The sound of liquid splashing into the Mountain's artificial saltpan echoed around the small 'workshop' clearing as Chún upended a large pot over the slightly concave expanse of obsidian, the hot spring water flashing into steam as it struck the dully glowing Fire Dao patterns slowly shifting beneath the surface of the black rock.
"Right, Mountain," declared the young teen as he set the pot down, wiping condensation from his forehead, "that was the last pot of water — the saltpan is full. What next?"
"You need to go hunting and look for Essence Plants that are worth selling. Do not forget to take some of the Dao pots with you," instructed the locus.
The teen nodded and set off towards the clearing. "That means cloak, staff, sack, rope and pots. How should I carry the pots? I could put them in the sack since the good ones do not break, but that will not work once they are filled with soil and plants — the soil will spill and the plants will be damaged."
"Essence manipulation training," answered the Mountain brightly. "You can carry them with your Essence."
Chún froze as he crossed the treeline into the Essence mist-filled clearing, ignoring the Dao concealment patterns drifting past his face. "Mm, that… is very difficult. I can barely carry pots more than a li or so, and that is if I am walking slowly. And I will not be able to do that when I need to bring them down into the village…"
"It would be excellent training," insisted his locus excitedly. "You could start with just one and slowly increase your speed and manoeuvring until you can move normally." The Mountain paused and added sheepishly, "…I would not recommend using the Monkey Movement Dao while you are doing this. Smashing a pot at that speed would likely break it, even if reinforced with Essence."
The silver-haired boy shook his head slowly. "Right. Of course. Are you certain all your Dao Manifestations are operating normally?"
"Did you just—? I am not mad!" An indignant pulse came down the link. "It is a good idea."
"Perhaps," Chún conceded as he crossed the clearing, "but that means returning to walking normally. Which means I will not get far before needing to turn back prior to the Golden Crow returning to its nest. Which, in turn, limits my chances of finding valuable Essence Herbs. And it does not answer how I am to transport the full pots down to the village next week."
"If you went down a few days before Market day, you could purchase a gliding horse," suggested the Mountain as Chún reached the tunnel to his Immortal's Cave.
Chún frowned as he trotted down the tunnel and entered the silver-lit cavern. "Possible. Though it would not be easy to bring a gliding horse down the Mountain… although I suppose I could lift it across the difficult stretches. And I do not strictly need to buy one — a gliding horse is simple enough to construct. I can shape the wheel and spokes with Essence."
Picking up his cloak, he watched as it tumbled from his arm like a waterfall of Essence mist. Looking at it as it spilled across the cave floor like falling clouds, he scratched his nose thoughtfully.
"I wonder if this Essence cloak could hold the pots? It seems able to alter its shape and form — it might look odd to have a cluster of pots held against my body like that, but I think it could keep them upright, no matter how I move."
A strong sense of interest permeated the link.
"Try it."
Chún threw the cloak around his shoulders — which immediately dissolved into a thick, flowing mantle of smoke filled with glittering motes of the different Elements — curling around him before cascading to the ground, completely obscuring his body in a pillar of billowing mist.
He glanced down and snorted softly. "I already look like an Immortal — walking in clouds."
He strode to the shelves the Mountain had formed to hold the pottery and picked up a well-shaped Dao pot. Thinking carefully, he sat upon the cave floor and visualised the cloak holding the pot firmly upright before placing it within the mist upon his lap.
The pot rested innocently upright, the mist flowing around and over it like incense smoke rising from a censer. Keeping one hand beneath the Dao pot, he slowly began to stand. The mist around the pot thickened, almost solid in appearance, holding it steady as his body shifted.
Chún cautiously released his hand.
The pot remained in place, embedded within the mist.
"Hm. It would be better at my waist… ah."
His musing cut short as the mist flowed upward smoothly, pushing the pot with it until it sat upright at his right side. Experimentally, he moved his arms around it several times; the mist shifted the pot clear of collision each time. When he grasped it firmly, the mist released it without resistance.
"Impressive," he murmured. "I could carry quite a bit like this."
He added several more pots from the shelf, feeling a faint tug upon his Essence as their number increased. Nodding, he began cycling Essence deliberately into the cloak and back through his body, forming a continuous circuit.
The Essence motes flared brightly. The mist thickened in response, then expanded outward in a slow, heavy bloom of fog that filled the entire cave.
Chún blinked.
He felt the mist touching everything — like a denser, more tangible version of his Essence Sense. It was as though his hands rested upon every object in the cavern at once.
"This… I was not using you properly before? Then—"
The mist curled around his staff and tossed it towards him. He caught it in his right hand and fed Essence through it as he had done with the cloak, completing the circuit back into himself.
The staff hummed, the black lacquered surface gleaming as Dao runes flared along its length. It twisted through the forms of various weapons as swiftly as he conceived them — spear, blade, halberd — before compressing into a black glove that sank into his skin, resolving into a dark tattoo of an elaborate staff winding down his right forearm. The tattoo flashed — and the staff reappeared in his grasp.
"Ah… Can you become part of me as well?" he asked the cloak.
The thought had barely formed when the mist surged from all corners of the cave and crashed into him like a breaking wave.
He stood there suddenly flooded with energy — Dao pot in his left hand, staff in his right — the cloak nowhere visible.
"What?" He extended his Essence Sense, but found no trace of the cloak.
"Return, please?"
Again, the thought had scarcely settled when every pore along his skin seemed to open and mist poured outward in a rolling surge of Essence.
Chún exhaled slowly.
"That means I can remain armed and armoured at all times — so long as I feed you."
"They will draw constantly upon your Essence flow capacity," warned his locus.
"Good training," Chún replied evenly. "If I accustom myself to the steady burden, then when I release them I will have that much greater reserve. Just wait until the Crystal Lord receives a staff to the front facet."
Before the thought was complete, the mist billowed outward again, retrieving all usable Dao pots from the shelves and arranging them in a loose orbit around his waist and shoulders. The sack hung similarly where a belt would normally rest.
"That looks exceedingly strange," he observed aloud. "Can you withdraw into only the areas holding the items? Place any excess Essence beneath my skin again."
The mist receded obediently.
He smiled faintly. "Now I feel like a proper Hero from the stories."
"And the hero must go hunting," commented the Mountain dryly, "if he is quite finished experimenting with his treasures."
"Do not be envious," Chún replied mildly. "They merely feed upon what I supply, doing what they cannot accomplish alone, and making matters safer for me."
"I was utilising that surplus," grumbled the Mountain. "Now most of it is being consumed by those two parasites."
"Consider it investment," placated the youth as he strode out of the cave, the pots still oriented upright along his body, held by thin bands of mist. "Soon my body will adapt. When I am not using cloak or staff, you will receive even more."
He moved quickly to the edge of the clearing, then slowed as an uneasy thought arose.
"Mountain — the mist in the clearing, from the Heaven and Earth Vine… is it like the mist from my cloak? Can the Vine sense everything the mist touches?"
A bright pulse of amusement flooded the link.
"Yes. It can. Does that trouble you?"
Chún winced and leapt for the treeline.
"I decline to dignify that."
---
Several shí later, Chún glanced up at the Golden Crow as it drifted steadily towards its nest.
"I have only half a shí of good light remaining," he remarked through the link. "I must turn back for the clearing if I am to return before nightfall. It seems we must postpone learning 'Creating' for another day."
"One more Essence Herb — I have marked it on the map." An Essence image shimmered before his inner sight, a bright point flashing a couple of li further ahead. "Your gathering sack is full, so you may return directly afterwards and save time."
The Mountain paused, then continued more thoughtfully. "Yes, it is regrettable that gathering has taken so long. But these Herbs required removal. There is always tomorrow. It is more unfortunate that we could not fill all the Dao pots."
Chún shook his head as he bounded through the trees, his feet, staff, or hands barely touching bark or branch. "No — three or four Herbs are sufficient for Market. It also means I need not make another batch of pots just yet. These," he glanced down at the small tree and clustered plants standing upright in their soil-filled pots as they shifted around him to avoid collision, "are excellent quality. With the soil they grew in — and the Dao pots drawing in and supplying Essence mixtures matching their native environment — they will remain stable."
A pulse of urgency flowed from his locus.
"Truly — you are close — and this is the best one. Rare, too. I need the elder removed so it does not kill off the younger shoots and pins. It will pair well with the finest Dao pot… please."
Chún halted upon a branch, frowning as he pushed his hair from his eyes and drew a slow breath of the cooling forest air.
"This sounds significant. Are you concealing something again?"
"No," protested the Mountain quickly. "This is nothing like before. It is simply pruning. Instead of assisting an ordinary plant to grow into an Essence Plant, you are removing a mature specimen to allow younger ones access to resources."
The explanation came in a hurried pulse.
"Sometimes, when an Essence Herb grows old and strong, it hoards nutrients and Essence alike. It strengthens itself, but starves the rest. Even ordinary gardeners must intervene."
Chún exhaled sharply through his nose.
"So this is the true meaning of 'Cultivator'," he said dryly. "Farmer."
A wave of reluctant amusement travelled the link, undercut by pleading.
He rolled his eyes faintly.
"Very well. But this is the last one." He dropped from the branch towards the indicated point. "It is not too rare, is it? It will not cause difficulty to sell?" he asked cautiously as he advanced.
"Perhaps," admitted the Mountain. "But a relic hunter who never discovers anything rare at all would also draw suspicion. And you need not fear what villagers might attempt."
"True," Chún conceded. "Though many Hunters pass entire lives without a major find. That alone is not suspicious."
He dropped to the ground a few strides from the marked location.
"Where is it?"
He sniffed.
His nose wrinkled.
A foul odour of rot and mould hung in the air. The Essence here felt deeply Yin — cold, stagnant, oppressive. The mist of the cloak tightened subtly around him.
"There."
A point flared in his Essence sight.
He parted the brush.
A vast dead trunk lay before him. From it protruded an enormous blood-orange Lingzhi glowing with heavy Essence. Smaller Lingzhi clustered along the bark, pale and wan beside the dominant growth.
"Oh," Chún muttered. "Thousand-Year Ganoderma?"
"The smaller ones are. The problem specimen is Ten Thousand Years," replied his locus evenly.
Chún stared.
"How am I to transplant that? I cannot simply place it in soil."
"Use your Essence to cut the section of trunk to which it is rooted. Avoid damaging the younger Lingzhi. Place the wood and Ganoderma within the pot, bark against the interior. Then awaken the pot."
"You must sever the outer tendrils that extend beyond the marked boundary," the Mountain continued. A segment of trunk glowed in Chún's Essence sight, delineating the cut. "Leave the remaining mycelium within the main trunk. The younger Lingzhi will absorb it. It will compensate for what the elder has stolen."
Chún hesitated.
"This Ten Thousand Year being — who starves its own kind — will simply allow this?"
"Unlikely," the Mountain replied frankly. "Fungi defend themselves with spores and toxins. Ask the cloak to seal your seven orifices and close your pores."
"I observe that it resides within your domain," Chún remarked coolly as the cloak surged outward, enveloping him completely. "You could command it."
"If I could, I would have already," the Mountain replied tersely. "It does not heed me. That is why I require you to remove it. It will command a fine price — and certain individuals will prove more cooperative thereafter."
Chún's jaw tightened.
"Once again, you involve me without full explanation," he said sharply. "I am growing weary of that."
"This is not like before. It is merely a mushroom."
"Ten Thousand Year Essence beings are never 'merely' anything," Chún replied grimly.
He began carving into the dead wood with controlled streams of Essence, the cloak thickening protectively around him.
Immediately a shrill whistle cut through the air.
Multiple impacts struck the mist.
Through the cloak's field, Chún felt wickedly sharp spines — nearly a handspan long, curved and barbed, dripping with toxin — embed within the swirling Essence.
Chún's lips curved faintly.
"So. You are aware of me."
The Lingzhi pulsed angrily, exhaling a dense wave of dirty brown spores and gas.
The cloak surged outward, meeting the attack head-on. The two clouds twisted and coiled together like battling whirlwinds.
As Chún cut deeper into the trunk, the dominant fungus weakened. The smaller Lingzhi brightened.
"You were draining your own offspring," Chún said coldly. "I have little patience for bullies."
He cut faster.
The final section of wood broke free.
The Ganoderma shrieked — a piercing psychic sound that seemed to bypass his ears entirely and strike directly into his mind.
Even through the cloak's protection, he staggered.
His Essence grip faltered.
But the cloak reacted instantly, catching the severed wood and fungus before they could fall and slamming them precisely into the prepared pot.
"Āiyō…" Chún muttered, wincing. "A cursed fungus."
He slammed his palm against the pot and poured Essence into it without hesitation.
Within his inner sight, the pot's Dao patterns unfurled. Essence began flowing inward in exact ratios matching the dead trunk's environment. The severed wood absorbed the influx, transferring it to the Ganoderma as though it remained rooted.
The fungus froze.
Then dimmed.
It began drawing precisely what it had before — no more.
"Suddenly cooperative?" Chún muttered. "I do not trust you."
At his unspoken prompting, the cloak extended threads of its own Dao into the pot, weaving seamlessly into the existing pattern. A thin film of Essence mist sealed the mouth of the vessel.
A curl of red-brown vapour rose within — struck the barrier — and fell back.
Chún watched carefully.
"So you can augment patterns as well…"
He nodded once.
"Good. The pot will not fail?"
"What?" scoffed the Mountain. "For all your indignation, that Lingzhi scarcely harmed you at full strength. With its Dao patterns active, the pot renews itself continuously — and the cloak has added its own defensive weave. Nothing short of a World-level Essence strike will breach it."
"Excellent."
Chún lifted the pot and bowed to the trunk and the smaller Lingzhi.
"Young ones — you may not comprehend me, but you may now grow properly. Do not emulate this elder."
A muffled shriek echoed from within the sealed vessel.
Chún rolled his eyes and leapt into the trees once more, the cloak maintaining firm control over every pot.
"That first strike was fortunate," he muttered. "You will not manage it again."