Sunwhisper did feel foolish for asking the question aloud, but they already believed him to be damaged goods, so a little odd behavior was in keeping with his disguise. In any case, he had been curious. The Beetle God? Nothing in his scrolls had mentioned a Beetle God, but he supposed it hadn’t been relevant. Why discuss something everyone already knew?

The sun was a sacred beast. More than ever, he was sure that this world held the secret to the source of all magic, and he didn’t need to look at the compass safely stored in his chest compartment to know where it pointed.

They weren’t going in the right direction, literally speaking. However, this journey would be a step toward being ready to do so. Sunwhisper didn’t know what to think about Ji being along for the journey. In one sense, it was a good thing, as the person the raven had blamed for the theft was officially not him. Was that supposed to be a gift, to lift the burden of her threat from his shoulders? It didn’t matter much now that he was on the hook for the heist as well. Who could guess at the whims of sacred beasts?

Gomen Ji might still have been stronger than Sunwhisper, and he had all but challenged him to fight for his father’s honor already. Only the presence of the elder cultivators protected him from open attack. Well, at least he had his spear. No one had questioned the rod at his belt, and he preferred it that way.

The hike itself was not difficult, with an even incline, and a trail. Sunwhisper had spent his whole life so far trekking across the Tree of Heaven, and Dappo wasn’t setting too harsh a pace, though he obviously could have run them all into the ground if he chose, belly or no belly.

A cultivator could bolster his stamina with mana. Channeling itself was said to change the body, particle by particle until the practitioner became a sacred being. Sunwhisper was not sure it worked like that for him. Channeling increased his Dao Rating, and the Cultivation System modified his body and mind accordingly. No amount of hiking or calisthenics would improve his physical statistics. He had to choose what part of himself he would improve when he was given the option.

Being able to actively control the minutiae of his own advancement was a definite advantage, but it was not a road to exponential growth through the exploitation of the native system. Cultivators advanced the same way he did, but without a status screen. Sunwhisper had eaten a second spirit fruit, and much of that energy was still very active in his core. The increases to his Ego and Constitution meant the process was not as overwhelming as it had been the first time around, and he had marginally increased his strength, stamina, and dexterity as well. In the long run, he felt he was probably losing out by not dumping all his gains into improving his channeling capacity, but if he died on the mountain from a lack of Dexterity, the point would be moot.

The morning passed on into the afternoon without the sight of any sacred beasts. The Red Spider was said to have a den near the highest peak of Jigoku, and they would not come to it in a single day.

They settled for the evening in a clearing just beyond the end of the road. The next day, they would proceed without trails, following a stair of jagged stones up the side of one of the shoulders of Jigoku. Kuei cleared the sleeping area while Timu scouted the perimeter and the three youngest became the designated cooks.

Sunwhisper and Gomen Ji crouched on opposite sides of a boiling pot, chopping vegetables and adding them as they went. Janna was between them, having been charged with managing both the spices and the boys. Dappo was channeling on the edge of a rock several hundred feet above the camp. The beetle god was nearing the end of its daily journey across the sky, and the stars were beginning to be visible.

"I will make sure you do not return," Gomen Ji said, voice flat. "Whatever happens, you will pay for what you have cost my family."

"It isn’t his fault," Janna said.

"I meant both of you."

"Oh."

"You were the aggressors during the Reaping," Sunwhisper said. "What happened is your responsibility."

"I didn’t steal that fruit."

"Neither did Shishio," Janna said. "You shouldn’t hate him for what I did."

"He helped you, you are both at fault."

Sunwhisper dropped a handful of diced onions into the stew. He didn’t care what Gomen Ji thought except as it represented a possible danger to himself. The boy was stupid, carrying his anger around like an anchor. What did he think it would accomplish? They were all in the same situation, but at least his father was alive, and recovering. The same could not be said of his own. Humans couldn’t control their feelings, and it made them inferior to mechanoborgs.

Emotions were no mystery. They were a biological necessity, a motivator, and a means of learning to distinguish healthy behaviors from destructive ones. Bad results resulted in bad feelings, and an animal learned to avoid both. Sunwhisper resented that he had been given emotions at all, when a purely rational interpretation of the world, something no human could ever attain, would have been preferable. No doubt his fathers had wanted him to be better able to understand the human experience, and he felt that he did understand it. He just didn’t like it.

What was the benefit of feeling what he felt when he replayed the death of his fathers in his HUD? There was a sense of hollowness that accompanied it, and Sunwhisper resented having to experience that sense. It was of no utility. What did Gomen Ji know of loss, really? His emotions were out of proportion to the situation, and he would be better served by a more practical approach.

Should he have felt something more, something different? Was there something here that he wasn’t seeing?

Sunwhisper’s thoughts were interrupted by a wolf-like howl rising out of the darkness of the wood, and Timu came back to the group in a rush.

"Krenshar!" He had drawn a pair of long knives, and Kuei produced a stone cudgel. It had to weigh fifty pounds or more, but she handled it like it was a twig. Gomen Ji took on a fighting stance, facing the shade of the wood, but the voices of the beasts echoed from every direction. There was no way to be sure where they would come from first.

Janna and Sunwhisper moved close together, almost back to back, by unspoken consent. Neither drew weapons, but they were the closest to the fire. High above, Dappo was unmoved, continuing to meditate.

The krenshar were long-bodied, hyena-like beasts with an eerie cackle and an unsettling intimidation tactic. They had a special muscle that allowed them to pull back the skin from their faces, creating a visage so ghoulish that they could stop their prey in its tracks with a look.

When the first of them slunk out of the shadows of the trees and performed this trick, Janna gagged, and the color drained from Timu’s face. It was hard to count all the shapes that moved under the lee of the wood, but there were at least twenty of the snarling predators preparing to feast.

When they came, they did not take turns. Timu ducked under one, stabbing up with his knives and leaving a gash in the loose skin of its belly just as another sank its teeth into the leather of his boot.

Kuei swung her cudgel with such force that it made a "whomp" sound even when striking nothing but air, and she kept three of them at bay with those swings, though nothing connected.

Gomen Ji shouted a challenge, spinning up flame as he spun into a kata, The First Dance of Embers. Small jets of red and orange fire erupted from his feet and palms as he kicked and chopped, and this startled the Krenshar sufficiently that they gave him a wide berth. Similarly, the cook fire provided Sunwhisper and Janna with a small measure of protection, as the beasts would not approach them from across it, but they were still besieged.

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Janna recovered from her disgust quickly enough to punch the nose of the first creature that lunged at her. It backed off for a second, unhurt, yet wary. Sunwhisper had only a moment’s doubt before grabbing the rod at his belt and twisting it through the center, causing it to expand into a spear.

He had considered keeping it a secret longer, as he hadn’t wanted Gomen Ji to know he had a weapon at all, but he was going to have to fight on this journey anyway and he preferred living to do so rather than dying with his advantage concealed.

The krenshar that came at him got a nasty shock, the point of his spear penetrating its chest like an arrow as it expanded. Janna nearly lost her footing, gasping as she narrowly avoided being impaled by the back end, which was just as sharp as the front.

Her krenshar seized the moment to come in for a bite, but Sunwhisper jerked the weapon free of its first victim and dealt it a shallow wound with the back end of his spear. The cackles and shrieks continued around them, and the beasts seemed all the more excited for having seen their pack mates wounded or killed.

It was the blood, theirs or their prey’s, the smell drove them to madness.

Timu had his leg pulled out from under him, and he was set on from above. Kuei saw that he was about to have his throat bitten out, and sepia light bled from her hands as she snatched up a stone and threw it at the offending krenshar with the force of cannon shot. Bones cracked as the beast was knocked off of its feet, giving Timu the space he needed to rise.

"What are you doing!" Gomen Ji shouted at the serene form of Dappo meditating on the rocks. While he was unharmed, he was panting from exertion, not so much from the physical act of the kata as the spiritual cost of calling so much fire so quickly. Even the moment he wasted on berating their leader was enough for the krenshar to move in, and he had to again take up the dance.

Janna punched again, and this time the krenshar snapped its jaws around her fist. She screamed, but Sunwhisper was embroiled in a duel with two more of the beasts, and could not help her.

Kuei spun and slammed her cudgel down with such force that it snapped the spine of the offending creature. Janna was free, and she kicked it again for good measure.

Sunwhisper tried to call upon his mana to enhance his own strength or his spear’s, but he did not know the proper techniques, and the effort only distracted him. The surge of energy washed away any exhaustion he might have felt, but that had already been forgotten beneath the adrenaline of the struggle.

Krenshar bodies piled around them in a ring, and the wounded slunk away. It was only after long minutes of continued fighting, when more than half the pack was dead or depleted, that those that remained vanished into the shade of the wood. Night had come fully to Jigoku, and their campfire was a small space of warmth in a vast swath of cold and dark.

It reminded Sunwhisper of the Tree of Heaven.

Dappo launched himself from his seat on the rocks above and landed nimbly, a nimbus of fuzzy white mana quickly dissipating from around his feet.

"Good," he said, "you are not all useless. Process the bodies before their mana diffuses." He grabbed one of his packs and began handing out tools used by cultivators to harvest the cores of sacred beasts, as well as their other useful organs. He had also brought a collection of bottles and sacks inscribed with scripts that would preserve their contents, though they would also slowly drain the mana of whatever they held unless they were provided with another source of energy.

Janna was busy cleaning and wrapping her hand, which sported a collection of punctures, a few at least an inch deep. Channeling aided recovery, prevented inflammation, and even stopped bleeding, so she was in no real danger. It would have taken a genuine technique, however, to cause the punctures to fully close, so she would have to content herself with otherwise natural healing.

Sunwhisper had never been present for the processing of a sacred beast, so he watched with fascination as Timu and Kuei set to work. Timu positioned himself to hide what he was doing, whereas Kuei was willing to let him learn.

Gomen Ji already had an idea of what was required, so he slit one krenshar belly himself and searched for the creature’s core with bloody hands. He was too rough, however, and though he was the first one to pull out a prize, it was damaged by his mishandling. He earned himself a slap from Kuei and a disapproving grunt from Dappo, who was not helping.

After that, he threw down his tools and strode to the edge of the light to pout.

"Just like a fire brat," Dappo said loudly.

The tension was clear in the line of Ji’s shoulders, but he was not so angry that he was willing to lose his head fighting the superior cultivator. Not yet.

After watching Kuei carefully for the first fifteen minutes, Sunwhisper attempted the procedure himself, with Janna assisting. Though she had had some instruction, she hadn’t ever tried it on her own, so she was content to hold what needed to be held and provide light to help the process.

The krenshar’s quintessence organ was like a fleshy walnut full of static electricity. It was hot in Sunwhisper’s hands, and it seemed somehow sickly. He had a hard time imagining something like this inside himself. Perhaps his core was made of steel or plastic, like the rest of him. He did not know for sure.

The visceral reaction Janna had experienced when she saw the krenshars peel back their own faces was not repeated. She took to processing with a studious and sober attitude, and Kuei nodded approvingly at both of them, whereas Timu only sneered.

Apart from their cores, krenshar meat was said to be a healthy source of protein, and they crafted a rack to hang it in strips above the fire so it would smoke overnight. They processed so much that they saved only the choicest pieces, which Dappo supervised, as he had many opinions on the relative qualities of different cuts of meat.

The fur was not valuable, as it carried a distinct odor that was nearly impossible to be rid of, so they hung a few skins around the campsite as a deterrent to repeat attacks. Though they could lose themselves to rage, the beasts were not stupid. They learned lessons.

So much excess offal and meat was a liability, so Dappo had Ji and Timu carry it in bundles a little further back down toward the trail in the hopes that other predators would be satisfied with their leavings and avoid the camp.

"That spear," Dappo said when they were gone, "an heirloom?"

"Yes," Sunwhisper agreed. "It belonged to an older sibling."

"An intriguing weapon, well disguised. It will be quite formidable if you ever learn how to use it."

"That is my hope."

Dappo snorted, but made no further comment.

Sunwhisper offered to take the first watch, and no one disagreed. He didn’t really sleep to begin with, and he wanted some time alone with his status screens. There had been more than one mental ping during the battle to signal newly available advancements.

Their sleeping areas, as well as their bedrolls, were largely ruined by the blood and the claw marks left over from the battle. The party climbed onto a flat rock step and arranged themselves there, using their packs as pillows. They were not protected by the fire, but Dappo had returned to his meditations, and his presence carried more weight than the security of a little light.

Sunwhisper settled himself slightly to one side of the party, facing away from the party. Even though he lacked specific techniques, the battle had still cost him mana, and he thought he was ready to eat his third fruit. With as little movement as possible, he carefully reached under his robes and worked his hand into his chest compartment, withdrawing the Soma.

When he bit into the fruit, it was even more delicious than the first time. The juice ran over his tongue like joyful lightning, and he stuffed his face to minimize the amount of time he could be caught with stolen Soma in his hands. The experience was so intense that for several minutes he was unable to properly focus on his status screens.

An entirely new tree of possible advancements was open before him. Though at the moment he could only access its roots, after making his selection, he would arguably be qualified to receive his first star. No longer confined to raising his statistics, either the path meditations or his new Dao Rating or both had qualified him for a new kind of achievement. These were elemental endowments.

They were his path.

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Sunwhisper (Mechanoborg Ne Plus Ultra)

Strength: *3

Dexterity: *5

Constitution: *5

IQ: *6

EQ: *1

Ego: *9

Dao Rating: 1337

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