Precious few have the sacred gift necessary to channel the forces of creation. Fewer still have the strength of will, body, mind, and spirit to walk the Twelve-Fold Path to its end and grasp the heavens themselves. It is a merciless journey. The way narrow. A great and terrible chasm lies to either side, filled to overflowing with the butchered corpses of those who have failed.
— Serdar Eren Aydin, 9th Overseer of the Exalted Cultivator Akademy
***
Rift sat at the top of the dune, legs folded beneath him, his aura cloaked so as not to alert the Uzra below. He ate an apple while he waited. Cutting off a single slice at a time with a hunting dagger as he watched his would-be apprentice approach the oversized nightmare. The boy was no match for the creature. Not that he expected the boy to kill the monster. Even a party of skilled hunters would likely struggle with a beast such as this.
No, the only thing he expected from the boy was to try.
To prove that he had the grit and mettle necessary to move forward.
Rift carved off another slice and took a leisurely bite. He casually wiped the juices from his chin. Below, the boar still hadn’t noticed Torrick’s approach—just as Rift intended. Most Uzra had a remarkably keen sense of smell, which is why he’d guided the boy downwind from the beast. Razorbacks were common enough in the Scorch and they had other, less-mundane senses that could not be so easily fooled. Still, if Torrick was quiet, he’d be able to get in striking range before the beast realized the danger.
Not that Torrick truly posed much danger.
Rift hadn’t lied to the boy. Not exactly.
Razorbacks were pitifully weak, but as with so many things, weak was relative and existed on a sliding scale. Weak compared to a Bronze Cultivator with a handful of foundational Arcanist techniques? Yes. Compared to the deadly Nightmares Rift had slaughtered in the caves above Telrala? Certainly. Even when held up against other lower-level nightmares, Razorbacks were rather simple by nature. Brutes, with a tough exterior and rudimentary earth-based affinity.
Rift could kill the boar from where he sat without ever conjuring a weapon or performing a proper technique.
Compared to a normal man, though? Well, then they were extremely dangerous. A Razorback like this one could easily tear a single battle-hardened soldier apart without much effort. Sending an untrained whelp against it was as good as a death sentence. Not that Rift had any intention of letting the boy die.
It was best if Torrick didn’t realize that, however.
Fear was a powerful motivator and there was no better way to advance then walking the line between life and death.
Liban jwa lizeva. No blood, no risk, no harvest.
For a Cultivator, adversity was the only way forward.
He'd prevent Torrick from perishing, but Chains had been right. He would also let the boy suffer. He’d let him bleed. Rift needed to see the boy’s resolve in action. To see what he was truly made of and how far he was willing to go. Unless Torrick was willing to die, here and now for his convictions, the Twelve-Fold Path would eat him alive. Besides, scars were a powerful teacher in their own right and a firm reminder of the price of stupidity.
Rift took another slice of apple and slid it between his teeth, crunching down and savoring the tart flavor. He only had a few of these left and even though time moved at a more languid pace within his Vault, they wouldn’t last forever. Once he settled this business with the artifact and the lost temple, perhaps he would convince Idwan and Chains to head north and west. Dowia was beautiful this time of year and their orchards were second to none.
Rift leaned forward, apple momentarily forgotten, as the fight began in earnest.
The battle was quick and dirty. Sloppy. The boy had no real technique or skill to speak of. He flailed about, dropping his weapon, and somehow surviving in spite of himself. The boy had the tactical brilliance of a stone and even a first year Steel at the Crucible had better situational awareness. Honestly, Rift was surprised the boy had even survived into adulthood.
He is weak. Pathetic. Best to let him die, the voice in the back of his mind droned. Rift ignored the words as the utterings of a madman, which was close to the truth.
The longer the fight went on, the worse things got.
The Razorback unleashes spikes of conjured stone and nearly trampled Torrick to death several times. The boy spent an embarrassing amount of time rolling around in the dirt like a common pig. And even after Torrick regained both his feet and his weapon, things didn’t get much better. The boar hurled its tusks, coming precariously close to skewering the boy. So close, in fact, that Rift had to intervene—using a tiny sliver of his power to deflect the first tusk before it impaled his new ward through the chest.
Torrick attempted to knock the second off course with his spear, which offered Rift a faint glimmer of hope. He had good instincts and decent reflexes, even if he was too weak for the task. The foolish plot earned a deep gash across the shoulder for his brashness.
The only truly impressive feat was the boy’s last stand. Rift had told him the secret to finishing the Razorback off. Its belly was vulnerable. The boy had taken the words to heart, baited the creature into a charge, then stood his ground, bracing his spear against the rock. It was a bold and wild move. Some would call it reckless. If the spear failed to catch, the boy would be smashed flat against the rock or mercilessly gored with no way to escape.
That… Now that took guts.
The boy may have been hopeless with the spear but, by the gods above and below, he had a set of stones on him. Rift could work with that, alright. So long as he was a glutton for punishment and had the stomach to match.
Below, the spear buckled and broke under the weight of the charging boar, which came as no surprise at all. The weapon was finely crafted, but it had never been designed to hunt Uzra. The weight and power of the creature was simply too much. The wooden shaft gave out, exploding like an alchemek’s black powder bomb, and the boar staggered forward, one of its tusks driving into the boy’s shoulder. Even with Idwan’s help, that would leave a mark Torrick wouldn’t soon forget.
Good.
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The scar would be the first of many badges of honor collected under Rift’s tender care.
But the game was done now.
Rift had seen what needed to be seen, and the boy had learned what needed to be learned. With a casual flick of his wrist, Rift sent his hunting knife flying through the air, twirling end-over-end so quickly it was little more than a blur. The humble weapon struck true and even though it was normal steel, Rift had imbued the blade with a touch a Ruin. That combined with the sheer force of the throw allowed the simple dagger to punch through reinforced plates of bone and rock.
The creature was dead before it even hit the ground.
***
Torrick was lying in the sand, one hand pressed against the wound in his shoulder, his face contorted in a rictus of pain.
“It’s not that bad,” Rift said, kneeling beside the boy. “I’ve suffered worse knicks shaving,” he added, offering a rare smile. It was supposed to be comforting, but he doubted it was. His was not a face built for comfort. Letting the smile slip entirely, Rift reached into a small leather pouch at his belt and pulled free a crimson pill, no larger than his thumbnail. “Brace yourself. This may hurt, but it will help you mend.”
He pressed the pill into the open wound, then activated his core.
His own power bloomed inside the wound, giving Rift immediate insight into Torrick’s condition. Because of his affinity for Ruin, Rift most often used his gifts to maim and slaughter, to hunt and kill. These were things best suited for Ruin and Destruction, after all. Yet, thanks to his bloodborne Affinity, his power could also be used to heal. At least in theory.
In practice, it was a difficult process.
The healing tablets had to be carefully crafted, stripped of all Ruination Aspect, then distilled using a tincture of Sandsilk Root and Serpentvine—both costly components. From there, the concoction needed to cure for several weeks, before being ground into a fine powder and further mixed with Aldesmune’s Cross and pressed into a pill. It was a tedious, lengthy, and expensive process, and one which would be impossible if not for Idwan’s Alchemek expertise.
Despite the difficulty, however, the process was worth it.
The pill temporarily granted the user a portion of Rift’s exceptional body cultivation abilities, allowing them to heal from even the most grievous wounds.
The blood red pill immediately went to work, and pure Blood Affinity spread out from the sight of the wound and filled Torrick’s body with healing Mana. Thanks to Idwan’s expert handiwork, the pill would work even if Rift wasn’t present, but because he was in such close proximity, he could further boost the pill’s efficacy. The blood and mana—even stripped of its ruinous aspect and diluted as it was—was still a part of him. Obedient to his will.
First, Rift focused on the wounds. There were a myriad of minor cuts and lacerations that would heal naturally over time. These he left alone.
Injuries served as valuable reminders for Cultivators, but they also served a secondary function, especially for those still in the earliest stages of core formation.
Although newly minted initiates on the Twelve-Fold Path lacked the ability to consciously control mana in a safe manner, subconsciously their bodies would naturally use mana to heal wounds, reinforcing damaged muscle and tissue with cultivated mana stores. The process safely expanded the Cultivator’s mana channels and served as the bedrock foundation in any body cultivator’s journey.
It was also the reason why physical training was so integral. The more one trained, the more mana the body would use, and the stronger the channels would become.
The bigger wounds were another matter entirely.
The puncture wound in his upper chest was deep, but not life threatening. The tusk hadn’t come close to hitting anything truly vital.
The gash along Torrick’s shoulder was another story. That one was a nasty bit of work and already showing signs of early infection. Without treatment, the boy would likely lose the arm over time. Uzra Affinity was always tainted with Nullfire Mana and was deadly even to most Cultivators. Not Rift though. Ruination Aspect resonated with the Null. His Twice-Forged Affinity was a curse in some ways, but a blessing in others. It made him a Nightmare Hunter without peer and allowed him to absorb more mana from each kill than any other.
Rift directed his own blood and power to the gash, effortlessly eradicating the corruption, then used his power to knit skin and muscle back together. The process shut the wound and left a puckered seam of scar tissue in its wake. There was nothing to be done about that. Not even a Cultivator’s magic could erase all wounds. He would bear the mark until he advanced to Twice-Forged, when his body would be baptized and remade in the fires of Creation.
Rift repeated the process, this time with the chest wound, sewing up the puncture like a master flesh tailor.
But he didn’t stop there.
Tendrils of power quested through the boy’s system, spreading through his mana channels.
The boy didn’t have a core to speak of and had precious little mana left in his system—it seemed he’d unwittingly burned some during the confrontation with the boar. Life and death battles tended to have that effect. But there was just enough left for Rift to accomplish what he had in mind; a task that was far more dangerous than sending the boy to fight the razorback in the first place. Torrick had several blockages along his channels while others were closed entirely.
Scarred over, likely from attempting to externally manifest Mana without proper training. That was why Cultivators started training at such a young age—so they had less time to inadvertently and irreparably damage their system. Such spiritual wounds were often a death sentence for young Cultivators hoping to advance.
Torrick’s damage was not so bad that it couldn’t be mended, though sometimes the cure was worse than the disease.
“Brace yourself for this next part,” Rift said, attempting to sound reassuring.
All at once, he pushed the tendrils of power outward, boring through the boy’s already open mana channels. The surge of energy forced the channels to expand all at once, greatly increasing their ability to handle larger mana flows. He also blasted through every blockage he could find and sliced through spiritual scar tissue, filling those previously blocked off channels with new life and energy.
Torrick dropped on his back and screamed, his body convulsing, legs and fists drumming against the ground.
This was the first advancement.
A move which brought him from raw Iron to low Steel. It was the least of all the transitions, but still an extremely unpleasant one. All the more so because of Rift’s involvement. Under normal circumstances, it took months or even years of training for an Iron Aspirant to open enough pathways to begin proper cultivation and move onto Steel. Unfortunately, Torrick didn’t have months or years, and with the damage the boy had already done to himself, this was the only way to fix things.
It was akin to rebreaking a bone, which had been improperly set the first time.
Painful, but necessary. Except in this case, it was like breaking every bone in his body all at once. The only mercy was that the process didn’t take long.
With his channels cleared and a little proper training, the boy would be able to internally cycle mana and begin the arduous process of condensing it into a Core. With Rift and the others to oversee his training, it was distinctly possible the boy would advance to Bronze before they even reached Bhaleel.
When Torrick’s seizures finally passed, Rift helped him sit and shoved half an apple into his hands. “This will help with the fatigue and nausea,” he said, voice gruff.
Once Torrick finished with the meager meal, Rift offered him a water skin along with another pill. This one was oblong and glimmered like a trapped moonbeam. A Celestial Condensing Pill, worth more than Torrick’s entire village earned in a year. Torrick dutifully complied, swallowing the pill, then chased it with several greedy gulps of water.
“Come on,” Rift said, patting the boy on the shoulder. “Our work isn’t done here.” He jerked his head toward the dead Uzra. “If you’re going to be a proper Cultivator, you’re going to need to learn how to butcher a corpse and harvest the Affinity Cores.”
He strutted over to the boar, pulled free his knife, then casually tossed it to Torrick. It landed, blade down in the sand, four inches from Torrick’s foot.
“You can start by gutting the creature and pulling out the organs,” Rift continued. “Hope you don’t have a weak stomach, because the offal can be quite… potent.”