I am finished. I am done. I’ve completed a molecular restructuring of most of my previously human body, using the indigenous elements and energies of this world. Everything feels different—breath, taste, touch, scent, sight—all alien yet familiar. But I do not complain. I feel the power in this improved body, the dense durability of sand, now held together as meat, bones, blood. This is not just any sand but particles forged under such pressure and heat they’ve become crystalline, nearly half as hard as diamonds.

I take a breath..., drinking in the energy of the world instead of merely sipping it as I once had to. Having become the first ‘human’ on this planet to cultivate an elemental physique, I now feel threads of fate, fortune, karma, and order knotting around me, marking a milestone on this world. My transformation has caught the attention of higher-dimensional existences, their 'gaze' now strongly leveled on me as the first and only person to complete body cultivation on this world.

I see a treasure map in the sky how could I not follow it? Yet the path of least resistance to power is also the most dangerous—it exposes me. A few hundred kilometers away, in the desert, a naked person quietly cultivates under the fading light, at peace, comfortable, and completely satiated on the energies of the world. Around him, in varying states of undress and consciousness others rest or emulate his breathing pattern to harness world energies.

The humans sit around under the sun, attempting my energy-eating breathing technique like fish out of water. It amuses the mirage chaser to see them floundering so. There are seven of them, all men, all near death in their health attempting the technique as a sort of test. The seven are thin, dry things, vigorous of spirit yet old and tired of flesh, even one without eyes, ears, nose, penis, or tongue amongst them. The mirage chaser imparts an imperfect technique as they try emulating someone who isn’t himself doing it perfectly. I watch them through the mirage chaser, experiencing the moment as he loses himself into half-consciousness. Breathing, cultivating energy into himself, easier and easier as I ride his subconscious with him.

I feel his pain with every moment of this technique, a torture of being drowned he can only keep for a dozen seconds at a time before settling on an energy-maintaining baseline. Again he drowns himself, and I admire him for it, the desire in him for more despite his limits awakening something in me. All seven of them, poor wretched creatures not long for this world, insignificant in the time of their life and overall insignificant in the greater scene of existence, yet striving anyways. Doomed to not even be a stepping stone or even a footnote in anything of significance, yet here they are, raging hopelessly against their own demise.

Like ants that mechanically stockpile provisions they’ll not survive to consume, there is a virtue in the nihility of human existence. These doomed creatures understand their own end is inevitable, and yet they rage against it instinctually. The eyeless one breathes his last breath with a whimper. I almost feel his life leave his body, a broken body now empty, yet the others don’t even realize as they continue their breathing attempts. Fascinating, these humans are so fascinating.

As I breathe in energy, filling myself with ease now that the seal on human potential has been opened, I notice patterns previously subconscious, now plain as day. My impact on the world unfolds before me—knots of fate, karma, and fortune affecting all around me in a cascading effect. Because I have cultivated energy in a base human vessel, I’ve made it possible—easier, more likely—for others to cultivate as well. The proof lies in the harsh desert night, where the mirage chaser sits naked without even shivering. Others around him—old men in various desert gear—attempt to cultivate with varied success. Yet, in a few months or years, these people will be able to cultivate as easily as the mirage chaser.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I look up above the still-raging storm and notice nothing. I look about making sure no one is watching me before stepping from the storm into the desert. I walk south towards the mirage chaser and his ilk. There are six attempting the technique now, but there are many other hopeless ones waiting to die. If I could impart the technique to them, give them some hope, I wonder what I could reap in return. Cultivating energy and cultivating humans might also be interesting if not immediately useful.

How will life change for these people when the desert is no longer the death trap it currently is?

This thought plays in my mind as I consider the enemies I’ve yet to encounter, the enemies I’ve yet to make, or the ones still hidden, awaiting the right moment. I look up at the sky, reading the stars, noticing a few too many lights moving with purpose—a suspicious purpose. I will continue to cultivate personal power without a doubt, but I’ll take every useful tool for my survival. I’ll hide myself even from fate and fortune by ensuring I am not the only human capable of cultivating energy and refining a pure crystalline sand body.

I will hide among the masses of elites I will create. Yes... this sounds far more interesting than being alone in the shadows, waiting for Destruction to come for me.

I watch the humans from a few dunes away repeating their mannerisms, listening to the inane sounds they make to each other. Most of their conversations are make belief, stories or memories when they are not mocking each other. Otherwise words are few, movement precise to save energy and they die or dehydration and the elements. Its strange to me, why these people even try to live somewhere they are clearly not adopted to survive. I watch them use their tools, masks over nose and mouth, goggles over eyes, entire body wrapped in tanned hide that keeps the sand and sun away.

Though they are slowly being eating away by the desert they persist in daily activities, helping each other until another is dead and buried under sand. The longest to survive out here have their soft tissues scrapped off their faces, chests and groins; amputated and maimed slowly by the elements around them. Showing their cleverness to survive in their odd tools.

There is a type of magic in their tools i cannot interface with from here, their staffs have an electric charge, there are numerous fireless sources of heat used every night. They have a vase that extracts moisture from frozen sand at night for them to drink, they can read the stars for directions and have clever stories about them. Some of them talk incessantly while others say nothing at all the entire week I watch them, so are in despair while others in complete acceptance of their miserable circumstances.

There are 27 in sheltering amongst a cluster of rocks amid the desert as a strange community trapped by the elements. Some of them have their minds broken in interesting ways, like the eyeless one who clearly sees light and talks in 3 dialects to himself. Am I really like them?

If I don't show myself here where will I show myself? I have a body so I have to park it somewhere, insinuate it amongst some humans. Yet I can see these are likely the most desperate of humans, the lowest of the low in terms of station and possession amongst their species. I can easily find better humans to be part of easily and the stars already told me this world is much more abundant beyond this desert where I'll definitely find humans of higher station.

A lot of these before me are disable of body, maimed by the sands sun and cold of this place into prematurely aged desperate things. I kind of like them, I certainly like them more than those serfs living in that glass tower I woke up it. there was something shameful about their station and passivity about it that made me uncomfortable.

Being human is strange... I am still getting used to it.

I approach their little rock isle.