Cultivation, it turned out, wasn’t a linear progression. Kai did some mental calculations, creating a table based on his experience.
Realm
Qi Requirement
Qi condensing
200 secs
Foundation Establishment
20,000 secs
Core Formation Basic
20,000 secs
Core Formation Advanced
29,000 secs
Spirit Weapon Core
> 6,310,617
His numbers were misleading because he returned and completed the foundation establishment after his advanced core formation. He suspected that the foundation establishment realm could be completed and all bodily systems refined with much less energy but couldn’t verify it by his experience.
Even still, he’d been pushing as much as he could refine into his six primordial cores for over seven hours. He could refine approximately six hundred thousand secs of energy per hour with his time compression, enhanced refinement, and supercharged stream of energy. What he expected was to be done in less than an hour. Seven hours later and there was no end in sight.
The energy it took to compress his advanced core to form the next realm was beyond expectation. He could fully empower his entire body at maximum strength for just over three hundred secs of energy per hour. His passive generation from his heart core was now close to two hundred thousand secs per hour.
Kai frowned but persisted. He continued splitting the energy into six streams, refining each in its own core and pouring the newly refined energy into his heart core. By the time he felt the building resistance in his heart core, the shimmer of the sun had long faded.
The instructions of the Iceheart manual suggested that having the weapon firmly fixed in your mind at the solidification of the core gave the best results. Kai continued refining but spawned chains of thought to concentrate on different aspects of his spirit weapon. One chain focused on the polymorphic nature of the substance, another on the microscopic size, another on the intrinsic analytical power inside each micron, and yet another on its social abilities. But the most significant focus of his thoughts was spent on the ability of the microns to self-replicate.
The pressure continued to increase until he noticed the rotating liquid of his core began to crystallize, tiny crystals at first, then more and more until the entire core solidified into a golden prismatic crystal orb. His cultivation faltered, his split tether reforming into a single as his concentration slipped. He ignored that, fixating on the different aspects of his spirit weapon.
He imagined this weapon firmly seated in the center of this newly formed solid core and felt his core shift. Cracking and splintering resonated through his body as his solid core manifested the octahedron, the symmetric geometry permanently imprinted deep inside. Kai continued to concentrate for as long as he felt the core shifting.
When it was done, he released all his weapon-focused thoughts and inspected his heart core. He expected to see the octahedron in the center of his core. True to expectation, the barely perceptible outline of the polymite’s octahedron was centered inside the golden crystal core. He didn’t expect the two motes, like miniature stars slowly chasing each other, centered inside the geometric shape.
Kai swam along the ocean floor, heading deeper. Luminous schools of fish darted towards him and away. He settled on some red coral.
Now how do I do this?
The manual suggested the weapon could be manifested by willing it into reality. Kai did so and felt a drain on his heart core as a golden mote appeared before him. A tiny cluster of golden particles barely the size of this fingernail drifted in the water, sending out small probing tendrils. After a moment, it began to move, thin tendrils propelling it through the water.
Kai watched as the shimmering mote swam away. A curious silver fish darted out of the dark water and swallowed the mote. Kai watched the silver fish swim away, then falter. Golden tendrils penetrated the flesh of the fish, reaching out and back in, creating a hundred small holes before the whole fish was covered in a swarming glow.
When the mote finally left the floating fish carcass, Kai noticed it was near twice its previous size. The mote hovered there in the water for a moment before it stretched itself out into the shape of the fish and, with an uncanny transformation, solidified into a smaller version of the silver fish. The silver fish swam away into the ocean.
Kai felt it go and intuitively understood what it was doing. Exploring.
Don’t stray too far.
It didn’t get out of sight before it was eaten again by another fish, and the process repeated. Kai watched in fascination as the mote grew in size. Then something unexpected happened. The last mote transformed into a broad, flat, blue-bodied fish that promptly laid four eggs. The eggs drifted in the water for a moment before they hatched into fish of their own. Each swam away in a different direction.
Kai knew where they were, how many there were, and what they were doing. He gave them more space to roam before turning his attention inward. His newly refined heart core was a prismatic golden sphere shining in his chest. He needed another bodily refinement before empowering himself with it. So he set to it.
He refined his body system by system following the same pattern as before. The pain and the detoxification effect were worse than he remembered from his first two refinements. He expected a slightly progressive improvement. That wasn’t what it felt like. Unlike the previous two refinements with the primordial energy, this refinement supercharged his metabolism. His perfectly symmetric cells now looked energized as organelles moved in a lively dance carrying out their functions.
Spent, he swam far away from the filth cloud surrounding him. Once in clean water, he drank and let his body relax. When, at last, he felt normal again, he released his heart core, allowing the solid energy to spread through his mind and body.
Golden light from Kai’s body revealed the deep colors of the coral and colorful fish that swam suspended in time, their motion barely noticeable. The water shimmered as he heated the area around him. He held his hand up to inspect it. His body radiated golden light from every cell. The current state seemed similar to his previous supersaturation, but this felt natural, not forced. Kai studied his completed heart core.
From his heart core, golden lines of crystal energy filled every meridian and, from there, every cell in his body before returning. There was no depletion, no effort. He spent a few moments analyzing his core before completing the energy requirement table. With his recent experience, he felt confident in rewriting the realm descriptions.
Realm
Qi Requirement
Qi Gathering
200 secs
First Body Refinement
20,000 secs
Core Formation I: Gaseous
20,000 secs
Core Formation II: Liquid
Second Body Refinement
29,000 secs
Core Formation III: Solid
Spirit Weapon Formation
Third Body Refinement
12,110,617 secs
After fooling with the realm names and descriptions, he measured the output of his heart core. His heart core generated more energy than all of his other cores combined. It passively generated over four hundred and eighty thousand secs per hour. It didn’t look right, but after double-checking the math, Kai shook his head. He was now generating more energy inside his body than the normal flow of his soul tether. Forty-eight times as much.
Kai had questions.
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So, the higher I go, the less of an advantage my soul-tether will be? Generating that much power felt at odds with what he knew of the scarcity of resources on Long Yuan. But if the energy requirements are not linear? He plotted the next realm’s needs following the exponential curve. Do you need over twenty billion secs for the next stage? That would take almost twelve thousand years to generate yourself.
So scarcity is the problem. The scarcity of time can only be solved by increasingly collecting more qi.
In one way, he felt relieved that his soul tether would remain helpful, but he felt more cautious. There are cultivators with access to much more energy than I have.
Okay. The real test.
Kai pushed from his heart core into his body, saturating his body and mind with as much as it would hold. The world faded, becoming ethereal; bright colors became pale, and pale colors became colorless. The water simmered violently around him, but he barely felt it. The world had become unreal. It wasn’t solid.
Gold light, suffused with the prismatic possibility of any color, flowed through him, filling him with warmth like basking in the noonday sun. Filled with energy, he felt comfortable.
Kai swam deeper into the ocean, barely registering the feel of the water on his skin. When he reached a precipitous drop, he stared into the darkness before following it and descending into the deep. The fish here were larger and displayed more variety. He could see sharks, sea serpents, jellyfish, squid, and strange amalgams.
They moved so slowly that it was as if he was looking at a diorama. Kai settled on a rocky outcropping on the ocean floor. The rock softened, beginning to liquefy, as he sat on it, but it didn’t bother him, so he sat in Blooming Lotus position and began cultivating. With his core completed, spirit weapon formed, and bodily refinement finished, there was only one more box he wanted to check off.
Kai sent the command to his microns to part, releasing the single molecule of soul substance he’d forged earlier. This single atom was four times heavier than celesium, yet it moved out into the water before him and hovered in place at his urging. Apart from its molecular weight, this element, he discovered, was intrinsically connected to Kai’s intent. He could move it around in physical space or hold it in place with only a thought. He fixed it in place before shifting his awareness to his soul space.
Kai swiped the diagrams of his spirit weapons off the screen and pulled up his forging yantra. He looked it over, replacing parts, simplifying it. He would duplicate it instead of forging from celesium, converting his energy into the missing particles. It increased the energy cost but reduced the number of shapes. It was still going to be more expensive, but not dramatically so.
Once satisfied, he returned to his body and summoned the yantra in his mind. Holding the image of the thirty-two shapes, he released his solid energy. A burst of light and heat washed over him as the Yantra instantly completed. When the light faded, his soul substance molecule was joined by another.
He analyzed his energy expenditure. He could duplicate the atom for six units of solid energy, or about eighteen thousand secs. Before, he would have to spend two hours cultivating. Now he could do this once a minute, perpetually. That was the difference between the middle rank and peak ranks of the same realm.
This was encouraging, but Kai didn’t let the revelation impress him too much. He had two molecules. To create a pellet of soul substance, he would need to spend a long time cultivating it. He performed mental math by taking his projected time acceleration, the number of molecules in a pellet, and his rate of atomic duplication.
Only about eleven trillion years doing nothing but this, and I’ll have a pellet!
That put his breakthrough into perspective. He mentally commanded the two soul atoms back to his belt. It was a novelty but still needed to be more practical. He would quickly run into energy drain issues if he could double them repeatedly. With no better ideas, he returned his awareness to his spirit weapon. They had multiplied again and again and ranged far afield. He summoned them back.
The first to return swam swiftly, moving at Kai’s own speed. It was a sleek and powerful fish with a predator’s jaw, teeth, and large eyes. Kai realized it was thrice his size.
You guys have been busy.
Another returned, a deep brown shark with green tentacles coming from its jaw. The sleek fish and shark circled each other until the shark attacked. The two viciously bit at each other, the elegant fish faster, but the shark’s bite was devastating, taking whole sections of the fish. The fight was over quickly. The loser dematerialized into golden motes and joined the winner, rebuilding the shark's body and increasing its size.
Kai watched this scene repeat twice until a deep green sea serpent darted into the light and quickly away. The serpent circled just beyond the range of the light attacking all newcomers and starving the shark of fresh kills. After moments passed with no new arrivals and flush with its success, the snake darted into the light, striking the giant shark mercilessly.
Coiled around the shark, it sank its fangs deep into its spine and released its venom. With his qi sight, Kai could see the golden of his primordial energy and the glowing green of the toxin.
Can you learn energy-based attacks?
The fight was over in minutes. The dead shark disintegrated into golden motes that joined the emerald sea serpent. The snake grew one last time in a transformation frenzy before swimming to Kai.
The long body of the serpent coiled behind it as his head came close. The beast’s mouth dwarfed Kai, and for a moment, Kai wondered if he would become prey. But it just looked at him, his emerald green eyes watching him as his long body undulated behind him.
Unlike the faded and ethereal world Kai was surrounded in, the snake was solid, every detail perfectly rendered. It felt real.
Return.
The snake shot towards him, breaking into countless motes that swarmed around him like a cloud of butterflies before entering his body and returning to his heart core. Kai felt his core expand to hold the surge of energy pouring in as each mote returned. When the last mite returned, he turned to swim away, but his body spasmed and drooped listlessly.
Pain, sudden and sharp, it shot through his brain, crippling him. Every nerve in his mind felt like it was freezing and cracking into splinters. Kai held his head in agony, unable to do more. Time passed slowly. Kai felt the prison of pain constrict him, removing his thinking ability.
When he was able to begin thinking, Kai shifted to his soul space to escape the pain. He stumbled to the dais and collapsed on it. He lay there stunned for long moments before he managed right himself and analyze what had happened.
Portions of his mind were filled with flashes of memories and recorded insights from the many different experiences of his motes. The knowledge was jumbled and challenging to make intelligible. The experiences were not contiguous like a memory but broken into tiny unconnected events; the facts or conclusions lacked the context needed to internalize them. It was a mess.
I didn’t consider knowledge retention between summons. Knowledge didn’t exist in a vacuum; it needed some storage medium. Kai’s core had co-opted his mind to store this accumulated knowledge, but the storage format was alien to him. Kai considered it but didn’t see any real problems; he could deal with the occasional pain by retreating to his soul space before unsummoning.
I can access this data if I can figure out the storage format. Kai turned his attention to his core.
It had only been an hour since he let his spirit weapon explore the world, but in that time, they had harvested the spiritual energy of many aquatic spirit beats. He double-checked his heart core. The solid golden core thrummed with power, the central octahedron seemed more substantial, and inside that, two golden motes locked in a perpetual dance.
He brought up his core energy levels.
Core
Energy Type
Energy Level (secs)
Energy Generation (hourly)
Crown
Omni II
23,510
+5
Eye
Omni II
26,200
+6
Throat
Omni II
20,050
+5
Heart
Omni III
42,759,233
+1,710,369
Sternum
Purifying Flame II
24,220
+5
Abdomen
Omni II
22,050
+5
Pelvic
Omni II
23,510
+5
He double-checked. A furrow creased his brow as he reran the numbers. In the hour since his mites had been exploring, they captured and converted over thirty million secs. That was more than necessary to fully advance another core.
Madness. Kai was getting by on scraps of thousands, and now he could harvest millions. Kai’s mind raced with possibility as he pondered what to do. He doubted that the city of Arcadia, which relied on the ocean for food and industry, would be happy if he harvested all the fish for their spirit energy.
Kai shifted back to his body and looked out over the ocean. I could head back and refine this energy into purifying flame to advance that core. Or. Or. His eyes scanned the ocean floor and found another chasm.
I don’t need the whole ocean. There are old monsters worth multiple millions by themselves. A few of those would be nice.
Kai swam over the chasm and peered down into the murky dark waters of the abyss. He released the breath he’d held since the start and breathed in the water, filling his lungs. Kai coughed a few times, his body reflexively rejecting the water before he could override his instinct and force himself. He breathed in and out, the cold water coming in, only to be exhaled as a stream of heated water.
Once he mastered the fear of drowning, he peered down into the depths. He couldn’t see the bottom. Dark shadows dotted the rock face all the way down. Caves? With a thought, his motes emerged, a swarm of golden glowing particles that transformed into an emerald sea serpent.
The serpent dove into the chasm. Kai followed.