[Greater Personal Transfer Successful]
[Successful Use: 28/100]
[Con. Qi -500]
[Qi -500]
[Karma 1,000]
[Aura of Suppression Successful]
[Successful Use: 21/100]
[Con. Qi -90]
[Karma -900]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,840,729/2,3898,327]
[Current Qi: 337,473/5,850,300]
[Current Karma: 95,593,308/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,597,021]
[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]
I will myself to what I feel was a good point in the air for a nice aerial view of my greatly diminished void palace space vacation retreat, and try to figure out where the fuck I am. I should be centered over a decent panoramic for a walking area of rolling hills. Not too big, but good to find in the city. The size of a massive park or nature park zone. But not an actual realistic hilly expanse.
Now it looks like a really gently rolling plain surrounded by high hills, just lots of open land with a river flowing near one side, and a really good spot for a forest on another. Can I have a mixed forest? Or will the trees start eating each other? I've got tons to experiment with, and I think I can make more, so I should be good? Experimenting with my space...
I say there should be a forest of garbage and treasures, there's a forest of garbage and treasures all mixed together. I wonder if I can make a real forest. With a whole ass ecosystem. That doesn't generate miasma. Or I can generate miasma, auto collect --.
Can I auto cycle? Like void cycle without having to have my bank open? Do I just keep the bank open at all times? Can I? I kinda dismiss it 'cause it takes up mental space and energy, but can I keep it open? Practice makes perfect!
I open my bank, try to ignore it without closing it, then make my garbage forest lesser fauna. Mostly tubers and harvestable bushes. Do I need seasons? Nah, I think it pulls stuff from me. What else? Forest with root veggies and berry bushes, fruiting trees, nutting trees, phrasing...
Herbs! Medicinal~.
I feel sick. Need water. Does stew work? Do the trees need water? Should I have made this near the river? Probably. But I want the farms near the river... Should I make another --. Urk. Oh. Right.
I chug a pot of stew then start looking for the storage crates. I set up a whole ass kitchen and I didn't put any of the food stored in the new food storage. Crates of food into the kitchen. And... Seal! Everything's lidded and --.
Fack! Feeling nauseous and tired. 'Cause I'm awake or I don't have enough to sustain all this shiz? But I ate a god! The infusions from the emperor weren't that --. I remember that I had almost an entire world that he was supporting while I was almost dying. Kinda embarrassing how much of a scrub I am in comparison.
It's nice having rich friends.
I devour all the bowls of mashed tuber and fish, drain a barrel of Black Blood Wine, then, while I'm not suffering from hunger pangs, look at the forest that's on fire.
Why the fu--. Dragon trees. Fack.
[Greater Personal Transfer Successful]
[Successful Use: 29/100]
[Con. Qi -500]
[Qi -500]
[Karma 1,000]
[Aura of Suppression Successful]
[Successful Use: 22/100]
[Con. Qi -90]
[Karma -900]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,840,239/23,898,377]
[Current Qi: 337,073/5,850,300]
[Current Karma: 95,593,508/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,597,021]
[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]
Eat da fire!
[Cycling II (Void) Successful]
[Successful Use: 16/100]
[Con. Qi 100]
[Qi 100]
[Karma 100]
[Aura of Suppression Successful]
[Successful Use: 23/100]
[Con. Qi -90]
[Karma -900]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,840,149/23,898,152]
[Current Qi: 337,073/5,850,300]
[Current Karma: 95,592,608/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,597,021]
[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]
I cycle the flame. What the fuck? Oh! Sweet! Leaving the bank open works. Okay. So... Nom? I eat all the dragon scale trees I can find before they torch the rest of the zone. There's some of the fire venom trees, but they don't bother anything --. Scratch that. They're low key poison converting anything pressed into their thorny trunks. Which isn't much except the occasional bush.
Summer Spring trees equal good. Dragon Scale trees equal bad. What other flower --. I can put flowers. I meant to think fire and fucked up upwards. Flowers! Will kill shit. Fack.
Hmm... Trees. Et. Drank. Farms! Fuck no. I immediately dismiss the idea of fully cultivating bullshit when just having a forest. It's a forest of treasures. Oh! I was trying to make a forest with all the garbage trees, basic trees, and treasures. But I don't have normal trees so I defaulted to garbage treasures. Wow me. Maybe I can do the farm. Pretty sure the tubers are just regular food.
Can you imbue food when you cook? Is that why the emperor's food is so good? I can think more about it after I get the farm going. So... I have no idea how close they're supposed to be or if it matters if they're just going to be draining the life from me. Just less than a treasure tree.
So... All kinds of root veggies. Parsnips, beets, carrots, sweet po-tay-to, reg'lar taters --. Ooh! Peas! What the heck? What all veggies I have?
I plant five of everything. Turnips, radishes, beets, peas, onions, garlic --. Why do I have so much root veg? Are they the one's that last longer raw? Or is that all veg? Is that why people eat so much veg...?
And I'll have lots of greens! Don't potatoes do a vine thing? Can I eat the --. Do I have pumpkins? By the time I'm done going through my bank I've got a "vine maybe?" area, an underground, a "we might need support trellises", a tuber section, and I'm trying to figure out whether or not I can plant umber bushes near the farm or around the house. 'Cause I'd like to have them planted like ornamental bushes and just casually step outside to graze.
Imma do that. I waddle my happy ass across the plain, sampling grass and planting random not fire plants. I've eaten several plants in my sleep, so I have a nice selection to play with, and no clue what the majority of it tastes like. Imma 'bout to find out!
Maybe. How long does this shit take to grow? From my understanding of Persephone's understanding, the regular stuff grew like weeds grow in cartoons. I idly open my bank, not prepared for the shock of seeing plants ripe and ready to harvest, and there are plants ripe and ready to harvest.
... I planted whole shit. Fack. I'm supposed to harvest whole veggies and plant seeds or cuttings or summin'. I hang my head, harvest everything that's harvestable, turn to trek my dejected ass back to the acres I'd just planted, and stare at the fully grown veggies. Checking my bank I find nothing is ready to harvest, but I'm looking at grown ass plants right now.
Or am I looking at what the plants will look like grown? Is this more of that shadow box bullshit? Like seeing the artsy foods at the jungle kill me party, and knowing where things can be put in to rebuild it. These are the ghost of foods future! Something feels off though. I just harvested everything and there's stuff growing...
-I don't have to replant?- My head... Fuzzy, muffled, static... -Fuck yes~...?-
Ack! I sit down. Fields planted, woods created, now I can haz a sit. So I do. I settle myself down, legs tucked under me, -- cat loaf! Eat your cat! -- and get ready for a little thinkin' sesh. Yay, I don't have to replant, but how did it plant itself? Or is it just I assumed it should be there and I made it so.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
But how far does that go? Can you accidentally someone? Do I make people assholes? Willful assholes? If I make them strong-willed, doesn't that will cancel out anything I can do?
Am I willful? I don't think I'm willful. I have an opinion on things, I have preferences, and I do kinda push back when I think I'm being pushed too far. But other than that, I think I'm a pretty good team player. I'm willing to work with people if they're respectful. I don't get along with people who just assume you should lick their asses because they know a guy that knows a guy. What can you do, dipshit?
I'm good with just demonstrating common decency to people as a general rule. When they start acting high and mighty is where I start acting like a jackass. But that's just giving what you get.
Why do I hear laughter? Who's shouting?
I get up, do a quick spin, keeping my antenna up and Ultravision dialed up to eleven, and just try to spot the emperor. If he can see me, can't I see him? The phantom laughter is gone... But I'm feeling judged...
I get up and keep trotting while doing my jacked up roaming salesman, just sowing my seeds everywhere. Bush here, flower there, stop to graze on the grass and wonder what other stuff I should --. Herbs! By the time I get to my ware-kitchen there's a wide scattering of random plant life other than just the lovely, low grade medicinal grasses I ate when I'd woken up in a warehouse.
How I can remember that but I can't remember other stuff? I shrug, bring out a pot, and casually slurp it like a giant mug of soup even though it's a giant pottery jar of stew. Good times. I look down into the pot, still enjoying the simple pleasure of eating out of the jar, and acknowledge that I've been taking out a lot of shit, but not refilling the jars that I've been rebanking. Time to get cooking.
I clean out the jars, swishing them with water and drinking the swill until they're clean enough, cultivator and carrion bug things, then toss random veggies into the pot, just grabbing whatever's in the list, making sure it's not the last, but not changing the order at all. A little bit of water and I seal the jars, letting them simmer. Gonna try to mash them after they're cooked, then keep that paste sauce to eat with some bread.
Gotta make some bread.
I pull out Persephone's giant jar of yeast, wondering how much bread she planned on baking. There's not enough flour made. Was that going to be one of the projects she was gonna have me doing?
I head out back, not setting up a basin as I try to set up a milling cloud. The goal is to have three clouds stacked one on top of the other, grinding and spewing all the way down. Preferably spewing in a downwards direction. It was eye opening trying to set up a fruit crushing mill and seeing how it sprayed that shit everywhere. Weird how just assuming something works will make it work if you have will.
I remember discussing karma with Persephone, but what's considered a good amount of will? I can will stuff to happen and I've heard other people, barely in Qi stage or they're all physical, say will. To be fair it was mostly the dude in the enchanting test. He said use your will. But did they mean actively using Qi? Does that build up will or is that the extent most people can use will for? The emperor said I shouldn't be doing will shit.
Should probably start thinking of will as one of those capital big important things. Will! Not quite caps, but definitely capitalized.
So... Flour... There's some bread from the last time she made me grind this shit, for which I'm now thankful. But I need more.
To the clouds! Formation, go! Wait! I check inside to make sure my future mash isn't burning, take it off the heat, get a new set of pots going, and then grab a basin. Time to test the clouds!
Will counts for so much. I don't have to keep setting the clouds down hoping they'll move. I can command them! I cackle knowing full and well the imperial clouds don't give a fuck about my Will, but my void does. Mm... Void hacks...
First cloud turns my chunky mix into a puree. Well. Oops. By the time it comes out of the third cloud its a nice mousse. Did I accidentally a nice veggie spread? Huh.
I pot the spread, don't bank it, and scoop some up with some bread. Nom. Have to dry some starchy veggies to get more flour. Need to set out some drying racks.
Fack! I want to do this one thing that's already too complicated. ♪ Oh~? Have you done steps one through twenty on prep...? ♪ Fack!
... Can I just put the tatoes around the edge of the cooking element? Or will that cook them instead of dry them...? What about a rack? ... Can I save myself the trouble and get the mill to make a whip then dry that?
Or I can stop trying to do tedious shit, stuff my face, and Will the ingredients out of the stuff I have. Fuck, this is exhausting. I have knowledge on how things are done and proof that the "right" way is for the weak or the bored. I am become the one percent?
Or just another cultivator. Pretty sure we're super common. I pull out the jar 'o veggie mousse, several loaves of bread, and get to work.
I wake up on my back surrounded by fragments of broken jars. The burners are empty, it smells bad, there's no fire, a few scorch marks, and I'm munching on the shards of pottery like nachos. I'm sleepy, and content, and very alarmed. The fuck happened?
I seem comfy enough, I have "food", so... Logs? And I'm greeted with a screen of text. And buttons for filtering the text. But I need to know! Cue dramatic screaming!
-No~!- I bellow as quietly and long as I can.
So... I learned a new way to condense Qi. After I drained my will to the point where I was a drunk overpowered bug. And I tried to fix it by eating...
So I -- fack, this is embarrassing... -- attempted to lasso the pots on the stove. I don't know if I just tipped them over or what, but I obviously succeeded. Why are there scorch marks?
Oh, fail! I tried to dry some tubers out with Arcane Fire. What the fuck? Oh, it's variable. I can choose the intensity? Since when? Fucking always?! It's just an effort of Will...
-Boo!- Fack. When do I sober up.
So. New notes. I don't get to know how much Will I've used, but manhandling imperial shiz takes a lot of it. Makes sense. But so does controlling attacks, which I thought was a default, and Gods Bless the gods for not letting me burn down my house.
Did I do anything productive? Ruined veggies, embarrassed myself, broke some dishes, ate, and... Qi Condensing III 240/10,000? Oy...
Wait, why am I only doing Qi Condensing? Shouldn't I be gathering Qi still? Pretty sure I'm still in Qi gathering stage. With my broken ass...
... I... I dried out some starchy tubers... By drinking the water out of them... What? Like coconuts? ... Do I have coconuts?
I resist the urge to open the Smorgas-Board. I cannot afford to expand and maintain my spatial space. What I've got might be taking up the majority of what I'm capable of. Well, personally. Holy fack, the emperor had me living high on the hog internally while my body was failing. My spirit wasn't doing so great, but I'm still here.
I set up new pots of future dip, pull out a few of my few tubers, then shriek wordlessly while harvesting all my harvestables. Having an auto-harvest would be nice, but I don't think I can sustain that at the growth level of the reg'lar plants.
Or I could try to let go of something else. I bank the clouds to free up whatever they're eating, and set up an auto-harvest, leaving my bank open, and getting to see as the number keeps going up. Fuck I have no sense of time. I swear I get three harvests before I feel like blinking. And I'm good? Kinda hungry.
So... How I drink water out of things? I grab up a tuber, drinking it like a juice box with an invisible straw I feel but don't see. So... Easily? I keep drinking tubers then mashing them with a long, narrow floor mortar and pestle I can operate with my feet in any form.
[Cycling II (Void) Successful]
[Successful Use: 17/100]
[Con. Qi 100]
[Qi 100]
[Karma 100]
[Aura of Suppression Successful]
[Successful Use: 24/100]
[Con. Qi -90]
[Karma -900]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,841,879/23,886,554]
[Current Qi: 331,823/5,850,300]
[Current Karma: 95,546,218/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,597,021]
[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]
Mm... I cycle, bank open, just watching the veggie numbers go up as I sip my tubers. When the mortar gets too pasty I dip down and sip the moisture out of it too.
This could be devastating if I knew how to crank up the intake. Just draining people of moisture like I can do their essence. And Qi. And soul flame, soulfire burning, soul energy, fires of creation?
-Ooh!- Soul forging is forging your soul into the fires of creation to be an epic douchebag. -Boom! Already there, baby!-
What the fuck happens when I do make flames of creation? Will I not collapse so often? Or can I do good stuff without imperial infusions? 'Cause right now I keep squeezing myself down to the last drop.
It's nice that the emperor can dump without having to risk a solar apocalypse with his not sun, but not so nice that I'm such an emergency case.
So. Got veg, flour, and I feel recovered. What now?
[Cycling II (Void) Successful]
[Successful Use: 21/100]
[Con. Qi 100]
[Qi 100]
[Karma 100]
[Aura of Suppression Successful]
[Successful Use: 25/100]
[Con. Qi -90]
[Karma -900]
[Current Condensed Qi: 1,842,189/23,886,429]
[Current Qi: 332,223/5,850,300]
[Current Karma: 95,545,718/107,275,977]
[Max Will: 9,597,021]
[Mortal Wallet: 10E,26K,228P,154R,179Da,155De,105k]
[Spirit Wallet: 0Dr,0Ph,0Th,1199Di,126Co,10526St]