Calculating Cultivation-Chapter 108: The Third Trap

The water level was much higher in this part of the Great Jungle, but there were still massive trees everywhere. The problem was the number of bugs of all sizes that were constantly buzzing about. It was bad enough that three of the cultivators traveling with me killed themselves and another had been drained of blood completely.

Everyone was wearing all the layers they could and sweating heavily underneath them. It was absolutely miserable. Even Guide Zee was wilting under the oppressive heat and the onslaught of bugs.

“Why is it so bad?” I asked through the layers of cloth covering my face. This had been going on for almost a month.

“It is cyclical, Senior. The best option is to keep pushing forwards. All the rain recently hasn’t helped either. The trees can only suck up the water so fast,” Guide Zee answered for the countless time as I continued to follow them along branches. We were all exhausted, even me. If we stopped the bugs would swarm.

Nets had been made and hung, but the bugs were beyond ferocious. For every million killed, another trillion arrived. While I would like to call that an exaggeration, it really wasn’t. The swarm was so dense that the Light Source was occasionally blocked.

I kept complaining and asking questions of Guide Zee, hoping this hell would end soon. I had endured many kinds of suffering, but this was far the worst. The Great Jungle was worse than the Forever City. At least the Forever City would just kill you and be done with it. There were no swarms of bugs in the toxic gas. I really wished I had a lot of that toxic yellow gas to flood the Great Jungle and kill everything here, especially these bugs.

“There!” Guide Zee exclaimed and pointed, quickly altering course. I followed them and we soon arrived at a tree clear of bugs. The tree emitted a noxious smell, but the air was still breathable. The surviving cultivators reached the tree behind us and quickly began setting up camp before they passed out. The bugs swarmed at the edge of the tree’s smell cloud, pushing in and out like a black wave seeking to devout us all.

“Any risks with this tree?” I asked as Guide Zee had placed their hand down on the branch.

“Nothing serious. It just smells terrible to keep away creatures,” Guide replied. I let out a sight of relief at that. I could handle a bad smell. But the bugs were driving me crazy. I looked at the swarm that was surging closer and closer.

“And the bugs? Will they brave the tree?” I asked. Guide Zee went to the main trunk and stabbed a spike from their sleeve into the trunk. Some gap gushed out and the smell got worse, but the bugs retreated. The hole quickly sealed itself, but the much worse smell still lingered.

“That should keep them away,” Guide Zee said. I nodded at this as Junior Wei came over. She was looking quite old and frail, but she still endured this journey.

“Senior, how long are we resting?” she asked.

“A full rest to give us time to recover. Supplies?” I asked.

“Cloth is an issue. After this swarm,” she replied. I nodded at this, but there was nothing I could do.

“We can take the sap of the tree with us, so we should be safe from any bug swarms once we leave,” I replied and she nodded. I turned back to Guide Zee. “We have been traveling for about a decade. How much longer until we leave the Great Jungle?” I asked.

“Soon. The rain has been getting much worse. It is the constant evaporation and the cloud ring,” Guide Zee said.

“Cloud ring?” I asked.

“The Great Jungle will soon end when we reach the Last Mountains. They separate the Great Jungle from the Great Desert. The cloud ring, is formed all the water constantly evaporating and getting pushed up against the Last Mountains,” Guide Zee explained.

“And they have eroded over time?” I asked in surprise.

“The dirt has been washed away. All that is left is hard rock. But you can tell we are getting close, since the water levels have risen and the rain has increased. Once the sky becomes completely overcast and the plants die away to the lack of light and rain, then you will know we are almost to the Great Desert,” Guide explained carefully.

These people lack of progress wasn’t due to knowledge, but the lack of metals. The fact that this tree person knew about climate cycles was proof enough that these people were stuck, not stupid. The sky began to unleash a light drizzle, but that had become incredibly common.

“What about the plants and creatures ahead?” I asked.

“It will be wet, very wet. But we can make a boat easily enough. The hard part will be going against the current and the wind. Nothing lives under the cloud ring. All that rain and moving water pushes anything into the Great Jungle. No plants grow, since it is almost completely dark,” Guide Zee said.

“You didn’t mention this before,” I said with a sharp gaze.

“It wasn’t important before. We had to make it there. And you were more concerned about the present and traveling quickly. But it isn’t that difficult to make the trip for cultivators. Just miserable. We will find a place to rest on the last few trees and then make a boat from one to sail over the water with,” I nodded at this.

“Why not make a boat now?” I asked.

“Too shallow and there are things in the water. We need to travel more and when the trees start thing out and it starts getting dark we can take that risk. Hopefully we can locate Zama,” Guide Zee said.

“The Last City, you mentioned this place before,” I said and Guide Zee nodded at this.

“Indeed. One of the few cities carved into the unyielding stone of the Last Mountains from generations of cultivators and pilgrims. On a good day they have around ten thousand souls,” Guide Zee said.

“That small?” I asked in surprise.

“That many. There is nothing there. Everything had to be brought in from the Great Jungle. The rains wash everything away. And the rocks that back up the Last Mountains are impossibly durable. Space is at a premium. Everything is used there to provide life. It is rumored there are only three other cities around on the Last Mountains not counting Zama,” Guide Zee said.

“Cultivators?” I asked. Wondering if I would have to fight.

“Demonic cultivators. But they won’t start trouble inside the city itself. There are strict rules. Since there are things that are older than me that occasionally pass through.” Like myself, but I wasn’t about to say that.

“And then beyond is the Great Desert?” I asked.

“Yes. There is a single path over the peaks of the Last Mountains to gaze upon the Great Desert in all its burning glory. I have looked once myself when I was much younger and nearly died. The heat is blistering. The rocks are hot enough at the peaks to boil one’s blood and burn one’s skin,” Guide Zee replied with a shake of their head.

A small tent was set up for me and food and water were prepared by other cultivators. That was the nice part about traveling with a group. I didn’t have to worry about the minor stuff right now. The real challenge would be once we cleared the Great Jungle and reached the Great Desert.

I had probably lost about ten percent of the cultivators traveling with me over the last decade. It wasn’t a large amount, but it wasn’t a small amount either. But I could attribute our general success to my immense combat ability and cultivation, as well as Guide Zee’s help in navigating the Great Jungle.

They had not betrayed me so far. I had been thinking they might do something eventually, but they had kept up their end of our arrangement and never hiding the risks of areas that we came across. I wouldn’t be sad to be past this Great Jungle.

It was smaller than I expected. But the various civilizations had time to push as far as possible to reclaim land. What was left had been completely given up on. It was like the opposite end of the Great World, where food was too difficult to grow and it was too cold. Here it was too warm and wet. Sure land was slowly being settled and reclaimed, but it an incredibly slow process with most people not seeing the value in such efforts compared to the extreme cost and risk.

There were too many dangers relating to the Great Jungle as well. The creatures that inhabited this place were no joke. Every half year or so, a strong one would come at me, with their strengths ranging below me, but stronger than the cultivators of the Great World who had not broken through.

To kill one of this ancient things would not be easy. I only managed to kill three out of the dozens who had shown up. This was not counting the lesser creatures. The Great Jungle was a death trap for the locals. Another reason they would not risk settling the area. It would be too easy to lose a city, or have something emerge from the Great Jungle and wipe out various farms and settlements.

Despite the range of creatures, there had been nothing that truly equaled or exceeded my cultivation. The creatures might be able to cultivate and have a soul and become insanely strong, but they hadn’t been able to achieve a breakthrough like I had. Where they would separate their soul from their body.

The creatures were physical beings and focusing on their physicality was what made them strong. If something worked and made them stronger, they would repeat that over and over again. Proper cultivation required actual intelligence. One couldn’t have a robot or a golem cultivate. Yang Heng had scoffed at such an idea with a large amount of distain.

To have a soul, to separate one’s soul, and then to move one’s consciousness to one’s soul. I had bypassed the pre-bottleneck due to where I had grown up. Everyone had a soul. A benefit of being born in the Firmament instead of the Mechanical Layer. I had managed the first bottleneck after much difficulty.

During my travels through the Great Forest I had finished purging the wood sap poison from my brain but I didn’t go back to strengthening to my cultivation like I previously had. Trying to maximize the use of energy in my body. I couldn’t work on strengthening the connection with my soul and using the cultivation methodologies to move my mind over without a lot more energy.

What I was trying to do was mostly pointless, but it kept my time occupied while traveling and not being swarmed by bugs. I was trying to look at cultivation in the opposite direction. The path of the Heavenly Alliance, was about sucking in as much energy as possible to become stronger. To shape that energy to one’s focus, granting insights into using energy in that specific way. Mine was force.

But the Great World had opened my eyes to cultivation in the opposite direction and the wood sap had clued me into the fact that focusing energy into specific areas of one’s body while one’s soul was still attached allowed unique effects to occur like strengthening the senses or one’s perception of time.

For immortal cultivators who had passed through their second breakthrough, their physical body was more of an avatar for their mind. Like how Bones was stuck as a spirit. That path of cultivation was powerful, since it was about drawing more and more power. It was a race of energy maximization. The Great World focused in the opposite direction.

That was something I had a lot of time to think about look at the creatures I had killed, inspecting their bodies closely. Even the creatures that ran away, I looked at their blood and other bits of their body they had dropped. There wasn’t much else to do and my curiosity had grown after my first kill years and years ago.

The creatures improved their cultivation by having incredible control over their body and energy utilization. The first step of the Great World’s cultivation system was about saturating the body with energy to develop a soul. With how little energy there was this was incredibly difficult, but it was possible. Saturate the body enough and one would develop a soul and pass the pre-breakthrough.

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There was no system in place for cultivators after that, since almost none of them made it that far. Focusing enough energy inside their body to cross that threshold was near impossible with the nexus crystals alone. But the creatures in the Great Jungle lived much longer and weren’t so constrained. I also suspected that demonic cultivators had risen up to copy these creatures like Guide Zee.

The next step was efficiency. Peering at the corpses had revealed that the creatures had pushed their energy control and retention to the extreme. The strongest wasted barely any energy. Compared to the creatures, I was like a radioactive sieve with how much energy I was constantly losing. While I worked hard to limit my loss and control my energy, I would barely be considered an amateur.

The cultivators of the Great World weren’t much better. The problem came from the fact that the creatures had different perceptions from humans. While these people looked different, they were still human beings with human like perceptions. They also had a limited lifespan.

But the creatures weren’t limited by either of these things. The creature’s whose perception as unique, could manage their internal energy more easily. This also helped them live for a much longer period of time.

Before I had assumed the cultivation of the Great World only diverged at the start but converged at the end. But now I wasn’t so sure after seeing the creatures of the Great Jungle over the last decade. The question was, what was the equivalent of their first breakthrough and their second?

I had knowledge of science and biology, but even Yang Heng hadn’t seemed that interested or knowledgeable about such things. The answer was to gather more energy and structure in a certain way to strengthen oneself.

It was both a perplexing question and one I was scared of. If a cultivator of the Great World, human or creature, did manage to pass the first break through, their foundation would be much stronger. I still wasn’t sure what breakthrough there could be. Would a cultivator have to go down to their DNA and rearrange it with energy? To have such control over their energy, they would manage individual cell structures? What would such a breakthrough even look like?

After resting for over a day, we set off once more while I continued to ponder cultivation questions and try to get a better sense of my internal cultivation. The amount of rain continued to increase as we traveled. Once it was continual, everything got really dark and the light source was cut off. Occasionally there was a beam of light through the clouds illuminating a section of the rapidly thinning Great Jungle.

“We need to make a boat now. To sail the last distance to the feet of the Last Mountains,” Guide Zee said. I nodded at this. My danger sense was tingling as I looked out into the rainy darkness. The cultivators traveling with me quickly got to work, turning a large branch into a boat, while I kept looking out into the darkness.

“Problem?” Guide Zee asked me.

“Something has me on edge,” I replied. They stilled and looked out in the blackness as well. Some lightning bolts rained down in the distance and for a split second I thought I saw something. Why couldn’t I see any energy? Then it hit me.

“No leakage,” I muttered. Their energy was perfectly aligned with their body and fear gripped me. The sense of danger was a cultivator picking up on the leakage of energy into the environment. I hadn’t given it much thought since the creatures so far had been easily killed and I had sensed them. But they had far more energy and were dangerous enough that my danger sense should have triggered just a bit more.

I was growing more sensitive which helped offset their efficiency in energy usage. But what if there was a creature that had perfect energy usage. I didn’t think it was possible. It was the kind of thing that was a nice theoretical, but impossible to comprehend. Like a cultivator using time or space resources to cultivate with. It was something anyone would want to achieve and technically possible, but practically impossible. There weren’t enough resources of those types.

To have perfect control of one’s energy and leak nothing, meant such a degree control that was mind boggling. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, since I did feel a small bit of danger, but that could be because whatever was out there was moving towards me. I drew my sword.

“Everyone, stand ready!” I called out loudly. The cultivators quickly set up defensive positions, not like they would be able to do anything. The rain’s noise and obstruction was making it incredibly difficult to see. Even my energy sense wasn’t picking up anything.

Lighting flashed again, and I saw the figure perched on a tree in the distance. The flash from the lighting disappeared and everything was plunged into darkness once more. “What is it?” I asked Guide Zee.

“I don’t know,” they whispered fearfully and backed away.

“I am Yuan Zhou, Cultivator of the Heavenly Alliance! Declare yourself and your intentions!” I called out loudly and pointed my sword in the direction I could sense the most danger. “Keep working on the boat, quickly,” I ordered. The direction of the danger shifted and spun to face a branch above us on the same tree. I could barely make out an outline of the figure there.

“Cultivator,” the word shook the air itself and the wind whirled around in different directions. “You have come to your death. I am known as the Cultivator Killer,” the figure’s voice alternated in different directions. But I kept focusing on the direction with the most danger.

“I am from beyond the Great World, Cultivator Killer. Perhaps a trade. I have questions and you have been alive for a long time. Since the start of the Great World?” I asked. If the thing spoke, I could get information.

“You wish for secrets. You truly are dangerous Cultivator. But I have killed countless of your kind. It matters not where you come from,” the Cultivator Killer declared. I spun and leveled my sword at another branch.

“Your movement technique is strong. So is your speaking technique. But I see through them. If we fight, even if you win, I will deal a crippling blow. This I swear,” I declared.

“A challenge. Then injure me. For only the strong may dictate terms. That is the law of you cultivators, is it not?”

“Indeed it is. The strong can dictate to the weak,” I declared. I turned and saw the figure a short distance away standing near the trunk of the tree. It was wearing a dark tattered robe, hiding its true features. It was an illusion of some kind and I could see through it. The real Cultivator Killer was clinging to the bottom of the branch.

I hated this kind of fight the most. It would all hinge on a single moment of life or death. One mistake would see one of us lose as we pit our senses and wits against each other. “One Swing To Sperate Heaven And Earth!” I shouted and swung, but only releasing a small fraction of my energy at the illusion. I kicked off and into the air as thorny vines swung up from below the branch to entangle me. I spun in the air, water spraying off me and swung downwards.

The Cultivator Killer would not expect me to sacrifice the cultivators working on the rest of the branch. But this was an opponent I could not use half measures against. Traveling across the water with something like this chasing us, would be far too dangerous. Better to lose a few of my followers now, than all of them later on.

The blade of energy, cut through the branch with ease, not slowing down in the slightest. There was some resistance from the thorned vines, but they split spilling out dark red liquid that had a tremendous amount of energy within it. “AHHHH!” There was a scream. The creature lost control of its energy and I spotted it, dashing along the bottom of the branch that was severed.

Multiple things happened as the branch with the cultivators began to wall towards the water. They began to shout and panic, Guide Zee leapt for the spilled liquid. I landed on the severed branch next to him, not having jumped that high up. Thorns suddenly burst out of Guide Zee’s body. I swung my blade and decapitated them without hesitation and swung again separating their body vertically.

They collapsed in a pool of red sap that was slightly lighter than the stuff that had come out from the cut thorned vines of the Cultivator Killer. It was sadly obvious the moment they took in the sap, they were doomed if they weren’t already. The Cultivator Killer had vanished into the rainy darkness.

Any creature that had control of its energy to such an extent, would be easily able to infect and take control of other tree like cultivators. While there might have been a tremendous about of energy in the sap, it was far more dangerous than the blood seeds. Where even a defeat would ensure victory.

I hadn’t even waited for Guide Zee’s energy to begin to change. Any cultivator that scrambled for benefits while I was fighting was marked for death. If they hadn’t started immediately consuming that vine liquid but just saving it from the rain, I might have waited before making a decision. But I was not about to let another threat appear near me on top of the Cultivator Killer.

About nine tenths of the cultivators that had fallen down made their way back up. Losing ten percent was not that bad in such a fall. “Senior, there were vines below, many were grabbed,” Junior Wei said while glancing at Guide Zee’s dismembered body.

“We are changing locations, follow me, don’t touch the corpse or vines,” I said. We quickly began moving away from the area. After a day of travel we came to a stop and started making another boat. My danger sense rose again.

“Cultivator Killer, you have felt my blade,” I declared.

“You missed,” the voice rang out.

“Well you are good at hiding and running away like the other creatures of the Great Jungle. I make you an offer. One spirit stone and we are allowed to pass by safely and we have a chat about the Great World,” I said. There was silence at the offer.

Neither of us could beat the other easily. One could be a brash cultivator or an old cultivator. But one couldn’t be an old and brash cultivator. At least I hadn’t seen one yet. Every single cultivator was an old monster. Even this Cultivator Killer was no exception.

“What is a spirit stone?” it finally asked after a full minute. I restrained my smile. The fact that it had asked made peace possible. I almost wanted to laugh at the stupidity of it all. The being called Cultivator Killer was the one being that I was able to trade and have a dialogue with.

“Quite a bit of energy. Two. One now as a show of good faith. And one once we are across the water. If you think to steal from me. The storage device I have be destroyed with a thought and everything inside of it,” I declared boldly even if that was a lie. But the Great World didn’t have storage devices and hopefully this Cultivator Killer wouldn’t know that.

“Deal,” it declared. I pulled out a spirit stone and quickly tossed it towards the danger I was sensing in the inky blackness. I waited for the Cultivator Killer to confirm it was happy with the transaction.

“Five more,” it declared.

“Two, you already got one,” I responded.

“Five with three now, and I shall speak of things that others have forgotten.” Knowledge of this place was far more valuable.

“I will give another two once our boat is finished and three more once we are safely across the water,” I declared.

“Acceptable,” the Cultivator Killer replied.

“Deal,” I replied back. “Who made this place and for what purpose?” I asked the question that had been bothering me the most.

“I know not. I have never left the Great Jungle and you are the strongest cultivator I have met in my existence,” it declared. That was frustrating.

“Any knowledge of what lies in the center of the Great Desert beyond the mountains?” I asked.

“Even there I do not dare to go. There are things there, in the ground that are as strong as me. Older and more violent. Creatures that have existed since the dawn of the Great World,” the Cultivator Killer replied.

“The tribulations, do you know what they are? Who controls them?” I asked.

“Now that is a question I can partially answer. They are great sources of energy. Forming high above the Great World at its roof.” I focused in on that last answer.

“Roof? What roof?” I asked.

“There is a roof above this place and a floor below. It took a long time, but I dug into the floor, to see what was below. There was a barrier and then I was struck with a great tribulation. I survived and drew in the energy and checked the barrier again. But a tribulation did not happen a second time. A long time it took, but I slowly pushed through the barrier and found a place with things beyond my understanding. Showing another Great World. I was in the sky. Just like the sky of this place,” the Cultivator Killer said.

It hit me like a sack of bricks in the face. Why build one Great World when you can build multiple. The ring that was found outside, I thought it went around a sphere. It was what made the most sense. But what if this place was designed as a cylinder instead.

I thought back centuries and tried to remember exactly what I thought and Yang Heng thought. It was a sphere of some kind. There was a curvature to the blackness up and down. It was very small but it was there.

But what if the cylinder was ribbed? If it was large enough it would give the appearance of a sphere. Each ring could be a stabilizer of some kind for a Great World, or multiple Great Worlds. Then you just stack them up on each other. It would be more efficient that way and the top and bottom could be capped as well. That was what always bothered me with the ring and the sphere shape of the blackness.

“Did you see symbols? Machines? And is this entry point nearby?” I asked with a touch of excitement.

“Lots of symbols and structures, but they did not move. They were attached to the ceiling and created an illusion. Stretching out as far as I could see. But there was a pattern of some kind that repeated in the structures. I could not say what it did. While I considered exploring more from the energy I sensed, the barrier surged in power and I quickly had to retreat or be cut off. A massive beam of light and heat struck down from the Life Light, incinerating a large portion of the Great Jungle and damaging me immensely. I have not touched the barrier again after that,” the Cultivator Killer explained.

That didn’t confirm if there was an intelligence monitoring what was happening, or it was some kind of program. “Let me draw some symbols. Tell me if any matched what you saw,” I said and pulled out a small pavilion to protect me from the rain, a desk, and stuff to write with. I quickly drew out several symbols on a piece of parchment and then held it up.

“None of those match,” the Cultivator Killer said. That meant they were using completely different symbology than the Heavenly Alliance. I had stumbled onto another cultivator enclave. My only hope was that there were answers in the center of the Great World and that they were willing to be friendly. If not for my sake, than Yang Hengs.

He had connections and the Heavenly Alliance would pay for his safe return. Also if there were cultivators they might have a way between layers, allowing me to get out of the Mechanical Layer and back to the Firmament. Or a more comprehensive cultivation system.

“I noticed you have managed to perfect your energy control with your cultivation. How deep did you have to go? Cell structures, DNA?” I asked.

“To the cell structures and to restructure them. That is the breakthrough one needs to advance with cultivation. But you are different?” the Cultivator Killer asked. Since it had answered my questions without problem and I wanted to know more, I decided to answer to build on the spirit of cooperation.

“Separating one’s soul from one’s body. Then the next breakthrough is to move one’s mind to one’s body,” I declared.

“Why would you do that?” the Cultivator Killer asked.

“To draw energy from a lower layer. What is the next breakthrough that is needed on your path of cultivation?” I asked.

“That is a question I seek to answer to grow stronger and beyond this place,” the Cultivator Killer replied. So even it did not know the next step it needed to take with cultivation path of the Great World. That was interesting. If I had to guess, I would suspect it would be gaining enough fine control over energy to model one’s brain, where energy itself would gain the consciousness of the cultivator controlling that energy.