Gaius entered the Cloud Caves.
Floor 1
Gaius, in a moment of hubris, decides to simply avoid the obstacles on the first floor, his Earth-Gliding to his eyes sufficient to slip through the floor and move onwards. The walls and floor simply reject him at first, and he is spat out at force, mudded and painful Qi thrown into his meridians. He finds himself Lightly Wounded for his trouble, and must prepare to try again.
Thankfully after an embarrassing start, Gaius clears his way through the first floor. He harvests the Echo of Song (+1 Impact) from a creature that appears to be growing a new blade from its body, gnawing on minerals and plants alike to form a proto-Songblade much like the one Konstantinos gained.
The Echo of Song is almost conceptual, the potential of a musical note sung by a blade yet to come into existence.
Floor 2
The second floor proves no more troublesome, a bunch of powerful Carrion Bats slain, each yielding a Carrion Cores (+5 cultivation years), powerful Beast-Cores that allow the consumption of other beasts quickly.
Floor 3
The third level contains a peculiar trial, the Darksilk Spiders. Their threads are being spun to replace the treasures once taken, but they are spun out of the skein of fate, their ability to hit and strangle their enemies gained by constraining the fates around them.
A single thread of Darksilk Gaius obtains from his trial, representing the narrowing of the possibilities of his enemies, and the expansion of his own. (+1 Impact)
Floor 4
At the fourth level, Gaius finds a small cache of blood, and on finding it he is compelled to drink it. He finds himself strengthened (+5 cult-years) and moves on.
Floor 5
The fifth level sees him finding the Trueblood Tree, the source of the former blood. A powerful tree, it does not permit him to get close, but sprinkles blood on him, healing him of his Light Wounds.
(1-step heal)
Floor 6
The sixth floor sees him walk into a Bloodforge Array - the same Konstantinos was led into many years ago. While not fully recharged and refilled with blood, the reward is sufficient to push him forward by 10 cultivation-years.
Floor 7
The seventh level is... peculiar. He has a vision of the past, or perhaps it is the future. He is dying, and around him all he loves are dying. Standing above him is a grim-faced old man with a face of bronze. He tries to fight the vision and it fades away, fate twisting as he proceeds onwards.
Gain 1 gimped reroll (reroll with -30 penalty in the event of a failure)
Floor 8
On the 8th level, he simply butchers his way through the lesser creatures in front of him.
As a reward, he gains a single piece of Invisible Wood from the Trueblood Tree, and shapes it into the Invisible Arrow (+1 Impact).
Not overly powerful, but incredibly hard to detect.
Floor 9
On the 9th Level, he faces a few Qi-Draining Bats from the level above, and finds them to be no great challenge. Able to use his Earthgliding to move into the earth a way, provided he does not try and breach the barrier between levels, they are unable to wear him down.
As a reward he is infused with healing light, which sits under his skin in waiting.
Floor 10
At the 10th level, he faces the Qi-Draining Bats in their tens of thousands, far more than Konstantinos faced.
But they are no match for him, and he strides through. Where Konstantinos found the Vial of Ascension Blood, Gaius found something else. A single droplet of pure blood, that leapt into him and infused itself into him. He fought it, his will struggling against it until he mastered it. With it came memories of wielding a powerful Stone Spear, using it to strike down a Spirit Severing cultivator as though they were nothing. Memories of the Spear drinking their blood and power, their memories becoming his. He remembers being a cultivator of the Fifth Sea, though his name escapes him.
He remembers the Hunt, slaying a demon in Spirit Severing. Some old ghost who had slept under a mountain for thousands of years, hibernating to save the other demons in times of trouble. Preparing for his victorious return to his own Sea, and seeing...
Something. Even the fragment of memory leaves him in agonizing pain, and Gaius finds himself close to death, unable to move. Desperately, he spits the blood out before it fuses into him, but the fragmented memories remain.
He is unhurt after it leaves him, but a few more seconds and he would have passed away.
Only his will to resist saved his life.
Three levels were practically unseen by Jin Muyi, and the records Muyi left were few of these places.
Floor 11
The eleventh level is simply fire, a massive conflagration of misery and death. Earth-gliding serves him well once again. From it he gains the Forge-Fire (+2 Impact) a fire that can be bestowed on any weapon he uses, allowing him to shape and reshape it at will.
Floor 12
The twelfth level is difficult. A clone of Gaius is created, but the mechanism that does so is incomplete. Improper.
It creates something at Core Formation strength, a clone hunting him down relentlessly.
(Gimped reroll used)
The old man who was about to kill him in his vision whispers to him, guiding him on a path to avoid it through the earth and around other creatures. Gaius runs to the end of the trial just as his clone is about to strike him down, and it dissolves into a puddle of Qi and flesh.
However, from this he gains enlightenment into the nature of the Core, and gains +20 cultivation-years from the burst of Qi.
Floor 13
Finally, the thirteenth level. It is empty, and seemingly vast and endless.
Time itself slows, and Gaius spends five years of his life there, though he experiences five hundred. It tests him in comprehension of the Dao, strength of the soul, and ability to retain his self.
The majority of the life he has lived has been in this endless void of contemplation and testnig.
It is designed to shatter his Dao, to weaken his resolve, to test him to the very limits, and yet he comes out after five hundred years unbowed, the madness of a King overpowering the normal madness of mortal men.
At the very end is a single character floating in the air, blood-red.
攀
Climb, scramble, clamber. Ascend.
Tribulation treasure gained.
And ascend he does. Tribulation lightning strikes, and Gaius steps outside of the Caves for a moment, the symbol taking him... elsewhere.
In the sky across the entirety of the Region, every cultivator feels the heavenly lightning mount and aim to slay him, sees the blood-red mists of something insidious and malicious protect him.
When he returns, the character has changed.
观
He touches it, and is struck by a vision of his own ascension.
There are no insights to be gleaned there, though, not for him.
Floor 14
He is powerful, but this power comes with new requirements. His usage of Qi is thousands of times what he consumed previously, and while his Dao-effects are absurd, they take some getting used to. A tremendous creature forged from human body parts - eyes and lips and feet and teeth - is slain by him easily, but there are two to face.
He is exhausted and unable to move, unused to his new power. It crushes him into the ground, Wounding him in the process. Suddenly, light flares, healing the worst of the damage so that he's left only Lightly Wounded instead.
A few moments later he is recovered, and tears it to shreds.
The true weakness of a King is not his power but his endurance, not the size of his army but that of his treasury.
A lesson others learned more slowly, but Gaius must learn quickly.
He consumes the beast-core, gaining +5 cultivation-years.
Floor 15
The 15th floor contains the Burning Clouds, but they are no match for the Earth-Glider. Despite being a King, his trusty technique is more useful here than overpowering the environment.
He is given the Blessing of Fire (+1 Impact), allowing him to reduce damage from fire, and absorb limited amounts of Fire Qi.
Floor 16
The 16th floor is a series of golems, but he overwhelms them. They seem to come back to life relentlessly, he dominates them, and after their third defeat they are compelled to obey him. Their leader offers him its single Golem-Core (+1 Impact) there that allows him to create and command a single golem at a low Foundation Establishment level himself.
Floor 17
The Poison Jungle is dangerous - Jin Muyi consumed it more than it consumed him, but for Gaius it proves difficult. He reaches the end, his body filled with poisons he is barely holding off. At the end is the Purifying Antidote, which fuses with the poisons and grants him +5 cultivation-years.
Floor 18
The 18th floor is a series of poison traps, but the Purifying Antidote allows Gaius to slip through easily enough. Another droplet of blood awaits, but this one is a simple memory of a technique, fusing into his body and granting him the Future-Poisoning Dao Strike. A strike against an enemy that sits inside the folds of time insidiously, waiting until their weakest moment, to strike at their Dao when they are most vulnerable.
(+1 Impact).
Floor 19
The 19th floor is a series of puzzles, which Gaius solves easily enough. Most of these puzzles were solved by Gaius years ago in his time of enforced solitude on the 13th floor, and he moves through with ease.
The healing light returns, but this time it is blood-red, infusing itself into his body for later use.
(1-step heal)
Floor 20
On the 20th floor, a creature of immense power faces him, a reflection of himself made of fire and wrath and light. It is his former Core clone, but made more powerful, more vengeful, and he is forced to fight it. It Wounds him as he runs low on Qi.
He manages to strike it down, its Core facing his Dao and shattering against his will. Here he gains an insight into cultivation once more, his clone made of Qi he can absorb with ease, bringing him another +15 cultivation-years.
Floor 21
The 21st floor is easier, offering a drop of blood lit aflame. Despite his protests, it enters him, and enhances his soul. The Will of Fire (+2 Impact) grants him a defense against soul attacks - those who target them with him are lit aflame themselves, their souls suffering as they strike at him.
Floor 22
The 22nd floor is a Qi-draining maze, a true trap that could well kill him. Yet he survives, and learns to control his endless use of Qi, mastering the passive drain of his new powers as well as he can. A maze Muyi was trapped in for years contained Gaius for merely three weeks, and at the end he gains a Young Qi Seed, a seed not nearly finished growing (+10 cultivation-years).
Floor 23
The 23rd floor is nothing to him. He butchers his way through, his new abilities making a thousand Foundation foes easy enough to butcher. He finds a Vine Fragment here, an echo of a lost hero. It does not remember anything, but it has enough energy to protect him in his direst need, if only a little (low-power LST - 1 stage only).
Floor 24
From the 24th floor, he descends past a giant. It never sees him, and he moves into a seal. It whispers to him of futures yet to come, futures that may not pass. A strange calm settles on him, and he moves with new purpose. (1 gimped reroll, -30)
Floor 25
On the 25th floor there sits a fine teahouse, with waiters made from corpse-pieces and overgrown with plants. They invite him in.
In there sits a man, the very image of Jin Muyi.
He inclines his head to Gaius, and at that moment he is overpowered. His will, his strength, his everything are nothing compared to the will of this creature.
It invites him to sit.
"I am Ji Shin", it speaks. As it speaks, the form shifts, taking that of a woman. Then of a Fifth Sea cultivator. Then of a Clan cultivator, aged and bent. Then a baby, then a giant of a man, then a beautiful girl.
The words it speaks he cannot truly hear, and as each once is spoken he forgets it, unable to hold onto the truths to be delivered.
It looks at him, disappointed.
"You are my Master's legacy?"
It sighs, and shakes its head.
"If you cannot understand this much, I don't see what the point of you is. Here."
The tea-leaves float to the surface of the pot, forming two characters.
消耗
The characters are absolute, and Gaius tries to comprehend them. He cannot. He wakes up bleeding from the nose, the symbol echoing in his mind. Almost if they were written ironically in some way, despite being completely honest.
The floor is empty, and he continues on his way.
Floor 26
The 26th floor should have been difficult, but it is not. Core Formation for a Single Pillar King is always a roll of the dice, and here it is ease. A single Core Formation owl, but recently hatched from an egg. Gaius kills it, eating another egg he finds (+10 cultivation-years).
Floor 27
The 27th floor is misery entire. An invisible creature stalks Gaius - inaudible, unseeable, unsmellable. Only the tiniest fluctuations of its Qi reveal it, and it strikes him down again and again and again, carving into him.
His vision fades, and the feeling he has leaves him, and as the first blow comes he counters it, finding the creature as it strikes in vulnerability. He kills it in a single blow, gaining +5 cultivation-years from the explosion of Qi released upon its death.
Floor 28
The 28th floor is, as it so happens, a giant cauldron. To cook him with flame, and to tenderise him with blows from cannons afar.
Still, it seems awfully placid, barely confronting him at all as he forces his way through with his Dao-sorcery.
At the end he gains a piece of Seer Jade (+1 Impact). Predicting the future is difficult at best, and even a Seer's Jade will only aid in such scrying.
Floor 29
The 29th floor is a hellscape. Thousands upon thousands of golems, of bloodthirsty plants, of rampaging animals.
All in Core Formation levels of strength.
Gaius is overwhelmed, suffering wound upon wound, beaten back to the door after being impaled through entirely. He would have been Crippled if the Vine Fragment did not suddenly extend in a powerful burst, sending him to the door far faster than he otherwise would. Still, he takes enough injury that he's Badly Wounded.
A second attempt is made, and he manages to make it through. The healing light returns, deeply blood-red, almost black.
He feels a lust for blood, a lust to consume arise, but it heals him a little as well.
1 heal-step.
Floor 30
The 30th floor is a restaurant. Nine floors, each requiring him to eat a meal that is harder to keep down than the previous. One meal nearly kills him, another requires him to roll dice - and if he does not roll three sixes, he must eat it again.
He spends a year unluckily on the eighth floor, eating almost thirty meals a day.
By the time he is finished, he has eaten nearly ten thousand roast duck dishes, each seasoned with far too much horseradish.
The ninth floor he dominates with relative ease, and reaching the end of it he meets Ji Shin again.
The plant-monster cuffs him around the ear.
"Idiot. If you eat in the restaurant, you never learn to cook."
With a single blow Ji Shin demolishes a wall, and drags Gaius down to the ground, where he brings him to a small and simmering pot.
"You know why you'll never amount to anything? Because you're on the thirtieth floor of another restaurant. You're a useful puppet, but you can't be more than that."
The plant-man looks exasperated.
"None of you can. You're waiters, you're chefs, you're servers, but you don't decide. None of you can decide anything. Fate-"
His voice cuts out.
Ji Shin speaks words Gaius knows, but no meaning can be extracted from them.
"-So that concludes the explanation. The Heavens, my master, everything. Do you understand?"
Gaius looks at him blearily, and the soup bot boils over. A bolt of lightning appears and burns the plant-man into nothingness.
A cloud of blood rushes up, consuming the lightning, repairing a gaping hole of light that had appeared.
The soup ingredients boil to the top, forming into another pair of symbols.
解放
Gaius is still unable to move, and the soup spills over onto him.
It burns in a way that no water should, searing through his being, surely Crippling him if it wasn't for the use of a treasure. As it was, he is Wounded instead.
Floor 30
The 31st floor is empty, Heavenly Lightning striking down beast after beast as Gaius walks through.
Clouds form from nothing, divine power clashing with the blood-red fog that seeks to overwhelm it.
At the end, the blood-red mists surround him, fusing into his body as he descends. (+10 cultivation-years)
Floor 32-33
The 32nd and 33rd floors are much the same, a war between the Caves and Heaven itself, though the Caves begin to win as Gaius dodges through.
At the end of the 33rd he finds a hilt for a sword. Next to it is a note. "I thought you might need this."
The Swordless Hilt (+2 Impact) can bear any blade.
The note crumbles to dust as he touches it.
It had been there for thousands of years, if not longer.
Gaius is weakened drastically, the Caves draining his power to form a single droplet of blood. It hovers next to him, prepared to save him.
Floor 34
This proved prescient, as on the 34th floor he faces a hundred of the previous Core Formation owls he fought before.
Quick and angry, the use of his blood droplet allows him to avoid certain death, though he is Badly Wounded.
On a the second try he sneaks through, too weakened to fight them outright. The caves have returned to normality, and with this victory comes a single egg at the peak of the Core Formation stage.
Gaius somehow knows how to cook it perfectly - he does, gaining +10 cultivation-years.
Floor 35
The 35th floor is difficult - a maze that takes him a year to solve. The qi-draining atmosphere appears to ignore him, and he makes it through, gaining a gimped reroll (-30).
Floor 36
This piece of fate is immediately used on the 36th floor, and Gaius is struck again. More wounds leave him Crippled entirely.
One Single Pillar King facing ten thousand Core Formation creatures of monstrous strength, each bent on killing him. None of them, ironically, can sense under the soil.
At the end of the floor he is given a single piece of Bloodmetal (+1 Impact).
An excellent foundation metal for a weapon.
Floor 37
The 37th floor has more monsters, but they let him pass, giving him +5 cultivation-years worth of Qi as they bow to him, clouds of blood surrounding them and herding them away.
Floor 38
A massive Flame-Spirit faces him here. Yet its weaknesses were three - speed, thought, and will. Muyi was not a cultivator of will, and Gaius was.
A contest of wills and souls, with Gaius succeeding. The flame-spirit assists him through the trial, unlocking a massive gate of flame.
Inside is a cloud of black blood, denser than water.
It heals him completely.
Floor 39
Gaius again finds himself struck down on entering, an early Nascent Scorpion idly throwing a pebble at him every ten seconds. Badly Wounded, he dives into the earth.
The second time, however, he sees the rhythm of the pebble-throwing, avoiding them one by one despite their impossible speed and power. At the end of the floor the scorpion comes to meet him.
It stings him, venom flooding into his brain. Prescience arises, and he can see the future. Only briefly, but within this space he is all-knowing (reroll).
Floor 40
Gaius enters the fortieth floor.
It is... odd.
Space is twisted, time seems to run backwards in places he can see and carefully avoids to treading near.
He dodges a spear, and then a bolt of pure fire strikes out through what seems like a hole in the world.
"Little spy. You think yourself capable of looking at the past of a Callista? Know sorrow for your arrogance."
It Lightly Wounds him the bolt losing energy as it does so. To travel so far into the future and harm someone?
Impossible.
Time cracks as he does so, the room splitting in two. Ji Shin appears again, haggard and aflame.
"Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. You lack comprehension and talent. I said this plan would never work and yet I demanded it all the same! I said. I said. I said. I am. I said."
His words trail off, repeating for almost a minute.
The loop of time he was trapped within degrades, and he appears again, flesh rotting even as it burns.
"Broken time. Broken space. Broken Laws. Broke it all. Idiot. Idiot. Why can't any of you see?"
"Heaven's characters. Heaven's speech. The Imperator and the Emperor. Not at all the same. But the words. You can't understand them if I speak them because then they're true."
Ji Shin reaches down and traces characters on the ground.
保存它们
"If you try and tell the truth it doesn't work. Never works. Kill them all. Kill them all. You have to lie every time. Lies wrapped in lies wrapped in lies except all the lies have to be true. If you can't tell a true lie than you can't ever tell the truth."
His body shakes, and an arm falls off.
"Ninety-Nine Seas."
With the last word he speaks, lightning obliterates him.
An echo of those words is heard, but in Gaius's mind alone.
