Chún groaned as he woke, shielding his eyes from the reflection of the Silver Sapling's light off various cave surfaces. Despite having a supposedly near indestructible body, he felt like he had been beaten up, lack of actual pain notwithstanding.
He was starving — and as someone who had spent much of his childhood knowing what real hunger felt like, he recognised the sensation immediately. There was a particular hollow ache that came when the body had run out of reserves entirely, a deep gnawing that made the world seem strangely distant.
Vaguely he remembered devouring a Heaven and Earth Vine fruit and stumbling into the cave even as the last of the one-sided battle raged outside, sort of dropping himself into the bathing pool, scrubbing just enough to get the worst of the blood and mess off so as not to foul his bedding and then staggering into his nest.
The smell of roasted food tickled his senses.
Rolling out of his sleeping nest in confusion, he blindly followed his nose as he stumbled out of the cave and through the exit tunnel.
Blinking his eyes as he emerged into the clearing, he let them adjust to what felt like late morning Crowlight.
The fire-pit was burning merrily. Fat from the roasting meat dripped into the coals with a soft hiss, sending brief flares of orange sparks into the air. Puffs of steam drifted up from the centre stew pot while slabs of meat roasted over the fire on the rotating skewer; the rich scent of herbs, spices, and baked vegetables drifted through the clearing.
By the time his thoughts properly caught up with him, Chún was already seated in front of the fire pit with most of a roasted vegetable in one hand and a partially eaten slab of meat in the other.
Judging from the mess down his chest and over his face — along with the scattered bones and tough vegetable skins around him — he had clearly been there for quite some time.
"Ah, you are back," said his locus via the link.
Realising he was no longer starving, merely hungry, Chún reached over and picked up one of his pottery bowls from the small stack near the fire and placed the food still in his hands into it. Then he stood up and trotted across the clearing to the stream and began rinsing himself off.
"What happened?" he asked calmly.
"Your body was starving for nutrients," responded the Mountain. "That last stunt you pulled last night severely depleted your reserves and you only managed one Vine fruit before collapsing. And while Cultivators can live purely on Essence, that assumes their body is not already drained. It still takes time to convert Essence into the nourishment your body needs at this level."
"OK."
All the food spread over his body was gone now, so he hopped out of the stream and walked back to the fire pit.
"Is someone else here?"
"No, I used my practice with moving the pots and kilns around to set up the food," explained his friend. "The stew pot is full too. I recommend you eat some stew as it has a higher concentration of nutrients and Essence-rich content."
Chún shrugged and grabbed the bowl with the remaining food, frowned, and tossed it into the fire pit. While he was at it he swept his foot across the grass and pushed all the other debris into the fire pit as well.
Flames flared and sizzled in response.
Filling his bowl, he began eating the stew while continuing to ask questions.
"Where did all the food come from?"
"The Heaven and Earth Vine butchered the carcasses of all the Essence Beasts from the beast wave that she did not consume — or that were otherwise destroyed," answered his locus. "Not only do we have a great deal of edible meat, but also a considerable quantity of tradeable furs, skins, bones and other valuable cultivation resources extracted from the Essence Beasts — as well as Essence Stones."
There was a slight pause before the Mountain continued.
"Not to put too fine a point on it, you are wealthy now. At least by the standards of this region," the Mountain added thoughtfully. "We will have to be careful how we trade these so as not to raise too many questions."
Another pause.
"In fact, we have so much meat that I had to construct a cold storage chamber for it."
Chún blinked.
"A… what?"
There was a sense of lecturing from the link.
"Since I have grown larger, my higher peaks have begun to permanently hold snow and ice. I noticed that when animals die there, as long as the cold is intense enough, the bodies do not rot."
There was a sense of shrugging.
"I looked into the memories of the planet. Wealthy people in your Empire and elsewhere often place meat they cannot eat immediately into very cold places so that it does not spoil quickly."
The lecturing tone shifted to smug satisfaction.
"So I constructed Manifestations of the Ice Dao — copied from what occurs naturally on my peaks — in a small underground chamber and placed most of the meat there. You will not need to hunt for a long time."
The teen blinked.
"I thought constructing Dao Formations was a Consumer thing?"
The Mountain sighed patiently.
"Remember the concealment Manifestations we created? As long as you use or create anchor points that do not interfere with existing Dao and make the structure self-sustaining… and my chamber did not contain any other Dao patterns. That is how creation works — create something new and weave the necessary patterns into it."
"Ah. Instead of what Consumers do — subvert or damage existing Dao?" Chún said in understanding.
"Including their own, yes," agreed the Mountain.
Chún shivered.
"That still seems wrong."
He stirred his stew thoughtfully.
"But the more we talk about the differences between True Cultivation and Consumer cultivation, the more it sounds like two people arguing over how to plant crops. Both are trying to grow food — but one wants to tame the land and force it to produce, while the other works with what grows naturally. It almost sounds the same, just using different words."
The Mountain hummed in agreement.
"The difference is more like the difference between force and agreement. Consumers exhaust everything to force the world to change to their will. Cultivators use their own Essence or redirect existing surplus energy to add to what already exists and create something new that they need — or that the world needs."
His locus seemed to sigh.
"In the end it is natural that they resemble one another. At their root, Consumers were created by True Cultivators."
Chún reeled in shock.
"What? Why?"
"It was necessary. Ordinary warriors could not face the threats that existed, and True Cultivators were too few. So some True Cultivators taught trusted family members, friends, lovers, sisters and brothers about Dao, and helped them develop simplified cultivation techniques suited to their physiques and Dao so that they could defend themselves."
The Mountain sighed again.
"The land says this occurred long ago — and not even on this world. People learned how to use the Essence that all living beings naturally contain. Resources were meant to complement a Cultivator's Dao, not replace it."
Sadness crept into the link.
"Over time techniques were lost, forgotten, or twisted by those with darker intentions. Later generations inherited fragments of knowledge without understanding their origins. They applied pieces of forgotten methods or techniques developed by people who were not True Cultivators and therefore incomplete and incorrect."
"Or worse, they used cultivation techniques that did not match their Dao at all — simply because 'this was the way it had always been done.'"
"So of course," lectured the Mountain, "their strength diminished with each generation. At some point someone discovered that consuming enough resources indiscriminately could compensate for the weakness of these broken techniques."
The Mountain's voice grew heavy.
"Their descendants — or those who rediscovered fragments of cultivation on their own — experimented with what they knew and developed methods that seemed easier to them. Power gained through destruction is always easier than building strength slowly."
The fire crackled quietly between them, the scent of stew drifting lazily through the clearing as Chún considered that, nodding slowly.
"That sounds familiar — the Storyteller always told stories of righteous Empires falling over time to corruption and laziness, or weak second generations who lost the legacy of their ancestors."
The Mountain was silent for a moment. Then, with the distinct feeling of someone changing the subject, it said,
"The Heaven and Earth Vine has requested that I relay she is extremely pleased with the fertiliser and cultivation resources that resulted from you bringing the beast wave here. Anything she did not consume herself she cleaned and separated for you, according to your previous agreements."
"Glad someone got something good out of that mess," grumbled Chún through the link.
"And I suppose that means I do not need to go hunting for the next week — either for food or for the market trip."
He smiled and turned to face the Heaven and Earth Vine, bowing respectfully.
"Please extend my gratitude. Cleaning up that battlefield would have been an unpleasant task. I trust she was not hurt or otherwise inconvenienced by expending Essence she needed for Advancement."
The Vine rustled happily.
"She says the unexpected meal has helped her stock up on resources and Essence — her timetable for advancing to the next level has shortened considerably," replied the Mountain.
Chún scratched his head.
"That… Sky-level worm beast she ate. What was that? And why the hells was it on you in the first place?"
"Everyone has their dark side," replied the Mountain evasively. "It is part of balance. I have been doing my best to keep you from encountering stronger beasts until your abilities develop further."
"Yes, I am pretty useless, am I not?" Chún snorted coldly and threw the empty bowl aside.
"All I could do last night was run away," Chún muttered bitterly. "In all those stories the heroes stand their ground and shatter mountains. I ran."
"From a beast wave that could have destroyed a small city," the Mountain pointed out. "You managed to kill, knock out or otherwise incapacitate almost a quarter of them in the process. No one would consider that useless — especially considering that twenty-five days ago you were a starving orphan. That is not even taking into account that for almost half that time you have been unconscious or recovering."
"I do not feel like I am getting stronger. A mushroom managed to hit me!" shouted the teen in frustration. "I have all this power and no idea what to do with it — I just make things explode!"
"And you make beautiful ceramics which most Consumers would mistake for relics," his locus replied calmly. "You are living and thriving alone on a Mountain that most Consumers would consider a deadly secret land — one they would send their elites to train in. You helped repel a planar invasion. You befriended a Flood Dragon and a world-class treasure. That is not 'just making things explode.'"
"We make the ceramics together and they are not much good in a battle," mumbled Chún.
Then he sat up in alarm.
"Gods, did anything I spent all that effort on survive all that craziness?"
"Yes. Not a scratch on anything," reassured the Mountain. "We — and your Cloak — do good work."
"Good…" The young man slumped in relief.
Then he flung himself back onto the grass sourly.
"It still does not address the issue of not really knowing how strong I am. Measured like the Consumer cultivation levels, I mean. The Storyteller always spent ages explaining all the ranks and when the hero got a breakthrough he knew he had reached a new level and grown stronger."
"You are a True Cultivator, not a Consumer," the Mountain lectured. "Those breakthroughs they experience are artificial distortions of Dao patterns created by their cultivation techniques. That is why they risk death during breakthroughs."
"Your Dao grows naturally. Over time it will develop into a perfect form as its complexity increases and sufficient Essence accumulates."
"That still does not tell me how strong I am — or how to keep progressing," groaned Chún. "This whole 'you must find your own way' approach is leaving me without any real skills besides pouring Essence into things and hoping for the best."
"Train with the Crystal Lord. Observe how Essence Beasts fight. Develop your own techniques and Manifestations," replied the Mountain patiently.
"I keep getting pounded into the dirt before I have time to work anything out! We were supposed to practise creating yesterday — look what happened. If this keeps up I will get killed. I need a teacher."
"I am guiding you, even if you do not understand it," replied the Mountain calmly. "Cultivation is walking beside death in order to steal life. Even if I protect you as a teacher and friend, nights like the last one will happen. It is part of cultivation."
"You handled last night well, although as you say you need to learn to use your Essence with more finesse."
Chún sighed.
"If I met a Consumer while wearing my Consumer disguise and they tested me honestly — what would they say my cultivation level is?"
The link pulsed with alarm.
"You are not considering—"
"No. Yes. I do not know!" the teen snapped in frustration.
"Being able to improve Essence plants is nice, but besides that I feel like a walking Essence generator!"
"You exaggerate," replied the Mountain. "But I understand your concern and will consider ways to structure your training without damaging the natural growth of your Dao."
Then it continued.
"In Consumer terms your body — strength, speed, agility and resilience — would place you around low-mid Sky Rank. In combat ability, martial skill and techniques you remain around low to mid Mortal Rank. In Dao Manifestations — what they call formations — you are solidly Earth Rank."
"Only because of lack of experience," the Mountain added. "You are able to alter any manifestation you see."
"And you can see all of them."
There was another pause.
"The rest of your abilities have no Consumer equivalent. Essence generation and channelling they normally achieve only after reaching World Rank. Perceiving Dao Manifestations directly as you do is something even Immortals rarely achieve."
"Then how do I improve my weak areas?" asked Chún. "It is useless being strong if you cannot use that strength properly."
"Training. Experience. Learning new things and seeing new things," replied the Mountain. "In other words — time."
"Which, as I have already pointed out, does me no good if I die before gaining that experience," sighed Chún.
Then he rolled his eyes.
"Fine. Shall we start with learning to create things properly?"
"Your Essence channels — your meridians — are strained after last night. I suggest resting today and avoiding Essence manipulation. We can work on Creation and your gliding horse once you are fully recovered. After the beast wave you will not need to hunt until the next market trip. There will be plenty of time."
There was a thoughtful pause.
"For today practise your Monkey Movement Dao. Think about ways to defend yourself using what you already know. Practise them in your imagination first. Later we can test them and incorporate them into your fighting so you react instinctively rather than always improvising."
"Like that exploding tree," Chún rose slowly as he spoke thoughtfully, stretching the lingering stiffness from his shoulders and arms. The battle had left his body feeling oddly heavy despite the lack of pain. After a moment he stepped into the centre of the clearing and settled into the opening stance of the Monkey Dao, continuing his thought aloud. "Why did that happen anyway?"
"You dumped an enormous amount of lightning and Essence into the tree. The lightning flash-boiled the water within it while its own Essence destabilised. All that pressure had to escape somewhere."
"Oh."
Chún paused mid-movement.
"Hey, Mountain?"
"Yes?"
Chún scratched his head thoughtfully for a moment before asking, "You know how Consumers give fancy names to genius physiques? Like Nine Yang Physique or Frozen Heart Body?"
"Yes…?"
"What would they call my body?"
There was a pause.
"No idea."
"Grand Complaining Physique, perhaps?"
Chún froze.
"Grand… hey!"