Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

The Great Era marched on, with the Blood Path in full retreat on most fronts, and a new generation of experts rising throughout the Great Battlefield and beyond. Blessed in ways once thought impossible, as even ordinary disciples could rise to Foundation Establishment within a mere two to three decades.

Those among the Favoured? They could rise to power just by eating and sleeping, charging forward, their path smoothed by Heavenly Favour as they sharpened their knives, looking upon all others with disdain. Though a new thing, many had already entered Foundation Establishment, and were rising rapidly through the second Great Realm.

And as always, the two Secret Realms of the Quiet Peaks remained a place where the most ambitious of the generation locked horns.

It was a bare few months into this batch of experts entering the Foundation-level zone of the Qiguai Secret Realm. An understanding had been made among those who participated in this expedition that the Base Camp Town was off limits—protected by the Golden King and a handful of others who saw the value in a safe place to rest between the trials of the Turtle Scale Realm. Alchemists had a chance to practice with the strange reagents found in the Secret Realm, producing elixirs and pills to concentrate their power further, and having the protection needed to auction them off without needing to fear thugs shaking them down first. Swap meets could be held, where cultivators traded materials that were useless to them for ones that they could make better use of.

For a time, things went as well as could be expected in a place as dangerous as this. Many ambitious cultivators met their end in the strange geography of the Secret Realm, not even their bones surviving to be buried. Others found wild treasures, allowing them to compete with stronger experts, as the Secret Realm had changed somewhat from the baptism of Heavenly Light it had undergone at the dawn of the Great Era.

Others, though, saw the rising wealth and success of the Secret Realm, and saw within it opportunity.

So it was that the first challenge to the Base Camp Town's security marched his way down. A youth with sharp eyes, clad in a daoist's robe. His hair bound into a tight topknot. He was flanked by two experts, clearly at the Great Circle of Foundation Establishment, and emitting an air of one who could break through at any moment.

The youth's own cultivation was only in the middle stages of the Realm, three or four Pillars, but he emanated an air of righteousness and force far beyond his cultivation. It was clear to any who had eyes that he was the most dangerous of the party, despite his mediocre cultivation.

"What a joke, Secret Realm?" He scoffed, leading his two guards down the pathway to the Base Camp Town. "The beasts and trials are decently challenging, I suppose, but one third of my gains? I would have no rest or no peace to make up for even my base cultivation! Let alone anything uncovered here that could support my growth. A waste of time from end to end, we should have entered Yuan instead!"

"Yuan would have been a poor choice, Master." One of his guards advised. "It is open to the greater world for the most part, and the patriarch who enforces the rules is injured. For all of the inconvenience of Qiguai's tax, it is still one of the premier tempering grounds in the Virtuous Flipper Region–and they ask no questions about how the tax is acquired." He gave a knowing look to the town forward.

"Hmph." The young man snorted dismissively. "It puts an ill taste in my mouth to demand tribute, but the alternative is to put my cultivation on hold, and that is unacceptable in the present climate, if I am to keep pace with my peers."

"As you say, Master." The guard nodded. "Do be wary though, the Golden King has placed this town under her protection. Threats and violence are one thing, but attempting to seize your tribute by force of arms within the town's border is liable to provoke a response."

"What Golden King?" The young man dismissed. "A mere Devil, risen above her station, taking a heretical path that has already been suppressed. She should consider herself fortunate if she doesn't show her face to me, or I'll simply dispatch her where she stands."

The guard hesitates there, but nods. "As you say, Master."

The young man nodded. "Damned right I say." He smirks then, and increases his pace, briefly taking in the rudimentary structures and facilities of the base camp town. "How clumsy and full of lethal intent" He observes, eyes glancing over the stone structures. "Radiating violence in all directions." He shakes his head, and raises a hand. "Well, no sense in wasting time."

He gestures, forming a sword-shape with his fingers, and lightly swipes the air ahead of him. The air distorts, the wind howls, and the roofs of many of the stone structures are split off, flying briefly into the air before turning to powdered dust.

Cries of alarm begin to fill the air, but the young man merely clasps his hands behind his back and speaks up. "Rejoice!" His voice bellows. "This Fei Long has arrived! Here to grant sanctuary from the tyranny of Devils and bring the light of hope back to this benighted corner of existence!" He smiles softly, in contrast with the descending waves of powder, darkening the skies. "There will, of course, be a modest tribute involved, as I can hardly spend as much time seeking lucky chances while protecting you all, but so long as you bear my sign, I can guarantee you that none would dare offend you!"

"Funny, I would have thought things were quite nice as they were."

The voice echoed through the Base Camp, carried on the Wind–a moment later, a glimmer of light was visible from above, a star descending from on high to meet the challenge of the Favoured.

There was no thump as she reached the ground, merely a great deceleration as she came to a stop just above the ground, the toes of her boots just barely contacting it, before she settled back down onto her heels, her cloak billowing all the while.

—-------------------------------------------

As much as it was the right thing to do, keeping tabs on a small town and making sure nobody had the bright idea to think 'Hey, if I stab everyone and run fast enough, maybe I'll get away with it!' was turning out to be taxing. It was the right thing to do of course, since nobody else had the right combination of senses and speed to do this and make gains of their own, but still, Rina hadn't made as much progress as she would have liked so far.

Still, her caution ended up being warranted in the end, because all of a sudden, what was previously a rather nice day of cultivation suddenly turned into a madhouse, as some little shit wandered in and started tearing up her buildings. Contrary to how she made it look, that took up a lot of Essence! It was hard work! And now she'd need to fix a bunch of them because he had to make a show of force.

So yes, Rina Callista was more than a little bit cross right now, so she let her Emanation loose just a teeny bit, the [Weight of the World] bearing down on the offender and his companions. The two Great Circle experts paled, staggering under the force of her attack.

The offender himself though? He seemed to just ignore it entirely, giving a smug look all the while.

That was… New.

"Hmph, am I supposed to be impressed?" He snorted dismissively. "This is the famed Golden King? It seems you're all talk and no bite!" He flicked his fingers, and Rina felt the world distorting

She leaned backwards, nearly ninety degrees, and the ripple passed over her, ploughing into another building on the way in. Rina straightened and brought her arm up, Stone's might surging through her, catching the follow-up strike on the forearm.

The ground beneath her exploded, save for a small portion where she was standing, the attacking Cultivator still suspended by the force of his own blow. Lightning raced through Rina's nerves as she accelerated her thoughts precipitously.

That was far, far more force than should have been possible from an empty-handed sword technique delivered from a cultivation base of three pillars.

She clenched her fist, and Flame coiled up her arm. The attacking Cultivator's eyes widened, and he skipped backwards, seemingly compressing space using some arcane methodology to avoid being immolated by the [Pyro Flamelash]. She grasped the manifestation of her Dao, and cracked it across the space between, the strand of Flame abruptly shifting direction and extending to give chase. He retreated ten steps, until Rina could no longer spare the further exertion of power, the spell banishing itself in a final burst of heat, turning the grasslands between them to ash in a heartbeat.

There was silence for a moment, an exchange faster than the eyes of most Experts had left a terrifying crater in the ground, and a barren field of ash in the space between the two attackers.

"Hmph." The little shit snorted, a sheathed sword materialising from a… Okay, how did some little shit get his hands on a Spatial Ring at that cultivation level? "I was planning on preserving my sword arts for a more meaningful battle, but you qualify to die to my true skills!" He taunted, drawing a blade of shining bright spirit steel out, seemingly a fragment of the stars dropped to earth and turned to a sword. "I am Fei Long! Of the~~"
"I don't care what school or sect you're from, I don't care about your backing" Rina interrupted him, flicking the arm she had been struck with once. "All I care about is that I had simple rules that benefited everybody involved here, ones that you broke and then tried to extort those who took advantage of them."

Satisfied there was no real damage, Rina tapped one of her boots on the spire of remaining land she stood on, and began to let slip her bonds to the earth. Fragments of the spire gathered into her hand, forming the shape of a heavy Gladius, the remnants falling into the rest of the crater. Streamers of water began to form, gathering along the edge of her newly formed weapon, oscillating at speed enough to render it to steam every moment.

"You have three choices. You can try to flee, you can make amends, or I will cut you down where you stand." Rina explained, pointing her weapon at the other Cultivator. "Choose, now."

Fei Long's nose wrinkled, then his expression turned to a savage grin. "I'll take the fourth option!" He laughed. "I'll take your head and use it to show my strength!"

He vanished, seeming to outrun the eye as a crescent of sword-light manifested, seeking out the Golden King's neck.

[Shooting Star from the North]

It was a sword art long thought lost, taking speed and sharpness to their ultimate limits and beyond. 'First, Outrun the Mind, Second, Outrun the Ear, Third, Outrun the Eye'. It reasoned that once speed had reached the point where reaction was impossible, it would defeat any opponent.

Rina's Gladius caught it, and a shriek filled the air as pressurised water ground against divine steel and finding itself outmatched, hundreds of pounds of water spraying out in all directions. Rina's free hand gestured, and the expelled water turned to needles, then descended down upon her opponent, but he was already gone. Skidding to a stop a hundred metres away, sheathing his sword for a heartbeat–only to unleash it in a staccato of repeated blows, thousands of streams of sword-light tearing through space on the path to the Golden King.

The fusillade sparked and shattered, no longer enough concentrated force to penetrate the [Astral Voidguard], and Rina waved her free hand towards him as she reclaimed the scattered Water forming her edge. The ground Fei Long stood upon caved in slightly, locking his feet in place. His eyes widened, and he shifted his grip on his sword, driving it down into the ground below. A pulse of sword-light hollowed a bubble out, and sent him flying into the sky above, twisting to reclaim his posture as he gained altitude.

A heartbeat later, Rina was there, propelled into the heavens in an act of will, riding two stones up with her–which she proceeded to kick off at him, cannonfire from an unforeseen angle.

Despite lacking any footing however, her opponent was no slouch—his sword echoed a dozenfold for each stone, carving them to powder. A burst of Qi from his feet then propelled him back at Rina, his sword meeting her Gladius in another spray of mutually opposing powers.

"You… Should be submitting now!" He spat, as the two's locked blades triggered an impromptu storm on the town below. "They said that all we had to do was stand against you, and you'd cower like the monsters you are!"
"Oh? And who said that?" Rina asked, before a hint of understanding flashed in her eyes. "Ahhh… You're one of those Favoured then, right?"

Her gladius shattered to fragments, but she was already twisting into his guard—a small fist driven into his gut–while most of the force was ablated by what was obviously concealed armour, enough still struck true that Fei Long spat blood and hesitated–long enough for her to grab him by the robes and hurl him back down to the earth.

The sound was deafening, and if it wasn't for his hidden armour, it would have shattered bones and pulped organs alike. Even without it, he couldn't immediately regain his peak condition–and that was all Rina needed to drop from the sky, halting just as her toes pressed against his exposed neck, the remaining force held temporarily in abeyance by her power.

"No wonder you tried this. You're only maybe thirty years old?" Rina added. "Literally a child who doesn't understand the shape of the world, gifted power by an indulgent relative and fed with their lies." Fei Long snarls and starts to reply, but Rina lets a little of that force go, and chokes him off. "Hush, you had your chance to talk, my turn." She chides.

"So you're given power, you're given a mission, you're given a mandate. What's there to think about? You're as far beyond the Chosen as they are beyond common cultivators. In little more than a few centuries, it will be you and yours leading the Righteous Path!" She tapped the toes of her boots on his neck. "All is Under Heaven after all, all you need to do is clean out some of the undesirables, and the world is yours."

She sneered then. "So where were you and yours in the Demon Annihilating Wars? Why is it that you and yours only began appearing after the Blood Path's greatest legacy tool has faded? Why is it that you're sneering and jeering at us Golden Devils when there are actual monsters still devouring the innocent, when the Insidious Poison Maze grows by the day. Instead, let's lash out at the ones who have been pushing back against fronts thought lost, who have–through industry and care, turned the Desert from a heap of loose sand into a bastion of humanity."

She shook her head sadly, ignoring the steadily purpling face of her opponent. "How's it feel to be nothing more than an expendable dart thrown by tyrants? To be fed a diet of supremacy, but given nothing that is genuinely yours? Is this how they twisted the Fifth Sea in monsters who can conduct mass murder for a little good luck?"

She turned her gaze down, and steeled herself. "I will have none of that in this Virtuous Flipper Region. Cultivation exists to elevate mankind to a world that would shatter them without it. Not to justify unrighteous deeds through sheer force. You have two choices now. Surrender and make amends, or die here."

She lets off the pressure a notch, Fei Long gasping as she relaxes. "Neither!" He spits, biting hard on something. "I'll have your head for this, you arrogant bitch!"

And then he turned to smoke, Rina's foot driving through to where his neck used to be.

She spat to the side as the smoke disperses—because of course the Favoured would just trip over Life Saving Treasures too.

She had to give them a chance to reform though, even if they wouldn't take it. A chance to surrender, even if they'd spit in her face for it.

Because if she got into the habit of just killing everyone for disagreeing with her, given the world she wanted to create, she'd find herself a butcher without comparison.

She'd just have to take his revenge on the chin, and finish the job, next time they met.

Either way, the job was done–her Essence was depleted a bit more than she'd like, but that was nothing new. She still had plenty left to work with.

So she turned back to the town, to all the cultivators who were gawking at the clash of titans that had occured before them, and gestured widely. The damage from the previous battle rapidly mending itself, new roofs springing up through the ground below as the craters filled in with new sand and soil.

Because you always had to clean up when you were done, leaving a mess was just poor manners!

Hephaestus Kokkinos was not a handsome man. He was short and broad, possessing a frame wide enough to swallow Lipita more than twice over in his handspan. These weren't the features that made Lipita describe him as falling below average beauty standards. As Lipita rose from the deep bow she'd made in respect to her teacher's father, Lipita once more noticed that his nose had apparently suffered enough trauma to appear decidedly flat and crooked. His face in general looked like a sledgehammer had been applied for some very unsubtle redecoration, and then put back together crooked.

It was true that Hephaestus Kokkinos, retired centurion of the 1034th Legion, was objectively not handsome but as Lipita stood to the side to watch her teacher, Lihua, embrace her father, Lipita had to admit that the senior cultivator was very attractive. That stocky frame she had noted earlier was a bronze statue of muscular perfection, every muscle in view somehow managing to straddle that thin line between impressively well built without being grotesquely engorged. His features might not have been anything to write home about but there was an intensity to his gaze, a bright spark in the amber eyes that demanded attention and pulled those looking in to drown in their depths. The brace that he wore around his right leg should not have boosted his appeal but the beauty of the artistry that had gone into the leg support surprisingly complemented Hephaestus' appearance.

"Oy, what is this here? My prodigal daughter remembers that she has a father after all this time. Here I thought that I'd only be graced by a visit when I was cold and made ready for rendering vats," Hephaestus teased Lihua even as her seized her in a warm and tight hug.

Oh and his voice… That was a voice to make maidens and bachelors battle fiercely for the chance at an audience. Lipita had been fortunate to witness one of the Theophylaktos' grand plays of the Clan's history some decades ago and until now she had thought that little could compare to the beauty of the vocals on display during that retelling. She could certainly appreciate why someone so carefree and unmoored in character as Lihua had described her mother could have found herself enraptured with Hephaestus and settled down with him even for a while.

Lihua towered over her father in their shared hold, his head barely reaching chest height on her. Her reply to him was as such mumbled into the thick brassy locks of his plaited hair. "I never forgot about you, you old grump. You know how it goes, the Legions demand so much of your time and then advancing in cultivation swallows up what's left. You're left with only enough time to send letters."

"Well you're here now and it is a blessed sight to have you home once more," Hephaestus said after pulling away from Lihua's clasp to look up at his daughter with a broad smile.

"Sorry for ignoring you in favor of dealing with this wayward child of mine. I believe you introduced yourself as Lipita Delphi. It's my pleasure to welcome you to my humble abode." Hephaestus said to the starry-eyed junior as he looked around Lihua to Lipita, and waved at the compound around them.

"My daughter can't be bothered to visit her aged father but she sure writes a lot about herself, including a junior she's taken as a student," Hephaestus lightly poked at Lihua, to which Lihua's teacher replied with a swift jab to her father's shoulder. The older Kokkinos winced in surprise as the clang of the impact rang out and rubbed at the site of the blow looking at his daughter consideringly.

"There's more where that came from if you don't stop badmouthing me to my student," Lihua threatened.

Refocusing on Lipita with a brief side eye toward Lihua, Hephaestus said, "Ignoring certain unfilial persons, I am pleased to have you here like I said earlier. Don't mind the clutter. I sometimes get caught up in my work at the forge and don't have as much time for other stuff."

"I really do have to clean this place up," he mused, eyeing the courtyard they were in which admittedly contained quite an eclectic collection of materials.

Lipita snapped out of her dazed admiration and caught up with Hephaestus' words. Bowing slightly once again, she said, "Please do not trouble yourself on my account. It is an honor just to accompany Kokkinos Laoshi and assist her where I can."

"Kokkinos Laoshi, that's a good one," Hephaestus guffawed and nudged Lihua with an elbow to the side, "Well that's enough standing around lollygagging. Why don't we move inside and discuss the other reason you're all here besides this here lass missing my ugly mug."

"I'm already losing any nostalgia I held," Lihua grumbled, before looking to Lipita, "Please start moving the packs in while I call another pain in my side."

Lipita hurried off to transport the luggage and belongings the duo had brought with them to their destination. Stepping away from her father, Lihua pulled at an ephemeral string in her dantian pushing for the manifestation of a new inhabitant from there.

Hephaestus blinked in amazement as a crown of radiance appeared above his daughter's head. Shards of what seemed to be solidified light hovered over her head, eight white crystals rotating slowly atop her brow like a crown. A pulse of qi thrummed up from Lihua into the crown and then a bright pillar light rose up from it into the sky. Within moments a piercing cry replied to that dazzling display and a glowing form streaked down from the blue vault above. Lifting her right up and to the side, Lihua did not flinch as a the brilliant figure from above descended on her location and landed on her arm. Unfurling broad wings and shrieking into Lihua's ear, Hephaestus looked in fascination was what appeared to be a massive hawk seemingly made out of light perched on Lihua's arm and looked about imperiously.

"That's enough you feathered sunbeam, keep your attitude to yourself or else we are going to have problems," Lihua glared at the strange beast on her arm, looking it dead in the eyes, "Now, get yourself properly sized. I'm not carrying you around all day like this."

The hawk returned Lihua's glare with equal ferocity but after matching her resolute stare for several moments, it looked away and shimmered as it shrunk in size from a credible threat to an adult human to the dimensions of an ordinary avian specimen.

"What is that floating above your head and where on the Third Sea did you find such a strange Spirit Beast?" Hephaestus asked Lihua, once he got over his surprise, looking repeatedly between the two objects of his attention.

"This cheeky bastard is called Astrape and the delightful ornament hovering above me is the Facsimile Light Key,"Lihua answered with a smug smile on her face, lifting the hawk close to her shoulder, where it stepped off and glared at everything about it, "The letters I write to you could not have possibly covered everything that happened these last few decades between the war with Jingshen and exploring the Underworld Spirit Palace. I wanted to have something to surprise you with when I visited and it looks like I succeeded."

"My little girl is all grown up and having a laugh at her father's expense. I have to hear the story of how you came about your acquisitions in full but let's do that inside. I think your junior might be a little discomfited now," Hephaestus said as he shook his head with a grin and pointed his thumb over his shoulder back at the main residence where a noise of falling clutter could be heard.

Looking at the piled materials littering the courtyard again, Lihua voiced a concern that had just dawned on her, "Wait, if you're using the courtyard as storage, just what are you keeping in the house?"

***

As it turned out, the answer to Lihua's question was anything and everything. Hephaestus was a hoarder who accumulated all manner of items related to his passions. Blacksmithing manuals of questionable provenance competed with broken down junk barely recognizable as artifacts and many more items that might have had some utility but were largely piled up wastes of space. Careful shoving and shifting had sorted out enough space for Lihua and Lipita to settle down with their belongings without feeling like they were in an unsteady cave expecting the walls to fall in on them at any moment. To be honest, it wasn't so much messy storage as obsessive collection. There was an organization to the accumulation which Hephaestus demonstrated to his guests who were none too impressed about the realization that Lihua's childhood home was less a habitation than a converted storage facility.

When they were finally all seated, Atrape clinging to its roost on her shoulder, Lihua launched into a recounting of her time away which as she talked proved to have been quite a duration. The only significant time Lihua had spent home was after the Hundred-Year Trials when she'd been crippled as an Aspirant and spent several decades largely in isolation. Her father's forge had been the crucible for her healing, a base from which she could practice the alchemy she learned to reform her broken body while the old legionnaire quietly supported his child when her injuries prevented her from taking up missions. The time after that had been a steady climb for Lihua, rising into Foundation Establishment and going on to ern acclaim within her Legion and the Clan.

"I'd heard that you were part of some expedition into the Underworld Spirit Palace from my old contacts and your letters told me something of your adventures in the depths but I didn't know just how much you accomplished," Hephaestus looked on with pride at his child after she had finished describing her life over the last century and half, "You have managed to almost match my cultivation in less than three centuries and that was with having to overcome a serious crippling. Your mother and I could not be prouder."

An involuntary scowl flashed on Lihua's face, "What does that woman have to do with this?"

"If you're still angry about your mother sending you on that chase with the wind map, I'd like to remind you that the False Phoenix Egg she left you was a valuable gift that saved you life later on," Hephaestus reminded Lihua, "Her way has always led her away from remaining with us but she still cares about you. We manage to maintain a correspondence and she always asks about you. In her own way, you are always in her heart."

Continuing as he noticed the scowl weaken on Lihua's face, Hephaestus said, "In fact, she plans to make a return here when the century draws to a close. Supposedly, she wants to test her flame against strength of the Fifth Sea as inspiration for a breakthrough but I think there's more to than that."

"It would be nice to have her here to keep an eye on you during the upcoming Hundred-Year Trials. Everyone is hearing rumors of a difficult time this century between the Great Era and the solid defense we put up last time," Lihua said, her gaze distant as her memory flashed back, "I know there's a rematch I sincerely hope to avoid. It would be nice if we could rely on the legends to bear the brunt of this but that's not how it works."

"In fact, that's why I'm here in part," indicating herself and Lipita who had been quiet while the two related Experts chatted, "I need new armor. The set I used as junior really could not hold up to the stresses of fighting as an Expert. I tried to make a few other armors but they just weren't to my liking so I thought to come see the best expert I know."

Hephaestus lifted an eyebrow at Lihua's statement. "That's flattering truly, but surely not accurate. The Goldweavers make excellent work which you can certainly afford."

"True but they don't know me as well as you do and I believe that what we could craft together would surpass the product that commissioning from someone else would produce," Lihua said frankly, "Besides it would be a great opportunity to let my student see how others work their artifice separate from her family's methods.

"Hmm, there was that idea I sketched out when you were back home recovering," Hephaestus thought out loud, "Your mother left some materials that weren't much use for me but I could see a place for them in artifact equipment for you."

"A lot of work can be done using harvested material from your body," Hephaestus considered Lihua critically, before looking at her shoulder and the now empty space above her head, "Although if we want to truly make something great we are going to have to synergize our our efforts to your familiar and foci."

Tugging at the woven braids of his beard, Hephaestus continued to speak warming up to the idea. "From what you told me about the Facsimile Light Key, it is powerful in its own right but weak when there is not light from the sun to use. Perhaps, incorporating a capacity for storing sunlight might be the way to go."

"Although, I wonder…" he said slowly, looking at Atrape, with its head buried beneath its wing, bored of the conversation around it, "You called the bird a light-beast, a Burning Light Hawk if I recall correctly. It might be possible to leverage the illumination your familiar creates to strengthen the Facsimile Light Key or at least mitigate its weakness in unfavorable circumstances."

Studying the bird, Hephaestus voiced a question that had been on his mind ever since Lihua had introduced the light-beast to him. "Why the name Atrape? Naming a light-beast 'lightning' in the old tongue doesn't fit your usual naming sense or the obvious features of the creature for that matter."

Lihua pointed to Lipita and responded, "I didn't actually name the bugger, Lipita here did so."

Speaking up after being a quiet observer, Lipita said, "Kokkinos Laoshi at the time was complaining about how much healing and maintaining her new familiar was eating into her contribution points and bemoaning the number of missions she had to take to keep up with the demand. She described contribution points appearing and vanishing like a flash in her account balance as she juggled her income and expenditure so I suggested she name it Atrape because it consumed contribution points like lightning."

Hephaestus broke out into loud laughter, Lihua and Lipita joining him with quiet chuckles. Atrape woke up from the noise and finding nothing of interest to justify being roused, it screamed loudly. This sent the three cultivators into another round of laughter, slowly dying down over the next few minutes.

After he had recovered from his brief side trip into hilarity, Hephaestus asked Lihua, "When do you want this ready? The turn of the century is still a couple of decades away so we should be alrightby then."

Lihua and Lipita exchanged a glance before the Expert replied, "Actually I was hoping to have it ready before I head to the Qiguai Clan to try their Realmgate within the decade. Lipita and I are hoping to bolster our strength by attempting their secret realm."

Hephaestus frowned, "That's pretty short timing. Are you sure you want to do this now considering what happened the last time you challenged that place. Merely entering almost killed you."

"I am well aware that the Qiguai Realmgate has earned its reputation for lethality many times over but I'm set on this. I have spent a fortune accumulating enough treasures to make this a good go at it even if things start off as bad as last time," Lihua looked at Lipita as she spoke, "Lipita is heading in whatever else I may decide. She is almost within reach of the 11th Heavenstage and is resolute on making the attempt. I could not hold my head up as her teacher if I shrank away in fright despite my preparations."

Sighing Hephaestus looked at the women before him and saw only unflinching determination to dive headfirst into a pit that had swallowed whole so many eager cultivators and left them without a grave. Rising to his feet, he headed for his exit, his gait only barely interrupted by his limp. Looking behind him at the door, he said to Lihua and Lipita, "Well what are you waiting for? The forge is ready and we don't have any time to waste."

Following after the older cultivator, Lipita said to Lihua, "Do you think he can get your armor ready before we have to leave for Qiguai. It really is short notice to start a project like this."

Nodding towards the figure leading the way, Lihua smiled faintly, "That old bastard is a lot more competent than he looks. He might be retired now but he was a terror among the ranks of the 1034th Legion in his heyday. The Reliable Hands called him the Faithful Hammer because the works of his forge stood the test of time and battle. He might not be the most exalted blacksmith I could find but he's the one I have the uttermost confidence will provide the best for me. There are secrets of blood and metal that he knows to make this a worthwhile goal. Let's hurry up though because he gets grumpy if he's left alone at his forge too long."

Lipita did as instructed, her thoughts bending towards the looming objective fast approaching even as she walked faster. The Qiguai Realmgate called and after her experience with the Man-as-Mountain Array she knew that the promise it offered held even greater danger.




@no. This is a collaboration with @Insane-Not-Crazy.
Will be taking a Life Saving Treasure and put me down for Qiguai

AN: (3100/2=1550 words) let's see how the Bronze Galatea rolls in Qiguai eh. Collaboration with @veekie

Eirene of Nowhere let out a soft belch, really more of a ladylike burp, and patted her stomach. She exhaled gratefully as she looked down at the evidence of her expanded pocketbook. The empty interior of a deep and broad white porcelain bowl reflected the gleam of the afternoon light, spotlessly clean with nary a drop left behind. Just to her left on the table, three similar bowls were stacked in a pile, previous challengers Eirene had overcome with much gusto.

"That was an excellent meal," she said to herself, closing her eyes to relive the mouthwatering fragrance and sublime taste of the noodle soups she had just relished. The cost of partaking of such incredible delight matched the grandeur of the meal itself but Eirene had gladly shelled out the contribution points without hesitation. Sure, it had been a sum that would have beggared her as a Junior and even now was a significant expense to her means as an Expert. However it was well worth it not just for the gourmet experience but the strength it would add to her physical frame when she finally finished processing the meal.

Eirene opened her eyes and looked around the room. All about her were fellow diners caught in their own moments of bliss as they supped within the Twelve Zodiac Restaurant. Her gaze found the master of the establishment, the bald and gaunt Gong Wen, standing in the doorway to the kitchen surveying his dining area. She bowed her head deeply to express her appreciation of his handiwork to which he gave a curt nod in reply and ignored her afterwards. Eirene didn't mind the brusque nature of her host. His skill in the culinary arts had earned him more than enough grace with her to cover over any rudeness.

A cultivator hailing from the Simmering Soup Sect, Gong Wen was a wandering chef that had set out on the road with nothing but the clothes on his back, seeking inspiration and experience for his advancement as a prodigy of his sect who had reached Foundation Establishment at the age of one hundred. He had traveled across the Organ Meat Desert, the Hard Shell Mountains and the Green Scale Plains, searching out ingredients, recipes and techniques to elevate his practice of Spirit Cooking. Nearly four centuries later he had proven himself successful, not just by surviving his many expeditions but thriving off them.

The traveling cook normally spent at most a decade in one area but for the last two decades he had settled in the heartland of the Golden Devil Clan territory near the border of his old sect but never crossing into it. Rumor had it that prior to his departure Gong Wen had sworn to return as a Core Formation cultivator or never at all. Apparently he had been of the opinion that the Recipe Books of the Simmering Soup Sect were hidebound institutions that had lost their drive for discovery and merely contented themselves with reiterating old formulas. Gong Wen aspired to claim the rank of Soup Lord and found a Recipe Book out of the harvest of his experiences tasting, cooking and serving the many meals of the Virtuous Flipper Region. His prolonged stay near the border had produced whispers that at last the prodigal son was readying himself to attempt the leap to the next supreme realm.

Eirene cared little for Gong Wen's plans though she wished him success if it would allow him to continue crafting his wonderful meals or even better ones. Her interest was in the special menu he was offering. The harvest of Volcano Wheat from the Wheat Clan in the Peng Kingdoms had come early and more potent than any in living memory. It was not just them but the Fields of Rain in the Hua Empire, the floating islands of the Hong Xuan Isles and even the Tall Wheat Fields of her clan were all reporting record bounties of crops these last few years. It most likely had to do with the influx of spirit qi from the dawning of the Great Era, boosting the fertility of the relatively starved desert. As though to spite the masters of his old sect, Gong Wen had taken advantage of the sudden surplus of quality ingredients on the market and began producing a flood of affordable but incredibly fortifying meals for cultivators, that normally only the higher experts of the Simmering Soup Sect would produce at considerable cost to customers.

Eirene pinched the skin of her stomach and smiled happily on noticing that she was well on the way back to her preferred figure. She had successfully overcome Heavenly Tribulation to become an Expert but the experience had been grueling and taxing. She had sacrificed part of her cultivation to allow herself to advance, permanently wounding her soul in such a way that the benefits of purifying her soul in reaching the 12th​ Heavenstage had been lost to her. Even that painful surrender had not been the end of what she had needed to give up. Surviving that night of offering response to Heaven's challenges had wrung her body dry, her ceaseless dancing burning through her body's reserves until she and Gong Wen were not too far in appearance. Call her vain but she had loved her plump figure and had committed herself to restoring what she'd lost.

Her motivation wasn't entirely rooted in vanity though. She was not a mortal who accumulated fat from an inability to match consumption with exertion. In her wandering as an itinerant diplomat and bard, she had picked up a body tempering manual that caught her eye in of all places the land of the Goatmen Tribes. Given the paucity of cultivation prospects among the residents of the area, she had gotten the manual for cheap. The Laughing Monk's Belly was a collection of cultivation exercises that built up qi within the fatty deposits of the body, transforming them into quite effective physical protection with continued use. In a pinch the qi stored in the fat could also be depleted as alternative energy reserves like she had done during the Heavenly Tribulation. The manual also taught a very useful set of qigong movement techniques that claimed to allow an elephant to balance on a bamboo stem with sufficient comprehension and practice. Despite that vague qualification, the exercises were immensely helpful in polishing her movements, teaching her grace and subtlety in movement.

Two decades after breaking free from the rank of Junior, Eirene was feeling ready to make a long awaited trip, her dantian happily sending out qi to break down her meal and circulate its benefits throughout her body. She hadn't accomplished as much as some old acquaintances in the mission to secure the remaining Light Qi – how did Minervina get away with it all the time, she wondered – but there had been enough reward to handily strengthen her cultivation. The Beast Core of the Clawed Furious Light Wolf – the naming scheme among the scouts still had her shaking her head – had been valuable enough to earn her enough contribution points to purchase the cultivation resources she needed to align her singular Dao-Pillar and fortify it. Within her spirit a solo string was strummed as she sung a tale of a girl and her pursuit of [A Thousand Fragments]. It was a lonely string, plucked from the sinews of her heart and formed of [Integrity]. In time it would be joined by other chords and tunes, woven into a tapestry of hopes and dreams, lifted high into a chorus to encompass the whole world. But that was for later, now was the time to set out on the journey to meet an old teacher.

Rising to her feet, Eirene delighted in the fullness of her health. Being free of the lingering wounds she had taken from the Jingshen war was a blessed feeling. She walked out master Gong Wen's establishment after giving him one last bow and breathed in the afternoon air, her head tilted up towards the sun's warmth. There was nothing like a good meal and a sound body to make a woman want to break into spontaneous song. There was no time for an impromptu performance but as Eirene hurried on her way through the streets, she hummed a melody that lingered in the ears of those nearby long after she was gone.

"It seems we both succeeded without a hitch, brother." Scylla muttered in half-contained anger as she swam around Gaius, perhaps wondering if he was real. "But I must sincerely ask: what the fuck took you so long? Where did you go when we entered this place?"

"I had the most terrible dream." Gaius muttered, sitting up and looking at his hand, turning it end over and and wiggling his fingers before his newfound triple-sight. The Bronze was different, more solid than before. His bones, which had begun the process of infusion before - impressive to achieve with only a Qi Condensation base - now carried the sheen of a flawless transmutation, the additional weight of the living metal pulling on his frame in ways he wasn't yet used to. "It just wouldn't end, no matter how much I tried to wake up."

Not just the bones, his whole circulatory system had undergone complete infusion, the Tin Veins taking to him very well from what he could see. Everything flowed more smoothly than ever before, expanding and contracting at his command. With a single breath, he pumped half the qi in his body into one foot, prompting the stone beneath to begin running and oozing, as the sheer heat began turning it to red-hot magma. With a surprised yelp, he pulled his foot away and returned to normal circulation.

"Are you going to tell me anything else, or are you just going to revel in your transformation? I almost died, you know!" Scylla huffed, tail swishing side to side impatiently.

"Revel, definitely revel…" Gaius muttered, before processing what she had said. "Almost died? You mean in your tribulation?"

"No, from old age!" she snapped. "It's been several years! I couldn't contact you at all!" She shouted furiously, unconsciously stirring up the wind with every flick of her tail. "Sacred Carp only live sixty years. I sat there, waiting, my body getting weaker and weaker, not knowing if you would be back in time… I'm really pissed off, actually!"

"So you waited that long…" Gaius sighed, holding his head in his hands. "I always inconvenience everyone who crosses my path." A harsh breath turned into a chuckle, then a snicker, then full-blown, barking laughter. "I'm sorry Scylla, I'm really sorry, I just…"

Gaius turned and lightly kicked the stone slab, blowing it to pieces. "I'm sorry, but I can't stop laughing!" He wheezed, face starting to turn red. "You're here. You're here and you're telling me that it's real, that I'm really awake!"

If the fish was angry before, she was positively steaming now. Actually, Gaius was pretty sure she was literally steaming, smoke pouring from her gills and between her fangs as sparks lit up her gullet. He quieted down and warily backed up several steps. Dragons didn't spit fire when they were enraged like humans spat blood, right?

"What is wrong with you!? I tell you I almost died and you laugh at me!? Did the lightning cook your brain!?" Scylla ranted, voice dripping with a hot anger born from a feeling of betrayal. "What the hell happened to you while you were gone? Your answer had better be damn good!"

"What was I supposed to do? You saw what happened, I was taken!" Gaius shouted back, the ground cracking beneath his feet. Scylla reared back in surprise. "If I could have reached you sooner, believe me, I would have!"

Scylla's superficial anger seemed to be dissipating somewhat already - like him, she was mostly just glad to have survived and seen the end of her wait. "Why couldn't you? What kind of trial could you have survived that would also take five years?"

"Five?" Gaius scoffed. "Five years. I would have cut my arms off for just five years. There was no trial, just a prison. Slowed down time, or sped up my mind, or something. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't…"

His hands were shaking, he realized. His shoulders too. Just about everything, in fact, was shaking. The choked sob that escaped his lips surprised him most of all - it didn't sound like the way a man was supposed to cry.

Gaius sat back down on the remains of the slab and broke down into weeping and wailing. He was free. It wasn't for nothing. Oh, but it had been so very long. The whistling of the wind over the dunes still echoed in his ears.

No Devil loves the desert.

—-

Gaius wasn't certain how long he spent sitting there, Scylla protectively curled up around him, alternating between lamenting what had happened and exalting that he had survived, but eventually, it died down. He explained better what had happened, and the things he had learned about himself, and Scylla seemed like she had already known about the things which were, to him, revelations.

"You've got what you wanted. Do you want to escape now, after going through something like that?" Scylla asked gently. She wouldn't judge Gaius for quitting here, just going home to rest and recover, after facing suffering far beyond what he'd expected. No one would.

If Gaius never had to see the Cloud Caves again, it would be too soon. He wanted to turn around and run out of there right now, right away, and never look back. Who knew what else the upcoming chambers held? What if there was another prison chamber, this one holding him for ten thousand years, or a million years?

He sighed, rubbing at his temples to work out the knots of pain in his head. "We can only come down here once. We're going as deep as we can, that's all there is to it."

----

The next floor housed something akin to a small maze; a dense collection of thick pillars, scattered about closely together, such that getting any kind of line of sight was difficult. Gaius clicked his tongue in annoyance. He'd been hoping for a more straightforward arena to give himself a nice, simple test run in.

"Fly up out of here and wait at the exit." Gaius commanded, reaching back and knocking on Scylla's barrel. "I need to-"

"See for yourself what you're capable of, I know." Gaius' companion interjected, before, with a slight rumbling, space warped, and the full-sized Scylla emerged from the far-too-small container. "We rehearsed it all so many times, I wouldn't forget. Have fun." She clapped him on the back with a fin before flying off.

Spatial compression, similar in intensity to a 100:1-grade Compression Pouch, was an expensive thing to apply on an object as large as a 120 gallon barrel, especially one already so laden with enchantments. Still, to bring such a large aquatic creature down into the caves with him, his only options had been that or a portable summoning circle, which was even more expensive. Scylla was, as always, high-maintenance.

Creeping through the scattering of pillars, Gaius stopped and turned as he heard a light pitter-patter, but couldn't quite pinpoint the source. He continued his trip, more slowly this time, his body wracked with shivers as the limitless energy held in his Pillar pressed against the edges of its confinement.

Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter.

Gaius breathed as evenly as could be expected under such pressure, sinking into a defensive stance and slowing down even more. His senses sharpened further and further, ready to react to anything. No Dao Magic, not yet - he'd stick to his fundamentals until he fully grasped his new limits. A mere fourteen floors down, he would need nothing else. Assorted trinkets and spoils of victory stayed stashed away, weapons stayed sheathed and buckled, and even the trusty Aegis was not summoned. For now, Kung Fu alone was enough.

A shadow flashed in his peripheral vision, and Gaius' foot struck in response, crashing into a pillar and breaking the thick stone in two. It loudly toppled to the ground, nearly muffling the sounds of more rapid, soft footsteps. The shadows seemed to lengthen as the darting assailant grew swifter and more erratic in its movements.

From the left came a fist, on the end of an elongated, distorted arm of skinless crimson flesh. With a circular motion, Gaius turned and knocked the blow aside and readied a counter-blow - only to find no body on the end of the arm. From behind him came a large, chaotic, roaring mass, swinging its remaining arm. Gaius ducked and tilted his head, letting the punch sail over his shoulder, then seized the offending limb, preparing for a textbook shoulder throw.

All at once, something was wrong. The world became a blur, and it was as if all weight vanished. Far from being thrown by the arm, the beast stumbled back, howling in pain. Gaius got a better look at it, its incoherent form no more clear now than it had been in his peripheral vision. A mess of bones and muscle fibers in the vague shape of a human, all its features distorted constantly, shifting and changing proportion. The head was the worst of it, a jumble of mouths, ears and eyes with next to no understanding of what a face was meant to look like.

But why was it backing off? Gaius took a step back himself, watching with confusion as the Floor Guardian's detached arm snaked back onto the main mass, fibers knitting back together, and the other one began to do the same.

Other one?

Yes, that was right. On the ground beside Gaius lay the beast's other arm, messily ripped from its socket through unrefined brute force. Had he done that, without even meaning to? There was no time to think, as the pile of meat retrieved its limb as the King stood there paralyzed, leaping onto the side of the nearest pillar.

Leaping with enough force to crack the stone, the misshapen thing darted to another pillar, then another, trying to throw off its opponent. After several such feints, it threw itself at him from behind, whipping its leg around in a haphazard kick. Unperturbed, Gaius turned and knocked the leg aside with his forearm, only for the limb to distend, growing longer and thinner with sickening sounds of tearing and popping, and wrap around his body.

Seeing Gaius' arms pinned, the Floor Guardian must have thought it was over, and stopped moving. It opened a mouth full of mismatched fangs lunging in to bite out his throat. Straining against his bindings, Gaius suddenly bent backwards, causing the bite to miss, then reversed the motion with all of his strength. His forehead crashed into the middle of the beast's face, caving it in entirely and sending teeth and blood flying everywhere, especially all over him.

Unusual muscles going slack, the coiled limb fell from Gaius' shoulders as its owner crashed to the ground in a heap, choking on blood. Not willing to let it recover again, he quickly stomped on its chest, collapsing it, then stomped three more times for good measure. The beast's cries of pain were mercifully short, turning to struggling wheezing, before expiring entirely after a few seconds.

Alright, that wasn't so hard. Taking a moment to catch his breath, Gaius turned to leave the chamber, but hardly made it a few steps before the ground rushed up to strike him. Catching himself on his forearms before he could faceplant, he stayed there, sprawled out on the ground, puzzled as to what the problem could be. His limbs weren't listening to his commands much at all, and his head was buzzing strangely.

That was when the burning came into focus; like a sound so loud it reduced the listener's ears to a dull ringing, so too had this sensation blocked out entirely. An unpleasant numbness spread beneath his skin, and the breaths he took seemed to get deeper and more desperate every second. What was going on, poison? Some numbing chemical? The pounding of blood running through his head was like being punched over and over, the pressure driving out anything in the way of complex thoughts.

He was dangerously low on qi, he realized. Moreover, he had blown so much out of his body at once, most Experts would burst a meridian or two. How? How could he have possibly wasted this much? What was this, a hundredfold inefficiency? A thousandfold?

Fumbling a mid-grade Spirit Stone out of his bag and sucking down the energy in seconds. Gaius was surprised to feel his internal pain only intensify as his reserves restored to an acceptable level. It was the good kind of pain though, the healing kind. Like the ache of sore, healing muscles after intense training, or the itching of a surgical scar.

Through all these sensations, he failed completely to detect the sounds of another pair of creeping feet. As it was, he got back up to his feet, only to be met with a fist, snapping on the end of a whip-like strike from an extended arm, slamming into his temple and dropping him back to the ground.

Like an ape from a tree canopy, a second amalgamated monster, this one even uglier than the first, leapt upon Gaius from the top of a pillar, and his qi reserves began to gutter out once more. A writhing fist of unstable flesh crashed into Gaius' sternum, making bloody bile rise in his throat. Another soon followed, followed by a dozen more, as the abomination pummeled the King relentlessly, driving him into the ground.

This wasn't right at all. Why was he struggling like this? How was it that the strength had fled Gaius' body so suddenly? Another strike hammered into Gaius' skull, scattering his thoughts like grains of sand. These attacks didn't hurt very much, so why couldn't he defend himself?

A flash of insight, too quick to process into meaning his human mind could understand, and Gaius was moving, energy surging back into his system like nothing had happened. An unerring fist struck shot up and struck the throat of the opponent mounting him, halting its assault as it stumbled back, choking and gasping. His feet followed right after, breaking its knees backward and sending it tumbling end over end for twenty feet.

Gaius groaned, the sudden spike of power fading as quickly as it had come and leaving him paralyzed once more. Fuck, why was that so hard to manage!? With every movement he made, massive portions of his qi reserves were consumed by the raging inferno of Dao Emanations that followed his every attack.

"Brother! Brother, are you-" Scylla's voice died down as her partner abruptly sat up, as smoothly as if he hadn't been knocked down at all. Gaius wiped the blood from his lips and nose before getting back to his feet and wordlessly approaching the remains of the defeated Floor Guardian. "Shit, that sucks. Can't even get it to behave…" He muttered, restarting his cycling rhythm and drawing out more qi. Expecting the explosive consumption this time, he strangled the flow as tightly as he could, and used up perhaps half as much as the last two times.

A few stray features scattered about the beast's head clustered together in that moment, arranging them into something resembling a proper face, though certainly not a handsome one. Perhaps it wished to plead, or to say something, but it didn't get the chance, as with a furious shout and a mighty kick, Gaius blew the misbegotten thing's head off. He fell to his knees, soaked with sweat, and quietly rested for a few minutes.

How miserable, how utterly shameful, his debut performance had been. Of course he was mad, it was only rational to be so angry at this, Gaius thought as he tore the cadaver apart with his bare hands before extracting the core. As if it were an apple, he bit right into the thing, filling his mouth with the powerful, deeply savory taste of raw meat and the electric buzzing of raw qi. In moments, his reserves were full once more, and he sighed in relief, sitting down on a large-ish piece of the monster and taking another bite.

"Are you feeling better now?" Scylla asked, a slightly condescending edge in her tone, as she messily devoured the other of the two Floor Guardians.

"Somewhat." Gaius grumbled, wiping spatters of blood off his face, then flicking his hands, scattering the eyecatching red into the sand. "You won't tell anyone about that, right?"

Scylla shook her head. "You were there when I was a hatchling. You surely have so many embarrassing memories of me, no?"

"Not really." Gaius remarked, rubbing his chin. "As a hatchling, all you did was eat everything in sight, cultivate and hoard shiny things. Nowadays, all you do is eat everything in sight, cultivate and hoard shiny things."

"You wound me, Brother!" Scylla laughed, puffing out her chest. "I am an auspicious Tyrant Beast; I do not eat, I feast! I do not hoard shiny things, I gather riches worthy of a ruler!"

"Yeah, okay, okay, well, enjoy your feast. I'm gonna walk off these cracked ribs, and we'll go down to the next one tomorrow."

—-

"Calm down, have to calm down, keep it steady…" Gaius muttered to himself, tunneling below the flame-belching fungus as Scylla flew high above it. He was lucky, to see another floor whose challenges he could bypass this late in the dive, and he would appreciate the chance while he still had it. "It's taking all of my focus to stop my output from going out of control. The Dao is complete, but I'm not; I have to widen the aperture bit by bit, and not use more than I can handle."

"Were you hoping to cut loose the second you ascended? Enter a delirious fury and drive before you anyone who stood in your way?" Scylla's voice echoed in his mind. As a False Rainbow Carp, her voice had sounded rough to him, like a beast-woman speaking through a dry throat which hadn't been used to make words in years. Language came to the proto-dragon with ease now, and there was a lilting, aristocratic quality to her voice, though she retained an undertone of fierce wildness as well.

"Would have been nice." Gaius shrugged, swerving around the deep roots of a particularly huge specimen.

"Grow up." Scylla scoffed. "You lose yourself to fantasy far too easily."

She did have a point there, thought Gaius. As much as he wanted to have fun, these were deadly trials, not some low-stakes training session where he could have fun. Just because something was weaker than him didn't mean it posed no threat - he needed to hone himself, and do it fast.

Surfacing at the end of the chamber, Gaius looked up to see something familiar: an archway over the exit, topped by a statuette of a Devil. Like the last time, a drop of blood beaded on the tip of its extended tongue, tendrils of smoke curling off it. That would be more of the Blood Forge, then; his body called out to it, filling his mind with a craving to taste some more.

Blood, blood, always blood. He was in too deep to care at this point. Gaius reached up, tapping at the statue's head, patiently waiting until the blood fell onto his tongue.

Shit, that hurt. Gaius clutched at his chest and groaned as his heart endured the sudden onrush of heat, speeding up beyond human limits to circulate the modified blood throughout his body. Once more, crimson flames danced across Gaius' skin and between his fingers; bigger, hotter and brighter than before. A few more minutes, and the feeling receded, once more leaving a gnawing hunger crying out in his veins. The Blood Forge still was not complete.

"Are you good to go?" Scylla asked, floating down from nearby.

"I'll be fine." Gaius gasped, sitting down with his back pressed to the wall. Just let me rest my eyes for a moment…"

Damn this cave and damn its endless blood, but a free win was a free win. From this distance, the heat from the burning fungi cast a pleasant warmth, lulling Gaius into a peaceful sleep.

—-

As it turns out, Gaius didn't actually go down to the next floor until a few weeks had passed, biding his time and attempting to bring his powers under a modicum of control first. Two weeks of meditation, target practice, breathing exercises and circulation control. It had been embarrassing to go back to the barest fundamentals after he had come so far, but at least he felt a little bit more in control now, not like his grip on his power would slip at any moment, for no reason at all.

The chamber was a simple one, about five hundred feet across and covered in piles of stones. Flat ones, round ones, rough ones and smooth ones, they were all over the place. They were so numerous, they seemed to line the floor, an uneven morass of rocks, big and small, making stable footing hard to come by. Without much of a pattern, the chaotic scattering of earth appeared less like a natural location and more like a deliberate attempt at removing any feeling of order.

"Not much room for something to hide…" Scylla muttered, emerging into the open air right away. Gaius knew better than to argue with her on this yet again; she had insisted that she be there to bail Gaius ou right away, should he lose control again. "Unless, perhaps, it's a very small enemy? Something the size of a weasel?"

Gaius snorted. "A weasel? That would be a fun one. But I dunno, that's not the feeling this place gives me."

"Mm. It's more that sort of 'in plain sight' feeling."

"Which means that the guardian should be…"

Gaius and Scylla turned simultaneously at the sound of shifting and grinding earth, as a few dozen large rocks floated into the air around a small blue stone. No, not a stone, it was pulsating slightly, like some fluid-filled sac. Crashing and slotting together, they formed a humanoid figure, some nine or ten feet tall, thick-limbed and hunchbacked. A golem, albeit a rather crude one.

"Right there."

"Can you do it this time?" Scylla asked, as the mineral creature broke out into a run, its prodigious weight making every step boom like thunder. "If you can't, now is the time to ask for help."

"Of course I can." Gaius scoffed, cycling as smoothly as possible. The Pillar within him began to shine so bright it hurt to behold, the haphazard, unrefined emanations threatening to spill out at the smallest slip. "I was made to do it."

Unconcerned with the oncoming foe, Gaius squared his shoulders, sank into a Horse Stance and opened up his lungs. Taking deep breaths one after another, the King allowed his Emanations to leak out once more, but not to run wild. Here, in these early floors, he needed to master this wild power.

"I can do this." Gaius whispered to himself as his enemy lunged at top speed, a fist the size of a man's torso drawn back for a punch. "Breathe. In, out, in, out. Maintain a steady flow, only let out as much as I need."

A new Great Realm is a new beginning, and a new beginning means going back to basics. Gaius drew his arm back and pivoted his body to the side, letting the golem's punch sail past him before returning with a blow of his own. His Fa Jin punch blasted out half of the Floor Guardian's torso, toppling it to its knees. The second punch shattered the rest of the golem's midsection, splitting it in two.

Gaius exhaled smoothly, satisfied with his performance. "That went alright." He remarked with a nod.

Suddenly swooping down, Scylla cried out. "Don't make the same-"

In one motion, Gaius' 360 degree roundhouse kick knocked off the head of another Golem, sending a second pile of stones tumbling across the ground. Scylla grew quiet and huffed, no doubt annoyed at her partner's grandstanding.

"Don't worry your pretty little head, dear. I can hear them just fine." said Gaius, picking his hat up off the ground and dusting it off. "Now that I've got a feel for controlling the flow, I should be fine. You ought to get some practice yourself." He smirked, jerking his thumb toward the middle of the arena, where several more golems, disguised as rock formations, were stirring to life.

"You finally share with me, and it's not even something I can eat." The Rainbow Carp shook her head with a quiet tsk tsk. "But fine, I'll take you up on that."

As Scylla ripped into the stone men with incredible ferocity, Gaius was harshly reminded just what kind of beast he had partnered with. Her physical strength alone was nearly unimaginable for a being in Foundation, as if she was driven less by muscles and more by her own desire for conquest and victory. But moreso than that, Gaius had difficulty believing that something with that much mass could move so fast. The way she had flown as a False Rainbow Carp didn't even compare to the graceful, precise movements Gaius' partner performed here, not letting the golems strike her even once.

She bit their heads off, smashed them into one another, headbutted them into walls so hard they fell apart, and did it all with the confidence of a truly superior being. No matter how many times the stones assembled themselves into(slowly dwindling) ambulatory shapes, they were broken again, until the arts holding the whole thing together simply ceased function.

Gaius strolled through the carnage, swaying slightly this way and that to avoid the flying rubble. One golem sprouted right in front of him, halting his walk, and tried to bring its fists down on him in a double hammer fist. With deliberate movements, like a man learning an instrument for the first time, Gaius brought his arms up and caught the golem's fists, feet embedding slightly in the ground from the impact. Pulling his opponent forward, he then brought up his leg and cleanly removed its head.

Stepping over the stones as they crashed to the ground, Gaius walked to the exit, before which was a sealed jade box. As Scylla finished her brutal work, it unlocked with a sharp click, opening to reveal an orb of blue flesh, an almost perfect recreation of a real Beast Core. It resembled the artificial core of a Core-level construct, but from the qi signature, this was clearly a Beast Core, not a Golden Core.

Gaius closed the box quickly, not wanting to get the meaty mass dirty. "I guess I'm supposed to make a golem with that?" He muttered, stroking his chin. Alchemy and crafting really weren't his thing. He could identify reagents, and had enough knowledge in the basics to craft simple remedies in the field, but he only knew those recipes by rote memorization. When it came to the chemical principles behind it, he was a layman.

"If it makes a golem like those ones, it's completely useless. An Early Foundation creature won't last long in the lower floors." Scylla surmised, not that it was hard to figure out. "Not a very thoughtful reward."

"I'll figure something out." Gaius shrugged, pocketing the core and making for the exit. If all else failed, he could sell it for a decent sum, or get an alchemist to mess around with it for him.

He could do this. Learning to control Dao Emanations normally took years of effort, years Gaius didn't have. But he could still do it. He was The Seeker, he thrived under pressure like no other. He had to believe, or it would never work.

—-

"Are you sure you don't want me to just burn it down?" Scylla asked, tilting her head at the thick dense green landscape before the pair. It went on for… probably miles, but there was no real way to tell, with how thick the trees were. "It'll all light up easily, and we won't have to squeeze through it, surrounded on all sides."

"I'll die if you do that, stupid." Gaius smirked. "Human lungs don't handle smoke well. In fact, very few creatures' lungs do."

"Ach, you're such fragile little mountain monkeys!" Scylla scoffed with feigned scorn. "But you've got a point. Straight in, then?"

"Unfortunately." Said Gaius, jerking his thumb at the barrel. In such a cramped environment, Scylla would be useless, and she knew it. She flew back into her tank with a sigh but no complaints.

Making his way into the dense treeline, Gaius was immediately put on edge at the sounds of animals - all sorts of animals, actually. And yet, these weren't even spirit beasts, as far as Gaius could tell. Just ordinary animals, as if the Cave had really swallowed up an entire ecosystem. He jerked to the side, jumping a good ten feet, at what turned out to just be the low cawing of some colorful bird he'd never seen before. He didn't even know birds could make that kind of noise.

In fact, none of this seemed like the forests he knew. The plantlife was denser, all sorts of strange ferns and grasses and flowers blooming in between the trees. The wildlife was more vertical, much of it darting around in the dense treetops, like it was an entire separate layer of ground. It nearly was, actually, being so dense in places as to block out most of the artificial sunlight.

It could be said to be the exact opposite of the desert, and uncomfortable for opposite reasons. The desert is defined above all else by deficiency - deficiency of water, of plants, of life; it's a more empty sort of place than most. This forest, this… what was it called, again? A 'jungle'? It was far too full. Way too much life, it was utterly overwhelming to one of keen senses like him.

To think, the Organ Meat Desert used to be full of these things.

The loud, constant ambiance of the animal life - hooting monkeys, screeching insects, all manner of weird bird sounds(Seriously, what was with those fucked up birds? Spirit beasts being strange was one thing, but those were regular animals.) served a practical purpose. That being, to hide the movements of the real threat, which leapt at Gaius from the canopy above. A Foundation-level serpentman, like the ones from higher up in the cave, wielding a spear of rudimentary construction.

Gaius dodged the spear, knocked the haft aside with his palm, and shoulder-checked the Floor Guardian in a single motion, then stepped in and struck his enemy with a backhand punch, spinning its neck over 360 degrees and killing it instantly. Immediately, two more serpentmen struck, stabbing at him from either side with their own spears and making Gaius backstep to assess the situation.

A big mistake, as that motion had carried the King right in front of what had looked like a large, leafy bush. Before Gaius could even draw his weapon, another assailant had already leapt upon his back and tried to bury a knife in his neck. Without enough time it seemed as if he was done for-

The demi-human spent that last moment of its life puzzled, as its surprise attack was foiled. Somehow, someway, there was a blade in Gaius' hand after all, one which glowed gold. With a twist and a thrust, he parried the knife aside and buried it in his opponent's neck, before throwing the corpse off him and swiftly taking up a defensive stance. The spearmen were already gone, having retreated back to the canopy - this would take a while, it seemed.

A soft rustling of grass behind Gaius told of the next attack, and with a flick of his wrist, his golden sword stretched and morphed into a whip. He turned and cracked it, blowing a chunk out of his would-be ambusher's head. He smirked - good, it was working as well as expected. He twirled the thing in his hand, and at the apex of each turn it took a new shape; a sword, a spear, a rod, a fish, a bundle of feathers. Then, with a sharp exhale, he flung the feathers, all razor sharp, into a treetop, killing two more Serpentmen.

"Do you understand?" Gaius called out, to no answer. "I've got enough for all of you."

It carried on like that for some time, that dreadful guerilla warfare. Being hunted is just about the most stressful thing one can experience, and so even though his enemies were so much weaker than him, Gaius could not put himself at ease. For every three of the stealthy assassins he put away, another would come along and land a blow, rattling him, and trying to dart away. Under these conditions of constant hit-and-run attacks, the enemy's numbers couldn't be estimated, and the jungle seemed to go on forever.

These may have all been Foundation-level enemies, but they were deeply unimpressive, not one of them having more than two Pillars, from what he could judge off a cursory scan. When Gaius got his hands on any of them, those that survived the first strike did not last through the second. But ultimately, this was a battle where absolute strength didn't matter much.

Gaius felt sick; it was something he had gotten far too used to, back when he suffered a qi flow reversal. A pins-and-needles sensation slowly spread through his body, originating from the tiny cuts and punctures left by the stray attacks which had grazed him. Beneath his armor, parts of his skin were growing so raw and sensitive that every movement stung and burned, and the inside of his armor was beginning to grow sick with blood, from the sores that had outright burst. His breath did not grow harsher - far worse, it grew more shallow, the air not seeming to refresh him as much per capita as it should have been, and the act of inhaling itself required conscious effort.

This, ultimately, was their game, Gaius thought as he knocked aside a saber and grabbed the attacker's neck in his elbow, before snapping it with a practiced motion. A series of arrows followed, which he dodged one after another, before catching one between his fingers and throwing it back at the bush it had come from, prompting a cry of pain and panic. He was right not to use Scylla here - being too big to maneuver in this dense foliage, she would take many wounds and quickly expire.

Anyone below Core was in serious danger in this place, Gaius imagined, especially those who had come to overly rely on sheer power. Any landed strike, no matter how small, poisoned and degraded the entrant, making them more vulnerable to future ones as they got sloppy. Mistakes caused more mistakes, a downward spiral which, combined with the total lack of self-preservation in the Floor Guardians, excelled at humbling the mighty. He wondered if perhaps the Cave had sent him to this one on purpose.

He huffed - no choice, then. If every wound would hasten Gaius' death, then he had to guarantee he could do it perfectly. With his lack of experience and practice, he'd drain himself dry in minutes, so he'd just have to win in minutes. Loosening his tight grip on the surging power of his Pillar, Gaius opened his third eye wider and unleashed his emanations, spreading them out in the widest possible area.

Drawing upon the mysterious abilities inherent only to him, Gaius gave a decree. "The King commands you, chart out the storms of suffering! Tabula Rasa!"

The trees, the soil, and the myriad organisms hidden in the overgrowth all became painfully aware, down to the little details, a constant buzz of data surging through his mind. His hand snapped into place, catching a poisoned needle and throwing it back the direction it came from. Turning to the side, he immediately summoned an Aegis field in the shape of a greatsword, vertically cleaving a tree in two alongside the Serpentman hiding in it.

Gaius took off; not the careful creeping of prey, but the intense, measured pace of a confident athlete. Needles and arrows were dodged or blocked by a hair's breadth, and several more serpents were cut down before they could leap out of their places of hiding. Against Tabula Rasa, ambush was simply not an option.

And yet, for all his power, Gaius' body was a Foundation one - sufficient damage to kill him slowly had already been done earlier. As he ran, The Seeker could not help but note the burning, itching pain spreading across his insides. Through his ultra-sensitive feeling of touch, he became acutely aware as more and more of his skin broke out into a tableau of mottled hives, then weeping sores. The ache in his muscles intensified further, until each step made a pulse of unpleasantness throb through his body. After a minute, he stumbled, and a Foundation-level Serpentman pierced through a gap in his breastplate with a dagger, landing a shallow wound. Poisoned, of course. Gaius' retaliation obliterated the impudent demi-human, but the damage was done.

The run became a jog, which became something of a frantic, expedient stumbling, as Gaius' path through the forest stubbornly pressed on. The exit had entered within range of his Emanations now, just one more push and he would be victorious. But the breakdown of his condition was accelerating in the wake of that hit, and his enemies were growing more bold.

Several assailants pounced on him at once, and he responded to the storm of blades with two of his own, striking back the moment one of his attackers faltered with a snapping kick to the body. The Serpentman went reeling back, before shaking away the disorientation and jumping back into the fight. Damn, Gaius had weakened that much? Then it was time to change strategy again.

Momentarily driving back his enemies with a roar of effort and a flurry of blows, Gaius began another incantation. "The gate needs no key, ambition is enough. Break through armageddon and grasp the holy scepter on the other side!" He tried to ignore how hoarse and scratchy his voice was, and the sensation of blood running down his throat. "Let the golden light of cruel rejection bring down the schemes of the gods! Radiant Wrecker!"

Greatswords of hard light, ten of them, pointed with the blades outward, surrounded Gaius in two rings of five and furiously spun as fast as he could manage. Not the full scope of the technique as he had envisioned it, but this was all he could manage. A full bubble would take too much qi, so this would have to do. The trees around Gaius were shredded to pieces, along with two nearby serpents, and the rest were driven back by his sudden assault. Roaring with effort, he ran at top speed, blood burning, muscles aching, smashing everything before him to bits.

Unable to approach, the serpentmen threw knives and shot with bowguns, but the bright lightshow inhibited their aim and almost every shot missed or was deflected. Still, they were nothing if not accurate; six of the shots would have landed, had Gaius not swayed his limbs, head and body in small, nearly imperceptible ways. Instead, it was only two: one knife grazed his neck, and a lucky needle stabbed into a gap in his armor, setting the chemical torment inside his body to an even higher pitch. Damnit, he couldn't die here, not like this; if he was to be felled, let it be at the hands of a worthy opponent!

He was running on determination now, Vision fading out at the edges and sound turning to a dull roar. The treeline broke, revealing the exit, and beside it a statue holding a spherical pill in its outstretched hands - the finish line. Gaius didn't have enough steps left in his body to make it there, so he half-jumped, half-fell, snatching the pill along with two of the statues fingers with a clumsy grab before turning to put his back against the wall.

With trembling hands, Gaius lifted the pill to his lips, just as half a dozen more soldiers rushed at him; their last-ditch effort to deny the entrant his victory. As one, they leapt upon the King, aiming to impale him from different directions, and Gaius summoned up a dome of light with a wave of his hand, forcing the pill down at the same time. The light quickly began to fade and crumble, high stamina reduced to almost nothing - and then it came roaring back, and with a surge of his will, massive spikes erupted from the shield.

Sighing with relief, Gaius slumped against the wall and dropped his technique. One of the fresh corpses fell onto him, but he lacked the motivation to do more than push it off of him and wait for the pain to fade. He took off a gauntlet and the glove beneath, seeing the unhealthy sores and chemical burns, staining his skin various shades of red, purple and even dull green. The discolored blotches faded, bit by bit, back to his usual medium brown, and the shaking and spasming of his muscles also left his body, leaving only exhaustion as his body's energy was relied on to fight off the poison.

He hadn't expected to pass out, but then there he was, an hour later(not that one could tell from the un-changing light in the cave) with Scylla nudging him awake. "Come on, you can't sleep. You need to make sure you're alright first." She nagged, gently clamping her mouth around his arm and hauling him to his feet.

"I'm fine, you beast! Damnit, I'm fine!" Gaius grumbled, pulling his arm back and beginning to stretch his sore muscles. A little more. He'd figured the Pillar out just a little more. Just a few more battles, and he'd feel so much more secure in his power. But then, there was no need to repeat those facts to himself over and over - he'd only go even more mad. Time to change the subject then.

"They sure got a raw deal, didn't they?" Gaius asked, lightly kicking a dead Serpentman across the face. "These aren't monsters, they're demi-humans. Strong ones too. What's something with a mind doing in here?"

"None of it is consistent, is it?" Scylla concurred, messily ripping into another one. "It's a mouth, chewing up anything that gets too close. Everything here is stolen."

Gaius thought on that for a minute as he rooted around in his pouches for a washcloth to clean the sweat and gunk from his body before they continued on. Such philosophical musings, however, were short-lived, instead replaced by an embarrassing revelation. He smacked his head.

"The fucking mask."

Scylla tilted her head. "Pardon?"

"I could have just used the breathing mask!" Gaius shouted, punching the wall. "You could have burned the jungle down and I could have used the breathing mask to survive the smoke. I didn't even have to run through all that!"

Scylla slapped her face with her fin. "OH, why didn't I think of that!? We're supposed to be smarter than this."

"Evidently not."

—-

The traps of the next floor were a good deal easier than battling through the jungle. Living things were complicated, imperfect and to a certain degree, chaotic. Machines were far easier to predict and comprehend, if one could see the entirety of their internal construction the way Gaius could now.

For several days, he methodically worked through the complex obstacle course which comprised the eighteenth chamber, finding safe spots to rest where he could, or simply embedding himself in a wall or the ceiling. Not a single spray of acid, poison needle, hidden blade or blast of fire came even close, and soon enough he found himself facing the exit again.

Before the exit stood, big surprise, another totem, containing another vial of blood. Gaius groaned, dragging his hands down his face. More blood. Why blood!? He snatched up the vial, twirling it between his fingers as he briefly considered if it was wise to continue drinking so much of the damn stuff. Scylla told him to stop being a pussy.

It slid down easily, compared to the Blood Forge. Or perhaps, it was because of the Blood Forge that this new infusion, tinged with bitterness like a rich, old wine, slipped into the King's body so quicksilver-smooth.

A strike, empowered by Dao Emanations, which latched onto the soul of the target as a curse, delaying the force of the blow until a later point in time, in the hopes that the enemy would drop down their guard, and find the strike all the more painful. A crack in causality became a road through which misery traveled, like the sins of fathers passed down through time to their sons. Alternatively, under the right circumstances the strike could attack the future itself, carving into potential and possibility to doom the victim to a wretched life.

It felt good to simply Know, without pain and suffering, without the slow grind of failure after failure until knowledge grew from the soil of his efforts. Not a feeling to grow addicted to - consistent hard work built a steely character, free rides a soft one. Still, pleasant to indulge in. "This way of utilizing Emanations… it seems familiar." Gaius muttered to no one in particular.

Surprisingly, 'no one in particular' actually answered. "It is known by all masters of the Dao, deep down. The Eternal Dao is just that, Eternal - it does not exist in a solitary moment in time. Even one's personal Dao existed long before them and will continue to exist after they are gone." The voice was smooth and serene. Almost sweet, despite the detached tone. Its words seemed to resound from within Gaius' own body, yet also from outside. "Hence, when striking the Dao, it is possible to strike across time, even without temporal arts. To reach into the past is a work of great sacrifice, but into the future? Simplicity."

"Who said that?" Gaius asked, looking around. How childish - he'd been so caught up in the lecture, he hadn't even reacted until the voice was done speaking. "That's a nice little joke, but let's talk in person."

"Brother… you're the one who said it." Scylla stammered, backing up warily. "Those words came out of your mind. Or at least, they appeared in your mind; perhaps someone put them there."

"Scylla." Gaius tilted his head, giving the Rainbow Carp an incredulous look to hide the pang of terror that struck him in that moment. "What the fuck are you talking about? How could I have said that if I didn't know it?"

"That's what I felt."

—-

The nineteenth floor, a sprawling plain littered with large stone mechanisms embedded into the ground, was an interesting change of pace. At first Gaius had expected more traps, but soon learned there was no penalty for failure, except to start once more. Every puzzle was different, with all manner of riddles scrawled on the sides, and enough lay scattered about that one could spend years on end befuddled. Gaius was worried, of course - strength did nothing to help him in a place like this.

But as it turns out, he had no reason to care.

"I've seen this one already." said Gaius, sliding his finger across some of the myriad lines in the arrangement in a precise order. This had to be a coincidence, right? It couldn't be so easy! With a loud click, the mechanism locked into place, undoing one of the locks on the door.

The next test, a series of sliding panels on a floating, spherical grid, were no harder. From the churning dark water of his mind, flashes of information bubbled up, memories encountered in his dreams which fit everything before him eerily well. So many decades, so sure he would never, ever escape, and now he was breezing through a chamber with the help of his own delusions?

It couldn't be a coincidence. The caves, did they love him? Did they wish to gobble Gaius up and never let him go, now that they had had a taste? Had he proven himself worthy of being drawn in deeper?

No conundrum placed itself in Gaius' way for long, and he fell into a trance of intense focus, bringing the challenge to its knees in weeks. The way was clear. So taken in by the rush of success and the terror of his dreams seeping into reality, he scarcely noticed as a ray of light was projected upon his body, knitting bones together and cleansing him of exhaustion.

What else was real? The comfort that it had all been a dream had kept Gaius focused so far, but if even a little bit carried a piece of the truth, then he could never know peace again. Like he did so many things, The Seeker resolved to not think about it for now.

—-

The oppressive heat was, inevitably, the first thing Gaius took notice of. It was impossible to ignore, every bit as intense as that radiated by Wei Feng - moreso, in fact. Though strangely, it lacked the feeling of extreme threat and impending doom the Phoenix's heat had carried, despite being objectively greater in intensity.

There was nothing in the room but the enemy. A smooth cylinder of sleek, black obsidian three hundred feet in diameter and one hundred feet tall, the place seemed mathematically designed to accommodate a large, destructive battle without leaving any room for stalling or retreat. The Floor Guardian hovered above the center of the chamber, blazing like the sun.

An amorphous mass of flames with nothing resembling the features of a human, it seemed to burn eternally with no clear source. Lacking anatomy of any kind, it didn't physically turn to look at the entrant so much as shift the direction of its awareness upon him, flaring up in the way an angry cat would puff up its hair. A fire spirit, and a very pure one at that. Gaius' spiritual senses lit up with only a single element, no traces of impurity at all, which surprised him - how could something so monolithic develop a consciousness? Perhaps it had been artificially produced to be a Floor Guardian, or created earlier by a Cultivator who lost their life in the Caves.

The two combatants sized each other up for a moment, as Gaius set Scylla's barrel down by the wall. He cracked his neck as he approached the elemental, golden sparks of pure potential igniting between his fingers. "Alright, now that I've put the baby to bed-"

"Oi!"

"Now that I've given Her Esteemed Royal Majesty a seat from which to view the fight…" Gaius pointed up at the spirit, a little gold bubble blooming on his fingertip like a dewdrop on a blade of grass. "Show me something good."

Another moment passed, and the King began to wonder if this was another treasure room after all. Then, all at once, the Floor Guardian attacked, belching a massive cone of flames, large enough to fill a quarter of the whole chamber. The little Aegis bubble unfolded like a lotus flower, shaping into a pre-casted, thirtyfold barrier.

When Gaius blocked the attack, it nearly blew him away. He cried out in surprise before gritting his teeth and digging his feet into the ground, straining against the heat and pressure before, with an imperious sweep of his hand, diverting the attack to the side. Near-instantaneously, under the cover of its first attack, the spirit launched a second: a more tightly controlled blast, compressed down to a white-hot bead, shot toward Gaius' feet as he swept aside its initial wave.

Gaius jumped, and was propelled faster yet by the resulting pressure wave of the explosion. After three floors of puzzles, traps and silent assassins, the intense noise and brightness felt nearly overwhelming. Moreover, though, Gaius was shocked to see his shield cracking and growing dimmer.

Had something grazed him? He risked a glance downward, only to see that no, he had cleared the blast radius by several feet. He also saw what was once stone, melted into a bright orange soup which quickly cooled to red. Several square feet of it; no wonder convection alone was doing that much damage. Could there really be a Foundation Establishment elemental that fought with such intelligence, and could bring to bear so much power at once?

The spirit pulled its body inward to a small point, glowing near-white, and fired a blast of fire to thick and dense it became a solid beam. Turning sideways, Gaius conjured a platform beneath his feet and pushed off it, propelling himself out of the way. The massive heat struck the wall and sunk in, vaporizing an inch of rock and melting a great deal more. Lesser fire, cooled after the initial collision, rolled in all directions along the rock like a bank of fog.

It was surreal, to see fire act in such a way, but Gaius supposed that when you had enough of something, or an intense enough version, it ceased to resemble a layman's understanding. On top of that, such a powerful attack didn't seem to have drained the elemental much, its body billowing out into a larger area as soon as the attack finished. Experts didn't throw out attacks like that casually - If Gaius had a technique like that as he was now, he doubted he could use it without getting tired after a single shot.

"You're not in Foundation, are you?" Gaius called out, landing gracefully and looking up to stare down the Floor Guardian. It didn't answer, either mindless or just unable to comprehend human speech. Instead, it replied with actions, sprouting several tendrils of tightly-compressed flame and attacking him with them, like the lashing whips of a torturer. Gaius responded in kind by summoning a blade in either hand, battering away the furious attacks one after another.

Keeping the pace too quick for his opponent to charge up another huge attack, Gaius hurled Aegis constructs at his opponent again and again, and was matched in turn by cruder, simpler shapes. Less efficient, but carrying more power, these attacks matched Gaius' full-speed assault, or perhaps exceeded it. He kited around the Floor Guardian, launching constructs from all angles and commanding the shards of destroyed ones to attack as well, but his enemy simply raised the tempo even more.

Bright, flashy attacks, clashing over and over again, lighting up the cavern in a display of dazzling power. Now this was a battle between an immortal and an evil spirit; the sort of thing mortals pictured in their minds when they imagined what Cultivators got up to. There was nothing quite like the rush of taking the whole of one's strength and slamming it into an enemy's until the whole world was drowned out.

Honestly, he wished he had Scylla helping him right now, because this was proving to be an extremely tough challenge. But he'd already told her that he wanted to take point until he got a good enough handle on his control, as there was no way to train down here besides fighting the Floor Guardians. He wasn't about to go back on that agreement and wound his own pride over a little workout!

Gaius flung a circular, many-bladed monstrosity the size of a wagon wheel, the unusual shape courtesy of Long An. It tore through multiple fireballs, before being stopped in its tracks by several tendrils. With a gesture, Gaius commanded the wheel to burst, sending its large blades in all directions, a few of which struck the spirit directly, gausing its flames to gutter a bit. Clenching his fist, he drew the blades back in, impaling his enemy from all sides while it was distracted.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Gaius shouted, hair whipping in the intense gusts of wind produced by the temperature fluctuations. "And now, have some of this!" Drawing his bronze dagger, he gathered many scattered Aegis shards around the blade (no need to be wasteful), molding the light into a huge greatsword, the thick, sturdy blade alone exceeding his own height. For cutting tough customers, nothing else would suffice. With a mighty leap, he rose up to his enemy's height, just as its sheer heat shattered the blades embedded in its body.

Once, twice, thrice, the greatsword cleaved his enemy into distinct pieces, scattering them apart as the two sailed past one another. The spirit let out a snarling sound reminiscent of a burnt, dead tree imploding in on itself, the first sign that Gaius was making any progress at all. Emboldened, he summoned a platform beneath his feet, propelling himself back around to strike again.

He could do it. He could fight Core Formation enemies, with less than a month of practice. It struck Gaius in full in that moment that he was strong, by any reasonable definition; Nascent Souls, the supreme beings in their meager region, were too few and too busy to adjudicate much, leaving Core Formation Elders as the representations of authority, power and subjugation across the Flipper. He could contend with the storied might of those privileged few - he could defeat them.

Yes, this was what he was capable of, Gaius thought as he batted aside several fireballs, the scattered pieces of the spirit independently flinging themselves at him. This was strength, of the type the vast majority of Cultivators could only dream. With a wave of his hand, the Aegis became a ribbon, wrapping up most of the spirit's pieces and binding them tightly. Tighter and tighter they squeezed, and the Floor Guardian cried out, rapidly hemorrhaging qi to keep itself coherent under all this damage.

Gaius landed back on the ground and pulled the ribbon tighter, bringing the full brunt of his physical and spiritual strength to bear to crush his opponent to death. Mastery is not a mountaintop, but an abyss. So what? He would drown it until he was satisfied, he would -

With a loud crack, one piece of the spirit broke out, piercing through its prison with a flame compressed down to a white-hot needlepoint. That thin tendril, with phenomenal speed, spiraled along Gaius' ribbon like ivy creeping up a building. The King grimaced, letting go of his Aegis construct and backing off as the spirit ripped its way out and summoning up another assault. Then, he felt something surging beneath his foot.

With a sharp BANG like a firework going off, the hidden chunk of spirit hopped up a few feet before detonating at point blank, tossing Gaius like a discarded toy as the main body focused on freeing itself.

The Aegis held yet again, though not by much. Gaius skidded to a stop, the last few layers of his shield crumbling away and his body wracked by dry, painful coughs as he tried to get air back into his lungs. He looked down and saw that he'd managed to get his knees under him - good, if Gaius had landed on his back, he wouldn't be fully confident in his ability to get back up. The burning, dizzying sensation of heavy qi drain ate at his insides, making reality darken at the edges of his perception.

Okay, that just sucked. He could kick this thing's ass all day and night, and it would still be raring to go, ready to turn the tables on him the moment he slipped up. The depths of a true Core's stamina boggled the mind.

"It's fucking annoying…" Gaius muttered, pounding the ground before getting up to his feet. Scylla made to join the fray, but he waved her off. The beast companion responded with an annoyed growl, circling in place like a human would pace back and forth, but nonetheless did as she was told and stayed back.

The fire spirit levitated into the air, taking a more amorphous shape, flattening into discs, which themselves spiraled into sharp points all aimed at Gaius. One by one they fired off, and Gaius threw up the Aegis in response.

Fire struck light, and was deflected with mixed success; all of the spears went wide, but only just, shattering Gaius' thirty-layered shield in the endeavor. They passed him by less than a foot, singing his skin from the proximity and burning off a small chunk of hair.

Not one to let such an opening slide, the spirit pulled its flames back together and poured them down toward The Seeker as if they were a liquid, ready to drown him in heat.

Gaius continued ranting, bidding the shards of his shattered barrier to reform between his hands, pouring more qi in to increase its magnitude. "Great Realms are so stark. Everything is either too weak or overwhelming. It just ain't fun!"

Drawing his hand back, Gaius formed a new shield, this one a flat, extremely thin plane, like the edge of a razor stretched to massive size. He flung the plane, which split the oncoming blast in two, then continued onward to bisect the spirit as well. Fire fell on either side of Gaius, hitting the ground and rolling like a fog, before breaking apart into embers and once more returning to the main body.

"This is a challenge for Late Foundation? Normal Late Foundation? Gimme a break!" Gaius scoffed, pointing at the spirit, which was quickly morphing into yet another new shape. "That means you've got a weakness, right? Something someone around that level could exploit." Obviously, it didn't answer him.

So therein lay the question: what was it hiding? What was the gimmick behind this battle?

The two halves of the spirit landed on either side of Gaius, each one throwing out a blast, and he intercepted each one with a shield. Rather than try and fight off both directly, he spun in place, bending both fireballs around himself and throwing each attacker's blast at the other, laced with his own power. When flames, now shot through with golden power, struck the two halves of the elemental, it didn't bother to defend, and was quite shocked to see a chunk get blasted out of both halves of itself.

Flaring up with even greater heat and anger, the halves shot back together, aiming to crush The Seeker between them, with such speed that he barely dodged in time. Gaius cried out in surprise and annoyance, drawing up the qi for a new projection, but was beaten to the punch as the flames engulfed him. Rather than take the time to form a new ranged attack, the fully-conglomerated spirit just bodyslammed him, plowing its burning form right into Gaius' body and detonating.

Gaius hit the ceiling in a split second, cratering it and bouncing off before slamming down to the floor another split second later. He coughed up blood as many of his armor's plates cracked in half from the impact, or broke off entirely. Sensing the next attack coming, he rolled across the ground, which detonated where he had just been, and got himself up to one knee. Just a few seconds after blowing itself up, his amorphous enemy was already partially reconstituted, though it had certainly spent quite a bit of qi just now.

Gaius held a hand to his chest, which burned both literally and figuratively. He'd definitely busted up his ribs, but none seemed to have broken off entirely, which was a good sign. In a fight like this, maintaining perfect qi circulation was vital to keeping up with the opponent - an injured lung was a death sentence. That said, he wasn't keen to take another hit of that scale unguarded - it had been all he could do to protect his head just now.

How many Late Foundation Experts would, in Gaius' position, still be alive by this point? Forget winning, even lasting a while would be a heroic accomplishment - it couldn't be that many, right? So what was the key to victory, for the Late Foundation this floor was meant for?

…or was it even meant for Late Foundation at all? Perhaps it was meant, specifically, for a very, very weak King. Now it all fit together. The pathways split; there wasn't a single Floor 20, but many! This one was meant for Kings, and even the weakest King had a certain special ability.

Gaius opened his third eye, fighting through the sting of smoke and the agonizing brightness of the fire as the world grew far, far too intense. To pull this off, he would need to look very, very closely. In an amorphous creature made of a gaseous substance, or something even less tangible like fire, the Golden Core wouldn't be something as simple as a solid organ. There would be some corresponding component, analogous to it in the same way an organ was to an animal.

Another wave of fire hit the ground, and Gaius leapt upward as it rolled across the stone, charring black the few untouched patches. He formed another multitudinous shield as a thick beam of flame caught him mid air, then stretched it into a sphere as the beam split into a dragon head, clamping down from above and below. The momentum of the blast flung Gaius into the wall, and he let himself sink in, rushing up to the ceiling and emerging upside down like a bat.

He took another moment to observe the fire spirit's body. It had seemed like nothing more than a field of consciousness giving form to a mass of raw elemental qi, but there was a little more to it. From the way the flames spat and the black smoke which emanated from the spirit, it wasn't a pure flame. There was a chemical reaction going on, some kind of combustion which fueled its strength - that chemical, then, would be the core. He had to look closer.

Releasing himself from the stone, Gaius fell, and the elemental noticed him perhaps a second too late. Twirling to narrowly avoid a haphazard spray of heat, Gaius threw up the thickest shield he could manage and fell through his enemy. It lasted perhaps a tenth of a second, but the heat of its insides, even when not directed as an attack, were sufficient to burned through most of his shield's layers in that time.

Chasing the King as he fell, the fire spirit screamed furiously, plummeting down, its next attack a moment away. Gaius looked up and sneered at it, and pictured his hand reaching out to seize a little golden pearl. "Sorry, I already found it."

All of a sudden, the assault ceased, the living conflagration taking on a stillness it had never before exhibited, and not by its own choice. Gaius landed unmolested, and knew in that moment that he had found his target, had brushed his will up against the intended method of passing this chamber. The motes of black smoke which trailed the elemental, traced back to the source, led to a fine powder. A dull gold, it was spread evenly throughout the spirit's form, burning slowly and releasing a great upheaval of energy as it did. Still, all of those particles made up one singular weakness.

What followed was not a physical attack, or even a spiritual one. It was an assault on an idea, on the simplistic concepts and primordial will which made up the Dao of this Floor Guardian. It was not a philosophy which could be expressed in human language, or even fully comprehended by a human mind, but it was real all the same.

Gaius wrapped his will around it and held on tight. With a thrust and a squeeze and a twist, he throttled its Core, plummeting its qi output and making its soul gutter like an incense flame. That little thing, at the core of such a mighty being, was as fragile as a glass egg.

"You've got no principles, and you think you can challenge me?" Gaius snarled, clenching his fist and causing most of the Floor Guardian's body to evaporate into smoke, writhing furiously to try and reassemble. "Get out of my sight."

With an ear-piercing crack, its Golden Core broke entirely, throwing its body and soul into disarray. Rapidly discorporating, the spirit shrieked feebly as Gaius and Scylla inhaled its qi. The fantastic reserves of a Protodragon and a King could hold it all easily. It burned going down, like a strong alcohol, as its final thrashings tore at their insides. In half a minute, it was over.

Sit. Cultivate. The same as all the other times. With those five years of imprisonment being the exception, Gaius was amazed by the sheer quality of the materials he had been provided, and the speed of his progress. Take out that chamber, and just by winning some battles, He had performed the work of decades over a few months of delving.

He wasn't so naive as to believe the other shoe would never drop; he only hoped to be prepared when it did.

—-

God damn, this is getting long. I had originally intended to do 14-25 as one chapter, but that's become totally infeasible. Instead, here's 14-20, with 21-25 on its way soon, after which Gaius' time in the Foundation floors will be taken care of and I'll be able to finish another crucial chapter.

I've completely given up on Wuxia-style technique names at this point. I just don't really vibe with them that well, and I've found they're harder to come up with. So I'm just gonna stick with familiar territory and use shonen-style technique names instead.

The original fate text had the twentieth floor guardian being a clone of Gaius, but I had no interest in that angle. He already fought an evil clone of himself back when he visited the Qiguai Realm, so I didn't have anything to explore there that I didn't already explore last time. This is part of why the golem clone fight earlier in this arc was also pretty short - I couldn't think of anything interesting to do with it.

Also, for those of you who are wondering: Yes, Scylla gets to do a whole lot more impressive stuff later on. I just decided that, given the circumstances, it would make sense for Gaius to want to do all the fighting for the first chunk of floors after his ascension, to try and get a handle on his Dao Magic. I wrote floors 12, 16, 17 and 20 to be a gradual progression of that, with Gaius gaining an acceptable level of baseline control until he can fully function as you'd expect a Stage One King to. Now that he's finished the tutorial, he and Scylla can cut loose.

Kleisthenes dipped her quill in the ink.

The ink was some absurd poison made a few decades ago by some poison master or another. It poisoned memory, and only the recipients of the message held antidotes. Unless you were a powerful Core Formation Elder or a Nascent, you simply couldn't remember what you read as you read it - it'd fade too fast to even communicate it to someone else. Of course, she was writing in a cipher, but one could never be too careful.

This letter is reaching a certain number of elite disciples of varying cultivations. Naturally, most of you are Foundation Establishment and so the main thrust of this missive is directed at you, yet a number of Qi Condensation disciples have tasks we wish to accomplish as well. Much of our strength is now given towards the task of preparing for the Trials, and so it falls to our elites to accomplish a great many tasks. I ask you to go beyond your capabilities, in truth, but we have always demanded more than our backs can bear.

There are several important tasks I wish to accomplish, and the Grand Elder has given over to me the disposition of many of our finest cultivators.

Firstly, we Seek the Seven Ingredients. There is a particular alchemical recipe I am in search of myself, a powerful weapon to be used against a potential foe. Many of these ingredients are in Demonic-held or Righteous-held land where we will not be welcomed. Below here are seven droplets of ink, each a memory-poison that will wipe a number of letters from the below ciphered text. Upon taking one you will be able to see the ingredient I seek. If all seven are returned, much could be gained. For Qi Condensation juniors, we seek the Three Oxides (which together form one of the Seven Ingredients), a set of metals long gone to rust or the like, hidden within the Gao Clan territory. They would make what I seek somewhat more effective - and as I understand it, are sealed within a Blacksmithing Trial limited to those of Qi Condensation.

Secondly, The Yuan Parasites must be carefully delivered. The Grand Elder has bred alongside Lady Yao a set of peculiar parasitic creatures capable of replacing various Yuan Experts for some time, subsuming their wills and causing them to be kept as puppets for many years. Such a thing would never work if there were no civil war ongoing, but if used solely against the Blood Path rebels we should be able to gain a great amount of information, creating fake double-agents to gain ever-more information. With sufficient use we should be able to manipulate the rebellion against the Yuan at our whim. For Qi Condensation disciples, you will be entrusted with lesser puppets, capable of forcing various Blood Path rebels into mad and frenzied attacks to help manoeuvre events in our favour.

Lastly, the Turtlebone Mountain Mine must be braved. A pit which Elder Duca has great interest in, we are aiming to retrieve a small amount of Turtle-Ore. This is a difficult task, but she has convinced me it may have great applications for the upcoming Trials. It has various grades, but unfortunately most Core Formation Elders are simply far more likely to attract attention from the Nascent Beasts that dwell there. Foundation and Qi Condensation alike have differing grades of ore we aim to retrieve - what they can be used for is in confidence, even for a letter such as this. Nonetheless, make no mistake in thinking that this might make a substantial difference in forty years time.

I leave it up to you as to what you choose to do. These tasks are all of great importance to the Optimatoi. The rewards are detailed below - for those of you in unorthodox cultivation realms or simply needing great cultivation resources, you are unlikely to find a better source than this.

- Second Elder Kleisthenes Sarantapechos

There. The letter was complete. There were a very small number of exceptional juniors she would send this to. Less than two hundred, in truth. But such matters were delicate, and each risked Nascent retribution if done clumsily or poorly. Finding out they were seeking the Droplet of Rust and Ruin? Parasites to consume the wills of human beings to infiltrate the Yuan? Infuriating those beasts on Turtlebone Mountain? No, every mission here had to be left to the very best.

Hopefully this should be a shorter turn!

The plan is as follows:

1 - Destasia's beast
2 - More Key info via meditation
?? - Maybe.. a Nascent fight? Who knows.
3 - Maps for the turn
3.1 - Yuan
3.2 - Scorpions
3.3 - Northern Jingshen territory
4 - New Manual secret-ferreting post
5 - Tisamenos
6 - More Wei Princess

Second last - Yuan Spies/mission results - contingent to a degree on Mission success
Last - Rust and Ruin/mission results - contingent to a degree on Mission success
Actually Last - Turtlebone Mission results