The tribe is clearly nomadic in nature, only periodically resting and settling in camps for a few days at a time. Yet on the move the rest of the time.

It makes sense why.

This world is rough. The animals can cultivate while humans cannot. Ancient people likely struggled against predators, but it was likely not such a desperately large gap in strength as it is here.

If Humans here were to settle down, they would just become easy food and die off to the larger predators and Origin Beasts.

To develop a civilization here, I will need to somehow get them to settle somewhere without getting everyone killed.

In a scenario like this, a plateau or a mountain are the only realistic places to settle, without natural defenses there would be no hope to keep predators at bay.

Natural defenses alone still wouldn’t be enough, since certain predators could simply fly or jump in regardless. I’m going to need some way to empower these people or give them the tools to defend themselves.

But getting any group to stray from what is likely an ancient and known method of survival to do something else?

Hard. Very hard.

I am not that charismatic, so unless I show something that is very convincing or show strength that is very convincing, it won’t work even if I find a solution since no one would actually use it and pass it down.

While there is no particular ‘top’ portion to this society I am in yet, the general rules may still apply. Securing strength comes first, or else attempting change would mean death.

…

A few months pass and my cultivation develops further as my soul grows stronger. I reach a point of stagnation and breakthrough to a new realm adding four more towers, for six in total. One tower for each orthogonal direction and orientation.

Going by this pattern, each time I need a new realm, either doubling or tripling the towers will be necessary to ensure all towers remain in a balanced pattern.

In the new realm, the amount of orbits I can have has tripled. One satellite orbits each of the orthogonal directions. My cultivation speed becomes that much faster as well.

Based on the concept I am using for it, we will call it the Atomic Soul Cultivation Method… we being me until I can fool other people into copying me.

A neutron core, proton towers, and electron orbitals, not an exact analogy but close enough.

The name will sound cool at least, if nothing else.

So, before finishing the tower formation could be called Tower Forming Stage or Helium Stage, after tower formation can be called the Orthogonal or Carbon Stage.

The next few middle stages are still numbers inside the elemental table so we can name them after that, Magnesium Stage, Krypton Stage, and Hafnium Stage.

The pattern after that goes beyond the elemental table, so not quite sure what to call them at that point. Can probably wait to see how it looks by then before giving it a name.

So alternating tripling and doubling to maintain a balanced pattern of towers being the rule, we go 2, 6, 12, 36, 72, 216, 432, 1296, 2592

For the first nine stages of this Atomic Soul cultivation method, that seems good. Nine stages is tradition for cultivating so that is what I would like to do, and although it may not be a tradition here, I can make it tradition.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Each stage, represents a significant milestone in the journey of Atomic Soul cultivation. If I can teach others how to use the method in the future, having the names and milestones will be useful.. and it will be interesting to see if they start acting like people from cultivation books or not.

—

Another month and I finally broke through to the Carbon Stage.

A big surprise came with the Carbon Stage, my soul sense can now pick up the outline of things in the real world as well as allowing me to see spiritual energy.

I can only ‘see’ within the range of my soul sense, unless I am looking for souls in the distance. I am still color blind, but it is much better than being completely blind.

I can also ‘feel’ reality within my soul sense to a decent extent, you could say I am to some extent omnipresent everywhere in a radius of three meters from myself.

Including underground, I could feel the differences between the materials.

Which is not very far when you’d prefer to just be able to see normally. But still nice.

My soul now able to act as a sensory organ, a finer mist-like field of energy spreading out from the proton towers and electrons and then returning through their opposites in a cyclic manner.

I can still only see the souls of people and creatures from far away. Actually, very far away now. I can’t say how far, but my eyes now feel like the eyes of an eagle, except for souls. I can kind of just zoom in to view things at a distance, which is cool.

I realized over time after gaining this new spirit sense that the people in this nomad tribe seem to take turns carrying children. When on the move, women would carry children and move on the inside of a formation. The men would also move mostly on the outside, while about half of the younger men, some of whom seemed injured, moved together with the women and children.

The men and women, all that were old enough to walk, had variations of stone axes. Many of the women without children had narrow weaved rucksacks and satchels filled with different fruits. Most of the men similarly had rucksacks, but they seemed to be smaller and carrying less.

These people seemed to primarily be gatherers, rather than hunters. They would eat certain insects as well, which I made note of.

Overall, the women seemed to outnumber the men three to one. Indicating a much higher fatality rate for men in the group or some kind of practice of banishing weaker men.

Yet very few of the women seemed to have young children or babies, indicating a high fatality rate for them as well. A particular age group of children around the ages of 7 to 9 seemed to be thriving though. Perhaps those were a particularly good few years.

As time had passed I found it was much easier to start getting a grasp of the language after I could see what was going on. I am not the greatest at learning new languages. But regardless, I was starting to get the hang of it.

When telling tall tales (or are they in this world?) or stories they would wave their hands or use props to describe it at times, making it easier for the kids and their friends they sought to show off to, to understand.

Describing locations, safe food for gathering and foraging, how to navigate the lands using the stars and features of the great path, their migratory pattern they have always passed down.

This band of humans in this ‘newly born dimension’ were living to the best of their ability, developing skills and teaching the young the best they can to ensure the survival of themselves and their next generation.

Seeing the way they acted filled my heart with warmth despite their dire circumstances.

Hard times can give birth to both cruelty and goodness.

It is good to see that at least the one so live in for now seems to be kind, at least on the surface, and internally…. I guess I might be assuming a bit much, but I think they are good people overall.

Ah, there seems to be another Beast heading over. I’d best let them know.

—

I heard some kind of shout coming from the lady carrying me as they started to run, and a man running near us grabbed me shouting something in anger, before I knew it I was flying through the air.

*oh shit*

The impact against the ground stunned me for a few moments, my head blurred on impact and then I came to a moment later. Looking around my ‘tribe’ had already moved away into the distance and the beast was closing in.

*sigh*

The only move I’ve got so far is about to get its first and possibly last test run.

Spinning one of my ‘spiritual electrons’ faster and faster I got ready as the beast grew closer, as it arrived a few meters away and entered the region I could ‘see’. It was a bear, a young bear or something like it, not much larger than a dog.

Yet it was hunting on it’s own, and apparently scary enough to the point no one in the tribe was willing to fight to hold it off as they run, unlike with the other beasts.

I launched electron as it closed in, and watched as it hit the Bear’s soul and impacted it like a giant meteor devastating a planet.

The young bear collapsed immediately like a puppet with it’s strings cut.

Large chunks of the bear’s soul sheared off as the electron came back out with pieces of the bears soul stuck inside of it. The impact seemed to be enough to damage it’s soul seriously but after the impact the electron seemed to still orbit the bear’s soul.

A connection was formed between the electron and the bear’s soul. By extension it also was connected to my soul.

*huh*

How about that?