Once upon a time Johnson had been below the notice of his father. Johnson had a choice to make. Should he follow the beaten path and focus all his attention on his mind or forge his own destiny with pathways. There were consequences for his actions. If his father ever found out he would be penalized for wasting family resources. As a man of house Farron, he could go his own way and leave the resources of the house behind. It wasn’t greed that drove him down the unconquered path. He desired one thing guaranteed to all children in Scale village freedom. He would use his brother’s progress with cyber cultivation and match it with his own pathway cultivation.
A pile of notebooks rested on a wooden desk in his workshop. Each were worn out from countless nights scribbling. Pages were color coated with expensive dyes. Books made of paper were expensive too expensive for any but a member of a clan. They were the only place to store his knowledge that couldn’t be hacked.
“So, you store your sins in these.” Caleb Saxon said in a seemingly disinterested voice. “Why hide them here out in the open instead of on one of your many hard drives? Surely a closed system is safe.” Caleb said.
“Mayhap I’m vain, I see myself as one of the ancients scribbling the foundation of cyber cultivation. Though in those days there was no name for the ancient martial power.” Johnson provided. “I heard you were leaving soon.” He saw Caleb as the ideal man of a house. His red hair was cut short and his face clean shaven. As a 3rd stage body cultivator of the Iron Monger style he was practically made of steel. There was hardly any fat on his friend’s body despite his wealthy upbringing. He was lean and broad of shoulder. An Iron Monger body cultivator’s strength was in their defensive powers.
“All it would take would be an overly curious servant droid. Then all your hiding would be in vain. That would surely end your delusions of matching your ancient ancestors. Have you begun creating forms for your pathway cultivation?” Did he want a demonstration?
Johnson moved opening his mouth wide and reaching out his hands to either side. The effects were swift. His qi swirled through his 2nd stage pathways pulling hard on the vital energy in the air. Soon every bit of vital energy in the workshop was drawn into Johnson’s pathways and was immediately taken to be processed into qi. Suddenly the workshop was a place devoid of vital energy. A rarity said to only happen near powerful monsters.
For a moment Caleb looked around marveling at what Johnson had accomplished before a swift tap form him knocked Johnson’s breath away. Johnson lost focus and vital energy swept into the area quickly filling the gap.
Johnson focused back on Caleb letting his pathways relax. Mimicking a powerful monster wasn’t easy, he didn’t know how they kept up the process passively.
“Don’t do that in front of anyone but me. If your father saw that he would know you weren’t cultivating your family’s style. I still don’t understand why you don’t try both.” Johnson caught his breath and eased himself up off the ground.
“I’m terrible at body cultivation and the mind arts are so easy, I can advance them at any time. Once I’m 18 my father will let me go see the world. If I master pathway cultivation it will make the other two types much easier. Mayhap I will go out and learn multiple styles. Are you leaving soon?” Johnson asked his friend again.
“Don’t get caught John even I get warry when you blank out a spot. We Saxon’s are trained to notice areas of Null. There are occasionally monster infiltrators.” Then his friend pulled out a chair and sat down. “As for my leaving I’ll be gone by morning. I came to say goodbye. There is a chance I could die out there or meat a flesh and blood girl. Maybe I will shack up with a monster and become a shame to my house. I can already hear my father curse my birth.”
Johnson looked down at his collection of diaries. They were physical things worth a lot. Well they were to him. On his desk was a book he wrote instructing a beginner on the ways of pathway cultivation. It included all his failings, traps, and how he rose above his limits. It was the history of his effort and priceless. He picked it up and handed it to Caleb. “Here take it maybe you’ll learn something.”
“John I can’t take this.” Caleb said and quickly read through some of the pages. “It contains the secrets to your cultivation. It belongs to the Farron family.”
“I wrote it and your more of a brother to me than my actual brothers. Mayhap that is a product of my own secrets. Either way take it my friend either use it to start your own pathway cultivation or trade it in a time of need. Its yours.” Johnson said. Caleb scrambled out of his chair and bowed lowly.
“This is truly a splendid gift. I will cherish it on my travels.” Caleb said.
Johnson opened his eyes briefly seeing Doll watching the door as his pathways ached like he’d never felt before. That’s right he had given Caleb a gift before his friend left and even called him brother. It seemed the mental cultivation was already assisting his memory. Caleb was his dearest friend and that didn’t change the fact his friend was making a terrible mistake.
Marriage into one of the royal houses. That never ends well for a Farron and he doubted the Saxons had better luck. This was a plot of some sort and his friend would pay for it. Before he could stick his nose in his friend’s business, he needed to finish this.
Nine pills remained, and it was time to bring his pathways to the next level. To build a new grander road the former road had to be destroyed. A practice he had started since the 3rd stage. One could only shore up the cracks and fill potholes for so long. The dull ach from his pathways were about to get much worse.
His qi was moved by his mind. Cultivating his mind to the next level had boosted his mental partitioning by a magnitude. Before he couldn’t divide his mental efforts in two without an ill effect. That was stage 1 at the lowest level. By reaching stage 2 he could partition 10 times as much. In a sense he could divide a problem into 10 parts and work those parts simultaneously. The most common use of the ability was passive techniques. He could direct a stream of thought to maintain his monstrous vital energy absorption. That would free up his actual conscious mind for 9 other passive techniques.
Right now, he needed to destroy his current pathways a little at a time and rebuild them better than before. All the while, he needed to keep a tight hold on his qi. One misstep and he could ruin any chance at cultivating further. Goodbye immortality.
He began by making a pipeline that carried vital energy away from his normal pathways. There was no reason to force his pathways to manipulate both qi and vital energy. In many pathway cultivation tomes, the meridians are set in stone they are a constant. Because they are constant, they can only be strengthened or repaired never remade. It wasn’t until he was stuck with a massive blockage that he realized he could make new pathways. By cutting the flow of energy to a part of his meridians and guiding his qi through creating another path, he was able to remove blockages. Once a pathway was removed qi could be used to transfer the dead pathways to be processed into qi.
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Vital energy wanted to follow the path of least resistance and the body wanted to turn vital energy into qi. Qi could be directed by the mind. Qi was not a danger to his pathways. He could direct it passively with of his streams of thought.
This meant that when he absorbed vital energy through his stomach or lungs, he needed to transfer it to be cycled through his body. In a sense he needed to make a channel lock for his pathways. A trick he had mastered in his fourth stage. Though never had he redesigned his system completely. There was normally a remnant of the old system.
It took him a few hours to finish up the boring work of converting his old pathway system to the new one. This new system was built to take in vast amounts of vital energy and convert it at an efficient pace. As it was added a lock cut the flow of vital energy into manageable chunks to be converted to qi quickly.
When completed, he felt his pathways evolve from stage 5 to stage 6. The change was sudden. His pathways took to the new system and stabilized. The vital energy trapped in his pathways flowed through him as he cycled converting at an incredible rate. He had turned himself into a qi producing machine.
He stood up and looked himself over in the mirror again. His body looked terrible. Brown sludge smeared his skin and his body had become skinny. Most of the fat had burned away to feed his growing musculature. Still it wasn’t enough to make him handsome like Caleb. He would need a lot more than a single stage of body cultivation to achieve such a feat.
“You look terrible.” Doll said.
“Thank you, I feel terrible.” Johnson said.
“Then you should fulfil your purpose while you can. Not everyone can execute their programming.” Doll said in a bitter tone. Johnson swallowed another pill and felt himself focus on his new pathways.
It didn’t take long before he returned to cycling breathing deeply as his pathways took in the massive vital energy the pill provided. This time there was hardly any strain. He had rebuilt his pathways to handle large quantities of vital energy. Every time the pressure seemed to become too much the lock turned dumping out a new payload of vital energy for his body to change into qi. This new qi he fed to his mental cultivation.
Everyone had a different personification of their mental cultivation. Some saw it as hardware. Others as a massive brain that they make larger. For the Farron they saw it as a complicated program with a multitude of files and functions working together to form something greater than their parts. Johnson was no different. He adjusted his program using the ludicrous amount of qi provided by the pill. Months’ worth of vital energy was converted into qi and used to rewrite his mental cultivation.
Not only did he have loops in his mental cultivation he added arrays. Now he could store data in multiple points using far more data. In an instant he created a simple system to allow him greater access to his body, pathways, and mind.
Qi Allocation System Initializing
3
2
1
Cstyle++: Mind stage 3 Array qi required next 50,000
NStyle: Body stage 1 body cleansing qi required next 5000
EStyle: Pathways Stage 6 Redundancy qi required next 2,000,000
Vital energy units 5000 of 5,000,000
Qi units 100,000 of 1,000,000
The system was simple for now. His brothers had their systems, his uncles had theirs, and his father had one of his own. The creation of a system was something he shouldn’t have put off. A system allowed a cyber cultivator to keep track of their progress and advance much more quickly in all fields. Still certain steps in cultivation took years. Then there was the fact that if you didn’t know how to use an array or loop to improve upon your cultivation it could kill you. Aneurisms were common among mental cultivators. Just as blood clots were common among meridian cultivators and cancer body cultivators.
Since he was on a roll, he called upon the vector class and used them as he rewrote the code in his mind. He used up 50,000 units of qi in his first attempt. Johnson wasn’t the best with vectors. He quickly added pointers and references to ease up on the stream of consciousness cost. When it was all said and done, he had a horrible headache and nearly 1000 streams of consciousness. Though 90% of those were holding his system together.
He felt a warm hand wipe the blood off his face. “Doll what’s wrong?”
“You’re bleeding, I don’t think you will die but it isn’t good.” He looked at her and felt his qi within her. It made her his more than anything.
“Thank you, I’m a mess.” He nearly said mayhap. It was a word he tried to stop saying. Ever since he started reading old works of fantasy mayhap found its way into his everyday language. “Perhaps, I should purchase a day at the cleaners just the two of us. I’m sure you could use a touch up on oils.”
“If that is your wish then, I will go be cleaned with you.” She said neutrally. The rag smelled of petroleum jelly. An oil that most androids had to rub themselves with daily to take care of their skin.
Cstyle++: mind stage 4 1,000,000 to next
Qi units 12,000 of 1,000,000
It was the difference between 4 and 5. Accessing the fifth stage allowed a member of house Farron access to changing variables. Even constant ones like those that sealed him in here. With this single advancement he could finally reclaim all the technology lost to him. But he still had 8 pills. Did he grab the wrong ones? Where they meant to kill him instead of teaching him a hard lesson? Well he wasn’t a cowardly like those of the Merc house. He would use them all or die trying.
He needed to create ten different functions for this last step and bind them together to complete stage 5. That was one reason why the jump from stage 4 to 5 was so expensive.
Johnson swallowed the next pill shortly after shutting himself off from his desires. The raw vital energy hit his system ever greater than before. It seemed the pills weren’t equal not by a long shot. Still his pathways were remade for this type of pill. His channel locks worked dumping only as much vital energy as his qi could handle into this system. As his qi grew, he could take on more vital energy at a time. His pathways adapted quickly advancing slightly to stage 7 on their own. Though they were no more than a 100th the way there.
Qi units 550,000 of 1,000,000
VEU (Vital Energy Units) 0, of 5,000,000
Slowly he made five functions. He was meticulous in their creation ensuring that each would fit, and their variables would change in value as needed. He began adding a connection to his body. With enough effort he should be able to construct a qi shield to protect his body always. This new system would determine how much damage his qi shield could take. It would also determine a meaning for force.
“Doll this is about to get dangerous. Do you think you can get out of here if I die?” Johnson asked.
“What’s the point? I will never be an assassin. My creators saw to that.” She replied bitterly. There was little competition to the Saxons. They saw no reason to further their hardware development. Another reason the hate the Saxons. They had no competition. Farron had 9 different competitors in Scale village alone. Freon, Oni, and Fenrir to name three. They were software and mental cultivators as well some where descendant houses of Farron while others were made of immigrants. To stay above those houses Farron had to be the best. His house couldn’t afford to slack off or they would be left behind.
That’s why his father couldn’t stand slacking even from a 309th son. If you were a part of Farron then you earned your place. He took another pill feeling it process more swiftly than the others. It was only worth 300,000 qi units. He made 3 more functions and took another pill. This pill was worth 600,000 units and nearly wrecked him. He had to return to meditating.
His breathing picked up as he processed the strongest pill yet. With over half a million units of qi in his body he made the last two function. Then he began merging them with his main function. At this point an error could kill him. His head throbbed constantly from the former 3 stages he entered. His mind was supporting 1000 streams of consciousness an was about to hand 9000 more.
Everything was hooked up and he couldn’t see any errors yet. If he had his tablet, Johnson could have compiled it and checked for errors. But as he was, he couldn’t hope to check a thing. When this was over, he should visit the cult Compiler and pray.
Slowly his mind checked the program. If even a piece of it was out of place an effort would cause a massive aneurism and kill him. He continued breathing as it took 3 minutes for the code to finish.
SOC (Streams of Consciousness) 100 of 10,000
System requirement 75% SOC
Qi Barrier 4000 of 4000 10% SOC lv1 – uses 1% of qi as a barrier. Once barrier is completed meditation is needed to restore it.
Skill Passive Cultivation +50 VEU/s 14% SOC lv1 – Absorb a small amount of vital energy constantly.
Cstyle++: Mind stage 5 Function qi required next 10,000,000
NStyle: Body stage 1 body cleansing qi required next 5000
EStyle: Pathways Stage 6 Redundancy qi required next 200,000,000
Vital energy units 50 of 5,000,000
Qi units 400,000 of 1,000,000
It was a sloppy if functional system. He had no attributes like most of his family enjoyed and no way of stealing his enemy’s qi upon their death. Nor did he have an AI built into his skills to slowly improve upon them with every use. For those AI he would have to journey down below to his family vaults and integrate the code with his own.
He altered the variables to access the isolation room’s door. With a new password he opened the door and relaxed when fresh air greeted him. He turned a corner when a sex bot jumped him from behind. Johnson felt her soft tits against his worn skin and her hands tighten around his throat. Powerful hands closed around his neck sealing his windpipe. Johnson slammed his back against a wall and fought in vain to access the code of his attacker. He thrust his qi inside of her only for it to be forced out. Much like his father’s had with doll.
He fell to a knee when Doll made her move. She pulled the head off the sex bot then reached in to crush the qi battery within. With no power source the sex bot’s body dropped like a ton of bricks dragging Johnson with it to the ground. He lay there as oils oozed out of the rebellious android.
“I don’t believe it Doll my family tried to have me killed.” Johnson said.
“Didn’t they try with the pills already. This should be the next step.” Doll said in a matter of fact tone. The sky is a light green, the grass is a light yellow, and sap was sweet.
“My father would have just killed me himself. No this wasn’t sanctioned. We need to find my father.”
“It looks like I may be able to assassinate someone after all.” Doll said in a voice filled with hope.