Chapter 12: First Blood

-Lost Village-

Lost Village wasn’t actually lost, it would be more accurate to call it Forgotten by Everyone Village. The reason it’s called lost village was ironically lost to time and the some 500 odd residents didn’t particularly care what the town was called. It was quiet and out of the way, a good 25km from Gau City and within the influence of the monolith.

As long as they joined the great harvest twice a year they could be paid a gold coin for every full wagon of grain they can deliver to the Gau City silos. On the odd occasion if a villager should accidently catch a grain fly they can receive 4 gold pieces from the Gau Clans Sword Hall.

The Golden Grain Fly may have given James a hard time but that was only because he ate them in the dozens. In normal cases they can assist in a short spurt of instant spirit power growth but their greatest attribute is the power to assist in cultivation. In other words eating one can help increase the speed at which your Spirit Realm gathers spirit energy. The time varies person to person but generally if the Fly has lived for a good long period they will increase your spirit growth rate by nearly half again for anywhere up to a month.

James, unfortunately, missed out on taking advantage of this chance seeing that he was too busy being in a coma to meditate and consolidate the strange energy that would have granted him the cultivation bonus. He did however get a massive influx of primal spirit energy, or at least to a spirit barrier realm it was massive. Regardless of James’ misfortune within fortune we’re not in Lost village to talk about James, instead we’re here to visit an old friend of James’ who recently stumbled into town.

After a rocky start with the townspeople when he strolled in smelling of a multitude of strange things and looking as if he’d been chewed up and spat out by some vicious creature, he managed to score some rest and a job in the stables shovelling shit. It was also the only place in the entire town where the smell he was generating was slightly offset by the smell of his work place and sleeping arrangement.

He was paid 5 coppers once he’d finished in the stable and he was also given a horse brush and something that resembled a rock that smelled of soap, then thrown into the horses bathing trough to clean himself. After that whole thing and covered in the bite marks of horses that took exception to the smell, he returned to the stable and slept the night away in a deep sleep on some mostly clean hay.

When dawn awoke him from his slumber the first thing Fatty realized was that he was hungry. So hungry was Fatty, that he was almost prepared to climb into a stall and start gnawing one of the horses to death just to satiate this hunger. Once he finally managed to get control of this urge he walked back out towards a grain paddock and madly started consuming raw grains off the stalks. He ate as much as 5 full grown men and only then was he satisfied. He’d been so hungry upon waking up that taste didn’t even matter.

Fatty’s hunger never used to be this gluttonous. He used to eat a bit more than others but it was never like this before. However ever since the forest experience this level of hunger ‘felt’ normal and his mind was too busy on other things to discern any major change in his diet. When the need struck him he just knew he had to eat!

After this quick snack fatty wandered the village and managed to use 3 coppers to have a villager tailor some cloth into a great big poncho to replace what little of his jumpsuit still remained. When he first started walking around the village he was worried that people would question the nature of his glowing red hand. Opposite to Fatty’s expectations, everyone treated it as par for the course and even seemed somewhat respectful and maybe a little fearful towards him.

At one point, a boy playing in the street bumped into him while he was walking and when he reached out his glowing hand to help the boy up a villager ran out and flying jumped into an incredibly impressive sliding kowtow with his forehead grinding through the dirt. Other than being impressed by the man’s ability to slide nearly 4 meters on his knees with his forehead pressed to the ground Fatty was more surprised when the man started calling him mighty cultivator and merciful lord while simultaneously rebuking the child for upsetting the powerful lord practitioner and then had him on his knees apologizing and begging leniency as well.

Fatty being a conspiracy nut decided something was afoot on this alien prison/enslavement/breeding world and began asking questions. Once he started he couldn’t stop himself and asked nearly everyone in the village every question he could think of.

Although Lost Village was tucked away in the middle of grain fields in a nice quiet area the villagers still knew a little bit about cultivators and explained everything they could. Once he learnt all of this he made the decision to try and get to this Gau City that he’d heard about. The next day he set off with nothing but his glowing hand and great big poncho. He took no rations because the entire area around Gau City within the 35km radius of the monolith was covered in grain. Fatty no longer cared what he ate. As long as his hand didn’t flash when he went to stuff it in his mouth he’d eat anything.

And so Fatty travelled towards Gau City at a level jog looking like a bouncing meat ball. Interestingly it was later discussed by many locals that a strange pestilence had popped up in the southern fields, where entire patches of grain into the tens of square meters would just disappear every now and then for no rhyme or reason. When it was investigated by Gau Clan disciples they found nothing but barren patches with debris of grain stalks scattered about appearing to have been chewed on but they could never find a creature capable of eating that much grain.

-Madman Laboratory-

James and Skay had discussed and argued over many things for many hours. Finally they felt they had a clear idea of what they needed to achieve for the best results when they stepped into the True Spirit realm.

The first thing they decided on was to gather cultivation resources. When they discussed this Harvey chimed in about a sizable vein of black-iron he’d discovered in the endless forest. If he used a Gau Compass they could investigate it properly and maybe use the rewards for such a discovery to accumulate some resources from the clan.

So that’s what they decided to do. Skay stayed behind in the lab to complete the breathing technique they needed to gain better control over their spirit elements as well as speed up their cultivation. James took the Ghoul and the Slut into the forest with a bunch of odd tools given to him by the old madman.

It wasn’t too difficult to find with Harvy leading the way and only took a few hours for the ragtag team of the Dark Brotherhood to reach the ore vein. When they reached a small valley in the forest they branched off from the cobblestone paths that apparently stretch out across the entirety of the Endless Forest. On arrival at the base of the valley they found a number of dirty black stones scattered around the area and a cliff face reaching upwards with a long dirty black streak through it.

“Dark Lord and Lady this black streak is the edge of the vein of black iron-ore. I don’t know how far it reaches into the earth but for it to be so big here must mean the vein is quite large. At least, that was my assumption when I first discovered it.” Harvy gave a respectful bow with his fist cupped towards James and gestured to the dirty black streak across the cliff face.

James took out a black pad they’d recently found in the wreckage they’d come through with and flipped it open. After pressing on it a few times then handed it to Jessy, who was essentially just here to be his assistant. Also she was bored, not knowing what exactly to do with her time, she actually volunteered.

Once he’d handed it to her he took off a backpack and pulled out a small box that resembled the base of his compass with a number of wires and electronics he’d recently soldered onto it. He then began plugging the wires into the pad.

Once he was ready he nodded. “Alright looks like we’re set. I hope that old madman’s program actually works. Just for a test ... Harvy bring me one of those ore rocks.” James pointed at the biggest black rock he could see near the cliff base. It looked more like a boulder and was close to 2 meters in height and width. He could have just walked over to it but he took a perverse delight in giving Harvy unreasonable tasks.

Harvy didn’t even question the order and walked up to the great big boulder. Circulating his earth element he dug his hand into the boulder like it was tofu. With a great huff out, he poured his power into his legs lifting the boulder. Great heavy steps thumped the whole four meters over to James and then dropped the stone to the ground.

James and Jessy were both rather surprised. He expected to be given the chance to berate his zombie servant a little but instead had no choice but to praise him. He decided to take the middle road though because he didn’t want the ghoul becoming too full of himself with praise like some spoilt dog that gets a pat just taking a crap even if it’s on the carpet.

“Harvy, I thought your earth element was the weakest it could get. I could understand it being a little more powerful now that you’ve consolidated your true spirit but how did it become so fuckin’ stupidly powerful. I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting you to lift that boulder. I just wanted to fuckin’ yell at something. Now fuckin’ explain yourself!”

James’ middle road quickly joined back onto the first path of berating despite a great deal of effort on his part to hold it in. However no one could ever say he wasn’t honest with his employee base.

Harvy had no great reaction to this and his lifeless dead eyes remained lifeless and dead he simply made a bow to his Evil Overlord and explained. “Master this servant believes that death is closely related to the earth. It was explained to me by Vice Guildmaster Skay, in the cycle of life and death all things eventually return to the earth in one form or another. When I meditated on this insight I gained enlightenment from my element of death and my understanding of my earth element grew.”

James cupped his chin slightly. ‘So even abstract notions like this can affect the level of control we have over our elements. Fuck that’s bizarre. There’s still so much we don’t understand about the laws of spirit energy control. Fuck we can’t even figure out a way to measure it!’

Having thought that far James put away the notion of abstract thought affecting control and walked the whole step to the rock. After placing his hand on the rock he stared intensely at it for a good fifteen minutes. Finally he figured out how to pour spirit energy into it through his hand. Although this was close to materialising spirit energy outside his body he was in contact with it and wasn’t trying to control his spirit energy once it’d left his body. He had a sneaking suspicion this was similar to how all those martial techniques worked and allowed even barrier realm cultivators to affect the natural laws in their surroundings.

After another 15 minutes he’d finally got the hang of it and looked over to Jessy who’d been rather quiet since he berated her for not being able to accept her inner nature. Jessy was watching him and when he looked over she looked down at the pad and pressed some buttons. After a moment a 3D depiction of the rock appeared on the screen with a whole bunch of measurements next to it from size to purity.

When she saw this she couldn’t help but gasp. “Wow ... Can’t believe it actually works.”

James strolled over and looked at the screen as a smile split his face. He too was inwardly a little surprised. Skay had told him the black-iron had an absurd level of magnetic sensitivity and even greater levels of electromagnetic activity when a current passed through it. With that in mind he designed this little box and program with James to use the magnetic fields created by the ore to determine its purity and quantity.

James was a little sceptical at first but now he was a believer. ‘Just how much is locked up in the head of that fuckin’ madman to be able to implement this kind of geological surveying with a bunch of rocks he’d never seen before.’

Once James was finished he approached the dirty great skid mark on the cliff face and placed both hands on it. With an intention, his lightning element surged out like a wrathful tidal wave into the ore and little snakes of lightning flickered about on the cliff face. After about half an hour of constantly pouring in energy, James staggered back and fell to the ground pale as a ghost. He’d poured literally every bit of lightning element he could conjure into the black-iron deposit and was now feeling the backlash as his other two spirit energies roiled and shook inside his spirit realm.

Without even worrying about the survey result he sat into a cross-legged position and began to meditate to increase his recovery rate. Once it was half way restored he finally climbed up. He began to question the nature of how his spirit energy increased. From his observations he suspected his maximum spirit energy level always increased at a set rate while meditating and spirit energy below this ever rising maximum value could be quickly regenerated after being used.

He believed this gave greater credence to the theory that your subconscious was stealing energy to reinforce the barrier. When you weren’t raising the maximum spirit energy and just recovering then the barrier took no energy and this allowed you to recover quickly. The massive deference in the speed of recovery and the growth rate of your maximum spirit energy made James think that the amount of spirit energy your subconscious used to build its barrier was inordinately higher than what it left for refinement into an element. He suspected if his barrier wasn’t being simultaneously built then his progress in the growth of his maximum spirit energy would be an order of magnitude faster than at present.

When he discussed this thought with Skay later they finally understood why the level of control over your elements was so important in breaking the barrier. It was because the barrier eventually contained a massive difference in energy from what you had at your disposal and the only way to break that overwhelming power was to be able to control your element to the level in which you could overwhelm greater power with less.

Skay’s comment basically summed up their conclusions. “In the analogy of two armies battling one another. It’s like an army of a million peasants being attacked and dispersed by a hundred thousand trained and tried cavalrymen.”

Once his moment of introspection finished they had a look at the ‘map’ generated on the pad. James could think of only one word to describe his feeling looking at all the figures next the image. ‘Mine!’

He immediately claimed this ore vein in his head. The vein was so massive, even with him pumping spirit energy into it for half an hour their makeshift device could hardly see the ends.

From the figures he was reading it looked to reach back into the cliff face and underground for tens of kilometres and beyond the box’s ability to detect. More important was what was spread out through the vein. Patches of very bright areas which had quality and quantity values through the roof. James was more concerned with what was in the centre of these patches though. It looked like a little solid dot and its purity values were greater than 100%.

“Above 100%! Is that spirit essence deposits?” James said aloud to himself. He thought back to a conversation he’d overheard between the Elder and Skay back when he first woke up. The elder made a reference to spirit ores that develop an essence. The essence was described as the true core of an ore vein and held the same properties as the rest of the ore, only magnified!