Day 35
Spring 56, 11M 495Y
Rasputin Territory
Walker Farm
The horses were grumpy, wild, and sturdy. When they weren’t biting each other they tried their best to bite their riders and thought it was funny when they managed to get a nibble. They saved the biggest, meanest mare around for me. An inky black mare well on her way to becoming a rank 3 nightmare turned her head back and forth, keeping every rider in sight. Roosters, Rabbits, and gators lined the fence, ready to jump in if something went wrong. The black mare was named Kate, and we branded her with a star-shaped spur for Walker Farm. The red scar showed on her rump even through the black fur, and the mare was twice as pissed because of it.
I reached out to pet her, and she bit my hand. The horse met my gaze with one of her large orbs and started barring down on me. When our eyes met, I smirked. She was more likely to break her teeth than my hand. Kate shook her head but failed to move me. I patted her neck with my other hand until she gave up and let go.
Not a mark scuffed my hand. Kate was the boss mare of the rank 2 horse monsters. While she wasn’t much smarter than a normal horse, she was still the boss, and if the others saw she let me ride her, maybe the others would, too.
“This won’t help the rumors.” Big Don said.
I patted Kate’s neck. There were rumors I was sleeping with the monsters on my team. It was only true for one of them; Isobel was still in the kissing stage, and Fu was more head than anything. Gwen didn’t have a body conducive to that kind of relationship. Veronica was more of a hugger. Nana was the only one I had sex with, and it was more than I could handle.
“Who else am I going to be with?” I asked.
Heads turned my way.
Big Don started whispering quickly. “Sir, I have been on your forums and seen what humans think of monster-human relations. Is it wise to flaunt such deviance?”
“You don’t have to whisper. I already said the important bit out loud. I’m not ashamed of my relationships.” I said.
I heard wood crack and turned to see Kate leaning closer with her teeth aimed at my nose. When our eyes met, and I didn’t make a move to stop her, she froze before slowly edging away. She was clearly a troublemaker. I turned my attention to a very nervous-looking Veronica holding up my tablet and recording our first try at horse breaking. The videos would also make great blackmail for Kate in the future. Nightmares were extremely intelligent. Some could write with shadows to get their desires across.
My eyes met Kate’s, and I leaned in to whisper in her upright ears. “I’m going to record every embarrassing detail of the start of our relationship. You are going to fear the cringe when you rank up.” I said.
“You are evil,” Veronica said.
I turned to the camera. “I know I am,” I said and climbed up on Kate’s back. Her ears flattened before Big Don opened the gate. Dust exploded as 2 tons of horse galloped out, kicking out her back hooves and screaming her displeasure.
The entire time, I laughed as she shook me back and forth and tried to smash me into the fence. It was the sort of play that would only work when the target was significantly weaker than the material. Kate at least had the stamina to throw a fit.
After 3 hours of bucking, headbutting, and pushing her weight around, Kate decided it was time to pretend to give up. She didn’t know I saw videos of tricky horse monsters pulling her act. The gate to the corral was open, and she walked me under it just when the arch above would crack my head when she bucked. I ducked and kicked her side.
She shot out, shaking her body. I was out of breath. My lungs were completely empty as I laughed silently at the sound of pounding hooves. I drew back to only holding her rein with one hand and flicked it. Kate ignored my command to turn and ran through a barbed wire fence. It hadn’t slowed her down, and she made her way toward my attribute fruit orchard. She trampled over peanut rows and stopped at the two-foot-tall saplings covered in tiny blue leaves.
When she tried to graze on them, I pulled her back. Kate dared to look back at me with a betrayed expression. I flicked the rein again, and she screamed at me. Another flick, then a hand gestured, and the mare turned her head in that direction. After a minute of turning her head and listening, she tried to eat again, and I pulled on the rein. That continued for hours as I struggled to convey what I wanted, and she struggled to eat all the leaves off my saplings.
Then I had an idea and kicked when I popped her rein, and she turned before trotting in that direction. It was progress. Moments later, she stopped and started grazing on the leaves of pepper plants.
I decided to devote a few hours each day to training her after that.
…
Far Ming prepared herself for a meeting with their benefactor a man who spilled more blood than any demon cultivator she had heard of. The smell of blood filled her nose every time they met, and it practically radiated from his spirit. She had held off further dungeon exploration and let her contract run its course. Leaving this venture behind would set them back a decade. Still, once her young master regained his cultivation, time would no longer be a rare commodity.
It was unfortunate her young master didn’t want to leave.
Her young master had gone native. Well, that wasn’t completely true. It was more that he brought Easton's military tactics and culture to the burgeoning monster society. Meng Bao had only taken a group of brutal sewer-dwelling spirit beasts and turned them into a refined march of death. With a little work and far more numbers, they could potentially turn this territory into an Easton province. Such dreams were possible to realize.
Meng Bao had cousins of age to be used to bind Atom Walker to their family. That was one direction she hoped to steer their meeting toward. Another was to stop this failed plan to acquire skilled employees and cattle from Bavilim. A vampire surge was coming, and their benefactor would be even harder to control if he was turned into a vampire.
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Her young master was enthralled by the idea and had taken to practice his riding to surprising results. The food in this place has had a beneficial effect on Prince Bao’s health. His shaking, which was supposed to get worse with every passing day without his meridians, had shown signs of receding. There were still no signs of recovery of his meridians but Meng Bao seemed healthier every day.
The door to the meeting room opened, and the room filled with the scent of blood. A man with skin like marble, muscles like steel cables, and bones like mountains strode in with a boyish smile on his face. The smell of treated leather and horse sweat clung to the man dressed in a flowing robe of spider silks. The robe wouldn’t look out of place at the imperial court another change made by her young master. The owner of this place reveled in the Easton additions practically in love with every facet of her country.
Only his eye shape, skills, levels, skin color, and gate separated him from fitting in with the ministers of her land. She stood up and gave a deep bow which he returned with a slightly shallower bow as was custom. Far Ming preferred it to the handshake Westons were known for.
“Were the roofs your idea or Bao?” Atom asked.
He gazed out the window to the rows of apartments with Easton roofs mixed with Weston walls.
“It was the young master,” Ming said.
The man nodded and let the moment stretch.
When the silence became too much, she spoke. “Is there any problem with it, or have we overstayed our welcome?” Ming asked.
“No, I have something to ask you about, and I’m having trouble finding a path to ask it during a meeting about roof tops, clothing lines, and plans for the cattle.” Atom said.
He gave her a smile before Veronica stepped in carrying a tea tray with fluffy corn biscuits. Most farmers, even in her homeland, could only grow rank 1 rice at the best of times. Cultivation took most of the chi from the world to ensure their military power was always at its peak. Sect disputes and clan wars notwithstanding, there was only so much energy to go around. When a cultivator found a monster, they didn’t bury the corpse back in the earth. They used it and refined pills to further their cultivation.
She nervously sipped at her tea to wet her dry throat before speaking. “Ask away. I will help you any way I can, benefactor.”
Farmers were most often the same, selling corpses to alchemists for a tidy profit. Instead, Atom buried the bodies, trapped the mana in the land, and gave a dungeon the kickstart it needed to build its own inner mana farms. There was chi in the air thanks to the pills, weapons, and scrolls she dropped in the dungeon. It would soon develop into a mix of Weston and Easton power, much like this territory could be. She ruined his dungeon, making it into something that would benefit him less and less as it evolved.
She may have to fight for her life and flee with Meng Bao. It was obvious he figured it out.
“Can you explain demon cultivation techniques to me?”
It was a blow to the gut she hadn’t expected. Demonic cultivation techniques were outlawed cultivation techniques that promised power in exchange for human life. They transformed mortals into cultivation pills, extracted blood and souls, and perverted the soul of the wielder. There was no reason for him to ask such a question unless he found a cultivation scroll that contained one within the dungeon.
A chaotic dungeon running the fine line between Weston and Easton's power could very well have created a demonic cultivation scroll.
“Can you show it to me?” Far Ming asked.
“I see. I guess I couldn’t fool you.” Atom said.
Her eyes widened. “Have you been practicing it?”
“It was hard not to.” This was a nightmare scenario where Weston and Easton would work together to purge such an aberration from the world. A Weston as powerful as Atom with a demonic cultivation technique could become unbelievably powerful and corrupted. “I guess skills and cultivation techniques are rather similar.”
Those words ground her thoughts to a halt. Did the dungeon create a demonic cultivation technique in the form of a skill? Was it truly doing the impossible and fusing the two cultures into a usable form? Did she want to risk it and give her young master a second chance at being who he was always meant to be? This place had been good for his health; maybe he could recover completely.
“Is it possible to grant my young master a similar skill? Not a demonic technique but a cultivation technique in the form of a skill. Do you have such a skill in your collection?” Ming asked.
Atom tossed a biscuit in his mouth and chewed quietly before knocking back his tea. “I love these biscuits. Their sweetness goes well with bitter tea.” Atom said.
“What is your price?”
“You’re asking for something that doesn’t exist yet.” Atom said.
She understood it wasn’t that he was unwilling, but the dungeon itself may not have created the skill. In time, with further dives, they could collect skills and find what she was looking for. Atom’s cosmic bag could certainly carry many skill shards. Unfortunately, he was unwilling to enter the dungeon again for an entire year. 400 days was a long time.
While her young master’s health was recovering, winter was a harsh month. Silos of corn meal would keep them alive along with smoked meat, but if something gets into their food reserves or rank 3 or higher, monsters attacking this growing settlement would fall. The tyranny of rank was nothing to scoff at. Each rank was exponentially higher than the last until things like immunities no longer held meaning outside the same rank.
“Your demonic cultivation skill, what is it called?” Far Ming asked.
“Sky Fiend Apotheosis, you know I can feel it, refining the blood contained within, preparing to drip-feed me. If I concentrated on the process, it would happen sooner. I wanted to know if I would explode from it. My attributes are already at the edge of rank 3. We are weeks away from selling enough goods to max out my farmer class.”
Far Ming remembered legends of the Sky Fiends. They were Devilish deities that gained power from refining the blood of their opponents, increasing their physical cultivation with every enemy drained of their blood. The strongest of them could regenerate from a single drop of blood and shatter mountains with their bolts of blood lightning. She shivered at that creature being turned into a skill for anyone to absorb.
Any sane woman would have called this in and had the entire settlement and dungeon wiped. The smiling Weston knew it, too, and as his ally, it was her duty to answer and help him.
“No, you won’t explode. Think of it as gaining a second set of attributes that comes from your soul. I will retrieve a guide on chi condensation, pillar formation, and core manifestation. Beyond those realms, I am ignorant; I am, after all, in the pillar formation realm. That is the equivalent of a rank 2.” Far Ming said.
“Then why doesn’t everyone combine the powers?” Atom asked.
She snorted. “Is that a joke? Exploding can happen if they do not have the greatest recovery cultivation in the world. You picked up a dragon scale. Be sure not the anger the dragon by keeping it.” Far Ming said.
The boy of 16 had the balls to chuckle at her warning. “I can’t believe I get to cultivate. You could say it was one of my secret desires. Everyone wants to live forever and be one with the heavens.” Atom said.
In his case it would be the hells. The heavens despised demonic cultivation techniques and struck down their wielders. The heavenly tribulations often made the surviving demons stronger and more ferocious. The blood-soaked monster in front of her smiled like the fox that ate an entire henhouse.
“If you will give me a few copies of different cultivation techniques I should be able to create an optimized skill for Meng Bao and yourself. Think of them as bonuses for joining up with Walker Farm.” Atom said.
Her eyes widened as the man stood up without talking about the rest of their business. Isobel walked into the room with a folder in hand. “Am I late for the meeting?” Isobel asked.
“No, you’re right on time. Give me the footnotes. I have the skill to design I’ll be in my tent for the next six hours. Have a good day, ladies.” The monster walked off with the biggest smile she had ever seen.
“Atom and his hobbies,” Isobel said, shaking her head.