A series of thunderous impacts echoed over the mighty roar of crashing water as a massive spume of spray blasted away from the face of the waterfall, startling the wildlife along the riverbank. The forest answered with a layered chorus of alarm as creatures fled in all directions, and flocks of birds burst from the treetops in dark spirals of wings.
A moment later, the staff embedded in the riverbank blurred and shot into the waterfall; the cloak hanging from it vanished into mist.
Inside the cave behind the falls, the air was cold and heavy with the scent of wet stone, each breath tasting faintly of mineral damp. Chún pushed his Monkey Movement Dao to its utmost, bare feet striking slick crystal as jagged limbs of living stone stabbed and ground towards him. The Guardian had not stirred from its place in the centre of the cavern, thick with Essence Crystals. Instead, enormous razor-edged limbs sprouted and lashed outward from its central mass at irregular intervals, seeking to skewer the frantically leaping True Cultivator.
Twice Chún aimed for the exit, but doing so required him to intersect a specific and predictable point in space, and the crystal protrusions leapt eagerly to that very location each time, sealing the entrance before he could reach it.
The second attempt ended worse. Two attacking limbs collided as they attempted to crush him; the blast of released Essence struck like a hammer and sent him tumbling backwards through the air, crystal fragments chiming around him as he struggled to right himself.
He found himself wishing he had his cloak and staff in hand — and rather regretting that he had not been more specific about the terms of the spar.
"The Guardian is not attempting to kill you, Chún. It is merely much stronger than you."
An amused current stirred along the link.
A rush of coolness surged over him as thick mist rose and caught him in its embrace, forming into his cloak before most of it condensed into a nearly opaque fluid armour that wrapped him from head to toe. Two crystal strikes that would have skewered him veered aside at the last instant as they struck the lingering curls of Essence Mist, missing him by a hair's breadth.
The third limb burst apart in a shattering impact that sent chiming shards in all directions. Without pausing to question the impulse, Chún extended his right hand — and a familiar staff struck solidly into his palm.
There was a moment's stillness as the attacking limbs — shattered pieces included — slid back into the Guardian's body, the fractured surfaces already knitting as they withdrew.
Chún settled into a defensive stance.
"Mountain, will fighting here harm you?" he sent through the link, aware he probably should have asked that earlier.
"The Crystals draw in and steady wild Essence. To you, they are as unbreakable as the mountain itself. There is no safer place for you to give rein to your strength."
"But the Guardian's arm—" he began, only to watch the fractured limb seal itself smooth once more.
A slow grin tugged at his mouth.
"Good," he said softly. "Try again."
The Crystal Lord inclined its head.
"Weapons… permitted?"
"That is fair."
"Challenge… accepted."
The next assault came faster, crystal spears lashing toward him with a crackling scream like ice-crack grass splitting in winter frost. He drove the butt of his staff into the foremost tip, the blow ringing through his arms as the limb shattered and hurled him sideways on the recoil.
He drove himself up the cave walls, staff moving as though it were part of his body. Several limbs now glowed with infused Essence — bursts of Fire flared against stone, Water struck with crushing weight, and blasts of Wind tore at the air.
Within the narrow cavern he found himself pressed at every turn. Crystal chains formed again and again to bar his path.
He snarled worldlessly and instead of retreating once more he leapt onto a withdrawing spear of crystal and ran along its length toward the Guardian's core.
The spear crumbled beneath him. A dozen sharpened chains swept inward from all directions. Rather than twist away, he thrust his Essence hard through the cloak; for a miǎo the mist billowed outward and drove him forward. The cloak thickened again at once, shielding him as he smashed the eager tip of the nearest limb with his staff and ran along its length in a spray of fragments.
He gained several strides before a wall of crystal erupted outward from the Guardian, tearing through the air with a screaming rush.
The impact lifted him bodily. The cloak absorbed strike after strike. The next collision with the cave wall drove the breath from him and sent him crashing to the ground amid chiming shards.
No further blow followed.
A deep crystalline rumble echoed.
"Challenger… fails."
Chún pushed himself upright. "I accept… defeat."
When he looked up, only quiet ranks of Essence Crystals remained.
"Well… wish you could have been there at the last battle," he said wryly. "A swarm of crystal razors that never dull would have been useful."
"Crystal Lords can only exist within close proximity to a large amount of Essence Crystal," reminded his locus.
"Just saying — maybe next time you sense a rift forming like last time, you could form an Essence Crystal or two? If it soaks up wild Essence, then they will multiply fast as the rift grows — if I understand how those things work rightly, they would probably slow the rift from forming because the Crystals are draining it, right?"
He walked to the entrance of the cave and slipped through, still talking, gesturing as he moved toward the edge of the alcove. The water struck like cold iron across his shoulders before the cloak lifted him.
"That would give you time to summon reinforcements — and pretty quickly you would grow enough Crystals to have a proper Guardian there cutting down the Enemy — and a lot less Essence mess in the aftermath. You could absorb them afterwards, right? There are no hidden taboos against growing Crystals?"
There was a startled silence.
"It is a… workable idea…" the Mountain agreed slowly as Chún stepped fully into the falling torrent, his cloak bearing him upward along the flow. "As long as there is enough Essence, Crystals can be formed. I had simply never considered creating them in the open, where anyone could reach them."
Chún snorted.
"If a Heaven-splitting battle is raging, no one will be thinking about gathering Crystals unless they wish to die for the trouble. And you do not have to leave them lying in the open."
He reached the riverbank, grabbed his sack, and broke into a run through the trees.
"Grow them small. Hide them. Tuck them into stone and root. Scatter them in places where rifts are likely to form — like sentry posts."
He frowned as he lengthened his stride.
"They react when Essence starts to saturate, right? They would be like seeds — dormant until the air thickens, then they grow immediately. You could have Crystal Guardians forming and handling problems all over the place before you were even aware something was wrong."
"They would reduce the ambient Essence of those places as they absorb it," the Mountain pointed out. "Even the smallest Crystal requires much. And you are suggesting placing them everywhere."
"And in our current situation," Chún shot back between breaths, "is our problem not enough Essence — or too much?"
He leapt over a fallen trunk.
"You have already mentioned saturation issues. We do not have Consumers coming in here culling things like they would in a proper Treasure Land. And I got the impression that will become an issue soon."
"Yes," the Mountain admitted. "It would become troublesome within the next year or so. Recent events have accelerated the natural accumulation beyond usual cycles. I had intended to release as much as necessary back through the door to Golden Crow Planet."
Chún landed lightly on a branch and pushed off again.
"And that would do what?"
"It would relieve the pressure. But such a discharge would not go unnoticed. The surge would be visible to those who watch for such disturbances."
"To Consumers," Chún said.
"Yes."
He grunted as he picked up speed.
"So either we choke on it here — or we throw it outward and beat a watchman's gong for all to hear."
"That is a crude phrasing."
"It is still true."
Wind rushed past his ears.
"There you go then," he continued. "I do not understand all the pieces of what you just said — but I understand this much: if too much Essence is the problem, and Crystals drink Essence, then growing them is better than spilling it where others can see."
The Mountain was quiet for several strides.
"If you are concerned about balance," Chún added, "start small. Around areas that feel thin. Work outward gradually. Do not grow so many in one place that it starves anything else. Weave them into your Dao patterns instead of scattering them blindly. You know your own body better than I do."
"Yes…" the Mountain said slowly. "If done properly, it would deepen my roots. Strengthen my foundations. With sufficient reserves…"
"Chún?"
"Yes? — Āiyō!"
He collided with a branch, rebounded, and laughed.
"Your thoughts disturb the old ways," the Mountain said after a moment. "But I am glad you are my friend."
"I disturb you?" he laughed. "Hah."
---
Back at the clearing a short time later, rubbing the bump from crashing into the tree, Chún carefully dropped the three still-flopping carp onto the clearing. "Something different, landlady," he joked.
Within moments only a small pile of fish fillets and a handful of brightly polished scales of each type lay on the grass.
"Meets with your approval, I see. I will try to bring more."
As had become his custom, he bowed to the Vine, then picked up the leftovers. The scales went back into the sack while he quickly slathered the fillets with spices and oil, then wrapped them in large leaves to let them bake slowly in the coals of the fire pit.
"That reminds me," he said as he covered the last fish. "Is there any way we could boil water from the hot spring in the cave? I would really like some salt."
"Use your new pottery pot to fill another stone pot like this one," offered the Mountain. "Just put it in your 'workshop'. Your landlady does not want any more fire here."
"Excellent! That greedy merchant is going to regret bragging about his salt being boiled from only the finest seawater — and I get another trade good. More importantly, I get to season my food!" Chún cackled like some sort of Evil Consumer from one of the Storyteller's tales as he walked over to the cave entrance to drop off his cloak, staff, and sack.
For a moment, he regarded cloak and staff soberly, then made a small bow towards them.
"My gratitude to you both for today," he thanked the Essence Treasures.
"You fixate on the strangest things. The clay balls are ready to be made into shapes, by the way."
Chún nodded and straightened. "I suppose I have had enough excitement for today. What do you suggest I make?"
"The same as last time — just in case this last lot does not work out entirely," suggested his locus. "I had a few go unstable, but the mess was much smaller since everything was divided — only a couple of pots and a bowl. The biggest one made it through… I think. Until the cooling finishes we cannot know for sure."
Chún walked out to his workshop — munching on dried meat snacks, fruit, and water — and looked around.
"Right. So if you have something like twenty kilns down there, how come there is still only one chimney?"
"All the vents from each kiln eventually join up."
Chún shrugged and picked up a ball of clay from the drying-pit shelves with his new 'Essence Grab' that he had practised during his trip through the forest. It was much harder with the clay's weight, but it spared him climbing down and back up again.
"Good. I have a strong suggestion — do your best to shape the clay without ever touching it."
The Mountain's 'voice' was uncharacteristically serious.
Chún blinked as the ball hovered above his palm. "Um… can it touch anything else?"
"The work stone, dry clay, old pottery, and wood ash. Try to avoid having it touch anything else," instructed the locus.
"That… all right. But that makes this much harder," Chún said, brow wrinkling.
"It is important," assured the Mountain, sending a pulse of confidence and encouragement down the link.
"Well, I was getting bored with making pottery the ordinary way even if I was pushing Essence into it. So, first…"
He lifted the wood ash with Essence — easy enough given it was light — and swirled it across the work stone. Then he used his Essence to cut off a small piece from the ball and began to guide it into shape.
The first thing he noticed was that it was surprisingly easy. The small piece did not weigh much, and it readily soaked up the Essence, stretching and moving with it. A stray thought crossed his mind and the Essence shifted to match the image.
A moment later he had a little statuette of the Crystal Lord floating in the air, perfectly detailed.
"Ah, this…"
Sudden exhaustion struck him. He barely managed to lower the figurine to the stone before his Essence gave out.
"Stop," instructed his locus calmly. "Focus on the Essence flowing into you and through you and back out again."
Numbly, he let his Essence Sense draw inward and allowed the Essence to wash through him. A moment later the exhaustion lifted and energy returned, and his sense showed he was almost glowing with Essence.
"Is… that was like the tales. When a cultivator runs out of Essence…" He hesitated. "But Yijing said that did not happen to True Cultivators…"
His locus pulsed comfort and reassurance.
"If you ignite an Essence Spring, you receive more in the ignition than you spent. With shaping, you must learn to draw in enough to match what you are pushing out. Otherwise…"
"But what about burning out?" Chún asked hesitantly. "The old man said if we have too much Essence running through us…"
"It is a danger. But as long as you do not exceed your capacity — in other words, as long as you do not take in more than you can hold at any given time — it will not happen. It will feel the opposite of what you felt just now: too much energy, burning," explained the locus. "But you have a very large capacity, and it has grown and strengthened each time your body was remade."
"OK. I understand. I will stick to simple shapes," said the young teen.
In a shí, Chún completed moulding all the clay into forms. Some of the bowls, pots, vases, and other containers were thin and delicate compared to the hand-worked pottery he had made before. Some were etched with elaborate patterns of plants and animals from his recent travels. There was even one very large platter showing the entire vista of the waterfall from the riverbank.
"That was… wow. If these work… I can see why you said it is important," Chún murmured, staring in awe at his creations arranged on the drying shelves.
"Pick up a rock," instructed the Mountain.
"Eh…? OK?" He bent and picked up a small rock by his foot. "Why?"
"Do the same thing to the rock you just did to the clay," ordered the Mountain.
Chún blinked, then his mouth fell open as comprehension crossed his features. His face set, and his hand began to glow.
"More. More. More. The rock is resisting, but…" Chún closed his eyes and opened himself to the Essence around him — more rushing in to replace everything he pushed into the stone. "No, do not force. There is its pattern. Fill it… become part of it… now, we are rock… we want to become… more…"
A kè later he opened his eyes to hold a perfectly formed flower — seemingly carved out of rock.
"You understand now," the Mountain's voice held quiet satisfaction. "With this you have truly taken the first steps to becoming a True Cultivator — to commune with the world and convince it to want to be more. Be better. To grow and overcome the universe's natural tendency towards death."
Chún nodded. "Yes."
Then he shrugged and set the flower on the ground.
"But I'm hungry, dirty, and tired. So food, bath, and bed. We can explore the universe tomorrow."
"Deal."
There was a quiet pause as Chún walked slowly back towards the clearing.
"Hey, Mountain?"
"Yes?"
Chún stopped and looked towards the sunset, placing one hand on the ground affectionately as he watched the Golden Crow fall towards the earth.
"I am glad that you are my friend too."