While the first Orders of Houtian Warrior were focused on rebuilding the body and seeding the meridian route, the spiritual network of the body... the final, Tenth Order was solidification.

The conceptual establishment of the foundation, the permanence, the crystalization of one's body, mind, Qi, and Martial Spirit.

...Considering Rockette's nature, that was appropriate.

First, though, protection.

Adam hadn't followed the right, or at least, the orthodox path.

Who would consume their flesh in spiritual flames, reborn through pain and rebuilt through research and experimentation?

While he used his Seven Pulse Cultivation method to determine the safest and strongest method for the Essential Cultivation method to follow, he himself was constantly shifting his own advancement on the edge of a knife.

Even WITH Rockette's guidance, even with absolute energy control and manipulation, his methods were near impossible to follow, using methods nearly too complicated to even document... much less attempt.

Seven individual meridian routes, all with many strange side paths and odd timings, differing speeds and differing cycle numbers... A plan that was constantly changing, even when following the cultivation technique correctly?

There was a reason he wasn't passing this on to anyone else.

Still, it had advantages. Any slim enhancement, any fragment of improvement? His method followed it as some point, until the benefits were outweighed by some other, probably more risky choice. One he would of course follow.

But here was a downside.

He didn't know what was going to happen next.

For a normal cultivator, reaching First Order Xiantian Realm could even be impossible. Something denied by their heritage, the lucky encounters of their past, or just misfortune when trying to gain momentum throughout their life.

Reaching a century and failing was common. Dying during the attempt was also normal.

Moreover, they had to constantly poison themselves through tainted medicine and impure heaven and earth energies just to grow strong enough to even attempt a breakthrough, much less ascend to the next Realm.

Their cultivation methods, many times fragmented, weak, or inappropriate for their personal circumstances, would be frantically followed in the hope that it would expunge as many impurities as possible, that it would grant them a glimpse of enlightenment, that they could defy the heavens themselves and reach something greater!

Their stories were documented, and Adam had read them.

Generations, whole Sects worth of tales and warnings and guidance... none of them covered what he now faced.

Breaking through to the Xiantian Realm meant three basic things: Converting all of the gaseous Qi in their spiritual network and meridians into a liquid form, filling their inner Qi Sea with a heavily concentrated form of energy; Purging many impurities and converting portions of their body into something closer to a concept, extending their lifespan; And enhancing their Martial Spirit.

Unlike the other breakthroughs, which granted or unlocked new Martial Spirit Innate abilities while they strengthened others... this one was more fundamental. More important.

The Martial Spirit would become real. Physical.

Adam had read stories of snake Martial Spirits shedding actual skin, plants growing harvestable fruit, even weapon Martial Spirits that would fracture into physical shards and reforge themselves into something more.

They would be able to physically carry their masters, to assist in fights... even if it also opened their owners to dangerous risks should they be destroyed.

Moreover, their new status would drastically increase the rate of heaven and earth energy absorption and purification, allowing their owners to fill the sudden void in their spiritual networks as all that floating energy liquidized!

...But not for Adam.

His Martial Spirit had been 'real' for a long while now.

Her ability to absorb and purify energy was beyond expected since the beginning!

...What would happen to her at this point?

Honestly, his body had been reformed beyond tough now. Forget 'Skin like strengthened cow leather', his body had odd relationships between force and energy to begin with. Not to mention the ever shifting poison tattoos and whatever the hell happened to his left eye.

So... the next steps were going to be unpredictable.

...He probably shouldn't be looking forward to it this much.

Anyway, this unknown situation had him focusing on his back, at his 'slave mark' from his branding.

It was an interesting, if not complicated design. By default, it used the spiritual energy of the cultivator to both drain away their ability to fight and use the energy to power itself... there was probably a version for civilians too, since they wouldn't be able to power the thing.

Adam had to actively prevent his body from releasing concentrated curses from his skin during the branding, fake the scars (His blue fire was MUCH hotter than that wimpy hot metal), and stop the Asura Eye from sucking down the cursed ink that they filled the formations with.

Couldn't exactly get 'branded' if all the markings vanished in the process, after all.

Now though, he had Rockette fill the thing and force it to begin cycling as fast as possible.

His still secured collar also got a massive energy boost, as did the chains his recent 'friends' had just finished attaching to his limbs... he needed them all to be enhanced, a bit redesigned to handle his higher energy levels, maybe cooled a tad so they wouldn't melt into goo. At least, not melt instantly.

After all, these cursed tools and markings were made to repress and restrict the ability of a person to work with and reach their internal energy.

Hopefully? They would help reduce the upcoming blast radius as well.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Ming Yu kept up her whispers. "It's just another silk pants, the bad guys are all busy, everything is alright... I'm sure Master will send all his people to find us any hour now..."

No, the other guards were dead and she was only kept alive and secured because she looked pretty enough to rape later. It wasn't even likely that she would be sold, she was not the original kidnapping target.

Zhao Rin was still quietly sobbing... it was better than before at least, if she stayed quiet there was less chance one of their captors would beat the child. Or worse. "We just need to stay calm, to keep our eyes open... You know how battle can change in a moment!"

No. Little Rin was barely 12, even if her father doted on her like an angel from heaven the little child only showed promise... not enough raw power or potential to actually fight against all these dangerous cultivators. Ming Yu herself was fairly well known for her martial talents and combat ability, and her whole squad had been torn asunder by the well planned ambush.

Drugs, betrayal (Though that bastard also died... these people didn't really believe in loyalty, to no ones surprise), and overwhelming numbers and power. It hadn't even been a contest.

Her eyes examined the cells again. The fellow captives.

Little Rin was the youngest, most of the women here ranged from 18 to 32. Almost all the older ones were cultivators and so naturally looked young and beautiful, even if their power was locked away and their limbs bound by these cold chains filled with energy.

Worse, as she could likely break a hand to get out given time, her legs were bound as well... and these cells looked sound enough to hold them even if she was free in the first place.

At least her charge was close by. And, so far, untouched other than to bind her to the wall as well. "Little Rin, when rescue comes I need you to stay close to me, to follow my words... can you do that for me?"

YES! A weak nod!

It wasn't much, but in times of want even a crumb could feel heaven sent!

Her gaze shifted as she calculated.

She had... very few options.

A holdout measure, one she had never planned to use, would allow her to convert all her Qi (Accessible or not) into a single explosion. The formation was tattooed inside her cheek, had hurt like hell to inscribe, and was not to be used lightly.

After all, a suicide attack was pretty much the last resort of the cornered.

Problem was, Rin was too close even if an opportunity showed up. Well, that and she wanted any life ending explosion to actually ACHIEVE something... blowing herself up in this cell would make a mess at best. Not exactly freeing her charge and saving the day.

Maybe she could convince the guards to rape her first?

She could explode as they moved her out of the cell, killing them, leaving an exit... maybe she could direct the damage enough to prevent Rin from being included?

Though to ensure the little one could escape as well, the child would have to be unlocked first. Which would imply BOTH of the girls getting assaulted, and that was unacceptable.

Her darker thoughts and even deeper backup plans to do as much damage as possible on the 'way out' were missed as the cell opened. "MOVE! Get them all unlocked and move!"

Dozens of people dashed into the cells, unlocking the young men, women, and girls... even as they were hustled away. Ming Yu would be fighting but it was clear: This was NOT standard operations. Something was happening.

Still, she managed to roughly stay near little Rin as they moved, even as she focused through the yelling and noise to overhear what was going on.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The black robed cultivator was cursing. "HOW did you not detect that rich pansy was so close to a breakthrough!?"

The minion he slapped was dazed on the floor, but his assistant spoke up. "Sir, he showed no resistance during branding, nor when we locked him in his cell... If we hadn't followed protocol, I would have even left him with the kidnapped civilians."

...Well, at least THAT mess had been avoided. Still. "How's evacuation going?"

His own minions were gone, busy. His third in command however was keeping track. "This has completely disrupted our planned shipment, and based on our estimates the new 'guest' must have suffered severe cultivation deviation when we 'betrayed' him."

Shit. This happened once in a while, though normally nothing this dramatic. These rich boys had a lifetime of expensive pills and resources stuffed into them, and occasionally after capture they could react unexpectedly to captivity...

This was the worse case scenario, a breakthrough cultivated recursion loop. It would destroy the rich wastrel's future, and would end in his death of course, but worse? It would amplify the effects of the energy that normally would be used for breaking through a cultivation blockage.

It could cause an explosion over a hundred times stronger than the cultivator could ever create purposefully. It was why they normally had so much research, the background checks, and the safety procedures. At least the last one had worked out this time, if only thanks to luck.

He grunted. "How big a blast radius?"

A wince. "Too large. Way too large."

Shit.

Whatever the hell the Sect was doing, with those new rings that they didn't dare attempt to access considering their own nefarious deals, it had moved items and currency away from easily looted pockets and into those damn storage rings.

Desperation had made them cut corners, take more risks... and it was all falling down on them now. While unreasonable, he wanted to blame it on that bastard Gen, who somehow had connections with the Sect itself and was pushing his people into dangerous situations like this one!

He frowned even as he moved to the secured second transition point. "The merchandise?" Some deals were too big to give up on, even under this crisis. He was one of the few willing to work the trafficking trade in this Sect.

His Third winced. "We've had to move them to the Vault."

...The WHAT!? "Explain. RIGHT damn now."

The man nodded. "Can't transfer them, the other points are not secure enough to hold such 'delicate' merchandise... only the treasure vault is secure enough to defend, close enough for them to access in time, and strong enough to survive the guest's self destruction."

What even was his life. "We are actually moving our cargo into our own damn treasure vault. What... what the hell. What was even the point of all those layers of defenses, of obscuration... Even I have problems getting in there, even to pay our people!"

The man shrugged. "Can't pay our people if our paycheck explodes."

...Damn it. "Are they at least secured?"

A nod. "I sent our best team with them until everything settles down."

...Well, shit. It was going to suck having to kill that squad later, they had invested a LOT of funding into training that group.

Oh well. Can't have a combat team knowing how to get into the Vault. Once he re-secured his merchandise, the payday should cover the 'employee turnover' that would suddenly occur. What a pointless waste of money.

If he had been less stressed, or if he had more time to understand the situation... maybe he would have remembered that, included in the long, LONG list of defensive measures he had added to the Vault over the years... well.

His new slave meat stock were listed in the formations as 'Treasure', valuable merchandise to be sold, and were thus to be protected within the Vault by default. Automatically.

His guards were not 'Treasure'. Or even listed as 'Authorized'. Because who would trust people like the ones he hired? Not him of course, he was smarter than that.

Anyone other than the Boss going into the pay Vault should expect the upcoming outcome, really.

...Yeah, it was unfortunate that everyone was far to busy to establish clear communications, scheduled checkups, or even verification that the people involved were not silently triggering some very unusual defenses inside a highly secured and defensible treasure storage formation.

Or lucky. Depends on your point of view, really.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The tattoo was rotting off his skin, even with his effort to force it to hold together.

The chains had already melted, the blue flames fully covering his surface and starting to spread over the stone floor and wall... but at least the 'Slave Brand' had lasted a bit longer!

...Not much longer.

As more and more energy was being shoved into his spiritual network, the cell, the (now melted) collar, the (even MORE melted) chains... all had began to flow down into a puddle of molten material.

His clothing had long since evaporated. Thankfully, everyone else had long since fled... so woo, modesty preserved. Apparently flooding the room with a broiling heat wave really cleared the area!

...Well, they may have left because this melting material was emitting waves of toxic and noxious fumes everywhere. And the attractively designed formations covering the walls were doing strange things as this corner of the room was beginning to melt down.

Right, whatever the reason, Adam had time to focus on his own advancement!

Not that it would be hard, he had been repressing his urge to flood his system with energy for months now. The only reason he was keeping this slave crest running was to build up pressure and ensure a nice surprise for all those lovely kidnappers currently marked with such 'gifted' tokens of affection.

...Would they just pop?

He grimaced as the cursed tattoo fragments started making loud snapping noises even as the energy floating over his skin started to fracture.

...Well, it was about time to find out, wasn't it?

crraAACK!

The cursed formation floating over his skin began to degrade entirely!

PAIN!

Spikes of ice and fire dug into Adam's bones, torrents of barely directed energy flooded his meridian routes!

The metaphysical walls of his cultivation 'tubes' began to swiftly crack... and as they smashed pain into his skull, each one was reforming with less material and more conceptual construction!

His seven Qi Seas were all swirling, filling, flooding!

ding!

And the restrictions were gone.

Unrestrained, Rockette gripped the power in Adam's body and crushed it.

Her unseen fist tore raw energy from his flesh, from her reserves, from the Sect Barrier, from the swirling power seeking his aura from the dimensional foam... and crushed it.

Tighter, smaller, harder...

His body was dry. His meridians, his spiritual network? Empty.

In each of his seven Qi Seas, a bright blue cloud was being constricted. Bound. Reborn.

His skin was too tight.

His left eye was dark. Unusable. Blind.

His Asura Eye was frantically sending Rockette raw poisonous energy, trying to help. It wasn't enough.

His body was slowly consuming itself, converting empowered Cultivation Cells into even more raw power. Pure, untainted, Adam aligned power.

As his final reserves were consumed... the recursive Adam's within began to donate their essence as well. Wounding their bodies to support their future.

And deep in his Qi Seas, a glowing blue drop formed from the compressed cloud of his Qi.

So... so small.

But pure.

Pure on a level that was not describable. But he still felt the urge to try.

Binding energy never quite worked the same as other energies. His personal opinion was that it was some sort of Soul energy used by the world (Or plane in this case) to allow connections and concepts to form and grow.

This... this pure energy was not normal.

It felt beyond. Something to be pondered, not something one was supposed to actually find.

Unasked, System Core joined Rockette and Asura Eye as they watched the blue pearl drop toward the cracked spiritual ocean bed, deep within the concept of Adam.

They watched, even as Adam and his Adams watched, even as his body fractured and his thoughts tried to drift... they silently watched a blue gem fall to the fractured surface at the bottom of what used to be a Qi Sea full of spiritual energy.

When it landed, it didn't sound like liquid.

Ding!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

In a prisoner cell, deep underground.

In a room of liquid stone and metal, filled with poisonous fumes and burned curse formations.

Hidden by time, by formations, by social pressure.

Adam, sitting in a meditative pose, slowly stopped burning.

All the energy that used to dance on his skin, to burn through his hair, was drained within.

The heat from the molten floor was absorbed, the poison consumed, the air itself growing cold as energy vanished.

And in front of Adam, a tiny crystal girl trembled.

Rockette, no longer floating, was slowly crumbling.

Each limb fell. Each finger dropped. Her head slowly slid to the ground.

Her glow faded. Her eyes dimmed.

Her Shard fractured into dust.

...It was quiet.

In the dark, Adam's body thinned.

His limbs lost muscle, his skin tightened. His bones withered.

His head grew weary.

His back grew bent.

His embers faded.

And somewhere else, as this skeleton boy dried in the dark, a blue drop landed.

ding.

It was quiet.

Not lonely. Not weary. No apologies or excuse was given, no demands or desires were made.

In the dark, the once molten floor flickered with a gentle flash of light.

ding.

Blue light.

Ding.

A spiral of fractal patterns began to etch the floor. They were not formations.

Ding.

They were not runes.

Ding.

They were not patterns.

Ding!

They came before patterns.

DING!

Before runes.

DING!

Before formations.

Ding.

Blue crystal began to spread.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

He had seven Qi Seas... but only one drop of liquid Qi.

It was enough.

The fractured sea bed was covered with crystals that began to spread from that one drop. It raced up the walls, it filled in the cracks and wounds, it began to encase his entire, cavernous pit of a spiritual well!

FAST!

It raced up, up, up!

Over the ledges, the limits, the walls...

It consumed material like tissue in a bonfire, every moment was enough for a wave of blue rock to glow as it clawed further and further up the edges of his spiritual center!

An ocean of crystal slammed into his meridian paths, the wounded and cracked network being reforged from glowing blue stone! Even as his network regrew and strengthened, veins of rock began to dig into his organs and flesh, blue shards of spiritual material digging deeper into his existence!

Adam felt his lungs shiver as he gasped. As his recursive selves suddenly felt weight drop off their shoulders, as his body glowed while blue crystals began infecting his curse tattoos and danced over his skin.

Asura Eye was confused as she felt her stone components shifting into glowing blue rock, as her existence was pulled closer to her friend... bound together as energy began to spread further and further!

And as the racing stone began to mutate, to devour and replace what mortal components his body had before, he began to feel something... large.

Something loved Adam.

She was looking down at him, and saw a friend. A companion. Herself.

She was looking up at him, and saw an adventurer. An explorer. An inventor.

She was he, and he was She.

Together, they grew. Together, they were one.

As the pain left Adam, he collapsed into her embrace. She would protect him.

He had no doubts at all.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Patriarch of the Burning Sword Sect watched the glowing blue crystal giant slowly stand from the crumbled remains of the private residential palace.

He sipped his tea. "That is Sixth Elder Hawn's facility."

The guard nodded.

The blue giantess was still standing. Her head alone was larger than most buildings, her height towered over most of the mountain, and she wasn't even sitting up yet.

He hummed. "Has he been detained?"

The guard stayed knelt. "Sir, he and his people 'left' moments before we arrived. We have four teams in pursuit, but no reports have been gathered yet."

Expected. Not pleasant, but Elder Hawn always had plans within plans.

Rockette was still in the process of standing up, one hand crushing a fairly large area... oh. How unfortunate, the Sixth Elder's prize rose garden would need significant work if he wanted it to be viewable again. "And the investigation?"

The guard passed a summary. "In his haste, it seems he failed to correctly activate a destruction technique designed to eliminate evidence. Instead of evaporating his office and detonating a portion of the office space, it seems to have damaged the protective measures preventing us from decoding the data."

Rockette's hand seemed to be converting the local area into a dazzling garden of crystal Shards, that were slowly spreading up the mountain side. Thankfully she was slow enough that it was easy to evacuate anyone in the area. "Really? Anything interesting?"

He began reading the summary... oh. Oh my.

His lips curled into a sinister smile.

How fortunate.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Animals needed a circulatory system. Either pressured internally or externally, meat in general needed to cycle nutrients and such while removing waste and ensuring everything received the needed gases and liquids.

Plants also pumped needed to move materials around, sap and so forth allowing the cycle of life to continue.

Crystals though... they were simple repeating patterns. Grids, matrices...

They didn't need a protective skin. They WERE the skin... the pattern itself when exposed was the same as the material that was broken off.

Crystals didn't need safe growing conditions with supplied resources.

They didn't carve a path to life in the world.

They grew from flaws.

A liquid filled with saturated crystal material couldn't even form the first Shard without some defect to latch on to, some exposed edge or contaminant. It needed an origin point.

The more flaws, the more areas that could spawn a lattice, a framework of material. The many cracks and openings in the soil and stone would fill with water carrying all sorts of minerals, or crystals. Tiny seeds that would eventually bind together and form stability from chaos.

Adam was full of such flaws...

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

System Core was analyzing.

The body of Mr. Burns, young Adam to his friends, was filling and transforming with crystalline structures. It was not a smooth transition... his limbs attempted to flail as flesh decayed and regrew, as tension built and snapped.

Core found it fascinating!

It wasn't actually stone or other such mineral. This crystal conversion was more... a framework of a framework of a matrix of a grid of a concept. A blueprint for how to manipulate all sorts of energy into a unified structure, much stronger than the source materials.

It failed often. Every micron of progress caused the weakest speck of material to corrode away and be reborn in glowing blue material. Even past progress would break down when better shapes and designs were discovered, slowing the entire process to a sluggish pace.

And again, it was not made of rock... no, it was spiritual energy being used to rebuild his spiritual network, it was freshly enhanced Cultivation Cells renewing his flesh, and it was something glowing and blue that seemed to seep into his soul! Fascinating!

Core documented everything! Its ability to analyze and question growing more curious as it watched artwork being formed... then harshly destroyed so that something more perfect could be built. Tiny towns were built, burned, replaced by sprawling cities, evaporated, used as foundation for nations...

Data. More and more data! Core passed it quickly to 'Research' for further review.

...No response?

Core didn't know what to do about that. How to feel.

'Research' had always been there.

Rockette?

...Also quiet. More a busy quiet, but she had never been this busy before.

Core realized that its world had always had Father Adam, Sister Rockette, and Sibling 'Research'. They were facts, part of reality, simply understood to be true.

It didn't know what to do.

Send data to 'Research'.

...Nothing.

Core never realized how... how quiet it was to be here, in this impossible location between dreams and concepts. Alone.

It examined data again. Almost pointless without 'Research' being so helpful, without Rockette's guiding light. Even the randomness of the Asura Eye was missing, as she was too overwhelmed as her body slowly converted into something new.

It looked outside.

Rockette's unrestricted form towered from the spire of the volcano now. Vents grew within her feminine form filled with rich smoke and even glowing veins of molten material.

Yet the smoke was a dense blue, and the shifting liquid stone was a strange silver... marking her lustrous 'skin' with tattoos and markings as she sat elegantly upon her smoldering throne.

She could overlook all from there, yet she was focused on Father, cradled in her cupped hands as he gently screamed and twisted quietly. Her attention ensured that he would stay safe... which was good.

If only Core didn't feel so alone while they struggled.

It knew this was a fragile moment, where Father needed 'Research' and 'Purification' and 'Growth', where Rockette and Asura Eye shifted energy, material, and guidance to establish stability and safety for Adam.

But Core wished it could do more.

Father did so much. Answered questions it couldn't, suggested options it missed.

And what could Core do now?

Just... just continue to analyze. To observe. To ask.

Rockette's crystals were converting the mountain, even now. The nodes of the Tattoo Stations were made from her body, after all... the Sect Shield established with her bones. For she was from the before, from the below... the concepts before material, the thoughts before people.

Deep below the ground, she was both rising and falling. The her from impossible years before was reaching up to herself from impossible places now, growing to that one connection. Energy followed, concepts grew, and potential radiated.

It was insanely fast, for geological changes.

It was taking far too long, for Father Adam. At least, in Core's opinion.

But days passed as they were wont to do, as Core watched. Questioned.

Waited.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam was so. Damn. Bored.

It only took a few hours before the amount of pain his body was enduring forced him to retreat into something like meditation.

Only a few days until he learned how to shift focus over to Rockette, letting her ensure his body breathed and stuff. The sheer energy being inserted into his spiritual network meant that he didn't need food, water, or rest... which was good because it seemed quite busy with all the screaming and seizures and junk.

Yeah, turns out?

'Perfect' cultivation methods, or at least ones like his Seven Pulse Cultivation Technique, had a severe downside. Beyond the obvious: The near impossible to follow requirements and each step requiring exponentially more energy than other methods.

It was a bit of a surprising issue that he didn't see coming: They had prepared TOO well.

Most of the pain from breaking through barriers and bottlenecks was due to the ensuing restructuring of the parts prepared for modification, ascension, or what have you. For normal people, this is next to nothing... their methods and resources were just not good enough to even allow them to notice the differences as they traveled from First to Tenth Order. And quite a few might not even be able to move up to the next Realm at all, so any side effects would be missed entirely.

But Adam had pushed the bar. Stood on the knife's edge of 'Almost too much' and 'Oops! Death' during every stage of his advancement... He had approached perfection far too early!

So now, his everything was being modified. Even bits and pieces that would normally be addressed at later stages of cultivation, as well as concepts that normally would need development later in life.

It sucked.

Oh sure, there were probably massive benefits to this. Especially since he could now detach his mind from the torture being inflicted on his systems as they were improved, avoid the obvious insanity issue. But for right now?

He was stuck somewhere, floating within Rockette, as her new colossal form knelt with refinement on top of a converting volcano.

Couldn't even access the Tattoo network in here, with everything being so unstable. Or communicate (thanks to all this screaming) to Rockette or anyone.

At least time was passing. He wasn't sure if it was meditation or just temporal tracking issues, but with a bit of focus he could slow down his perspective, make the 'sun' race over the sky and watch the Sect bustle and stuff.

Eventually, with literally nothing else to distract himself with, he began to examine the changes to his body.

Good news! He was done converting into Xiantian Realm First Order Warrior!

Holy crap BAD news! ONLY he was done.

All this screaming, all this pain, yadda yadda?

That was feedback from his OTHER Adams having THEIR breakthroughs.

Like... what the actual fuck.

Each of his recursions breakthroughs though were thankfully taking less time than the previous one so far. His first advancement took around eight hours or so, the next recursive Adam only took seven hours and forty five minutes... and as the days passed, eventually the time required would (hopefully) reach something close to instantaneous.

Because an infinite number of Adams advancing to a new stage of existence sucked. And hurt. And took lots of time and energy.

There was ALSO going to be a huge backlash when this finished too.

Each layer of Adam that advanced had a single drop of the new liquid energy, the internal Qi that was unacceptably powerful and pure... and while they couldn't build up more of a reserve until all his recursions advanced, each layer of himself that recently converted was able to supply a fraction of this new power to the next layer below.

It was why the process was speeding up, which was good... and why his power would be overflowing when it finished. Which could be bad.

Since he literally had nothing else to do, he was making plans for what to do when an infinite number of Adams began generating a stupid amount of power at an uncomfortable rate of progression.

Current plan? Generate more 'Binding Qi' drops in his spiritual sea.

Yes, it would work short term. His seven seas had lots of room!

No, it wasn't the best plan. It would progress exponentially as more and more liquid Binding Qi was stored away, increasing energy production.

Dumping it into the spatial foam was a terrible idea. No clue what that would do, what kind of backlash might occur.

Filling up the Sect Barrier energy requirements would only waste a trivial fraction of his ongoing recovery rate, basically a rounding error. No help there.

Adam's new, most current plan? He was going to abuse his 'energy to matter' Mass Creation ability directly. To do deliberately what Rockette was doing unconsciously now: Convert this mountain and most of the area below the sect into spiritual energy resonant materials.

Ores, metals, crystals, and even just enhanced dirt... it would improve the cultivation environment while letting him get rid of the future backlash. And Rockette's control over the Burning Sword Sect Barrier would let her hide the more valuable stuff from outsider senses, which hopefully would prevent other Cultivators from committing suicide trying to raid this Sect for resources.

Hopefully.

Thankfully, energy storage for any overflow would not be an immediate problem. Rockette's Crystal Cavern was already unimaginably large BEFORE this upgrade, it was going to be even larger after, and the amount of space could be considered infinite with only a little bit of argument from people who like doing that sort of thing.

On a slightly humorous note, instead of concentrating the energy inside Rockette's living area he would have to diffuse it from now on. And the 'Cultivation Caves' as well, no cultivator could handle the raw density of energy that would be considered 'normal' after this point if they came inside Rockette to visit. Well, no normal cultivator... Little Tianshi might be able to handle it, since Mr. Whiskers acted like a cultivation buffer and manager for the child.

Adam's ghost (spirit?) flinched as something crackled inside his twisted body.

Technically, the conceptual framework was being used to construct the smallest of components of his new Cultivation Cells, the actual acids and bases that made up the body. It was why his flippity floppity limbs hadn't turned into rock and cracked from all the flailing.

But in reality, even though his primary body had already converted to the new Xiantian form? The changes hadn't stopped.

As more and more spiritual energy and Qi surged into his existence and down into his recursive cells, it was causing each layer that was passed through to be refined. The weakest areas and those parts slowest to transmit power were being corroded away and rebuilt stronger then before... and with even greater stability and support.

Thankfully, most of the changes were undetectable externally. No odd horns or trunks or whatever.

Maybe he was a bit taller, with all clothing long since dissolved from his violent changes. It was hard to tell with him curled up like that. At least his skin was still young looking, the new scars fading away quickly.

Plus, his bright blue hair and one blue eye looked human-ish! That counted for something!

However... the more strange features?

His silverish and blackish curse markings were all much thinner, much more delicate, and no longer looked like ink.

Every thin line, if viewed closely, was now a pebbled rift of tiny, nearly glowing light blue crystals. As if underwater, the tiny rocks would shift colors slowly, the waves of energy drifting from a sort of pure transparent glossy look to a near black multitude of blue shades and hues.

Even his bright blue hair seemed to have thin strands of silver in it, hard to see unless moving... some sort of flexible quartz?

No, the biggest issue was once again his left eye. Adam missed the change at first, his body having moved too violently for easy viewing... but it was a wing dangler of a change.

The black pit within his eye socket was now formed from some unknown crystal, only dim glints of reflected light showing that there wasn't an empty void to another place. Seeming to float within that void was a glowing blue shard, one that seemed kissed by fire and loved by power.

...He could hide that, right?

Like, his mind interpreted spirit energy and Qi so well at this point that he could 'see' perfectly fine without a head being needed, but this new eyeball was just a bit freaky looking. At least, it looked messed up when viewed on a human face... it would look pretty awesome in his skull really! You know, when he eventually went back to a nice healthy skeletal wardrobe.

Huh. Something about the odd eyeball felt... conceptual. More heavy and solid. Replacing it with normal flesh and blood might end up being difficult honestly... there was even the risk of any 'normal' eye either mutating back into this design or exploding his attempts straight out of his own damn skull to make room.

...Yeah, he better test ALL those things alone. Exploding body parts made Sister Quan get all angsty. Maybe an eye patch... pirates got all the ladies with an eye patch!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elder Cho waved for the next report. "Continue."

He nodded. "The Tattoo Network is still active, even if the status of the Young Sage is still in question. Assuming the Burning Goddess is his Martial Spirit Rockette, she seems unconcerned even as the child continues having... issues."

She held back a snort. Issues, right. More like heavy seizures and some sort of cultivation deviation it seemed like.

But young Adam seemed destined to do impossible things. "No response?"

The shadow man shook his head. "Sister Quan and Disciple Tianshi are able to approach closest to the new 'crystal throne', but no changes yet."

Used to just be a mountain, but when a god sized attractive rock woman decides to sit on it and make it look all sparkly, the public relation memos just wrote themselves. "Keep surveillance and guards up. I don't care what is actually happening out there, but I will not allow outsiders or invaders to interfere with young Adam's cultivation advancement."

As the reports moved on, she let herself quietly sigh. She had no idea how to help, and it was beyond frustrating.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

His team was beyond curious at this point... and they were close enough that telling them what was going on wouldn't instantly destroy the point of this trip. "Right, listen up. Only covering this once, yeah?"

Several nods.

He stayed under cover. "A month or so ago, one of the largest Sects in this kingdom both did and did NOT vanish."

Confused looks.

He sighed. Whatever. "After years of effort..." It was a punishment, actually. "I was assigned to work in the detection department for these kingdoms. To watch for invasions or unusual activity." A job where nothing happened for literally decades at a time. It took money to invade or attack, and such actions were normally detected WAY before troop movement.

He grinned. "Two weeks ago, the largest Sect in my detection range, the Burning Sword Sect, vanished. No reports of disasters, no interruption in trade, no gossip... but hundreds of thousands of cultivators could no longer be detected."

Several eyes lit up as he continued. "With much effort and difficulty..." No, he was just scared that the entire region had died and some sort of advance illusion had been put up. In fact, he could have verified the area was safe to approach in hours if he hadn't been so terrified... anyway. "I believe this is all due to the deployment of an astounding treasure!"

Probably.

One of his followers raised a hand. "Is the Burning Sword Sect over that way?"

He blinked. "Yes?"

The guy frowned. "Why is there a massive sexy statue then? Shouldn't it be the Sexy Statue Sect?"

...What?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rockette Prime, mother of the Rockettes, watched her mortal companion evolve.

Her range grew, her connection to the underneath strengthened, but in her hands was the fire of youth. Adam Adventure Burns was glowing, a blue bonfire, as he finally stopped screaming and fell into something between sleep and a coma.

From her many Tattoo Stations in the Sect, tiny Rockettes began to slowly form and begin their wandering... the watching. The massive formation barriers shifted, mutated, and grew stronger... using the power generated from Adam's conversion to evolve as well. Her range of influence began to extend further, both into the earth of her birth and the sky of her journey.

Though far restricted, every shard of crystal had a weak version of Adam's domain of influence. As her Rockettes began to wander the Sect, she could feel more and more energy enter under her control... to be filtered and sent through the Sect's evolving energy formations for processing.

Still, as her avatars began to explore the world and sing the soundless dream, to share the joy of discovery, her focus was on the child that was becoming more of an idea than a person.

Her Adam was finally stable. Still changing, still unaware, but no longer close to explosion or dispersal.

He would need time.

Time to heal, time to adapt, time to awaken.

But she was from before earth, before stone.

Time was something of which she had endless supply, a resource to be spent freely.

She watched, she loved, and she waited.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

FINALLY!

Adam DOVE into the reconnected Tattoo Network, now that his bodies had stabilized enough for the connection to be used.

His body was still sort of crippled (It was healthier than ever before, but continuing to mutate at a rate that controlling it was impossible), so having SOMETHING to do was beyond amazing at this point.

His mind raced as he swam inside the cultivation database, specifically the sections about cultivation advancement.

He had SO. MUCH. DATA!

Hundreds of new threads were created. His experience during each cultivation Order, the many problems trying to adapt his suicidal methods into the 'Essential Cultivation' series, all the changes he decided to include, the reasons why, and the tradeoffs he had to make to ensure stability during cultivation!

For literally hours he just filled in all the random notes and documentation that he had kept his mind busy with, unable to write anything down or tell anyone... it had been driving him mad!

Eventually he got the bulk of it all recorded, and could even feel Sect members begin to access the mess he sort of spewed into the records. Later he would clean all this up, but for now it was more important not to forget anything or leave details out while putting down all those notes.

And the database was much different at this point... he could detect layers of permissions, all sorts of moderation and log keeping features, what seemed to be a small army of administrators, editors, and cross examining researchers. The formerly empty database was now an ant hive of curious and busy Sect members, editing, fixing, modifying, connecting.

There was even a massive new couple of sections dedicated to Rockette herself! One full of raw data that she was scanning in from all the formations and minions (SO CUTE!) she had running around, another full of random thoughts and ideas she had as she apparently watched his cultivation advancement over the last few... however long this was.

It was interesting... and somehow Pat the Patriarch had hooked the 'Sect Map' into her raw data section of the database, with different permission levels allowing various versions for display. Outsiders got a rough map with generally useful locations marked, Sect Affiliates saw the unclassified versions, each Department had detailed coverage of their related areas, Security saw anyone unmarked by the Tattoo or Ring network highlighted (Along with marked people of interest or detected infiltrators)... it was fascinating, astounding, and more!

WAY better than being racked with pain and unable to move or read or write or breathe or talk or think clearly. Like, a dozen times better, at least!

He absently responded to the various messages stored in the network, and he was eager to see little Tianshi and Sister Quan and his guard squad... but more than all of that, he had this undeniable urge to research. To examine. To modify!

Techniques for body health care. Clean hair, skin, wounds, eyes, noses, mouths, ears, nails, lips... massively complicated versions that automated all the little details, drastically simple options that were heavily limited but easy to work with or required little to no Qi to apply.

Tricks for emergency clothing... especially because he was nude. Again. Qi constructs, with modifiable patterns, textures, moisture retention rates, breathability, tensile strength, destructibility (If it was invincible, it could accidentally choke the wearer or worse!), ability to stain, to resist oil, mud, blood, etc. Fully automated skills that would create a dynamic wardrobe that matched any situation... brain dead dumbass options that just made a big shirt or whatever, for after a major battle when energy resources would be tight.

Advanced illusions. Ones not tied to the user themselves, but could be connected and powered through the Tattoo Network via space foam. Adam now had a dedicated space pocket that would ensure his ability to connect to the networks and his mental resources even if his actual possessions were unavailable or his body and/or spiritual network heavily compromised. Again.

Hopefully that would prevent a simple torture session and body destruction from preventing him from sending a note to his friends in the future! Or at least let him get some work done, rather than suffer endless pain while being paralyzed. Because that sucked.

He could feel a strangely relieved and happy Core jump all over his new creations, even as the little one began sending massive waves of Data to 'Research' and 'Rockette'... The Asura Eye was still 'sleeping', basically recovering from her recent transformation into a more conceptual version of herself. The many pets were fine, the animals and plants in Rockette's care were all unaware of their owner's recent advancement...

And somehow Rockette's army of tiny Crystal Golems had joined the police force.

...What the hell?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Over a dozen swords were drawn and aimed at Adam as he... sort of formed a puppet body out of the local crystal?

It was odd really. Normally a cultivator would have their Martial Spirit grow from their body (Soul? Spirit energy?), and learn to fuze their essence in battle to create a hybrid form later on, or summon their spirit to fight alongside in tough battles.

But this was... sort of the reverse? Adam could feel Rockette's spreading influence, pillars of light in a world of shifting energies. Any large cluster of crystals he could just... combine with?

Ignoring the security station guards that were preparing various attacks, he focused on his crystal body as it began to melt out of the nearby crystal structure. It wasn't one of the Tattoo Stations, more one of the new spikes of energetic material that were spawning around the Sect.

His glittering skeleton held up a hand. "Hang on, this is harder than I expected."

Legs first, his bones were barely giving support with only bones and raw energy binding him together. He was moments away from collapsing into a pile of pretty bone jewels...

How embarrassing. Seriously, he had a history of building new bodies... and the months of torture would only excuse so much incompetence before his own embarrassment would make him give up and try later.

Could he convert the energy crystals into Cultivation Cells?

...Not quickly. And he didn't want to spend weeks in a pile getting in everyone's way.

Screw it.

His entire skeletal structure fractured into dust, and he cheated.

Basic clumps for 'feet', the chunks for legs, hips... more a rock person than even pretending to be human. Simpler shapes with more mass could bind easier with spiritual energy, better support each other and float with less difficulty.

As he felt stone hands and fingers form, he floated into a mostly human shape and felt his solid crystal head generate a sort of accurate face image. "Ding!"

...Wait. Shit.

A few fractures, and he had a jaw. "RAawg. Sorry." Still ignoring the dozen or so weapons, he gave the best smile he could with such a fractured stone jaw. "Hey, could someone contact Elder Cho? I need like... all the questions answered."

One of the guards that seemed to be in charged raised an eyebrow. "Young Burning Sage?"

Adam 'blinked'. Or the image on his crystal face flickered, whatever. "Yes?"

She nodded. "We will handle informing the appropriate people." She gestured slightly with her bared weapon. "Until we confirm some of this, would you mind please waiting over there? This area is... VERY restricted."

He paused.

The room was... uh.

Oh.

Right.

Thank goodness he couldn't blush. "I... uh. Yes, No problem!" Where did he look!? "If someone could point me toward the door..."

Why was there a crystal spire inside the guard station's changing rooms!? Oh hell, Sister Quan was going to never let this go... dang it, dang it.

As nonchalantly as he could, he followed the most dressed woman somewhere LESS EMBARRASSING than here. Anywhere than here.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Little Tianshi paused her cultivation. "Really?"

Mr Whiskers sent confirmation.

She couldn't hold back her grin, relief flooding her system. "I knew Da would be fine. Where is he?"

...Uh? "What do you mean, which one?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked.

The other Adam also blinked.

A third Adam was led into the room, looking embarrassed... and paused.

One of them pointed at the others. "We didn't pick the same spawn point, did we?"

Another Adam entered into the room.

Adam (Several of them) smacked his forehead. "Right, uh. How many of us did we generate?"

Three Adams entered the room.

Shit.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

There was a line.

A god. Damn. Line.

Adam waved off the Sect Disciple with a sigh. "No, I'll get the memories later, its fine."

No. No it wasn't.

With a reluctant glance back at the (WTF) line to see little Tianshi, he turned back to the city.

Sister Quan was popular, his guards were all still assigned to look over his actual body in Rockette's hands, and his cute little disciple was getting far more help and instruction (And just fun quality time) than she likely knew what to do with.

Leaving the building, he waved off the small group of himselves. "It is worse than we expected... there was a line."

He left the groaning crowd of equally lost Adams, heading through the streets.

Any project he enjoyed, he would find hundreds of Adams working on them. With more waiting if there was any need for another set of hands... or crystals or whatever.

The few restaurants he enjoyed were packed, the performance halls were loving the boost in attendance, and it was a good thing the Sect Network Market was so expanded because his avatars were apparently spending his near infinite wealth like water.

He held the image of a frown off his crystal face as he endured the crowded street. Crowded with hims, more often than not... turns out they all shared favorite short cuts and path decisions.

A check on the network... yeah, Rockette had set up a massive 'raw memory' feed just for the Adam gestalt to share a common existence within. No, those places were full. That one too. Even the places he hated were being visited, just because he was running out of anything to do, anywhere to go...

Could he leave on a mission?

...Pat had banned him from taking any new ones after a thousand or so Adams left the sect with them all. Crap.

Absently, he activated the illusion that showed him the updating 'Adam Location Map'... pretty much the only direction they were NOT spreading in was the one with the Bone Walker. Had any of him created a method for teleportation yet? One that didn't involve going into the dimensional foam?

...No. Most attempts squished the Adam who tried, the sheer mountain of 'Adventure' made leaving this particular Plane a tricky thing to attempt.

So, he would have to walk. Or rent a Spirit Beast! A flying one, that would be fun!

...No, they were already all rented by hims. Over twelve hours ago. So were the more standard mounts, and what few caravans that were leaving? All filled with desperate Adams who worked for near nothing.

A glance in Rockette's Crystal Caverns (Which, outside the area they knew and love, was still expanding and doing strange stuff) showed an actual army of Adams messing with the Soil Grid Gardens, testing the growth rate of materials and minerals... more than a few just finding quiet places to meditate and try to waste time.

...Even if there wasn't room for him, at least his others were generating a massive surplus of food and stuff. Which was good, considering how many of himselves were trying to use it all up.

In a very real way, Adam was now a population statistic.

Hearing a grinding screech, he carefully relaxed his 'hands'. Calm.

Just... stay calm.

'Research' was loving this, System Core seemed happy to have so many new friends to talk with, the Asura Eye was showing up in random places constantly using the crystal Adams as attachment points, while Rockette was... well, she was ignoring all of them.

She only had eyes for their original body. Which both made them feel warm inside, and lonely.

It was an odd situation... feeling alone and ignored even when every person you ever met or passed by would never notice. How could they? From their perspective, they had MORE Adams than ever!

At least there was ONE good thing: Even though all Adams had access to their recursion forms, somehow they were all shared into one infinite stream.

In other words, if you imagined a tower of Adams going from Prime down to infinity, right now at the top was a massive crowd. But all the people in that crowd shoved damage down to one Adam below, who then passed on the excess like normal.

Which meant they were not creating an infinite number of infinite Adams with each Crystal Adam being 'generated' at the moment. That would have been even more a mess.

Side note, the new Crystal Adam bodies took damage like a champ! Adam Prime was still mutating and on fire and stuff, but the Crystal Adam conversion chain below was accepting lethal damage (From thousands of Adams out in the wild doing quests and stuff) with only a fraction of the many injuries passing to the next layer.

Oh, and technically way, WAY down that recursion chain? They were still being converted to Conceptual Crystal. Technically. It was happening so deep in the layers that none of the damage being passed down from above was even being noticed, but it kept Adam Prime in his 'bottleneck breakthrough' state.

As for Adam and the other Crystal Avatars, it was clear what was going on at this point.

All the tiny crystal Rockettes were now transforming into Adam Avatars, like himself.

On one hand, he was now an army! A population center! They were a demographic all on their lonesome, and most of the hims he had met so far were also fun to talk to and hang out with!

Even if every hour or so their memories were gathered, collated, and shared.

On the other hand, the much more depressing hand?

There were no more tiny Rockette clones for him to spend time with. Or, for that matter, anyone else to spend time with.

Absently, he felt the many workshops, both within the Crystal Caverns and within the Sect.

No openings, full, busy, reached capacity, no... WAIT!

...No, the opening filled up instantly. Some lucky Adam had been in the area when the previous one managed to explode himself, took the spot before the former could recover from the injury.

Absently, Adam sent Adam a sympathy note. Poor guy, actually able to experiment but losing his spot due to an unexpected energy reaction... was it worse that he himself didn't even have a chance to feel such disappointment?

Bending potential and momentum energy carefully, Adam pulled back... And SLAMMED the pavement.

Instead of cracks or even noise, all the energy was funnelled into two 'wings' of spiralling energy, two disks of potential spinning behind his back.

Leaping a few dozen meters into the air, he released the potential downward and backwards... and carefully then redirected the wind attempting to block his flight to the sides, the air resistance impacts being drained to add fuel to his wings as he continued to accelerate.

This was the slowest method of travel that was acceptable at this point. Sure, they could instantly move to and from any Crystal of Rockette, and sure they could use the Crystal Sect Network Stations as 'waypoints' for that instant travel...

But all those were full of even more Adams already.

So in every direction, Adam flew.

Some were sacrificing their physical forms to establish Crystal Stations in secure locations, extending the sensing ability of Rockette and the Sect with quite a bit of overlap. Others were sending 'Research' samples of plants or Spirit Beasts they found. More than a few were actually lucky enough to find bandit camps, spy facilities, or slave transport resupply points.

Most just traveled though.

A flick of energy had him twist around one of the larger trees in the area... it would be hours until he would reach the edge of their new detection network, so he didn't want to waste that time flying so high that he could ignore anything.

A few were. He could connect to Adams high in the atmosphere, in something like a coma or meditative state... they were basically just dumb ballistic projectiles at this point, only interested in 'waking up' after they landed way off somewhere. Eventually.

Not him. He was going to find something new! Something interesting!

That said, seeing thousands of 'powerless' 'people' fleeing a Sect covered in glowing blue crystals was probably messing with any high powered spiritual sensors in the area. Or convincing them that the Burning Sword Sect was launching random rocks everywhere, which was also likely to be confusing.

As forests and plains passed ever faster below his flying form, Adam frowned.

What would this all mean for his prime body? This whole mess was clearly not normal, not that he had a great history on that front anyway. Was he still a new Xiantian Warrior, First Order? How would he know?

He could do things that were impossible. Which honestly, was a normal situation for Adam, but did make it difficult to rate his own progress when it came to ascending the various cultivation stages.

A smile broke out... he could make a Tattoo Network post about it! Let his massive number of selves figure out the issue, no problem! Bet they would solve it in hours.

A thought brought up the new 'Adams Only' database that Rockette had moved everything to, and a quick search and... uh.

Oh.

One of him had already done it. Hours ago.

With a depressed sigh, he went back to focusing on the land as he flew.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Pat frowned at the twenty five Adams in the room. "But why?"

The 'leader' sighed. "We are independent enough to have wants, dreams, and desires... but gestalt enough to not feel like new people, nor wanting to rebel or attempt to disconnect from the group."

The fifth Adam nodded. "This will likely fix itself once we wake up and finish reaching a stable state."

The Patriarch held back a sigh... what a mess. Considering that reaching Tenth Order Houtian Warrior was an amazing level of advancement for an eighteen year old, he honestly didn't expect anything like this happening for years yet since Brother Adam was so young.

Not that the boy cared about tradition, logic, or 'normal' advancement rates. Even the darkest of Sects with the most vile and evil cultivation methods couldn't match this child's achievements.

Pat waved at the group. "And the others?"

The leader sighed. "One for each major project or process we are pursuing. I coordinate the groups, designate new project trees for Adams to join, and restrict the numbers allowed per branch."

He accepted the diagram the leader handed him. It was basically a new Sect on its own, just made of Adams, for Adams, and by Adams... in some ways, it was better organized than the Burning Sword Sect itself. "This doesn't seem to actually account for all the Adams available. Is there another chart?"

Most of the boys in the room flinched. The Leader grimaced. "No. Even this was more generous than it really should be."

Oh. Oh... how unfortunate. "What of the others?"

Leader sighed. "Many are finding or making secure locations, and converting their crystal forms into new Rockette Stations for better Domain coverage and teleportation options." He seemed... very weary. "They will not be respawning. Their life is our life, their mind our mind, and we will be missed."

Something inside the Patriarch cowered at the thought. How many thousands of Adams were basically accepting oblivion over loss of purpose, of being alone? And... and why couldn't HE, a man who had lived for centuries, find a better solution?

It was rare that a man of his standing and power felt so helpless, and needless to say the lesson in his own limits was not welcome nor pleasant.

Still, he had not reached the pentacle of his Sect by shying away from the harsher choices in life. "Is there anything I can do? A service, some sort of small monument?"

In an eerie synchronised act, all the children shook their heads. "No, we live. Death is a choice, one we make with conviction. We will be missed."

The leader shrugged. "When the dreamer awakes, the dream will end... but not forever. Our existence, our people... we are not gone, just leaving." He gave a wry smile. "It may be difficult for others to understand, but even alone together? We are all one traveller that has seen many paths. The end of a path does not mean our journey is over."

...This felt like some of the more confusing conversations he had with his teacher, so many decades ago. "Right." Nope, no idea. "What is your overall goal then?"

Leader nodded to the Patriarch. "These five are dedicated to documenting any new Sect knowledge for the Cultivation Database. They will not only add new data as it is created by the disciples, but will attempt to refine the information, improve it, and if unable to get enough information? They will attempt to create techniques and methods to duplicate the effect of the attack or ability."

The avatars of Adam waved from behind the leader.

He pointed over there. "Those guys are overseeing various projects related to making cultivation resources, creating replacement options for any materials the Sect doesn't have unlimited access to, and so on. They will be working with uh... You guys, raise your hands!"

In the back, several Adams stood and... well, acted a bit silly. Some waving, some saluting, and so on. Leader nodded. "Yeah them. They are managing the plant experiments and animal breeding programs in Rockette's Crystal Caverns... those morons are working with the resource guys pretty closely, so expect to see them in a messy group most days."

Pat felt his eye twitch. What was his life?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam carefully shifted a few inches, the egg in his hands almost touching one of the formations defending it.

He couldn't help but glance at the many alarms the poachers had set up in this section of the warehouse... the rest of the defenses had fallen hours ago, but these sections, the ones for restraining the eggs and younglings of various powerful Spirit Beasts? These were the worst.

Considering that the species involved were so high powered that even the young had the mindset of children rather than animals, this was basically a slavery ring for Beasts in general. And while one or two creatures may luck out and find a cultivator to bond with that would treat them well, most were slated for harvest. Or torture, THEN harvest. Because that changed the end product somehow. Jerks.

His hand also wanted to slip at this point, which was... just great.

Finally pulling his hand fully outside the defenses, he released the tension after the last... twelve minutes? However long that took.

And glanced at the next thousand or so eggs to go.

Damn it.

Going subtle was always frustrating. With his available backup (A few thousand copies of himself), wiping this whole secret area to bedrock would be trivial...

But the long term goal?

He wanted to follow these assholes around as they frantically tried to refill the supply deposit formerly known as this warehouse.

Sure, he could mind rip a few of the local minions working this location. No issue, from a moral or difficulty standpoint: None of these people so far were in any way beneficial to society.

But hopefully, when he (eventually) cleaned out this and the other two locations? He would be able to find transit men. Relay points. Reserve facilities. Members of the smuggling network, legal or otherwise. And hopefully? A connection to the shadowy leadership above!

Adam sighed as his hand twitched, still recovering from the recent precision. But first?

He had to save more eggs.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elder Cho fumed. "And HOW haven't we found that traitorous Sixth Elder Hawn yet? Why is he STILL free!?"

One of her temporary assistants, one of the many Adams, chuckled. "Because it is better not to?" Seeing her expression, he sighed. "We can all feel him. We know where he is, the massive Adventure Mark makes him clear to us."

She frowned, making him waiver. "He is BETTER being free! Every place he visits becomes tainted with effects beneficial to us, to the Sect! Every bolt hole becomes compromised, every resource gets captured, his minions exposed, his comrades turned or accidentally killed!"

He waved some notes. "Over eighty percent of the raids our Adams are doing were exposed for targeting thanks to this one guy! He can't even kill himself until the benefits of him being dead is worth more to our Adventure Mark than him escaping again!" The boy pointed. "With that rogue Elder cursed, he is our biggest asset and actually stopping him would be detrimental to the Sect as a whole." ...Her frown eased. That was... technically acceptable.

Adam nodded. "Plus, Pat thought this was hilarious."

Never mind. "Get back to work and keep me updated."

He gulped. "Yes mam!"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elsewhere, another Adam was using Qi constructs (And cheating with Rockette's crystal network, summoning in crystal material for structural uses) to form yet another facility building. This one for bathing.

Individual shower stalls, changing rooms, private bathing rooms, bathing rooms with slopes for those who were injured or disabled instead of stairs, saunas, lengthy pools for training, small pools for relaxation, large pools for general use...

Adam paused... and carefully modified some Formations, simplified some enhancements. Right, don't use Soul water. Or any spiritually enhanced versions of it.

One of the other Adams had nearly done so before Pat came down on him like an avalanche. It would have instantly started a war of some sort, no doubt.

So shift this pattern over there, make sure it is all embedded in a secure pocket space for long term stability, and bam! Purified mineral water, only slightly more powerful than something from a decent stream in a mountain somewhere. With maybe a tiny bit of recovery concepts and healing energies added in... just a trace.

It was hard, he reflected, to restrict oneself to 'basic' improvements.

For civilians? Smaller villages might have dirt floors in their buildings, mud walls, or less. Even ancient torn tents, depending on the location. Cultivators didn't bother to improve things either, they required less and less safety, cleanliness, or material needs as they improved. Why bother making a mansion when you didn't sleep, rarely ate, and spent most of your life cultivating?

Sadly, many cultivators didn't think about home until decades later. It was too easy to spend years trying to become more powerful, more beautiful, more socially important. And when one returns home and finds all friends and family long since passed on... well.

So the Adams were visiting the many cities, towns, and villages affiliated with the Burning Sword Sect. Building all kinds of houses, social buildings, useful facilities.

Like, totally to create wider sensor coverage and extend Rockette's crystal station networks! No really!

Not to give these people safe and warm housing, easy access to pure water, and provide safe shelters from other cultivators and Spirit Beasts. Nope. Not at all!

Adam held back from enhancing the bathing building further. It was a fierce competition between Adams to be permitted to build in the first place, he wasn't going to lose his spot because he wanted to build an underground ocean or something.

The trick, the goal here? To make high quality housing for the lowest and most poor become the new standard for the region. It was the only way to ensure the more powerful cultivators wouldn't just show up and kick the town out of the area into the wilds again, to make facilities and housing and reinforced walls and so forth so common and expected that it would hold no worth to invaders.

Sure, the Burning Sword Sect would just smash anyone stupid enough to invade a town for having amazing toilets... but the damage and death would already have occurred. Better to have the waves of Adam just rebuild all the locations under Sect territory.

Another hour or two of work, and... well. Done.

No matter how he cross examined the building, Adam couldn't find any excuse to keep changing stuff. Sadly.

With a sigh, he slouched back to the meeting point to joining the other Adams. It might be days before he gets to do something fun again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Calm. Focus the energies to Mr. Whiskers for cleansing, absorb his hard work for advancement.

"I still say this is cheating. She's barely using our Essential Cultivation Method at all!"

Above mortal concerns, above the flaws of mortal life.

"That's not fair, we didn't exactly follow the standard procedures either."

Let the energy of heaven and earth pass through her system like water.

"I don't care if the Sect benefits from our work, the Essential Method was to make things easier for her!"

Tianshi felt her eyebrow twitch.

"Look, we all want her to appreciate our hard work, but the important thing is that she is doing well."

Inner. God damn. Peace.

"But our little girl is growing up so fast! And I barely feel like we did anything to help!"

Peace. Mother fucking peace!

"Maybe we should rebuild our methods again? Something to enhance the symbiotic relationship between her, Mr. Whiskers, and the Notorious P.U.G.?"

That. Is. It! "OUT! All of you, OUT!"

The forty Adams all pouted, but it wouldn't work this time! "NO! All of you, make a schedule or something! No more than one Adam at a time, PERIOD! You are all driving me mad!"

Panting in fury, a small part of Tianshi noted that yelling in rage actually helped her a bit with her focusing issues while cultivating.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Left, slide under the blades.

Hop, not high enough to become an easy target, step left to avoid the fire.

With an evil grin, Adam's crystal fingers clutched the bandit's throat even as he shifted the soon-to-be corpse into the path of more projected metal shards.

Oops, backup, use the corpse as cover... eww, that didn't last long. Must have had a low cultivation foundation... very messy.

An idle gesture surged crystal into a blocking wall. Couldn't risk wide area attacks, there could be hostages in this camp, but defensive structures seemed safe enough.

Kick off the new wall, use his right foot to crush that one's ribcage and act as footing to move over there...

Again, this part was tricky. When trying to use a person as a stepping stone using too much power and people just popped, which meant Adam would just... keep on traveling in the wrong direction. Rather than be able to use their remains as a temporary platform, which was the point.

So if he was cheating by using his foot to inject raw crystal into their skeletal system and root it into the earth below, no one would live long enough to complain about it. 'Cheating' or not, it was convenient for mobility!

Though it did leave some oddly posed corpses in the background. Oops! Duck right!

Adam slid to the side, trying to keep his internal pace stable. This was one of the stronger bandit camps in this territory. Unlike most of the other outlaws who had been undergoing the new dismantling service, these guys were more professional.

Everyone in this camp chose one cultivation method and trained in individual, basic skills. It made progression quick, ensured any needed herbs or treasures could be used by a large portion of the group, and ensured a level of mastery not usually seen in people with cultivation bases this low.

Twisting into a gap, he didn't bother to absorb the wide area flames being hurled in his direction before launching his body into the air with a spike of crystal from below. His body arched over the attacking formation of banditry... and this angle gave MUCH better targeting info!

Adam gripped his fist, a dozen spikes of crystal stabbing upward into the crowd still trying to aim their techniques at his flying body! Now, one huge surge of power and he could have a massive skull with fangs rise from the battlefield and consume the entire...

...Adam poofed into crystal shards.

The watching Adams all groaned. "He didn't conserve anything."

Two other Adams nodded, the third pointing. "Should have finished them with the original assault, you saw him start to get fancy over there."

Several of the group were settling bets, the most frustrated Adam watching his 'shift credits' vanish. "I should have known he would forget his limits, I've done it several times at this point... WHY did I bet so much!"

Another Adam patted his shoulder. "We all want to believe in ourselves. Sometimes though, too much confidence is just as damaging as too little."

Many glared at the asshole Adam with dozens of shift vouchers. "That's right! We suck! Adams without focus for the win!"

The guard frowned. "Oi! Focus guys!"

They sighed. "Sorry Adam."

He nodded. "Right, who's next on the list?"

...Many rolled their eyes. "Adam is. Followed by Adam."

The guard blinked. "Right, makes sense. Adam, you're up!"

The crowd watched the next challenger flicker towards the now VERY confused bandit camp, their recently passed opponent having crumbled into crystal shards to later be teased about it after his rebirth.

The bandits clearly didn't appreciate the next surprise attacker, unsurprisingly. And if any had lived long enough to try and run, they would have probably not enjoyed the fifty or so duplicate warriors encircling them hoping for a turn..

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The changes in the Burning Sword Sect did not go unnoticed.

Spies tried to sneak into the Sect hourly. They were caught.

A large number of tournaments, festivals, and general celebrations were held... but the outside Cultivators were unable to sneak off and explore much outside accepted areas. Which only built up the mystery of the situation.

Powerful men and women, even some advanced Spirit Beasts and Rare Herbs with human forms... all found issues when visiting the Burning Sword Sect with less than pure intentions.

The ones who insisted in their mistaken belief about their own power levels and theoretical invulnerability found quickly that Rockette, the goddess of the Sect, had strong opinions on anyone who tried to investigate, closely observe, or (worse of all) attack the 'Blue Flames of Enlightenment' that she held in her hands.

It only took three cultivators 'popping' before the rest decided to use less aggressive investigative methods.

After all, defying the heaven did not mean one was that smart... indeed, fighting all of creation for raw power would be considered stupid by many metrics. But even so, they got the point: Maybe look, but do NOT touch.

Many of those within the Sect without security clearance assumed that the blue fires visible in the crystal woman's palms were the cause of all the benefits flooding the Sect... and they were not technically wrong.

But aside from the obvious improvements caused by having a secured network that could share secret data and valuable materials without interruption or theft, few noticed that the recent benefits were mostly due to the nosy neighbors.

Everyone wanted to know what happened, and all these thwarted data gathering attempts were bringing in tourists, wealthy cultivators scared to be too arrogant (After a few examples), and all the support personnel that were needed when large groups gathered or traveled.

Money and rare treasures flowed like a river as wealthy but uncaring Cultivators attempted to bribe others, to show off their wealth in restaurants or public spaces, or even toss fortunes away gambling over various fights or events. And the longer answers were denied and attacks proved futile, the more interesting this Burning Sword Sect seemed... they called in friends, coworkers, outside connections.

Then the Sect officially began selling Chaos Grapes to Sect outsiders.

A resource full of spiritual energy, easily stored and transported, that was not aligned with a specific power type? Desire flowered in the surrounding city, and word spread on the winds!

No deadly side effects or corrupting issues from repeated use? Sects were contacted immediately, and many auction houses began advertising to packed crowds of people!

That these Chaos Grapes were available in massive quantities with high quality? The crowds of cultivating elite and the secret political powerhouses were very interested!

...And the initial Auction House price was mandated to be low. Nearly lower than even the most basic cultivation pill! The only ones driving up the price were other outside cultivators, and if a deal could be made or if someone was very lucky? You could go home with a treasure for a pittance!

As rumor and messages buzzed outward to the wild, the Chaos Grapes certainly lived up to their name!

It was probably for the best that Adam and Pat hadn't decided to use one of the more valuable products from the boy's ongoing Soil Grid Garden experiments. And that no one knew the secured watering system was 'wasting' gallons of Soul Water to keep the plants healthy.

Still... the rise of prosperity for the Burning Sword Sect was anything but subtle.

Others took notice. Nothing beyond this plane, not yet... but powerful beings.

Unconsciously meditating with his body on fire, Adam Prime smirked despite being unable to leave Rockette's careful focus. Despite being forced to wait for an infinite recursion of himselves to finish converting.

This should be interesting!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Meanwhile, in one of the more secure research branches, Adam carefully examined the sword.

The many assistants were curious. "And what does this one do?"

He hummed. "Trying something different this time. The other weapon enhancement attempts were getting a bit silly."

Several winces went around the group. The mace that would smash an area into debris, then recombine it into flower pots. The sword that could toast bread when sliced, but not people. The dagger that wasn't very sharp, but could generate temporary, inedible condiments... because who would fight when their body was slowly coated in mustard, mayonnaise, and soy sauce?

Adam nodded. "I find that the more 'interesting' I made things, the worse they became at... well, at doing their job." He moved the blade slowly, carefully checking for instability. Again.

The creation was boring.

Basic looking metal, a small hand guard, slightly longer than expected handle for a good solid two hand grip, no special jewels, no magical glyphs or scripts, no silver or gold wire designs.

When swung, the air didn't sing. When clashed, sparks didn't fly. When stabbing, no rips in space.

This was, as best as Adam could do: A good sword.

It had two subtle but powerful abilities: It resisted damage and it would recover from damage over time.

The edge would easily break down under combat, but would regenerate to an absurd sharpness. The blade itself could bend or snap, but that level of destruction would require long combat and massive effort by others to happen... and eventually it would grow back to its prime anyway.

Of the many concepts Adam used when forging this thing, most ensured that the blade 'seemed' common and cheap, a shoddy product. Less likely to be stolen, less likely for others to notice its ability... everyone would assume the owner had just bought another scrap blade replacement instead of owning a self repairing blade that was surprisingly sturdy.

This stupid thing consumed energy like a bitch too... But it would block a blow on a level that would shock outsiders. Might even pause an attack from someone of a higher cultivation level before snapping like expected!

If the owner survived such a situation, they would eventually be rearmed and ready to fight again another day! No need to leave their quests and head back to civilization for replacement equipment.

Adam had originally designed other plans at first, of course. The original goal of all this random enchanting was to explore how to apply concepts to material, nonorganic items... then Pat got involved. His comment about the Sect needing better equipment had devolved into all kinds of fun, almost useful stuff that might save someone's life someday.

But nothing really utilitarian. Nothing basic but useful...

This should do it though. "Good enough?"

Several nods. Finally. "Then everyone study the schematics and procedure for these 'Stock Blades', start making product for the Sect Store, and let me get back to my experiments."

Seriously, arming the Sect was all well and good but he had some testing to do!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Another Adam.

Another layer.

At this point, the transformation rate was approaching instantaneous. Each recursive layer of Adam's body was being reborn at such a rate where it was hard to even track the changes. And while nearly impossible to measure the difference, this process was STILL accelerating.

It just didn't matter.

Infinitely fast conversion of infinite recursive forms was still... infinite.

Sure, 'Research' was positive at this point that eventually it would reach such a deep level that the rest of his selves would change by random chance to 'completed' all at once, finishing the whole mess. At some time.

But neither 'Research' nor Rockette were able to tell when.

And worse, Adam's Prime consciousness wasn't sure what state he was going to be converting into. This was not how cultivation was supposed to progress, he had taken far too many steps that were impossible to take and advanced in methods no one could choose for far too long.

This was beyond uncharted territory.

The Xiantian Realm of cultivation, which he was SUPPOSED to be a First Order Warrior of now, was mainly focused on reinforcing one's will and soul, of condensing the internal Qi into a liquid form, and at the highest level enforcing their internal battle Qi into a shape rather than a raw mass.

Some stuff was very clear... Breaking through to First Order Xiantian meant one's Martial Spirit became very real. Beasts would bleed actual blood, plants would have falling leaves that could be gathered, and so on. Judging by Rockette's goddess statue? Well, check point reached.

The massive crystal woman wasn't actually Rockette's true form of course... it was more a disposable body she summoned, one that would remain if/when Adam recovered from this never ending process. One that Pat would have to appreciate, because it would be a bitch to get rid of the stuff... Her connections were DEEP into the soil, trying to remove any of it would be a massive undertaking.

Not to mention that ALL this crystal, and the material being summoned/planted outside the Sect, were incorporated with the new Sect Sensing Formations. And the Sect Barrier, and the Sect Market, and the Sect Tattoo Stations, and... well, it was all a glob of stuff now.

Anyway, back on topic: he at least hit First Order, no doubt!

The issue was the rest of the Order levels. Second Order? It was mostly just increasing one's internal Qi.

That was it.

No massive increase in power variety, no huge difference with Rockette. He wouldn't get like... a hat or something.

Just a power boost.

Same thing for Third Order.

Did that even apply to Adam at this point? His Qi was damn near solid now, even if the mass of power was slowly being grown by his other abilities and his connection to Rockette's immense Spirit Energy Collection Formations. You had to stare at the stuff for days to even see it slowly shift or drip or whatever.

At Fourth Order, there was a much more simple change to detect: The solidification of QI into a shape, a mandate.

Netherworld battle Qi could become an Archdemon of Hell, or Dragon battle Qi could form into a Dragon Ancestor, and so forth. That SHOULD be a useful indication that he was breaking through to somewhere beyond the Third to Fourth Order Barrier.

But... it wasn't. Because NORMAL people couldn't make these 'Mandates' until they reached peak Xiantian Tenth Order. And even then, they were not guaranteed, but more an enhancement of the concepts representing the types of power ones used to reach such a high cultivation level... they created a more direct connection to those sources of energy to enhance the absorption of those power types. Which... didn't really apply to Adam.

Plus, Adam wasn't sure what would count as such a mandate anyway. He used Binding energy and the Blue Flames... neither of which were listed in the very large Cultivation Database that Rockette was always expanding.

Binding energy was basically invisible anyway, would he even SEE such a symbol being formed? And where did Binding energy even come from?

For all he knew, such a connection could be dangerous. Almost everything in the cultivation world turned out to be deadly at some point anyway, maybe a Binding Mandate would cause more problems even if he got one? His current guess is that the blue flames covering his actual body might be the expression of his Mandate, but he just couldn't know!

He was just too outside the norm.

Fifth Order? More reserve energy. Sixth Order? The same.

Oh sure, Rockette was supposed to 'evolve' or be 'enhanced' with every stage he progressed through Xiantian... but what did that mean!? She was using his Sect as a resting spot, sending unlimited minions to be used as temporary bodies for Adam's use, directly manipulating the energies of reality and spreading her crystal far and wide!

How could one tell if she was changing? Would it even be a physical thing, or just the spirit within the massive statue?

The Seventh Order however should grant a clue though. Maybe?

It was supposed to be almost a whole new world compared to Sixth Order, even late peak Sixth Order. So it should be obvious, right?

Right?

...Adam honestly had no clue.

Now, as his body continues to mutate and modify itself, he just felt frustrated.

Honestly, who loses track of which cultivation level one reaches!? How lame!

Looking at the restricted details about reaching the Saint Realm showed other issues, ones that implied his problems wouldn't go away. A Saint had several abilities that Adam might technically already have!

Flight? Maybe. They could apparently just stand in midair while Adam had to manipulate the world forces to duplicate it, but it probably counted.

Body being 'immune to poisons'? The Asura Eye loved the stuff! Him being 'hard as steel'? Well, innuendos aside, it took a hell of a hit for him to even notice it at this point.

A Saint realm space? The Crystal Caverns probably counted, even if it was supposed to be 'impossible to rebuild when destroyed'. That stipulation probably didn't apply to him, considering that he could rebuild everything even down to including Soul damage. Which messed up the rules, because 'destroying the Soul' was the only known way of actually killing a Saint, and that would barely tickle Adam at best.

So yeah, he had gone way beyond the supposed 'amazing healing ability' that other Saint stories bragged about.

...Seriously, what cultivation Realm was he reaching? The few rumors about the Tier above Saint (The God Realm) he had were disturbingly suggestive. Only mentioned 'Space and Time Law comprehension', energy levels, and having the ability to construct independent spaces and travel through space time.

Adam's consciousness flinched slightly... it was highly possible that the only reason the Realm wasn't trying to shove him out NOW was because he was so strange he wasn't being classified correctly.

It was probably a good idea to post that theory to the Adam section of the Tattoo network, and have someone make sure that reality wasn't about to rip a hole open into the Space Foam and punt Adam and the Rockettes right into the void.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Pat stared at the Crystal Adam. "Say that again?"

The boy shrugged. "Nothing much happened. Our teams are still building, Chaos Grape supply is doing fine, but yeah. Nothing to report."

The Patriarch fell into a slump. "Thank everything!"

The child seemed confused. "What's the big deal?"

Pat glared. "Before you joined our Sect, the big news and gossip flooding the streets was the new foundation pill recipe discovered which would finally undergo test trials."

...The boy looked confused.

Pat glared HARDER. "It was talked about in the bars. In the streets. In back rooms!"

Adam hesitated. "Yes? And?"

Pat snarled. "It happened TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO! And it was STILL current events!"

The man swiped his arm. "Interesting things USUALLY occur every decade or so, if even THAT often! It was common AND expected for us to focus on cultivation, check in with our servants every two years or what have you, then get back to work!"

His vision dimmed as he slid back in his seat. "What will I tell my friends in a decade or two when they check in with me? 'Oops, sorry! We rebuilt the Sect and added a huge sexy statue while you guys were cultivating.' Worse, you treat cultivation limits like mild suggestions from other people!"

Pat waved at the walls. "Your student, little Tianshi, recently broke through to the Fourth Order Houtian Warrior. In less than two years, starting from nothing. She did this with barely any effort, her pet basically taking years of work and shoving it into minutes."

He glared. "She is a prodigy, and you make her look incompetent. I wouldn't be surprised if you managed to become a Saint in less than twenty years from now!"

Adam winced. "Well, uh. Moving on." And wasn't THAT suspicious? "Nothing happened today, right?"

Pat cautiously nodded.

The child grinned. "Well, things are looking up then! I'm sure things will calm down in general in no time!"

Both paused when a shadow knelt and passed the Patriarch a message slip.

Pat's eye twitched. "When were you going to mention setting up an alliance with the Frozen Tiger Sect? Some Ambassador named Xe Dian just showed up at the gates."

Adam coughed. "What was that? I'm breaking up!"

Pat glared at the boy as he fell apart into Crystal fragments. And sighed.

The child meant well. Probably. "Send her to Elder Cho, she can handle this mess."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Time passed, as it does.

And as people became used to the blue flames held by the massive nude statue of a goddess, and began to ignore or simply accept the crowd of Crystal Adams wandering around everywhere, things eventually reached something closer to normal. Mostly.

Pat basically slowed down deployment on almost all of Adam's advances, at least externally from the Sect. Even internally, only a fraction of his advancements were rolled out at first... the plan was to use the incoming ranks of cultivators as both a testbed and as a way to ease in the older, far less mentally flexible Sect members into the new waves everyone was talking about.

And if it also made these new disciples massively powerful and had a higher rate of success when advancing? Well, that would work itself out as the less helpful, more obtrusive elders found themselves eventually swimming in young and powerful people interested in trying out all the new ideas swarming the tattoo network and Cultivation Database.

It was the external changes that caught most people off guard though.

While few if any Sects were willing to easily change alliances or become subservient to the Burning Sword Sect, they were not blind either. Starting with the Frozen Tiger Sect and the newly established Fine Dining Sect (Brother Lui had poured money into establishing a more formal network of food ninjas as quick as Miss Agen could hire them), a new partnership plan was established.

Mutual Defense, the ability for either Sect to gain at least Outer Disciple status with the other, and most importantly: Access to their own private Sect Cultivation Database on the Tattoo network. Made even more valuable as they could flag certain stored techniques and cultivation methods for review, letting the army of Adams update the hell out of it.

It had several advantages over past alliances. Adam's crystal tattoo stations not only allowed his clones to easily show up when required, but thanks to the conceptual connection to Rockette's other components? The ability to increase the Qi Sensing range and expand the energy purification domain was valuable enough on its own!

More, while neither Sect could access the tattoo network of the other (Except for Adam, but he wasn't going to bring that up if no one asked), the new and secure Cultivation Database made safe, secure, and simple data exchange trivial for the Burning Sword Sect and any Sect that Adam was establishing networks for.

And as stated before, the ability to store and trade items within the Sect away from theft? To easily exchange massive and numerous items between Sects kilometers away instantly? To know that even if your entire library is burned to the ground by enemy action, no history or knowledge will be lost?

Well, even the rumor of some of the benefits had other Sects showing up to annoy Pat for a chance to join. It provided the exasperated man with massive amounts of leverage... friends of the Sect were prospering, neutral parties that weren't frantically trying to build alliances with the new giants on the scene were making drastic deals to gain access to the new benefits Adam could provide.

And the more selfish, evil, or malicious Sects? Well, they were quickly discovering that even trade caravans belonging to the networked Sects didn't bother to carry goods physically anymore. And when a bunch of selfish, evil bastards discovered that the only ones that could be robbed easily were each other?

Well, banditry dropped across the entire region. Everyone was too busy killing each other and robbing their own bases to bother attacking the well defended, well supplied, well armed Sect members and family relations wandering around.

Another change over the next decade or so was the lower amount of banditry due to low income people suffering hard times. Adam clones had by this point ensured that even the lowest of the low within the Region under the Burning Sword Sect's influence had access to basic facilities.

Each town had public baths, apartment buildings made from stone (With crystal reinforcement embedded within), basic temperature control, clean and running water, plumbing, and a simplified crystal station that allowed the locals to easily order supplies from the Sect, call someone to pick up items for sell, or put in mission requests when a Cultivator was needed.

That alone was a massive shift from tents and dirt huts with mud floors, and the cleaner people drinking purified water with minor levels of healing had devastated the local plagues and diseases that most commoners had learned to live with.

But the biggest change was the near free 'rations' being sold by the Sect Terminals.

Sister Quan had argued with several Adam clones about these things for months before everyone was (mostly) happy. Rations were bland bars of compressed biological slurry, created by a customized function Adam designed for the Sect rings/tattoo network... Shove food in, you get these nearly tasteless bars of 'food' in return.

Benefits? Each bar had the daily nutritional needs for an average (non cultivating) adult with an active lifestyle. They were dry though not hard bars with no smell and almost no taste, so they wouldn't attract wildlife while being eaten... and the conceptual preservation energies included ensuring that they wouldn't rot or spoil for even longer than several years already expected.

Downside? It was depressing to eat this stuff.

That was deliberate, of course. Adam wanted a food source for commoners that would keep them healthy, keep them full, not require lots of effort to safely store and preserve... and most importantly? Something not valuable enough for Cultivators to steal, a product that gangs wouldn't bother to rob or murder for.

Why bother stealing all the food from a village or bother monopolizing the sources when it was trivial to get more, the stuff wasn't delicious, and the supply seemed endless? Fairly quickly it became considered 'uncool' for Cultivators (Who barely needed to eat anyway as they improved) to be seen messing with the stuff, and rations became a common staple of the various slums, small towns, and remote villages within the Burning Sect's purview.

It had generated several benefits later on, after the initial craze and hoarding stopped.

After all, a stable source of food and water, relatively safe and secured shelter, and access to a large and active market for buying and purchase? Hell, just the ability to buy and sell things without waiting for caravans traveling the bandit filled routes?

There was a flat reduction in crime across the board. An untensing in the weaker villages, a drastic drop in violence... and while it was hard to track, hopefully a lower number of vengeance cultivators. 'You killed my village for (fill in stupid reason), I live for blood!' Yeah, that happened a lot and was more than a bit annoying.

In a similar fashion there was a surprising lack of death going on with the local Cultivation groups for the moment. Killing each other and NOT getting to loot the bodies took a lot of the fun out of the experience, and the ongoing supply of Chaos Grapes to the market (And how they were useful near universally for various cultivation methods) really reduced the amount of cutthroat dealing and double crossing.

With ample supplies and an ever growing density of heaven and earth energy, the main motivation for conflict was temporarily on hold for the locals... and the few powerful outsider cultivators quickly found that Rockette did NOT like overconfident morons stamping up to the Burning Sword Sect and demanding surrender.

Oh eventually, some 'more powerful' Sect would find out and try to conquer the locals... it should be interesting to see if more 'powerful' or 'refined' concepts would be able to prevent Rockette from sucking their energy dry and causing their fragments of flesh (not already converted) to flop around in a bloody mess.

...Gross.

Oh, and Tianshi broke through to Xiantian as well. Mr. Whiskers made the process trivial, which apparently pissed off MOST of her new friends in the process, but it had forced the Adams to realize a critical issue: He couldn't help her.

Any advancement from now on required her to gather energy to fill her reserves, a trivial task thanks to her joining with Mr. Whiskers in her spiritual network... and to then meditate on the concepts of the world, finding ones that are most relevant to herself and her goals, and converting herself closer to those ideals.

Self discovery, in other words.

All Adam's work was focused on creating a 'perfect' path to converting ones self into concepts, and later on creating an 'essential' path for his disciple to follow so she would have the most powerful foundation with the least amount of effort, one that would support the most amount of cultivation methods and styles so she could choose her own way forward.

The change in pace caught Adam off guard, all of him! No matter how much he read or researched, everything pointed to her having to keep growing up, to follow her own path... To not need his help anymore.

Oh, he still offered her the best food and cultivation resources, and his selves were always willing to research data or help give her maps when she left the Sect to go adventuring... and maybe one or two clones would follow silently and make sure she wasn't caught in an ambush or something by a massive group or a powerful cultivator far above her own level...

But he still felt unsettled. Maybe even left behind.

His body still mutated daily within the Blue Flames held by Rockette. His seven Qi Seas continued to (ever so slowly) fill with the near gel like overly pure Qi he crafted. But... but his little girl was growing up.

She was loved by the Sect of course, most prodigies were, and she grew quickly and showed great strength. And she always seemed happy to see his clones when she came home from fighting some beast or hunting some rare legend or treasure, successful or not.

But she was a tall woman now, not the small thing he carried in his arms way back when.

She was confident. Easily exasperated when he tried to spend too much time with her, and more and more unwilling to just play in the Crystal Caverns or watch the Soil Grid Gardens grow.

Adam himself couldn't leave the Sect now, probably. Even sending his clones out much further than they roamed now risked causing even more 'karma' or 'adventure' to fall on the pile being used by the Sect. The badges he distributed to disciples were helping of course, but the overall change in 'pressure' was near negligible.

In the end, as Sister Quan focused more and more on her own cultivation progress and little Tianshi put away her childish things... Adams focused on building up the System Core. Helping his young friend evolve itself over time... and just spent time with Rockette, the Asura Eye, and Core examining spiritual energies and the Concepts they related to, the ones they resonated with.

So... time passed.

The Sect grew, it had too many advantages to do otherwise. A few groups attempted to subvert, steal from, or attack the Sect's Headquarters... it didn't go well for them, and went even WORSE for those who got away after an Adam clone tagged them with a powerful Adventure Mark. The lack of conflict in the local area was considered suspicious... then strange... and eventually a sign that this was a holy land for cultivators, and as such should be held sacred.

Rockette got a few cults and religions based around her, but honestly Adam felt like that was unavoidable anytime some sexy woman posed nude for a few decades over a powerful Sect. They mostly stayed out of the way, so he didn't bother them.

And while few noticed... the number of clones he could control began to dwindle.

It was concerning.

Hopefully, Adam thought it may be a sign that he was about to fully recover control of his body, that he could stop the careful adjustments and energy control needed to keep his corpse from exploding like it had been trying to do for years.

Less optimistically however, they were concerned that something might have gone wrong and that this was some sort of beyond reality death as his recursive selves continued to convert into the Conceptual Realm at rapid pace.

Still, nothing could be done.

Just in case, Adam made sure to keep the number of clones around his (not so little) Tianshi and Sister Quan constant. It required him pulling away the clones that used to wander the Sect, that worked in his labs, that studied the various Databases and forums on the Tattoo Network... but needs must.

Feeling fewer and fewer clones replace those that shattered or faded away, it felt odd to remember what fear was like. To experience uncertainty once more.

Just... just in case. Adam made sure that his shard, that fragment that Rockette and everything grew from and out of, was filled with data. He ensured that small part of him, the one that would return home at the end of his life or travel onwards on further adventures... that it wasn't so tightly tied to his potentially fragile existence.

And he filled it carefully. A copy of everything, updated in real time, just... to make sure that if it needed to return to himself back home in the Worm Realm earlier than expected, that it would be worth it. That this would all be remembered.

...And if he included memories of his mom, of this world's mother, of the lonely but loving Wood Fairy from a tiny village of Forestend... Well.

No one else needed to know.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Very few noticed the ground slowly shifting under the Burning Sword Sect's mountain.

None knew the importance.

Within crystal hands, within blue flames... A boy slowly transitioned into actual slumber...

That day, the last clone crumbled... and Rockette smiled as she guarded her treasure.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Memories.

Flashes of fighting.

So many nights full of worry.

Men and women, flinging blades, summoning fire and ice, calling forth poisoned insects and summoning armed attacking corpses.

I was we. For a time.

The smile of an orphan. The thanks of the enslaved. The tears of the lonely.

They walked with us, and he felt our consequences.

Building walls against the weather, stopping the attacks of beast and man.

When had time lost meaning?

His little girl was so mature now... did she still need him?

When had age felt so dangerous?

This world treated family like chains, yet the young left so soon... honor your elders yes, but stop growing up so quickly...

Why had he sought power?

Parents raised parents raised parents, and how adorable their new child was! She reminded him of his little one. Not so little now.

Was it inertia? Power, wealth, fame, they all were drawn to his actions, to his path.

Unlike the thoughts of the Sect, which felt frozen and slow, these towns burned with life!

He could have waited, right? Just a few years, at least.

The civilians grew and lived and died, and even in the few decades of time... so much changed.

But... Adam couldn't hold her back.

...Why were the memories continuing?

Not if she wanted to grow.

...No, he had seen all the histories his clones had gathered. Where were these other memories coming from!?

Mr. Whiskers had parents, which should have been less of a surprise.

...Alright, yeah. Most creatures do, right?

Seeing two dragons floating over the Sect had caused a bit of a stir.

...What.

And watching little Tianshi accept Mr. Whiskers father as a master had been a shock.

...No. Really, what? That limp noodle was a god damned DRAGON!?

She still visited every few years, but it was clear she would eventually grow too strong for this world.

...Probably a good thing he hadn't dissected that lizard to figure out that 'turn into a tattoo' trick back then.

The Sect had grown.

...Oh. Floating islands. Neat. What few runes he could 'remember' looked pretty interesting too! Someone made some good advancements in Formation Scripting.

And she had kept guard.

...Rockette?

She was so glad he was recovering.

...Aww. Love you too, you big rocky gal! Also explained why some of these memories were from so high up. Great view! He should be a giant again.

She was so tired.

...Are you alright?

So tired.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam 'blinked'.

There was no pain.

That was... very atypical for him. To the point where he felt a bit lost about how to proceed.

He felt his body in a meditation pose, with something dry and brittle coating himself. Leaves? Sound was muffled, other than the soft crackling of flames and the distant whispers of wind.

More and more energy, layers of 'himself', fragments of sanity... they spiraled into his being as he 'awoke'.

Shifting made layers of... were those even dried leaves? Something crackled off his body. With a bit more movement, enough fell away that he could clearly see again!

...Eww. Gross.

Right, so he was a skeleton again and all that dry papery stuff was his former... everything. Muscles, skin, organs, and eww. Didn't look like ash or burned parts either, just dry paper thin sheets that crackled away in the blue flames as he moved.

Holding up his hand he paused.

It was beautiful!

No ligaments or muscle or skin of course, but every bone was made of transparent crystal! The only reason he could even SEE the individual bones was thanks to all those tiny markings engraved within them, a three dimensional spiral of formation code embedded like structure that gently shifted colors from pitch black to mind numbing white.

The symbols weren't glyphs or runes either, but clearly some of it was formation code from his own past projects... just in a pattern he had never seen before. Alongside symbols he never wrote, and phrases he never used.

Those over there enacted a purification effect, these applied a strengthening pattern, this a low level regeneration field... layer after layer of formation code, HIS formation code, now literally a part of his conceptual makeup.

His mind examined just this one, single bone from his body... and it was filled with libraries worth of formation code, nearly uncountable layers. Truly difficult to even perceive, as each tiny letter of code was itself formed from even more miniscule lettering.

Standing in the flames, Adam 'flexed' his arms, absent muscles moving unbound body parts.

His skeletal structure was now pure Binding energy, with the concept of his formation language embedded within. These blue flames that danced across his form were being crafted in real time, as his excess Binding energy found and combined with ambient Flame energy... interesting.

Adam paused as his left eye suddenly twisted. On its own.

Oh. Hi, Asura Eye.

Was she just going to sit in his left eye socket now? Yes? Cool, whatever.

Looking down at the vanishing former husk of his form, Adam realized that, once again, his everything was burned away.

It was odd to feel nude when he literally had nothing now to expose.

Waving a hand, a good chunk of happy Blue flames were pulled from the fires, compressed to liquid then solid form, and forced into the Cultivation Cell pattern. Raw energy fed the new flesh, creating a ripple effect as his crystal skeleton grew tendons, muscles, ligaments, organs, skin, and... hair? Sort of? It mostly looked like blue crystal wires that were close to catching fire, but that should be fine.

More important than that: Why did Rockette feel so stressed?

Moving his new body to the side of the remaining flames, Adam looked up towards Rockette's face... somewhere up there. The fumes and smoke from the various energies being converted made it hard to see, and the hand he was standing in was big enough for a camping site. "Hey! Everything alright up there?"

A pillar of crystal rose... and shifted into a woman that had curves to make a blind man blush. Similar to Narwhal and the twin angels, honestly... though his thoughts paused when she started to fall over. "HEY! You alright?"

Blue rocks with pulsing black code shifted in his arms, feeling oddly warm and humanish for a sculpture. Her eyes were solid black though. "Adam?"

...She didn't FEEL damaged. "Yes?"

Her hand shook as she tapped his forehead. "Welcome home..."

As the goddess passed out, Adam's body locked up HARD as he felt a connection form... no, reestablish.

Inside him, was an Adam. Below him an Adam. Another. And another. More!

A burden he didn't remember fell on his shoulders, the recursive army of himselves finally binding back into his existence... before the metaphysical weight seemed to vanish. After all, being yourself shouldn't be a burden.

The man blinked as he looked at the slumbering woman of stone in his arms. "Ah... you supported me when I wasn't me, so that I would be here when I got back and still support me while I was gone."

Or something.

Calling to the massive husk that had formerly been Rockette, he pulled crystal from the stone hand into a couch, letting his Martial Spirit rest with her head on his lap. Gently stroking her warm bald head, he listened to the soft grinding noises of the underground as she quietly snored.

Moving energy around? Simple. Not even a consideration for his girl.

Defending and/or growing the Sect? A relaxing hobby.

Stealing the cultivation of intruders and attackers? Rebuilding society and supporting the now massive Tattoo Network? Nearly automatic!

But supporting and protecting an infinite number of young Adams while disconnecting them from his personal torture and transformation process? Somehow holding his army safely even without matching the 'concept of Adam' needed at the base?

She had worked so hard. What a brave woman.

Right, with his new conceptual connection to the crystals (His bones were not made of matter, but of the ideal nature of both Formations and Binding energy alone), ensuring nothing goes wrong with the various Sect services and barriers would be easy enough.

Best to focus on other things until Rockette gets a bit of a nap or so.

First, find out how long it's been since he began being refined into... this. His body was mostly cosmetic now, usable power that he could easily hurl for an attack or whatever, as long as his bones were fine. And the formations marked inside his clear bones were clearly not normal... it would take lifetimes of effort to understand the things, as they seem to contain not only past achievements and Sect advances, but markings from future breakthroughs and alternative paths not traveled.

Which was odd. He didn't have runes or tattoos inside his bones, he had conceptual code. It shifted if he stopped looking at it, and the whole mess seemed to reflect the nature of formations as a whole... forgotten history, theoretical past, the world of active development here in the present, the future and even the never future.

Better have continuous scanning for both the Tattoo Network and 'Research' to scan later. When Rockette is feeling better.

Right, focus. Easiest way to find out how long he had been 'breaking through' to the Xiantian Realm would be to check the Sect Forums on the network.

Time passed... five hundred and forty seven years. Plus some change.

...Shit.

Right, not a huge setback. Everyone he knew had managed to advance their cultivation enough to easily live that long or longer. Still, maybe the second thing he should do is to go explore the Sect a bit, see what was going on. Ooh! He could go undercover! Like a spy! That would be awesome!

Adam's grin suddenly froze.

Right, he was naked. And had an obviously stone left eye, and she was super happy to be looking at everything like an excited child. And his hair was mostly fire at this point, which would be a tad obvious.

Looking down he mentally winced.

Right, he had only used Blue flames to make his flesh.

So he was blue.

Like a massive, muscular, reasonably endowed smurf. A naked smurf with no beard.

Blending in would be difficult.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Crystal Caverns were no longer located within his Dantian, as he was now a skeleton with a meat suit.

Instead, it had shifted up to the only crystal container he had... his skull.

So it sort of felt like he was reaching into his own ear to get stuff out of the damn thing... hopefully it would become normal soon enough that he wouldn't shiver each time he accessed the place.

Black socks, long ones. White shoes. White trousers, black shirt, white over shirt, white jacket... apparently his clones knew his tastes. Thankfully. Some white gloves and he was nearly in a perfect copy of his 'White Suit Skeleton' costume from Worm.

Add one white hooded robe with a pinned Sect symbol, although he only needed the appropriate tattoo and Sect Ring to prove his credentials which thanks to Rockette's hard work and the Tattoo Network were trivial to get... and he was mostly good!

No, the issue was his bright. Blue. Face.

Oh, and his Asura Eye, but she was fine with him wearing a white blindfold. Neither of them had issues seeing through it, obviously, and hopefully not watching one eyeball roll all over the place would keep people from screaming or throwing up or whatever.

Still. Bright blue face.

Makeup? Nothing that looked normal. Worse, half the options made him look like a corpse or zombie trying to hide something.

More cloth?

...Just ignore it? And act confused when someone brings it up?

'I'm not blue, YOU'RE BLUE!'

Dang it. Rockette, is there a Sect job or position that covers the face entirely?

...

Rockette?

...

Ah. Still asleep. Best get her a blanket and leave her to rest on this couch.

Adam flexed his hidden blue arms and straightened his bright blue neck tie. Right.

Time to improvise!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam waltz down the street, picking a large man who seemed more curious than confused, paranoid, or shifty. "You sir!"

He blinked. "Me?"

The boy shook his long blue locks of hair in the wind, tiny flames dancing in the air. "Yes you, the man with hair nearly as fabulous as my own!"

The bystanders were shifting into audience territory. The man just seemed confused. "...Can I help you?"

Adam posed. "Well asked, kind sir! But I say upon you NAY! For I am here to help young people like yourself!" Better shift into a different pose, best to get the sunlight at the optimal angle.

Hair toss. "Have you ever felt a lack of color in your life!? I know I myself certainly felt a bit down!"

A heckler in the crowd was very accommodating. "You mean, you 'felt blue'!?" Well done!

Adam grinned, his blue teeth sparkling. "Why yes! How did you know?" Don't wait for them to answer. "Young man, I am searching for people like myself who feel life is a bit drab, a bit dull! Would you care to join my new support group?"

The guy now being pulled along by Adam seemed out of it. "What?"

That's it, make the crowd follow to see the strange! "Yes, our 'Beautiful Lads Understanding Everyone' Man Group can help you show your true colors to friends and family alike! Or if you have a female friend or two, they can join our 'Gratefully Inclusive Research Laboratory' Scout Troop, which admittedly has been sidetracked by cooking related activities for months now."

Yeah, this guy was confused. "...What?"

Adam gestured at the crowd, handing out jade slips with the modified cultivation method 'Color Me Beautiful Essential Cultivation'. Didn't take long to put it together, and the full body color effect should help Adam blend in. "I feel fate brought us together, and charging a new friend and member of our Man Group would just be offensive! Here, free of charge, I insist!"

There! Now a ton of suddenly powerful people with primary colors would start flooding the Sect! He would be a super cool ninja spy even yet!

The guy with fabulous hair was left behind, watching the crowd share the freely given pile of manuals. "...What?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam walked around another corner, entered one of the many slabs of crystal, and exited inside Rockette's hands, next to the blue flames and the couch with her smaller avatar still sleeping away.

He had shifted the thing into more of a bed... a bed couch? Bouch?

She seemed far less stressed, but time was passing and she was dead asleep. Which was good, because Adam was popping in and out of this area a lot more often recently.

The guards might have caught on.

Oh at first, there was no problem. He was bouncing around the city and handing out jade slips with the color coded cultivation techniques, which was a fun opportunity to mess with people and learn the lay of the land, as it were.

Can't really explore freely until enough people use the darn things and they all start turning different colors. Hopefully blue.

Unfortunately... Adam had noticed that even through the Sect Barrier was told to ignore his passage and the security layers were keeping him out of the log, someone somewhere was becoming very good at trying to track him down anyway.

Easy enough, just use Rockette's crystal network to warp around and avoid the ambushes and stuff, right?

Nope! Less than a week of free wandering and someone must have gotten clever. Response time was down to an hour or less after showing up in the area. Made everything more complicated.

This eventually wouldn't be an issue after a few hundred color coded disciples began wandering around, but for now it was frustrating but not important. At first.

Right, changes discovered so far!

The Sect had tripled in population density, and many sections on the mountain had been rebuilt into housing. Which wasn't causing issues because at some point the Patriarch had a bunch of floating islands created with advances discovered by the Formation Division.

The old guy made them move all industry and most businesses away from the ground and had the structures float about to save room... and theoretically have some disposable islands without a population to use as ablative armor if a major assault was launched at the barrier.

There was also a new Patriarch, by the way. Not Pat, he managed to reach 'Ancestor' status and was 'retired', which meant sitting in some cultivation cave and meditating on life or whatever.

Apparently the many advancements that Adam and his clones had made really helped people advance in cultivation in safer and more reliable ways... the abundant spirit energy and valuable medicines didn't hurt either.

Anyway, the various floating islands had facilities for the Sect Divisions, one was a massive market place (Mostly for outsiders who couldn't just order whatever over the Tattoo Network), some were covered in restaurants or inns or what have you.

The dozens of island sized objects were connected by a stable Formation Transmission hub network, the soft blue nodes gently flashing in the distance as crowds were teleported from floating areas to various destinations. It was pretty, especially at night!

Something to study in more detail, once Rockette was awake or the number of 'natural blue' people went high enough. Hopefully.

He couldn't even get close to the orphanage. Clearly a few hundred years of surplus funding had changed a few things, as his old residence was one of the most developed areas of the Sect... even had a few people caught pretending to have tragic back stories in attempts to apply.

Or worse, CAUSING tragic back stories. Yeesh.

Point was, at this point being a member of the orphanage wasn't a social negative anymore.

And those kids that became powerful cultivators apparently donated to their former residence as well, though not as much as Adam's past investments obviously... all that fame, wealth, and power? People were paying attention.

Mind you, this was all pieced together because of a series of... setbacks. Blue agenda issues. WAY more resistance than he had initially expected... why would people NOT want to be bright blue!?

Adam was running out of ideas.

At first it was easy!

Make a new version of his 'Essential Cultivation' methods, but even more dumbed down!

It was so automatic that people could cultivate in their sleep!

Even though the new method ended up being at LEAST three times as slow to actually progress in one's cultivation base, a 'Turn random color' side effect was nothing when somebody could easily reach new levels of power! Talent was no longer a throttle to your future!

...Then the Tattoo Network, HIS creation, messed it all up.

One of the many formation masters reviewed Adam's code, found the 'Make me change color' portion, and 'fixed it'. And posted the fix and his notes to the forums.

Jerk.

Since the original method was freely available to the Sect, and now there was a boring version of his 'Colorful method', Adam had to get creative to color the people.

Powerful attacks! Free for everyone! Simple to learn, easy to use, safe to practice! Slight skin tone modification side effect!

It was 'fixed' in a month. At least the network debates had been interesting after the butchered his work and made it boring, bland, and not blue.

But he would not be denied!

New low level versions of the most popular techniques! Use only a gesture to clean one's clothes, or heat the bath, or cool the wine! Caution: May change your...

Fixed in a week.

Each attempt began to draw 'fans' in the Tattoo network, as some sort of 'Fix the color' minigame or something. The initial forum posts ended up being given their own subforum dedicated to de-blueing the world!

So he got creative.

Color change based on partial execution of technique hidden in three other, 'new' abilities? Caught.

Skin modification that massively increased the user's durability (and 'oops', color)? Modified.

Pranking tricks to make your friends 'Fabulously Fashion Fortunate'?

THAT had been closest to working. Half the damned Sect changed skin tone before some overachiever crafted a counter method to fix the suddenly colorful Sect. Even undid some of his earlier work, returning past success stories to blandness... which was beyond frustrating.

At least that attempt had gotten him a good month or two of free wandering without being chased... had a chance to visit some restaurants, talk gossip with random people. It had been lovely!

But after that, he had to really ramp up the complexity.

Now Adam was basically creating something similar to Viruses, Trojans, and Malware for cultivation methods and techniques while accidentally spawning an arms race against the counter movement to 'fix' his colorful results.

It was something of a security formation code war, and while occasionally fun it was all really starting to get in the way of Adam's goals! Blue for truth, blue forever!

Adam was frowning at a wall of illusions (black text on blue of course) when he suddenly felt a shift.

Rockette shifted. "Ah? Adam?"

He couldn't help but grin. "Good morning sleep head! I admit I was starting to get worried!"

The silver colored crystal woman shifted on the stone 'bed'. Over the last few... however long Adam had been doing this, she had slowly shifted shades until she was something like a silver tinted window with (apparently) solid black eyes.

No hair of course, rocks normally don't have that, but he was still a bit surprised how shapely a woman made from literal rocks could end up. "Everything alright?"

She shifted until sat upright and seemed to take stock of herself. "I... I feel far less strained now." Her black eyes blinked. "Wait, are YOU alright? Your breakthrough took forever!"

Adam flexed. "Better than ever! I must have refined my existence a thousand times or more, I feel strong, clear headed, and far more focused than before!"

Rockette blinked. "...Really?"

He nodded. "Yep! I can store far more energy, my Qi has hit a new level of purity, my body had been compressed down to pure energy and my skeletal structure, my Asura Eye has a new home in my skull... Relax! I'm bigger, better..."

She blinked again. "Blue."

...Uh. Yes? "Yes. I am blue."

Rockette waved at his body. "WHY are you blue?"

Adam shifted. "Well, like I said... I basically ended up as a skeleton and energy. I needed a body, had lots of that Blue Fire and Binding Energy to work with..." He waved at the bonfire behind him. "So I just used a bit and bam! Bodacious body!"

Seeing the screens still up at his chair he winced. "I'll admit, it does make blending in hard though. I had this whole plan about making everyone else blue to help hide in the crowd so to speak but there have been issues."

She stared at him. Glanced at the screens, but dismissed them to stare at his blue body and blue clothing more. "You are trying to make everyone blue."

Nod. "It is objectively the best color."

She seemed to be getting a headache. "Why... why didn't you just use different energies to make something more flesh colored?"

Huh. Yeah, that probably would have been easier. Still... "At this point, it is a pride issue."

Rockette leaned back in her chair in exasperation. "Fine, whatever... listen Adam, we have an issue."

That... that didn't sound good.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The new Patriarch was glaring at Ancestor 'Pat'. "You KNEW he was going to do this!"

The older man chuckled, the weight of the world on someone else's shoulders. "I knew he would do SOMETHING when he finally woke up. I did not however expect him to spend ten years attempting to vandalize his own cultivation methods. Or wander around convincing people to 'Come through to blue' or whatever he was calling it."

He glared. "His student just sent us a 'Sorry, busy training' message rather than try to get him to stop. She LAUGHED when I asked how to get him to stop."

Pat rolled his eyes. "You don't get Brother Adam to stop, you need to distract the boy. NOTHING can make him do something he doesn't want to achieve... find something more interesting and less annoying and throw it his way."

The leader stood in rage. "I. CAN'T. CATCH. HIM! I've been trying to talk to that bastard for FIVE DAMN YEARS!"

Pat shrugged. "Do better then."

The past leader chuckled as the new 'responsible' Sect leader screamed in frustration.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam was sitting next to Rockette near the blue flames. "Right, dumb it down for me. What was causing you so much strain to begin with?"

She half sat, half melted into (technically her own) hands/floor. "You remember the splintering?"

He was many, they were one, they had been and were and... "Yes."

Her hands waved, an image of a ball floating in the air. "Normally, breaking through to the next Realm is fairly straight forward... you however had a couple of issues."

The ball duplicated, a line connecting the two... and again, creating a string of beads on a rope. "Your recursive nature was a major problem of course, but I managed to redirect the impact to myself when your body began to crumble."

Adam winced. "Right, this breakthrough had been... a bit more painful than expected."

Her illusion of an infinite series of orbs shifted. "It should have been, because you went too far."

He blinked. "What?"

Rockette showed a orb... attached to a twisted spiral of crystal. "What do you know about crystals? Especially ones that form in places filled with needed materials and energy?"

Adam blinked. "Uh... A bit I guess? Why?"

Her face frowned as she focused... and the twisted crystal connected to the orb zoomed in. "With plants, they grow from a seed. With animals, they form from an embryo. But with crystals..."

Deep inside the crystal picture, a tiny fragment glowed.

Her hand nearly touched the image. "With crystals, we need a flaw. An imperfection, for our pattern to connect, to build from... without that start the potential to grow is worthless."

Rockette sighed, as they both saw a model of Adam... and his Shard. "You were the imperfection I needed to grow. A fragment of something beyond energy and matter, a part of something from beyond."

Adam instinctively reached within... and didn't feel his Shard. "What... what happened?"

She waved at the blue flames... and Adam saw within the fire, a small glass fragment.

Her sigh was heavy. "You refined away your flaws. At this point, you are the Concept of Adam."

Standing, a bit hesitant... Adam walked into the blue fires, ignore the impossible heat.

Touching the glass fragment within, he could feel... Adventure. The call of the beyond. The longing for home. The search for data, the pursuit of purpose.

...Things he realized he didn't feel now, within himself.

How many months had he spent basically playing with the Sect?

No drive, no feeling of loss, no regret?

That wasn't like him. Normally he felt an urge, a weight... a pressure that he was being driven to advance towards completion. But now...

How long had it been since he had felt this relaxed?

Rockette stood nearby, the flames easily parting at her will. "Separating your concepts from your Shard nearly destroyed you both. I don't know how you did it really, as it was the binding between us, the connection we used to grow together."

They nodded. Now they were together, not bound by some third connection, but directly.

Adam had a wry smile as he pet the fragment. "You've... you've wanted to move on for a while now, haven't you?"

The shard vibrated with Adventure!

Rockette chuckled. "You are still connected, you know? Conceptual Adam and Adam Shard, how can they not be bound? Just... differently."

He glanced at the woman bending the flames away. "And you? Before you grew as my little Rockette, what connected us?"

She laughed. "Isn't it obvious? I was minding my own business before a rude little boy just showed up in me, an outsider who seemed so small and lost. A fragment and yet more... and you called to me."

Her smile sparkled silver. "I had no name before we grew. I had no ego, no personality. I had no direction, no agency... no life."

She wrapped an arm around Adam. "I much prefer having been your Martial Spirit than the eons I spent as this unnamed crystal cultivation plane. Back before all this dirt built up, before all the animals and people, when there was no atmosphere and I was a liquid ocean of future stone and potential..."

Her eyes turned to the past. "I... I may miss being so young. Of the simpler times... Even the long silence that came afterwords. But at least I found friendship and happiness eventually."

Adam uh. Wasn't sure how to handle that. "Well. No wonder you can control spirit energy."

She shrugged... the world shrugged? "Of course, it's all mine anyway."

...Huh. Change the subject?

Yeah, change the subject. "So what does this mean for me? Separating myself from the my Shard I mean."

Rockette sighed. "Its made this simpler and more difficult. All the pressure to evict the 'Outsider' is now focused on that." She waved at the fire. "You yourself are composed entirely of native concepts... in a very real sense, you are a native member of me now... a part of this world."

She winced again. "On the other hand, forcing this Shard to not flee into... somewhere? Well, it is far more tricky now that it isn't bonded directly to your local material, concepts, and body."

He hummed. "But we have time?"

Rockette nodded. "Not long, but some time. Just... please hurry."

Adam gave a nod... and turned from his Shard.

Sure, he would need to make sure his Shard could connect to the concept of Cultivation Adam, so that his body would get the full update from this version of himself when (if) he ever died... but there was more he wanted to do first.

Say hi to a few people, catch up with others... but more than that.

Floating toward the crystal wall, he aimed towards a certain bog.

After all, he wasn't an outsider anymore... and his Rockette didn't need to have some giant corpse monstrosity risking her existence.

Without the risk of being forced out of this plane of existence, how much more power could he risk using at once? How much stronger were his abilities now that his concepts were so dense and refined?

How far could he punt a massive Corpse Walker with the power of a sexy local reality entity helping out?

His blue teeth glinted as he traveled.

Let's find out!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

It was more than a bit embarrassing to realize he wasn't using Qi.

While flying at high speed. For an hour.

Ignoring his surroundings, Adam floated on his back and examined his changes.

His muscles, skin, organs? All more form than function now. Only his bones and spiritual network mattered now, and what used to be his Qi Seas had been replaced and refined away by now.

Adam wasn't using up Qi to zoom towards that deadly swamp, his subconscious mind was altering concepts automatically instead.

His 'weight' was reduced to almost nothing, his 'surface resistance' was discarded, a bubble of 'air resistance' was coated with the concepts of 'lift' and 'separation', slicing the air out of his path as his body hurled forward.

Without focus, his body conceptually affected the world in three ways: Personally, Indirectly, and Globally.

Personally included all the vectors where one half was Adam himself. The way pressure applied from his clothing to his body, or how damage was passed directly from his fragile flesh to his much stronger bones... the long list of 'Blank' affecting 'Adam' were being modified automatically on SOME level by his own power.

Even now, his clothing was ignoring the world by passing all issues to his skin, which was tossing the situations to his flesh, which ignored any problems by letting his stupidly sturdy bones to tank any damage. If there was a graph showing how reality was trying to interact with Adam, there would be a millions tiny arrows pointing at himself... all slightly edited to help achieve his overall goal.

Indirect conceptual modification was far more minor in comparison... the local weather was ever so slightly nicer, the nearby ground barely more solid, sound slightly suppressed when he was trying to be ignored. Nothing huge, barely a nudge towards a more helpful local environment really.

And Global modifications? For most people this would be ignored.

But Adam wasn't most people.

He could FEEL Rockette trying to stabilize the rules of the Realm, to make gravity less arbitrary, forcing time to become regular, to shunt shifts in reality into the many tiny space time pockets that always foamed up in the real world rather than let her system continue to arbitrarily shift as forces appeared.

...He probably shouldn't be this aware of the situation, but his girl was literally his soul mate. Some things were harder to ignore in this case.

Anyway, on the topics of concepts affecting reality?

No wonder Cultivators could 'fly', they were subconsciously rejecting all the forces trying to make them 'fall', 'move', and so forth.

But they were just forcing high level concepts onto the real. 'I want to fly', 'I need to defend', 'I must attack', and all that.

Adam had... far more options.

Directly adjusting concepts... he decided to take advantage of Rockette no longer having to struggle to keep him from ascending to a higher reality.

Mass increase. Volume decrease. Barrier of air. Barrier surface? Frictionless.

Space inversion: Before is behind. Vector redirection: Gravity before. Atmosphere pressure: convert force of before to behind. Density equalize with local layer.

Adam was silent, for air couldn't notice his passage.

He was near invisible, for his speed was beyond unusual... and increasing.

Only the Asura Eye could see now, and only because it was a stone of concepts and not an actual fleshy object bound by reality and physics.

If he touched something at this speed, he would (theoretically) die. Or at least, a few layers of himself would have a really, REALLY bad time.

A thought had his bones gather future impacts... and prepare to focus them on his right hand.

His hand would be a force of nature. A fist of raw pressure, focused on an impossibly fine point so close to his 'skin'.

The act of impacting something would be stored, his body's destruction stored away and then... delivered in a moment.

The recoil alone would shatter himself... best prepare for that too. Automatically store it again into his 'Retaliation' procedure? Meh, seems easiest.

Sure, this would make his fist a bit like a jackhammer... each punch followed by an echo as the damaging recoils were gathered and used for additional attacks... but that wasn't ADAM'S problem, right?

Second problem: Over penetrating the target.

With the 'punch' Adam was building up, it could very well just... pass right through. Make a tiny hole in the Corpse Walker and waste itself in the distance somewhere.

That would make all this reality breaking damage a bit pointless.

A thought or two had a few options... try to create a 'wall' for his attack to impact, maybe inside the target, so the fracture of the forces could spread out a bit.

But what if the fragments ALSO over penetrated the damn spider thing? The bastard was huge, a dozen holes in one leg wouldn't even be noticed. And he wasn't entirely sure he could inject a wall inside living (or unliving) creatures anyway. Never had a reason to try and test that.

Spread out the force? How much? Too much and it would be ignored, too little and it could just go back to the original problem.

...Surface tension?

Surface tension!

Adam adjusted the concept for his current 'Impact Hammer' assault. Use the initial power not to cause ANY damage, but to reinforce the surface of the entire target... with a small entry zone.

And instead, use all the potential self harm Adam would have suffered as the actual attack vector... right inside the new 'bag' of surface tension he created!

It would be like coating his target with reflective metal, then filling the body with devastating vibrations and forces to rip it apart internally!

His eyes flashed. If this didn't work out, he could try his more delicate tricks, the ones too dangerous to actually test. Like the infectious concepts, or the recursive self refining procedures.

Rockette could probably stop that mess from eating her whole bog, but it would be best to at least try using this 'Impact Hammer' attack first.

...Plus it sounded cool.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

It had no self.

It had no goals.

It had no dreams.

It was.

Time mattered not.

Once, it was elsewhere.

Now, it was here.

Eventually, it would be somewhere new.

It didn't think... not really. It didn't plan or attack or defend.

The dead came to the hive, and the hive waited for the dead.

Eventually, the living would join the hive, and the dead would watch.

They always watched.

There wasn't pain, nor sadness. There was the hive, and the newly dead that joined.

Below, the souls gathered in limbs and body and endless mouths.

Above, the bodies gathered in limbs and form and endless eyes.

Together, they screamed and watched and waited.

Alone, they were but a destination.

Life came, died, and left.

Death came, lived, and left.

It was.

...Though if possible, it would have been surprised as a white line of clouds suddenly impacted one of the pillars of soul and bone.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

...NOTHING!?

Adam glared at the white pillar he had just impacted. He had hit it full tilt, felt the 'Surface Tension Reinforcement' concept apply, and had a brief vision of his entire skeletal structure NOT powdering as the damage was then pulsed into the white bone limb.

...It hadn't resisted the impact. At all.

The force hadn't vanished.

He had damaged SOMETHING, he just knew it!

But... but not here.

The Asura eye flared... and looked down?

...Beneath the gray moss, a black stone was floating in the acidic water.

A stone covered in tiny mouths?

Adam's eyes widened as he dove into the poisonous sludge... and viewed the massive black spider like being that reflected the white Corpse Walker.

The black beast with a heavily fractured leg!

The two sides were mirrors! Damage from one was passed to the other!

He frowned... said damage was rapidly recovering even as he watched. Tiny mouths and thin tongues pulling fragmented black stone together into a former pattern.

Many people would have issues fighting a creature that needed more than one person to damage.

Thankfully, Adam was many people.

His body flared blue as recursion partially unfolded, they as one were more and on a mission.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rockette flinched... and gave a relieved sigh.

An unseen thorn was now gone, a hidden wound cleansed...

Still felt gross though.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam walked out of the bog, an Adam below the liquid using force manipulation to ensure that both of them used the other's feet as solid footing. So to speak.

That. Was. Gross.

The black stone Corpse Spider was made of rock and unlimited mouths. They spoke unseens and screamed unheards. It was painful to fight them, but very satisfying to destroy the cursed things.

The white bone Corpse Spider was made of flesh and unending eyes. Every one changing some small aspect of reality, ever so slightly. They judged nothing, but saw everything... even as he crushed the last fragments, he felt they were viewing something further away, more interesting than their own demise.

But worse than all that, was the Asura Eye... as she had seen the fragments of her past home.

And ate them.

Finding out that your eye ball was hungry? Gross.

Discovering that your eye has a mouth? More than a bit horrifying.

And learning that soul fragments and body remnants tasted like mint and lemon?

...Eww.

His Asura Eye was just making... little 'Yummy!' sounds. And chewing. Something.

Yeah, Adam was done with this.

Oh, and this bog was STILL full of all kinds of fun poisons. Compared to the main course of Corpse Walker chunks, his eye sipped that deadly mess like a fine wine and Adam was too overwhelmed to care that much.

He needed a nap.

And a hug or two.

...No food though. No food for at least a week.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Patriarch blinked as a blue man wandered in and sat in his guest chair. In a slump.

The guy groaned. "Pat, I know we talked about me not going back to that bog. The one with the Corpse Walker spider death thing in it."

...Where were his guards!?

The blue dude slumped. "I went back. Thought I could take it. I could. It sucked."

Did this boy take over the rooms defenses!?

He stared at the ceiling. "From now on, I am going to fight people I can actually see. Fighting someone or something the size of an entire mountain range is just not satisfying. Or cathartic. Felt more like a chore than I expected really.

...This was that 'Burning Sage' asshole he had been chasing, wasn't it?

Adam, right? "I'll admit, didn't expect my eyeball to just start slurping up the bad guy either. Gross. And I have something like a headache or something, I think my eyeball is trying to extract data from the dead or something."

...What?

He cleared his throat but was interrupted as Adam waved him off. "I know, I know, 'Don`t let your eyeball eat people' or something like that. It wasn't planned that way... but I don't know."

The boy looked conflicted. "I just... is it even possible for an eyeball to give the 'puppy eyes' look? It felt like that. Never thought I would feel guilty for not letting my body parts eat mountain sized corpse segments covered in mouths and screaming eyeballs."

What? "What?"

Adam blinked. "...Am I in the wrong office again?" He looked around... even more confused. "Uh... Sorry, can you send me to wherever Pat ended up?"

Just... calm. "The man you knew as 'Pat' managed to advanced to become an honored Ancestor of the Sect. I am the current Patriarch."

Adam hesitated, frowning. "Huh. I just... didn't bother to check." The child gave him an uncomfortable focused once over. "Is being bald a requirement to be Sect Leader, or did the two of you share hair styles?"

...Well, fuck you too kid. "I'm glad we were able to meet, it was really hard to get your attention." For the last. Five. Damn. Years. "I had a few questions?"

He nodded. "Sure, but I am on a bit of a schedule, so... later?"

And the bastard was gone.

God. Damn. IT!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam and Rockette watched the vibrating shard covered in Blue fire.

Rockette seemed... less tense, now that her partner and friend was there beside her. "Won't be long now."

Adam hummed. "Met Pat's replacement today."

It was quiet, a soft hum coming from the shard.

He frowned. "I should call him the 'new' guy, or whatever, but it feels wrong."

Rockette absently nodded. "I'm not surprised it feels off when a friend's job is filled in by a stranger."

The shard seemed to be phasing out... in several directions.

Adam sighed. "That too I guess, but no. The real issue is this guy feels OLDER and more worn than Pat ever did. Seriously, I uploaded thousands of self care cultivation techniques. No one in our Sect has any excuse NOT looking awesome after four or five tricks used in the morning."

She blinked, still distracted trying to force space to not fracture when the shard vanishes into the either. "Hmm?"

He frowned. "The guy is fat. Bald. Looks over a hundred." Pause. "No, that doesn't work when people over a thousand years old look twelve. I mean, he looks like a civilian who is near death from old age. But why?"

Adam waved a hand. "Cultivation SHOULD make you look however you want. And I specifically made hair growth techniques to adjust or repair scalp issues. Women use it all the time to make it impossible to grow unwanted hair, he has this option too."

A bemused hum from Rockette filled the silence.

He blinked. "Huh. Guess he WANTS to be an old fat bald dude."

Fetishes were weird.

Rockette flinched as the shard tried to explode, sublimate, and implode at the same time. "Back on topic... will the shard be able to make this transition safely?"

Adam waved it off. "Mostly. Some meditation showed that it will carry something like a live feed, one way to my other self, allowing me to watch me as I be me here. And size is strange when it comes to things like this..."

He pointed at the fist sized glass. "That was smaller than a speck of dust when extracted from Adam's soul. It still is, but we are not smaller. It didn't get larger. This fragment is both too big for this world to contain and too small for your power to restrict... But there is a nice side effect."

A loud flash, a soft pop... and the blue flames shrank as the shard vanished.

"It may have a rough journey, but it will make it nevertheless."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam Burns blinked, buried in a comfort pile with Narwhal, Simmy, and Sammy. "Huh."

Her arms hugging him close, Narwhal hummed. "Murgle."

Simmy's soft feathers twitched suddenly as she felt Adam's fishbowl Soul shiver, Squishy having watched the Crystal Castle mutate as it began to dig down into Adam's core and twist upwards, a beautiful statue of a stone woman forming.

He winced. Already, the enhancing castle was constructing a new library, some sort of 'Tattoo Network Hub', and what felt like a recursive backup system for... his whole damn soul?

...Was he going to end up with recursive Squishies?

Soft body parts hugged him tightly in comfort, and Narwhal was too tired from prior concern and worry to even fully awake as two angels made his world warm.

...Meh, he would review that (massive) mess later. At least the attempt was a success, and he didn't have to worry about why an instant procedure took a week to actually complete.

Poke.

What?

Squishy explained. Poke.

...His Soul Shard was being punted out of his (Younger self? Personal son? Clone? Let's go with son.) Son's girlfriend, who was like a small universe, because his boy and his new girl were now so conceptually close that marriage seemed tame by comparison. And he was too... refined? Too purified to keep the damn thing from wandering off.

Well. Crap.

Adam let the warm feathers and snug hug of his girlfriends sooth his frustrations.

At least he was getting good data now.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

When Adam entered the Abyss, he used raw power not to punch through a barrier, nor to force a path... but as a fuel source.

His energy would plot a trajectory, as odd as that thought was in a space without directions, and the 'cost' he was calculating was actually determining the accuracy of his trip.

More power, better 'searches', more control over which of the trillion of billions of Realms he actually entered.

Even then, there were an infinite number of near misses with each attempt. Nearly identical Realms, but some with slightly warmer bagels being made in that cute french restaurant that no one visited back in 1933, for example. Others with louder fish off the coast of California, or slightly more blue rocks on that one mountain in Tibet. When that mountain even existed, at least.

Point was, normally Adam was being shot on a path, with energy acting as a force and a protective barrier for the journey.

This time, his Shard was self-propelled.

If he normally flew through the nothing at the speed of sound, right now he was taking a hesitant step every few days or so.

His massive list of requirements, needed to define his wanted destination, was now broken into a tiny thought fragment: "Body Modification." The Shard Adam was interested in creating physical changes similar to the conceptual changes that System Core could create. Eventually.

...It probably shouldn't surprise anyone that Adam's fragment was going to spend a long... LONG time traveling this time through the Abyss. Retconned or not by using Time Travel for returning the results, it would take at least a few eternities for this sad travel attempt to pan out.

So it was a bit of a shock when something in the Abyss found Adam's shard first.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The adventure continues in Broken Adventure: Arc 3: Jumpchain.