill."

A nod. "So I'll be fine. Though if I can convince you to continue to supply 'Normal Water' at some rate to our Elders, I might be pushed into even higher positions of power, whether I want to or not."

He frowned. "That would be a bit tricky. And might convince your Elders to revolt, betray your people to outsiders..."

She sighed. "Yeah, I thought as much."

They leaned against one of the already unloaded wagons as Adam hummed. "If it makes you feel better, Sister Quan won't let me set up a spring for that stuff at our Sect either. Said it would cause major problems."

He grumbled, missing the stunned look on her face. "I've got whole LISTS of stuff I can't do at this point. I'm getting a bit frustrated. Frankly, the chance to just make what I want for your people is a relief."

Adam blinked as Rockette floated by, her tiny limbs holding tight to the tail of a baby Four Eye Flame Bull Chicken... thing. "Crap, I probably have to take care of that. See you later, Sister."

She blinked, still off tilter as Adam began to catch up with the baby animal running around... strike that, animals. Little Tianshi must have freed all four of the tiny things.

Thankfully, it would be two years before these little guys grew up enough to exponentially increase this issue of baby cattle wandering. Unless their parents had laid another clutch.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Tianshi threw her hands up. "YOU SAID DISTRACT HIM!"

Sister Quan groaned, the five guards with them inside Rockette chuckling as they watched Adam miss capturing another fluffy bull thing. "Because if I told him to shut up about the many, MANY secrets being spilled... he would calmly explain to Sister Dian 'Sorry, the following things are super important! Please notice them!' which would be bad."

She glared at the child with exasperation. "If YOU asked him to do... ANYTHING, he would just drop it all and show up. Problem solved."

Tianshi paused... and felt warm inside. "Huh."

Sister Quan pet her hair. "Yeah. I DIDN'T expect you to oil up the calves and set them loose. Especially that quickly."

The girl waved it off. "I had a different prank planned for the oil, but this seemed like a good time. I had Rockette get some for me, but she says it isn't meant for cooking."

Wait. "What do you mean?"

The child pouted. "The guards wont tell me, but I think it is because this oil comes from the wiggly seed gardens."

Sister Quan looked back at the display.

...Was Adam attempting to capture baby animals covered in lubricant? Sexual lubricant?

It would explain why the guards were snickering. "And was one of your guards helping you out at the time?"

The five armored people went silent, but Tianshi was already nodding. "Yeah, but she took a bunch for some reason."

...Heads turned to the one guard, her face already bright red.

Sister Quan... let it go. "Well, I hope they are as durable as Adam when it comes to untested products. HE can handle liquids suddenly turning into acid or having similar unexpected consequences."

The woman shifted to a horrified expression... before seeing Sister Quan hold up a hand. "In this case, thankfully, Rockette would have verified any substance Brother Adam's Disciple would come in contact with. Even odd liquids from a rape plant."

Raised eyebrow... and the shaken guard nodded. Good, it was important to treat Adam's untested products carefully... they could be all kinds of strange and unexpected.

Aphrodisiac filled lubricants would be a mild concern compared to mind corruption oils or slave goo.

They paused as a loud squawk echoed over the crystal display.

Adam was now ALSO covered in lubricant, and was beginning to flail in every direction while chasing the baby bulls... and the five OTHER adults trying to help him were having similar if lesser issues since they joined in the madness.

Sister Quan blinked. "Oh dear, the children are about to try and help too."

Her guard passed her some popcorn equivalent. The fire salt coated berries crunched nicely.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Self propagating sexual lubricant that evaporated completely after a set amount of time.

Adam wasn't sure if he wanted to sell this stuff or lock it away forever.

By the time Rockette or the people in his Martial Spirit decided to explain the situation, Adam and over half the campsite was COVERED in slippery goo, stuff that somehow made rocks and gravel not matter as the entire camp surface acted like flat plastic covered in olive oil.

It wouldn't have been NEARLY this bad, since it required spiritual energy to 'duplicate' itself to this extent... but since Tianshi was the one who pulled this 'prank', Rockette had decided to 'help' it succeed.

She had pushed THOUSANDS of units of spiritual energy directly onto the oiled bulls. Which, yes, had eventually been collected and returned to their unconcerned parents in the caverns.

While the adults had lost ALL patience fairly quickly, at least the kids found the situation hilarious... Tianshi was still grounded though.

More for the 'Using untested materials' than the 'forcing Brother Adam to chase oiled baby bulls' thing.

And if a few people asked for a supply of the goo, Adam just made the trades quickly and tried not to think about it.

Attractive women (or men) covered in oil? Not bad.

THESE people? The Traders were not cultivators, were not idealistic visions of beauty and flair like usual. The mental image of that guy covered in hair suddenly being super slippery... eugh.

Side note, after going to Sister Quan about his... less than great bargaining skills, she helped him talk with their lead guard who apparently had a background in negotiation.

True, hers may have been a bit heavy on the 'force' and 'leverage' side of the deal table... but compared to Adam's 'Have a few thousand gold, do you want more?' approach, this was probably a step up.

Still. "How long until we reach an actual city? Some place with more than a hundred people."

Sister Dian looked away from her Sect members following the meditation class Sister Quan was delivering. "Normally, a month or so. But with you adding to the resources of the caravan, I think they are planning on taking a longer route that normally is quite profitable but annoyingly out of the way."

...Well, they were supposed to take AT LEAST three years out and about before heading home anyway. "Huh. At least this place had a few useful things we could purchase for my gardens."

Mostly seasoning plants. Every home tended to have a few, as importing them got expensive quick. Though since ginger and other herbs could theoretically become spiritual plants as well, the new samples had been added to the Soil Grid gardens for testing.

Both to see what variants could be discovered and, more importantly, how NOT to turn all his seasoning plants into stuff that civilians couldn't eat due to spirit energy.

Seriously, 'Research' was going nuts trying to NOT soak everything with heaven and earth energies while still allowing the plants to grow in a healthy way. The power density inside Rockette's Crystal Caverns was beyond dense, even outside the cultivation caves... it made an issue when growing 'normal' plants.

Because the FIRST thing Adam tried? A crystal cave without ANY spiritual energy.

Everything died.

So he needed SOME energy, of various ratios. And if it was too little, the plants barely grew at all. If it was too much, it would... turn blue or something.

Rockette was handling the tests, Adam didn't want to bother with that mess. It was unrewarding, annoying, and as all his people were cultivators anyway? He was mostly doing this research so he could enjoy garlic bread without it turning green or exploding. That and for completionists sake.

Having a private super garden with thousands of bizarre plants but no pepper? Frustrating. Though he had several near pepper substitutes, but the point still stands. Sort of.

Waving away Sister Dian (Unlike Adam, she had actual work to do), he relaxed in his extracted flame wagon (Mmm, toasty) and waited until it was time to move on with the caravan. Eventually.

Because bored or not, trading took time. Sometimes weeks, as other trading groups could arrive or depart and change existing deals or suggest new ones.

And he was stuck here.

...Didn't he have those random items bought from the Burning Sword Sect Store? And he needed time to dissect a few storage rings too...

Humming a happy tune, Adam began moving through random items passed to him by Rockette, the gently blue flames of his wagon rolling over his body joyfully.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

As expected, the more powerful storage rings were portals to other, tiny pocket dimensions.

However.

What was NOT expected, was how they 'paused' time when holding stuff.

Because they didn't. Not really.

Adam grinned as an extra storage ring floated mid air.

The cheap, weakest rings connected to a single space pocket. Larger ones than you would expect too, and a bit flexible... but with obvious limits. Anything too large, too long, too powerful? Pop!

But these powerful ones? They were more space clusters. Dozens upon dozens of tiny dimensional connections, with a 'gateway' pocket filled with... VERY interesting formations.

Very. Very interesting.

Unlike the formations he had seen and learned about so far... these were almost unstructured.

Clearly, storage rings were not made scientifically. The process, whatever one the Sect used, would attempt to construct this super space pocket, then stuff that pocket with raw spiritual energy and Qi, and use brute force to 'convince' that space to work as expected.

As Adam had already discovered, if you had enough power? Either from cultivation or through the sacrifice of powerful treasures, or by supplying items with deep conceptual value to reality?

You could force a wish.

Pure desire would MANDATE the resulting product.

There were drawbacks, of course. The larger the world, plane, dimension, or pocket? The power requirement became exponentially higher.

Thus, the storage ring work around.

Step one, find a random space pocket. There were an infinite number available, with many being created at every moment, so this was easy and nearly free in cost.

Step two, stabilize the pocket. Otherwise it would pop at any moment. This would cost more based on how large the pocket was originally... they could be smaller than a pin head or larger than a solar system or twelve. From what Adam could see, this step was luck based, or required advanced spirit sensing skills to determine how expensive each attempt would be.

Step three, dominate the pocket's reality. The 'wish' portion of creation, where the Sect member would use their powerful cultivation base and possibly some tools or resources, and use some mantra or skill (if they were not good enough to impress their will through sheer force) to 'explain' what they need to that pocket.

To be fair, Adam was guessing at step three a bit... but each of these storage rings had different formations within their parent pocket space. VASTLY different, with an organic or almost random pattern designed to take advantage of concepts that might ONLY EXIST within that INDIVIDUAL space pocket.

Formations had patterns, design patterns... signs that displayed certain schools of thought, basically fingerprints that could identify the author or Sect that created them.

Those patterns were within the stabilization formations, within the cluster pockets deeper in... but NOT found within the super space pocket itself.

Adam was passing the scans of the pockets and the 'natural' formations built within to 'Research' of course, HE wouldn't pass up such interesting data so easily, but it did mean that the next steps were very uncontrolled for normal Sect item creators.

In a way, the examination process would be MUCH easier because all these storage rings were TRYING to do the same thing, even if they did use 'wish' magic to force it into existence: To create the children cluster of space pockets.

Or more accurately, to scan for space pockets and 'bookmark' them.

Adam shook his head, focusing. Right, the steps.

First, find a pocket. Second, Stabilize it. Third, establish a Master Pocket.

Fourth, the job of the Master Pocket? Detect as many OTHER space pockets as possible, bookmark them, and then attempt to stabilize each one.

THIS was the step that determined the quality of the ring... and it was random.

If the space pockets discovered were of average size? Great! It was marked as usable.

Too small? Marked as unusable.

Too large? The process failed, and it stopped searching for more dimensional pockets.

ALL the storage rings had thousands of unusable' bookmarks. It was the most common pocket found, each one using up a tiny bit of potential needed by the new ring.

If the crafter was fortunate, it may find a dozen or so usable dimensional addresses. This determined the 'size' of the ring. Once in a blue moon, one could bookmark hundreds or more pockets, making legendary items!

If luck failed them? It might try to connect to a moon sized space or something, shutting down the process instantly and wasting all energy and resources used to craft the thing.

If successful, the Master Pocket would then act as the interface, where the cultivator imprinted their soul signature if desired or simply accessed the 'contents'. As items were added, the Pocket would choose an unfilled cluster space and fill it up.

This was why you could store soup without it spilling, or getting your saved socks messy... each item was in their own cluster, not sharing air, gravity, or energy... and this was why time 'stopped'.

Because the cluster spaces were not connected to until used... and were closed when not needed. Time didn't exist the same way in those impossible places where space bubbled like foam.

Now, the tricky bits? How to ensure that the clusters pockets were big enough for the item being added? The method telling the user how 'full' a ring was? Being able to track those 'bookmarked' locations, if it was even possible for those pockets to move in the first place?

No idea. 'Research' was having fun looking at the various options though.

The more powerful or talented the creator, the more varied the resulting Master Pocket that formed... but they all needed to do the same actions, achieve the same goals.

It was like a translation key, a cheat sheet.

Rockette could of course act like a Master Pocket, if he desired. She already maintained another space, separate from everything.

But that seemed short sighted.

Adam put the most recent ring away. They were nothing more than a hard coded bookmark, to make sure the users didn't lose or forget where the Master Pocket was located in unreality. He didn't need a crutch like that.

His finger flared with Blue energy. ANY power would work if dense enough, although Space and Dimensional energy would obviously handle this action most easily... but Adam wanted a better connection, and Blue energy was the core of his spiritual network.

Eyes closing, he just... pressed against reality.

It... it wasn't so far. Not to the Abyss, not to that gray hunger.

This was more within this Realm... the entire Cultivation Realm, not just this one plane or any one planet. The boundaries between all these cultivating realities... and there were so many of them!

Where two boundaries touched? Space and time fizzled. Foamed.

...There were time pockets. Just like space pockets.

Huh.

Maybe later. For now, he simply tapped into a space pocket, and filled it with blue fire.

And filled it.

And filled it.

...Damn it, how big is this pocket!? He wasn't even making a DENT on the damn thing!

This was just one tiny bubble from the foam, yet it felt MASSIVE! What the hell!?

Frowning, Adam forced the pocket 'closer', whatever that meant in this context.

And closer.

...Huh. Scale was a bit difficult to determine here, wasn't it?

Abandoning the blue flames already committed, he zoomed in on the outer edge of the bubble.

At the boundary.

At the foam space and time pockets, previously too small to see.

And pulled the smallest one he could detect 'closer', now more hesitant to try and 'claim' it before examining the damn thing first.

...This bubble ALSO had 'foam'.

Adam grumbled. In a way, it was like his own conceptual recursion ability... the constant dimensional travel, the conceptual features of this reality, the abrasion and growing and shrinking pockets?

This was how new worlds formed here. New planes. New subordinate realms. They could shrink and grow, pop and form, all steps creating more and more foam.

With a small level of frustration, Adam continuously followed the smallest space pocket, checked the surface more foam... and repeated himself.

At least this was an easy process. Unlike with the various populated layers and realms that he ignored, the foam that surrounded the pockets were obviously empty and temporary.

Every ten or so layers, he would dedicate a few units of Blue energy to try and 'consume' the current pocket of reality. The rate of completion told him how 'small' the pocket was, and so far the exact measurements were ignored until he could nom one in a single 'bite', at the very least.

He had large energy reserves, after all... even something 'edible' would probably be far too large to use as storage ring's cluster pocket address. Thankfully, he should only have to do this 'scaling' process once... then he would instinctively know the shape and size of his working materials later on.

...Still, wonder what those time pockets are like? Might examine them later.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Dian seemed hesitant. "Sister Quan?"

She blinked, turning away from her students. "Yes?"

The other woman leaned in. "Is... is it alright for Brother Adam to be transparent?"

Damn it Adam, what now? "Let me finish up here and we can go check on him. Is he still on fire?"

Xe Dian blinked. "Yes?"

Sister Quan relaxed. "Then he's probably fine. We'll give him an hour or so before trying to get his attention. Why not join me with answering the kids questions? I'm sure you could use a break from Brother Adam's... Adamness."

She seemed to relax slightly. "That... that sounds lovely."

Sister Quan felt quite a bit of sympathy... Adam's behavior required more than a little adjusting to, really.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Eating a space pocket, or more accurately having Rockette 'consume' a few, was odd.

They sort of... showed up in the Crystal Caverns. Like tiny pearls. All the same size.

Which was inconvenient, as Adam had been choosing the smallest ones possible, getting frustrated, then searching their foam for an even SMALLER snack for Rockette to nom on.

And even though THIS pearl was a pocket of space large enough for several big oceans, THAT pearl was only big enough for a small country.

Still, narrowing down the size available was progress, annoying or not.

He had kind of hoped that these things would convert into types of Space spiritual energy, or expand Rockette's internal storage area. Maybe act as doorways or something.

Instead, identical gray pearls. Felt strangely cold too.

Meh, they may be useful at some point.

Thankfully, after all those issues, Adam could now easily grab storage pockets of the right size with ease, have Rockette consume them (No reason to leave them floating out somewhere, that seems like a good way to lose your stuff!), and start fiddling with the fun part.

The formations.

Adam had a few advantages here.

For one, unlike other artificers, he had high levels of control when choosing his working materials. He had a hundred 'Master Pockets', all identical in scale and (mostly) the same shape. There were no fears that they would wander off, pop, expand, or get accessed by others.

'Research' was testing different formations recorded from the scanned rings, but that only needed a dozen or so bubbles. The rest?

Adam shoved Blue energy into another bubble.

Hmm. Right, do the following:

Baseline: Check Master Pocket for stability. Create array of dimensional addresses. Scan addresses. Define address volume.

Interface: List contents. Scan inputs, determine if it maps to existing pockets. Measure input, select next largest bubble. Update lists.

Maintenance: Add, delete, modify space bubble clusters. Assign, delete, modify owner. Assign, delete, modify access controls. Shift, copy, delete Master Pocket hard coded address location.

...Did that do it?

He frowned as the energy did SOMETHING inside the pocket... and tossed the results to 'Research'. This 'organic formation' stuff was nearly unreadable even if everything went EXACTLY as desired, he wouldn't know for a few hours if it worked correctly or if it SEEMED to work correctly.

Adam sighed as he started the process again with the next bubble.

At some point, the raw data being collected would provide enough examples that 'Research' could finally begin extrapolating the actual rules of these chaos formations. The ability to tie the symbols to elements outside of the current reality, so that they could be established and moved LOCALLY without making them fail.

Then he could design a 'cultivation circle' formation inside a cluster pocket, and basically print out a bunch of 'cultivation rings' that would project the correct shapes externally when someone was ready to meditate. Maybe with a few other spiritual storage spaces inside that the cultivator could store energy into, so they could delay the absorption process until they could relocate to somewhere safe. Maybe absorb attacks?

This was his current goal, because he didn't want to spend FOREVER with this caravan, and the kids couldn't use his abilities once they returned to their Sect. Creating custom equipment that only worked for the children or their bloodline would free up his future work... and this time, he would have the lead guard do the bartering when it came time for compensation.

Eventually.

For now, he was basically throwing thousands of units of purified spirit energy to create a larger sample size for 'Research' to work off of. Which, like a lot of the fiddly bits when researching, was a bit annoying.

Side note, he had been doing a bit of an internal audit and checked the quarry inside his Martial Spirit earlier. There were observable color splotches now, as the 'seeds' of the many various metal and crystal samples were taking root.

According to Rockette, while slow, this should eventually experience a massive increase in growth rate... the application of 'Mass Creation' having great synergy with 'Growth' inside the Martial Spirit.

Each fragment of generated metal reduced the energy required to increase the available volume as it converted the generic 'Crystal' that formed the floor in that cavern. One rock becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight, etc.

It would level off after a certain volume was reached... Basically when they run out of Crystal and start trying to convert each other. This meant that the 'cheap' materials, those without significant complicated internal structures or powerful conceptual abilities, would end up converting the largest percentage of the Quarry room after everything settled down.

Which was... annoying. The most expensive, slowest growing stuff... that tended to be the GOOD stuff. But whatever, this was good enough for now and he could always seed a new Quarry with a custom ratio after this one 'fills up'. With his current cultivation base, 'Mass Creation' could only be applied to a limited area at a time anyway.

A pulse of energy, and Adam moved another identical Master Pocket to the side for review.

In other news, the Four Eye Flame Bull parents laid another four fertile eggs. Once hatched, there would be eight balls of fuzz wandering around the crystal caverns, begging scraps from people and generally being turned into pampered pets.

They could (and did) eat almost anything, but they had an tendency to try and chew on Adam's flames when he was meditating. It was one of the reasons he had brought out the flaming wagon and meditated out here now, even if he didn't think the small creatures could actually hurt him in the process. Or the wagon, which they also gnawed on.

They almost acted like fluffy dogs. Which made the egg laying thing even stranger, even if everyone else just considered it 'one of those things' and ignored it.

He was sort of GLAD he hadn't managed to pick up other animals for the pastures yet, as it looked like in a couple of years he would have a whole damn HERD of creatures laying eggs and raising adorable fiery fluff balls.

Meanwhile, the Steak Shrubs were starting to mature. And, aside from the various seasoning options, the results were fairly fascinating!

Rockette was growing a new batch to test things out, but it seemed that using different spiritual energy ratios during the final growth phase would change the 'meat type' of the 'fruit'.

It was mostly discovered by accident, as if NO changes were made the resulting meat was... bland. Nutritious and fast growing, but tasted like boiled chicken with less flavor. But with only minor changes at the end of the fruiting periods? BIG improvements.

Only a few plants near the edge of the cavern got exposed to other energies, but THEIR fruits had different colors, textures, and flavors. With or without seasoning. Only one was recognizable to the tasters (It was like roast beef, apparently), but ALL of them were better appreciated than those Steak Shrubs only exposed to 'Optimized' energy ratios for maximum growth.

Thankfully, the unripened meat pods would still accept 'flavor energies' once they neared completion, so they didn't have to pull up the whole garden and start from scratch to begin testing for the best results.

All the super bland 'perfect' pods were being stored away as filler, as they basically tasted like any sauce or stew they were added to and helped make ingredients last longer.

In Adam's opinion, this was part of the lure process. Until the final stage, these Steak Shrubs focused on pure growth as the number one priority... then they used the natural spirit energy ratio in the air to ensure the resulting 'fruit' products would attract the local wildlife more successfully.

It would ensure that each meat pod would taste MOST delicious to those creatures that lived in areas with this local heavenly energy pattern... hopefully attracting more and more 'customers'.

Adam was just glad he didn't need to make a separate meat garden for each flavor discovered, thanks to this odd trait. Most of the girls avoided this area to begin with, the wiggling tentacles with meat pods a bit too disturbing for some... So Adam ended up being in charge of this section by default basically.

Well, him and Rockette.

For a plant that moved and created meat lures, the resulting fruits were surprisingly safe for civilians to eat. Probably used up the massive amounts of spirit energy involved shifting the flavors and textures of the final product towards a conceptual ideal of 'delectable, delicious, and desirable'.

So he gave a good portion of the bland stuff to the merchants, whom were quick to see how useful a healthy but tasteless meat could be used in various dishes. Not for roasts or steak, but anything cut thin or smothered in flavorful toppings or sauce.

Needless to say, with the uptick in food quality morale was high for the caravan. Everyone was still stuck in town as trades continued, but the cultivating kids were being given individual instruction, quality food, powerful spiritual treasures and 'normal water'... they were beyond content.

Sister Dian was... well, going along with stuff. HIS people knew that wasting time was the whole POINT, so they were also fine with this.

Adam sighed, another Master Pocket formed and tossed on the pile.

That said, even if Adam was the only one able to do this... whatever he was doing right now, the scientific process got a bit repetitive. Rockette had tried to duplicate his actions, but even with her better control of his Qi and his Blue energy, she wasn't able to just... feel outside of reality like him.

And if Rockette couldn't do it, even as part of his Soul? No point in asking the others.

He did ask the lead guard anyway, he had been wrong before after all... and she made him add it to the list of things to not tell anyone but the Sect Patriarch.

The list was getting longer.

He blinked. Right, she had sent off a few jade slips he had made in some sort of secret Sect treasure cube. Sure, it had exploded pretty impressively into a depressing pile of dust, but still! When he got back to the Burning Sword Sect, he was going to buy a few.

Speaking of Sect items... Absently tapping another Master Pocket with his powers, he opened his free hand and examined another interesting Sect purchase.

A camping kit.

It was one of those things that everyone had, everyone knew about, and people didn't think about until they were missing one. Unlike the basic ones used on this journey, back when they actually set up camp before Rockette turned into a crystal cavern village, THIS camping kit was the super duper expensive one he had tossed onto the purchasing pile back when they left.

It was clearly not purchased often back then, and the reason was a tad obvious as well... It was too expensive.

WAY too expensive.

A canteen with MASSIVE storage within, able to provide water for hundreds of people for years. Required over a month of being submerged in a good source of water to fill the damn thing, and if it got tainted or poisoned you had to clean it out over several weeks and empty it all before trying to fill it again. Over another month.

A thin blanket which was an artifact. It would use the owner's Qi to become more heavy, warm, or (if desired) cool... it could stretch in size and stayed clean, could even repair minor damage or rips or tears. It also cost more than several thousand regular blankets, was a bit too finicky to store casually without using the included custom storage container, and worst of all... it GLOWED in spiritual energy senses. Forget every being stealthy with THIS thing being used. Half the functions of the carrying case is to retain the energy this thing spewed everywhere.

A fire starting tool. High quality, easy to use, small size, no one knew how to refill it. After an unknown number of uses, you might as well throw it away. Also, it might explode.

An expandable tent... but it had so many 'comfort' features that only one person could fit inside, even though it was big enough for a dozen people. And it cost more than setting up a new outpost in the wild from scratch. But if you needed a temporary tent that would automatically set itself up, dig a toilet pit, control temperature, ensure proper temperature of stored snacks and drinks, includes a washer and dryer and steamer and ironing press and toaster and... Sheesh.

Then there was the campfire toolset. Able to turn a 'normal', 'boring' campfire (Using the handy dandy hope-it-didn't-explode fire starter!) into a kitchen good enough for a master chef. Aside from the dozens of tools and accessories (Yes, I WOULD like to sauté my broiled roast!), the trickery and what not that allowed it to squish down to such a portable size made the already stupendous price multiply by many folds.

Oh, and to make all this junk small enough to be considered a kit, most of it had materials so thin and fragile, well... yeah.

It was CLEARLY designed by some psycho for 'Rich Young Masters' so stuck up that they could smell their own... anyway. Expensive, overpriced as well, technically not useless but realistically barely purchasable...

Adam chuckled as he remembered buying the damn thing. Not like he didn't have money to burn, but the absolute look of shock had been half the reason he went through with the purchase. He knew it was crap. The Sect store knew it was crap. Sister Quan knew. His guards knew. The crowd knew.

Good times.

Still, while fragile, expensive, and over developed as this kit was? It had some interesting tricks. Internal space expansion couldn't be done with formations if the object needed to be moved, not easily at least. Instead, each component that could hold a bit too much were formed of expensive materials and exposed to heavily dense energy with powerful will imposed within.

Concepts were brute FORCED into the parts by some high powered cultivator with clearly too much time on their hands and a desire for cash inflow. Considering that cultivation led most people to gain massive amounts of civilian wealth anyway, it was odd. Especially since the needs of cultivators tend to vanish as they progress.

No need to eat, sleep, drink, or even really wear mortal clothing. Why use a blanket when you could force power into basic unenhanced clothing? It wouldn't be like Adam's 'Mass Creation', the resulting product wouldn't have conceptual power or history... just 'Energy forced to act like a shirt', which was really only worth hiding your body.

Then again, at some point every battle was DEVASTATING to one's outfit. What was the point of buying a dozen robes if every attack or punch ripped them apart? At least with energy generated clothing they were free to replicate once you survived whatever most recent fight you battled.

So cultivators focused on what was valuable to them. Resources. Specifically, cultivation resources. Many societies even abandoned normal currency and traded low quality spirit pills, which at least were useful to beginning level cultivators if no one else. Or if they had the skills, the more difficult to obtain Beast Cores from Spirit Beasts.

It made the camping kit all the more inexplicable.

Are you strong enough to make this? Why ask for Sect Contribution points for something so strange? You would be powerful enough to earn more points through assignments anyway.

Are you rich enough to design this? Why? These same materials could have made stuff actually useful AND desired, instead of this gaudy package of strange objects.

In a way, the pointlessness of it all WAS the appeal to Adam. This section of the tent was a miracle of development, while THAT component looked like someone broke it with a hammer and used tape to fix it. That lighter was amazingly compact, but so intricate even the crafter had no idea how to maintain or refuel it. And so on.

At least it was interesting.

He absently added another Master Pocket to the pile.

None of these storage ring designs would be used in the end, of course. He wanted control of any tools he made in the future, and 'wishing' things into completion like this had strange issues.

One of the pockets only worked if used with the right hand. Why? No idea. Nothing inside the strange formation seemed to require it. That one over there only operated if the materials being stored within were slightly colder than the room's temperature. Too cold? Everything gets expelled from within in a massive mess.

In Adam's opinion, half the reason storage rings were so rarely provided to the market was random issues like this. They not only required time, energy, materials, and power... but even if everything 'works', it might require you to be bald or something to use it.

He didn't want to think about how many failure attempts were being stored somewhere for every ring that made it into the Sect Store for potential purchase. And by the time he eventually found that trivia out, he would be making his OWN rings for much lower cost and with much higher abilities.

Still, he found his metaphysical eye wandering over to one of the many time pockets floating 'nearby'. He wouldn't touch them here, so close to the trading town and his people... but personally he was VERY curious.

Would time pockets only have space when connected to, in a reverse of space pockets? Would they affect his local time awareness, like a distortion in reality, or simply cause him to be unable to sense what was going on until the exposed bubble popped?

Adam continued making a mound of Master Pockets as he watched the foam of reality bubble.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan sighed. "Yes, he's gone fully transparent." But still on fire, so... probably fine. Glancing around... nope, couldn't see her. "Rockette?"

The blue crystal suddenly floated up to her shoulder, holding on to a strand of her hair and waving the other at the 'guarding' children. "Ding?"

She couldn't really hold back a smile. "Glad to see you are doing alright." She waved at Brother Adam. "Any idea what he is up to now?"

The tiny floating head bobbled affirmative. "Ding."

She blinked. "Well... huh." A look at the bored cultivation students... "Well, that is fine then. Let me know when he reaches a stopping point, we are trying out a new stew with those strange peppers that taste like onions."

The tiny rock woman waved both arms. "Ding!"

She watched the crystal fly back to the transparent boy on the flaming wagon, and begin dancing in the flames.

...Well, as long as she was having fun.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Time passed, and Adam stayed busy.

Meditating in the flaming wagon turned out to be a great idea! First of all, Rockette could handle all the transportation issues, moving guards and goods in and out of the Crystal Caverns. Secondly, the wagon followed along with the caravan when the merchants prepared to leave the town...

Even though no one bothered to hook up the bulls.

Driverless/Autonomous driving aside, the wagon made a great light source as it meandered along at the end of the caravan, odd as it may appear.

But while little Tianshi and Sister Quan were curious about Adam's project, they were fine to let him work away and spend time on their own objectives. Tianshi was spending time with Mr. Whiskers and the baby Bull Chickens, Sister Quan was running the taste testing and helping Sister Dian teach the children.

The guards got to do stuff, even if it was killing the stronger Spirit Beasts that the weaker cultivators couldn't easily handle while traveling. Occasionally Sister Quan also had them move stuff. So, yeah, a billion times more useful than 'defending Adam' like before.

Adam though was sinking into something like a groove. An epiphany. Inspiration.

Conceptual Clarity.

While his right eye watched the world, his left eye's blue fire watched the foam of boundaries. Fingers touched bubbles of space, Master Pockets being redesigned... then formed... wished into existence, then harvested and carefully dissected...

'Research' had made some breakthroughs, then stepped in to help with Adam's design of new tools... new abilities and methods.

And again, it all came down to a single issue... detection. Sensing.

These formations, maybe ALL formations, were shaped by the reality they were crafted in. While much more noticeable in tiny space pockets like this, things like time, energy, potential... all these energies, including boring ones like width and depth and density, they all affected the rules.

It meant that all his current formation knowledge was limited.

If he traveled FAR enough, much farther than he ever traveled before, these designs would fail.

Some things in reality were 'constant', while other things were... relatively constant. Changing so little that they might as WELL be constant. Speed of light, for example... the maximum rate at which light could travel over a distance varies based on the medium it traverses through.

The 'speed of light' everyone talks about? That is measured when light was passing through a vacuum. A theoretical vacuum, as even space has stuff in it, even if very very little. It was entirely possible to find certain gasses or solids that could reduce the travel velocity of light passing through to a visible rate, though the usefulness of this was questionable.

Formations were rules pressed onto reality, at their most basic.

So first, Adam needed to know reality... or else he would be unable to determine the rules he wished to modify.

Some of the information he was relying on was actually being provided by the Realm itself, the concept of 'Enlightenment' allowing one to unconsciously connect to the mass of impossible knowledge gathered by sentients. And Adam's unconsciousness included 'Research', so that worked out very nicely indeed.

As he filled jade slips with more and more abilities and techniques, Qi methods and pure energy manipulation applications that was SURE to be added to the 'banned' list later, Adam kept both eyes open.

And blinked his THIRD eye, as the Asura Eye appeared on his forehead, sending warm feelings of excitement and 'joining in on the fun!'.

Huh. It was kind of cute, really. The third eye wasn't helping much, but she felt like a little child who insisted on helping daddy cook even if she wasn't allowed to use the knives or touch the hot stuff... it was enough to wash the vegetables and mix things, knowing that she and her dad was doing it together.

So he let her watch the various gray orbs he was forming inside Rockette, using her senses to see inside the Martial Spirit as he continued making more random products while experimenting.

Helpful? Maybe a little. But the warm fuzzy 'I`m Halping!' emotions were more than worth it.

Letting the eye glare at the growing pile of 'pearls', Adam refocused on his goals as he continued to create more raw data for his new sensing techniques to examine.

His rate of progression was... stupid fast right now. And his first goal was to create some standardized methods for manipulating space pockets.

It was too useful now that he knew how limited formations were. Because his original idea, making some rings that could imprint formation patterns onto a surface for the children's future cultivation? That wouldn't work if they traveled too far.

Like, if they stayed HERE, they could only travel... uh. Trillions and trillions of miles away. Or farther, depending on how he designed it. So, limited. And the whole system would break if they went into a holy land or cultivation site in a different dimension, or if they reached higher Realms or Worlds. Rules changed based on space, as far as he could tell.

So, NEW idea.

Step one, use the idea of 'Master Pockets' to design work spaces. Stable ones, with rules that didn't change and could be predicted.

Step two! Use those pockets to PROJECT the results desired into the users location, not actually build anything in a place that wasn't under Adam's control.

It would drastically simplify everything! Instead of having to scan the user, make sure they weren't on carpet or standing on people or something, designing the carving process to not go deeper or shallower based on the density and durability of the materials, hiding advancements or cultivation while meditating, allowing it to be cleaned up... ALL the various ideas he had were more complicated when he couldn't even ensure his formations WORKED anymore.

And the work around methods just made it more messy and annoying. Before THIS idea, he had been designing a massive 'Test Reality' formation that would determine the rules of that area of space, hopefully allowing him to automate a lot of the errors that could pop up depending on where they were and what they were doing.

That hard work was still useful, and became the basis of some of the new sensing methods he was incorporating into his default 'spiritual sensing' skill he and Rockette used... but adding that into EVERY SINGLE PROJECT!? No!

Things were easier when you controlled all of reality where your projects were installed.

And while he has been working on this new project for over a few weeks now (Seriously, the distance between towns is huge!), he had decided to make some major design changes.

First, no ring.

Aside from the fact that rings could be (AND WERE) stolen very easily, if a cultivator got his or her hand chopped off, it would suck to no longer be able to access your one-of-a-kind super cultivation tool set. And since the final product would also store stuff, you might lose your food and pants and stuff too.

Instead, he was borrowing from Mr. Whiskers and the original Asura Stone: Tattoos. Ink Tattoos. Preferably on the neck, though they could be put anywhere one was comfortable with Adam touching to apply it.

Because if they cut your hand off, you were in trouble. If they cut your neck off, it was no longer your problem! Or something like that.

That part was easy. Tattoos that transformed into stuff was a bit complicated still, but Tattoos that transformed into Concepts? Turned out to be dead easy! Having the concept be the 'address' of a Master Pocket was no problem. The pattern would shift over time as well, eventually becoming something that the user considered representative of the actual storage 'device'.

Should be neat to see that happen.

Passing down the tattoo would be impossible at that point, but Adam was fine with that. He wasn't creating legacies here, just a one off gift to help a new friend hopefully reform her entire Sect.

...Maybe. Maybe he wasn't creating legacies here. It wasn't impossible for these tattoos to shift to other body parts if removed from the user, or even flee to their children when the user dies.

It wasn't DESIGNED to do that, but concepts can get weird, especially when embedded into the skin of a person constantly reforming their body and sense of self through mystical means.

As time passed, Adam became more and more interested.

While normal Master Pockets for storage rings were the size of baseballs, HIS current selection were orbs the size of a large van. Aside from the stabilization formation (with repair functions, defensive features from outsiders and non user spiritual senses, and so on), Adam had cheated a bit to ensure he had enough space to work.

He made formations that simulated his 'Qi Forms', creating spiritual energy barriers in the walls that projected 'floors' and more patterns on the ceiling and floor to project 'walls'. It hurt a little to look at, but with full control of the pocket of reality he could form stable Qi surfaces...

Qi surfaces that were then available for more formation inscriptions!

He was doing his production process through a couple of stages. First, make a formation to achieve something generic. He had thousands of those now, like the 'make a Qi surface' one or the 'generate size of pocket at X address' and blah blah blah.

Second, a Formation that would examine the local 'rules' and modify the source material to work correctly in THIS situation.

Obviously the SECOND trick was stupid complex, took three days to design that one alone. And he kept fiddling with it as 'Research' had ideas or detected problems. But as it failed less and less often, it sped up the REST of his work significantly!

Because now he didn't need a billion versions of everything he designed... and NOW he was free to design a 'standardized' formation language.

Didn't matter if reality didn't match Adam's new documentation, the 'Formation Adaptation' trick would figure out how to translate his schematics to work where and when needed.

With those two hurdles addressed, he felt... free. Unlimited!

It might have been a month or so, but now that Adam had the ability to research and design a SINGLE formation language, with a 'compiler' 'Formation Adaptation' script to apply it?

Progress.

MASSIVE progress.

Adam carefully made a new Master Pocket... and began to apply the components.

This was his second massive design decision: Make each 'module' of functionality modular.

More than a bit important, because part of the 'Tattoo' process stored the Master Pocket into the new user's Soul. Or at least, the portion of the Soul that was used by the spiritual network, like Mr. Whiskers did.

Though it just sat there, unlike Tianshi's little friend who seemed to purify her energy and stuff, this introduced space constraints. Not huge ones, but they were there.

Anyway, the modules took advantage of all that room normally wasted by storage rings. Who knew how many thousands of useless 'addresses' were normally gathered, considering that all of a Adam's examples were the 'successful' ones.

If a Sect sold 'good' ring could only store a few thousand things, would a bad ring only hold a suitcases worth? And what would a legendary storage ring look like?

Adam frowned. He remember more than a few stories about amazing storage rings, with living gardens or even worlds within. Some even had advanced time acceleration that let users cultivate for years without growing old or produce treasured herbs... But.

But.

He would have to touch and mess with those... very, VERY interesting Time Pockets.

An image from the Asura Eye showed him his guards, Disciple, and fellow Sect member. A subtle thing, more because the eye wanted to prove how helpful she was, but actually reminding him that messing with time should be done with more precaution than 'It would be Neat'.

Portable space pockets were common and tested, he had working examples and could catch some of the riskier issues as they occurred. Like the 'ring' that he designed which tried to implode everything OUTSIDE itself. Or the space pocket that nearly carved a gaping wound in reality's boundary.

But if there was a time pocket failure? With no data to predict or mitigate issues? Especially since, without an example 'time ring' or something... yeah, a few massive explosions would be the BEST result, and he didn't want to hide all these people in his Martial Spirit.

His guards and his people? Sure.

Random merchants? And that fat guy buying pervert oil?

No.

So for now, the modules were more basic.

Several that were related to storage, of course. One for liquids, a custom design for gathering powder or multitude of tiny objects, the modified food storage pattern, and then a random holding module.

They were similar, but focused in different directions.

Liquid storage modules had custom methods for remotely absorbing or distributing the liquid, so you didn't have to bathe in a pond to gather water for later. It would be annoying to fill up a cup with coffee if you had to stick your neck over it, for example.

Gather storage was meant for sand, snow, powder, strange rain, medicinal pollen, marbles... huh. It seemed more useful when he was designing it... Meh, someone would appreciate it at some point. If not, it would be like that bottle top opener that manufacturers put on everything even though bottled drinks were less common, a 'useful' feature that people could ignore.

Food storage was hopefully going to be improved in the future, but for now focused on storing items in individual sub clusters with as little time spent accessing them as possible. It would keep all the individual items exposed to time as little as needed, ensure that they all stayed as clean and warm (or cold) as expected.

Random holding, or Generic Storage, acted like a normal storage ring... if said ring had far more useful pockets available ranging in sizes from a singled thumb to larger than a car.

It sounded impressive, but they were all so similar it only took like... an hour or two.

Next, the 'interesting' modules!

Spirit Energy Gathering Module. Designate a location, command it to activate or disable the process, and self destruct. It used some of his testing with remote collection of liquids to mark an 'address' in reality and attempt to absorb spiritual energy from there for later use. Could filter certain energies, try to duplicate a saved pattern.

Considering this society? The ability to remotely turn it on, turn it off, and (most importantly), RUN AWAY while destroying the evidence? Seemed reasonable. If it WASN'T being used to sneak away power, one could set it up in annoying places and meditate on the power at home in comfort.

The version he was giving to the kids didn't actively drain the spiritual energies of the area, just acted like an empty area for power to fill up... if put somewhere with dense heaven and earth energy it could be pretty useful! Maybe.

He used the same idea to make the Qi Reserve Module, where the user could stuff the space with their own power for later use. Useless for Adam, but someone would probably want it, could be useful for long periods of medical work or in a fight.

No, what he spent the MOST time on was his pride and joy: The Communication Module.

The Communication Module came in two main, paired parts: Client and Server. The ones for the kids would be the Client Modules, Sister Dian would get the Server Module. It... it was a bit odd, as the actual data was stored in a separate 'Attachment Module', along with any memories, file scans, or whatever... the Server Module just ensured everything and everyone connected correctly and had proper permissions.

They mostly worked by using the Clients to send thoughts to the Server Space Pocket in Sister Dian's control, data got chopped up where needed and stored away in the Attachment Module, where it went... a bit odd.

He WANTED to do something like text messaging. He GOT something in between video, text, and raw emotion... it could be stored, and reviewed, and act like a web forum with threads and stuff. Just... reviewing it felt like listening to recorded memories or something.

Rockette was testing a Server Module for now, the modules easy enough for her to just control manually without bothering with a separate Master Pocket or whatever... but this was the best Adam could do. Like, seriously, it worked, it was good enough... right?

That said, if you sent something perverted it was going to be saved forever. And then Adam had to pause for a few hours because in an Conceptual Realm, mnemonic hazards were a thing. A scary, scary thing.

But again, the module kept ALL kinds of details that made safety attempts tricky.

In the end? He had to create many 'scans' of both civilians and cultivator minds, duplicate them once, run all data through them... and check for unusual modifications between the pair. Anything suspicious would get flagged for further tests and delayed from being submitted... it SHOULD work.

He tried a few tests where the happy and eager Asura Eye posted some Yang poison concepts, and they got caught easily enough... Still, maybe restrict communications to 'subsections' of the Server Module? So Sect members could share within a certain distance, but not get exposed to members out on a mission or something.

Meh, he would leave the options available to Sister Dian, and add a bunch more features that may or may not be needed. Not his problem, let her play with it.

The Formation Application module was not leaving his hands, too easy to use and required a LOT of information about his personal formation scripting language that he didn't want to share right now.

He wouldn't be sharing the Qi Technique Repository modules either, though he did connect to Sister Dian's future Master Pocket and posted all the cultivation stuff they had discussed there. Being able to feel the emotions and memories of the person explaining various cultivation issues was surprisingly useful for teaching in Adam's opinion, an the ability to see people discussing them in a thread like manner should be helpful as well.

But the Repository module wasn't JUST a growing library of all the jade slips Adam had developed, restricted by user access level permissions and so forth. It was able to connect to the Qi technique Application module, to force a user to correctly USE those techniques.

Was it possible to treat this like a short cut or a hot key method to attack in battle? Sure, but it would feel strange and possibly force you to react wrong. Could even kill you if you were in an unlucky situation and reacted wrong to an enemy.

No, the REAL benefit was to activate it during training and meditate on how it felt to correctly apply theoretical knowledge for YOUR cultivation base.

While that would be a thousand times better than just 'useful cultivation documentation', it would ALSO be something the lead guard would want kept for the Burning Sword Sect. Adam could practically HEAR her voice grumbling about it already.

So for now: Storage modules (Liquid, Gather, Food, Generic), Energy module (Gather, Reserve), and the Communication Module (Client, Server, Attachment).

Kids should be happy with that, and Adam didn't really trust them with more. Hell, he wasn't even going to share the jade slips teaching the techniques to make new Master Pockets, new Modules, OR the method to apply, modify, or transfer the Tattoos. Not safe for kids AT ALL.

For his own personal use though, he had the other stuff. The Technique modules (Repository, Application), Maintenance modules (SO much here, none but Adam would get these), and the many, experimental and mostly useless modules.

Like the Soul Purification and Firewall modules. They uh. Well, it was a good thing no one else could try them yet. Nearly popped a few dozen copies of his Soul when he tested them. Maybe when he got more enemy combatants for 'ethical' testing.

...Might share the Trade module though. It made things much easier. Yeah, that should be safe to share.

Adam felt himself slowly awaken, his Asura Eye blinking in happiness now that he was moving again after weeks of sitting like a lump on the flaming wagon... and uh.

Ow. OWW.

He felt to the side, even as his leg cramps and other physical issues began moving his Cultivation Cells around to fix various problems. Damn it.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan and Dian's conversation was interrupted by a fast walking Adam who leapt onto their carriage. "Hey! I'm going to borrow her..." He picked up Sister Quan's associate, the lead guard looking exasperated. "To talk about several things that are not interesting or about things I am supposed to not tell anyone."

And he was gone.

After a pause, Sister Quan snorted. "See? If he is on fire, he's fine. Normally he doesn't spend four months working on something, but like Rockette said, it was all under control."

Sister Dian was still blinking. "Why was he STILL on fire? And I could see through his skin. And some of his bones."

She waved it off. "Don't worry about the small stuff, if he isn't maniacally laughing and destroying the landscape we can figure it out later."

Sister Dian sighed. "You know him best I suppose. I guess I just expected him to... sleep, or eat something during that time. Since he is still a Houtian Realm warrior I mean.

Sister Quan shrugged. "I admit, when he kept meditating all the way through that last town we visited, small as it was, I felt a bit worried. But if Rockette says it's fine, then he was probably doing something he considered really interesting."

A distant "WHAT!?" caused the girls to flinch.

Grumbling, Sister Quan went back to her study plan for the little ones. "That said, Adam being interested can often cause the same number of issues as when he is bored."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam grinned, standing on a new stage of molten magma now that the caravan had settled down for the night. "Good evening students!"

The kids sat straight. "SIR!"

He couldn't help smiling. "Now I am sure you all know how happy I am that you've all made such great progress. That you've worked closely with Sister Quan and Sister Dian, that you've really put in effort."

Adam waved, blue sparks following his fingers. "What you DON'T know is that I've been thinking about the future. As wonderful as our time has been, we all know that this is a temporary agreement between your leader and myself. That a lot of the benefits you have now are only available for a limited time."

Strange blue lines flowed over his palm. "Until now. Sister Dian?"

She looked... hesitant... but found the stage didn't radiate heat like it should, even as the rock flowed in odd patterns slowly, and joined him up front.

Adam waved his free hand at his palm. "Now, I am sure you all are as annoyed as I am with storage rings."

He missed the confusion on the kids and the exasperation his people were radiating. "The things were unable to store more than a few thousand items, were expensive, easily stolen, and worst of all? Annoying to manage."

A wave and some invisible Qi Forms had hundreds of items floating in the air. "If you only have ONE storage ring, it wasn't too bad. Sure, it was a bit annoying to get a full list of inventory, and it was far too easy to build up mountains of junk and garbage... I personally had hundreds of swords and knives from a few gangs I dismantled, that stuff just piles up if you don't pay attention!"

The items vanished. "But what if, in the future, you have to organize a dozen or more storage rings, move things around, send some to a friend at the Sect, maybe talk about trading a sub selection with others? Yeah, it's a hassle."

He began pacing, ignoring the woman next to him as he felt his dander get RIGHT up. "And I know most people can't tear a storage ring apart like me, and that a lot of stuff can be hidden away from sight. But sloppy workmanship just... BOTHERS me."

Feeling that he was getting off topic, he coughed. Yeah, a few kids seemed confused. Focus.

Adam waved Sister Dian over, and whispered. "I would like to give you a Master Pocket tattoo... basically a mark that acts like a storage ring. Where would be best? I would suggest the back of the neck or something, but it's up to you."

She blinked. "Why... why not my arm?"

A shrug. "You can lose an arm."

Hesitant... she instead showed her upper right hip. "If you are serious about this, then I would rather it be somewhere I can easily hide or at least keep where I can observe it. No reason to tempt people to target my blind spot."

...Ah. Good point. With a soft touch (Warm skin... No, focus.) Adam felt blue flames soak into her side, shifting colors to a sharp black pattern. It looked like Rockette's original Shard form, but should mutate into something personal after being exposed to Xe Dian's energy for a while.

With a nod, he turned back to the crowd. "Now of course, your marks won't be the same as Sister Dian's. As we have a contract together, I made hers a bit more powerful and with a few restricted features, especially as I won't be here forever to help out if things go wrong later on."

His hand floated a different, simpler simple. "This is the student mark, which she can apply. She can also change which modules, or features, are available if you wish." She couldn't CHANGE those student marks, or make new modules... but this was enough for now. He had to argue pretty hard with the lead guard to even get THAT permitted, but in the end she approved of the restrictions and inability (probably) to pass her master mark down to others.

Adam had a back wall shift into hardness, writing forming in glowing rock, surrounded by chilled black stone. "First of course, the mark lets you store stuff easily, with a few specialist versions to handle loose material, liquids, and keep food good for later. I was studying storage rings after all! If I couldn't do at least this much, how much time would I have wasted?"

No chuckles? Tough crowd. "Next, the main reason I made this for you kids. After I apply the mark, we will ensure that a sample of spiritual energy matching your personal cultivation ratio will be saved for reference. The 'Gather module' will let you build up some energy for cultivation that will be helpful WITHOUT needing me involved. It will be slower of course, and you can make new reference ratios later if your needs change in the future... but some is better than nothing, right?"

Well, they were still quiet but at least they looked more happy and less confused. "With this, you don't need me or Rockette to make your cultivation circles, and those riding the wagons can cultivate while we move with no problems. We'll still supply the energy for you on this trip though, this just means you can continue getting the good stuff when we aren't around."

It would TRY to convert non-matching spiritual energy into the needs of the sample ratio, but the formation version of 'Growth' was... not amazing. Functional, but barely.

He paused. "Right, and I added an Qi Reserve Module because some I figured some people would like to save up their internal Battle Qi for emergencies or whatever. Anyway, on to the good stuff."

A wave. "The Communication Module. This lets you contact your friends, your teacher Sister Dian, and access all kinds of useful data. Keep contact while exploring, share cool ideas with your people, maybe plan parties or whatever! And it has something like my jade slips, full of Cultivation notes, commenting threads, topic debates... should be fun!"

...Nothing? He wasn't really expecting cheers or anything, but this was like WEEKS of work! A pity clap or... or anything! "You can also send items from one storage module to another, sort your items automatically, send stuff to a friends storage or trade between... uh."

Adam felt a blush grow. It was quiet, and everyone was staring at him like a freak.

...He thought he was over this kind of feeling. Not like he had been normal for a while.

Focus. "Right, Sister Dian has a whole bunch of documentation explaining everything, and she can change the total number and type of modules you have. You can increase your storage ability by a lots, or... or the number of Qi Reserve modules, so if you have to do something complicated like the more advanced medical stuff..."

Damn it. Maybe he should have listened more to the lead guard. Maybe this was too much. He was hungry from not eating for weeks, tired, and emotionally compromised... Screw this.

With a slightly weak smile, he clapped Sister Dian's shoulder, even as the woman's eyes were glazed over, probably reading the Server documentation and massive instruction booklets. It was for the best that SHE apply the student marks anyway. Because he was an outsider, and... and it would be best for her to do it. "Now line up and Sister Dian will soon enough be able to get you guys and gals hooked up to my new Master Pockets! Rockette will make sure you are getting the right energies, and that you are supplied with power too... Let me know if you have any issues, alright?"

...Not even a sir. Yeah. "Great!"

Adam vanished into a Ghost Rockette's holographic jaw.

Sigh. Sometimes he forgot not everyone was used to his more... bizarre habits.

...He should go cuddle the bull chickens.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sister Quan felt numb. The lead guard sighed next to her. "And this was the 'acceptable' parts. Don't get me started on the stuff we DIDN'T allow him to share."

She just looked at the stage where a jerky moving Sister Dian was applying the new 'Student Marks' to grant these 'Master Pockets' to mere children. "Did... Did he just make mass produced storage rings? Without the rings?"

The guard snorted. "THAT would have been fine. Or at least, within his levels of crazy stuff. No, it's more than that."

Sister Quan turned as the woman continued. "He not only designed SOMETHING insane, it only costs Qi to apply it. To duplicate it. Oh he has built in protections, and if anyone tries to FORCE Sister Dian to use it against her will it will be... interesting... But yeah."

She sighed. "His 'storage module' holds more than all our rings combined. His specialized ones hold even more, and have special features to make them easier to manipulate. If putting everything you own into your Soul for safe keeping isn't enough, you can easily add ANOTHER Storage module."

They watched more kids start to gossip as they were granted this marvel. "It has something like a store, and a trading option, and the version he made for us has the ability to convert a place into a warehouse or storefront... we could send mission items directly to our Sect. From anywhere. And that isn't even the part he is proud about."

Sister Quan looked hesitant. "Maybe I should check up on him. He seemed... a bit down?"

The guard sighed. "We argued a bit. He showed up, had a much longer list of features he was considering sharing... it would start a riot. Just the stuff he offered... a tattoo that filters energy into stuff that works best for you? And don't even mention the artificial Qi Reserves. That single handedly lowers the difference between two Cultivators, even if one had a terrible foundation before reaching the next Realm."

Sister Quan absently nodded. "I assume you charge it for a day and have double the available Qi?"

The guard snorted again. "Charge it for a few YEARS maybe. If it has a limit, I couldn't reach mine." She showed the mark on the side of her neck, lowering her face guard. "It feels like a hole that you can store away power like endless water, ready for retrieval at any time. Aside from your low Qi recovery rate, you could pretend to be a higher level of cultivation if you put the time and effort in."

Should she go after him? He did look... a bit disappointed. "What was the communication thing he was talking about?"

The guard frowned. "It is a bit odd. Ours is more robust of course, and Rockette controls access, but... he took all those things he created, all those jade slips, marked them with access levels, and create something like the Burning Sword Sect's Repository of Knowledge Pagoda in your head. Somehow."

She blinked. "What?"

A nod. "Easier to use, easier to understand... and you can leave comments or modify copies of any of the data easily, though it has to be reviewed by Rockette before marked as 'confirmed' or counter argued. And there is another area that is LIKE the Repository, but is all empty... where people could argue and whatever, or even have conversations that are restricted to them alone and Rockette. As if you could have a private conversation anywhere using only your thoughts..."

The guard sighed. "It will make our Sect horrifying to our foes. Silent communication, recon missions with instant results, even the full destruction of our Sect could no longer destroy the history or documentation of our ancestors. Our goods would be unstealable, our caravans unraidable... it was mind blowing."

Still... Sister Quan looked at the now empty stage.

Adam had bounced on there like a child on his birthday... and left like no one else came to it.

She nodded. "I'm going to go check up on him, just in case. Could you help Sister Dian with her mob of munchkins?"

The other woman groaned. "I suppose. It's not like I hate kids, and I DO know a lot about this after Adam walked me through it... but look at them!"

The yelling kids didn't exactly display the calmness of cultivation. More like a sugar rush of energy, now that they realized they all had personal treasures impossible to even SEE at their Sect.

Poor Dian looked overwhelmed. "NO! I will KNOW if you store stuff that isn't yours! Put back the seats!"