“What are you talking about?” Hudson said, alarmed at Sal’s reaction. Their angry screams grew louder and louder.

Whirlwinds of sand rose around him, reducing his visibility. Purple lightning flashed, closer and more frequently. He squatted next to the tree branch he had planted, wondering at what was going on.

Sal appeared over him, transformed. His floating root form was gone, and instead appeared as an enormous winged creature. Its many tentacles lashed down at Hudson and the branch in rage. Hudson flinched, but felt nothing more than a gentle slap.

There was an incredibly loud screech, multiple voices overlapping. Sal’s true form dipped down, and the ring of red goat-eyes circling the central torso of their glared down at Hudson.

“You have planted a tree, nourished it, and watered it freely with your own will,” Sal screamed. “Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

Purple lightning bolts rained from the sky, striking Hudson in a non-stop cacophony of light and sound. But similarly to how Hudson’s attacks on Sal had done nothing, the impressive display of might didn’t even leave a single burn or mark on Hudson at all.

The lightning moved from Hudson to the oak branch that he had planted, but it also remained unharmed.

“Out!” Sal screamed. “Take your ill-gotten gains and get out!”

Hudson didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled up and peered through the fierce dust storm, clutching his jar of lemonade to his chest. The gnarled tree trunk and stone figure of the jackalope were where he had dropped them. It was time to make a decision.

He reached out and grabbed the tree trunk. The sigil of Rooted Strength seemed like too much of an opportunity to pass by; increasing his physical endurance would just synergize too well with his cultivation technique.

He sprinted for the bridge through the mist back to his own mind, lightning glancing off of him and the ground around him. As he approached the bridge, however, he slowed down and stopped before passing through.

The screams and growls emanating from Sal’s giant, eldritch form were deafening and the winds as strong as a hurricane. Hudson leaned into the wind, and watched as the stone form of the jackalope flew past him and came to a rest immediately in front of the bridge.

Another minute passed before the winds calmed and the lightning storm gradually petered out. Hudson looked up and addressed Sal.

This Sal wasn’t the green crystal tree, twinkling brightly with any source of light, that had called him “neighbor” and admired his mindscape – they were a giant, floating, tentacled horror the size of a building.

“The oak branch and your crystal fragments for the sigil of Rooted Strength, that’s our deal,” Hudson said. “However… I am willing to sweeten that deal, and do you a favor, even without anything in return.”

He cracked the jar of his lemonade back open, and began walking back towards the oak branch. “I only watered it once; it could only be improved and survive better in this harsh environment if I watered it again, no? If you plant a tree, everyone knows that you need to water it.”

The fury that descended from the sky of Sal’s mindscape was an entirely different magnitude to what Sal had unleashed before. The wind howled with a million voices of anger, knocking Hudson flat on his back and bowling him over. The jar of lemonade hit the ground, cracked and spilled across the dry sand, throwing up a dense cloud of fragrant mist.

Sheets of lightning descended, slamming into the sand and then the rock beneath the sand. The sharp smell of ozone permeated the air; sand turned to glass under the power of the lightning strikes. Hudson remained invulnerable and he only felt a constant stinging, like static electricity, but he couldn’t see anything with the sand in his eyes and unceasing strikes of purple lightning strobing in the space around him.

The quiet, when it came, was almost as much a shock as the cacophony of attacks. Hudson rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and blinked away the spots in his eyes.

Sal’s mindscape was…gone. Or mostly gone. A familiar white mist now filled the sky and the sides around the small space he now occupied. The oak tree branch that he had planted and watered stood in front of him. He sat on a narrow path of rock and glass that extended from the sapling back to the bridge and his own mindscape.

He did a quick double take. The tree trunk inscribed with the sigil of Rooted Strength was gone. So was the stone animal with the sigil of Limality. Neither were anywhere to be seen.

“Sal!” Hudson yelled out. There was no response.

Hudson let out a big sigh; he’d been too greedy, he supposed, in asking Sal for more, and it would appear Sal had reneged on their deal. They were gone and had taken their dao sigils with them.

Hudson picked himself up off the ground and walked back across the bridge, back to his own mindscape. Or was this piece of rock with a tree branch planted in it also now his mindscape?

“What a colossal waste,” Hudson muttered to himself.

The familiar sight of a light blue sky, slightly cloudy, with a yellow sun shining down on his childhood home was a welcome contrast to the desolate, dry mindscape he had just been ejected from.

He was dusty and dirty, bits of sand stuck in his hair. He clapped his hands together, making a small dust cloud, then put them on his hips. At this point, Hudson figured it was best to just leave this strange reality. He’d expected to get a sigil for his efforts, not argue with an ancient silicate and end up with nothing.

He took one last good look around at the house, his yard, the oak tree and the shed. His eyes wandered over the small pond to his left, and then froze. There was a bit of gray stone poking out of the water of the pond. He didn’t remember there being anything in the pool of water, besides a few lotus flowers.

He walked over to take a closer look, but then stopped and stared in horror at his reflection in the water of the pool, the gray stone completely forgotten. There was something very wrong. His hands immediately went to his face, hair, and body, patting himself violently, but could feel nothing.

In the water’s reflection, his face, hands and body were covered in squirming tentacles. They looked exactly like the tentacles that had hung below Sal’s eldritch form.

He dropped to his knees and instinctively splashed his hands in the water of the pool. He furiously scrubbed them together below the surface of the water, trying to wash his hands of the invisible tentacles.

He pulled his hands out of the lotus pool, and the surface stilled. The invisible tentacles were gone from his hands, but he could still see the ones attached to his body and face.

“Ugh!” he cursed and jumped straight into the pool.

It was surprisingly deep. Hudson sank ten feet to the bottom, frantically scrubbing his face, his hair, and all over his body. The image of the tentacles clinging to his face brought up an enormous loathing and horror.

When he surfaced, gasping for air, the sky was dark and cloudy, reflecting his emotional state of horror. He scrambled up onto a stone lining the pool, still shuddering. He wiped the water from his eyes and quickly looked himself over in the reflection of the pool.

He spent a few more minutes looking closely at every part of his body, twisting and turning, raising his legs and getting into whatever contorted positions were necessary to view all parts of his body in the reflection of the pool. Thankfully he couldn’t see any tentacles.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

A final present from Sal? Hudson wondered, sitting down next to the pool and placing his head in his hands. Remnants from Sal’s polluted mindscape? An artifact of doing deals with the devil? Hopefully whatever had been attached to him was now completely gone.

He needed a break from this madness. He got up to leave this mindspace and return to the real world, when he remembered why he had walked over to the pool in the first place. In the corner, half in and half out of the pool and nestled under the leaves of a lotus, was a stone figure that Hudson recognized: the stone jackalope from Sal’s mindscape.

It must have been blasted or blown into here during the last few moments. Hudson was elated – he hadn’t gone through that entire experience only to emerge empty-handed. He rolled the stone figure out of the pool and picked it up. Sure enough, he confirmed it was the petrified remains of the strange animal.

What was he supposed to do with this now?

Should he try to pour qi onto it (using the “lemonade” from his kitchen)? Should he break it into pieces and eat the stone figure, one pebble at a time? Hudson let out a deep sigh as he realized he had no idea. Stupid Sal, stupid sigils, stupid mindscapes… Maybe the Sage on the top of the mountain could help him? He hadn’t helped him much before, though.

Hudson carried the stone jackalope to the front of his house and set it on the porch, like some garish yard ornament.

“Good thing my mom can’t see that thing,” he muttered to himself.

The misty doorway out into the real world was waiting for him. Before he left, he gave his mindscape one more look. Would he be back here again? Highly likely, he thought to himself. He wasn’t sure how, but it must be a part of every cultivator’s journey, and yet one more thing that S.E.C.T. had been keeping secret from him.

Hudson stepped through the mist, ready to pester the Sage with a few pointed questions.

…..

MEANWHILE: ON EARTH: ENGLAND

…..

George Adams Sr. stared into the flames of the fireplace in his study, swirled the port in his glass and took a sip.

It was an excellent vintage; his favorite. He was indulging in a preliminary celebration.

A log in the fireplace popped, throwing a few sparks into the room. George ignored them and looked at the Soul Flame crystals arrayed on the wall. Eight still glowed with the same eerie resonance they had before the participants entered the trial, and one was dark, extinguished forever.

That last one, though, the one that was linked to his descendent… it still glowed. But it glowed with an intensity far above the weak flames of the other participants.

A breakthrough during the trail itself! No matter what else happened in that cursed trial, no matter what that sneaky Elenor had planned… the trial was a success. Who cared about the others? Or one or two deaths? This trial was a massive success in his eyes, and would be in the eyes of S.E.C.T.

A young genius promoting so early and so fast – who knew where he would stop? At this pace, Core Formation stage was almost a given. The hint of Nascent Soul was enough to make his heart beat faster. More resources would be poured into his descendant, and by extension, his family, his clan would also rise. A future Elder, a future pillar of S.E.C.T., and thus the future of his family, was finally assured.

He swirled his glass and took another sip. With his succession finally handled, maybe he could spend time to focus on his own cultivation. He didn’t have many years left in his life, nor did he really have much of a chance to reach the next level at such an advanced age.

That didn’t matter. The flames of cultivation stirred in his heart, long since dormant. Once again he could pursue his own path to power and challenge the heavens, instead of worrying about his clan, its politics, and his legacy.

The fire exploded out of the fireplace in deep, scarlet flames and George Sr. laughed a deep, low chuckle.

…..

MEANWHILE: ON EARTH: SHIKOKU, JAPAN

…..

Elenor Chiang was tired. Not physically tired, or even mentally tired – her superior cultivation saw to that. No, she was spiritually tired. Tired in her soul. They were losing the war and it felt like she was the only one within S.E.C.T. who even cared.

She sat in a conference room, deep within the bowels of the S.E.C.T. facility. She and her people had returned from the rift with zero casualties. But every other cultivator who had been in that rift, or who had gone through to that rift before?

Dead. Consumed for their qi and dao understandings by their implacable enemies, the silicates. By the time she and her team of mortal specialists had arrived, the enemy had been in retreat, all of the resources on that world already consumed by the slavering horde. They had managed to harry the retreating force and clean up some stragglers, but not enough to matter in the long run.

She nodded to the facility’s lone remaining officer who had the dubious privilege of assisting with her report. A “privilege” due to his new rank following the demise of his entire chain of command, and “dubious” because this report was not to S.E.C.T.; no, this loss must be reported to the Disciples themselves.

The commander nodded back, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down as he dry swallowed in nervousness.

“Ux, connect us to Disciple military command,” Elenor requested earth’s global AI. The communications array in the center of the conference table hummed to life.

“Acknowledged.”

Several minutes passed in complete silence.

“Office of the Right General of the Lambda Quadrant,” a brusque voice spoke.

“Vassal Elder Elenor Chiang, Earth, requesting urgent update on disposition of rift XLSR44 following silicate incursion,” Elenor replied.

“Hold.”

Elenor and the poor officer waited a few more minutes in silence. He was beginning to look a little green from nervousness. Elenor frowned, but before she could surreptitiously move a trash can closer to the young man in case he threw up, a familiar voice came over the communication array.

“Elenor,” Disciple Llew said. “I wish this were a pleasure, but I suspect it is not.”

She sat up in surprise and smiled a tight smile. Disciple Llew was a fighter, just like Elenor. She hadn’t known who she would give her report to, but she knew Disciple Llew, and had fought side by side with him in the past.

“It isn’t,” she replied. She wasn’t one to mince words. “Rift XLSR44 has been overrun. Casualties: 1 Core Formation elder, 23 Foundation Building officers and soldiers, and 103 Qi Gathering stage cultivators.”

There was a moment of silence, and then a long sigh.

“Remind me: untapped capacity of this rift?”

“22 million Tier 2 units, plus or minus a few million.”

There was a slight pause and a long sigh from the other side. There was no need to tell him that all of those spirit stones were now feeding the advancement of their enemies. The silicates never left anything behind.

“That’s not insignificant.”

“I know,” Elenor replied.

“The vassal S.E.C.T. forces should have had more cultivators protecting that resource.”

“I know,” Elenor replied again. If it were another Disciple, she would had apologized and groveled, making empty promises about future efforts, but she knew that such mealy-mouthed words were meaningless to Disciple Llew.

“What you don’t know is our divination results had the probability of attacks on that rift to be less than 0.00001%.”

That was a troubling detail, but she was happy Disciple Llew had trusted in her enough to share that detail. Other disciples would never have shared that level of military intelligence with a vassal elder.

“Which means…” Elenor began.

“We have a significant problem,” Disciple Llew completed. “The silicates strategy has changed at a fundamental level, and we don’t know what it is.”

Losing this rift and the cultivators in the rift was a loss for S.E.C.T., and even for the Disciples’ war effort, but it wasn’t strategically important to the war. Being able to predict and follow their enemy’s plan of attack – that was indeed critical.

“There will be after-action requirements, possibly even an on-site visit, but now you know they will be accompanied by divinators and what they will be actually looking for. Prepare yourself accordingly.”

“I understand,” Elenor said, and shuddered. She understood, and she didn’t look forward to the impending visit to Earth by the Disciples.