I think it's about ti I started thinking about the future. I've done so long-term planning, but nothing truly substantial. It's really easy to give the cultivation world the bla for this one, so lets do that. Back then, I prevented myself from having any plans that took longer than a single year. Being constantly on the run and not being able to stay anywhere longer than a month forced into a mindset of the here and now with short-term gains and goals on the forefront.
Still, thats no excuse. I have processes running with the task of extrapolating certain potential situations hundreds of years in advance, so thats not it. Maybe its because Im still waiting for the big secret shoe to drop? I sohow feel that the mont when the planets self-defence chanisms will finally kick in is just around the corner. Maybe it will crack the crust, forcing to evacuate to the moon? Perhaps it will cause a local annihilation event, so obscure fail-safe reacting to the presence of a foreign entity like myself. Just give a little bit of ti, and I can find a trillion scenario's in which I am at fault of genocide every ti.
I shake myself free from these ominous thoughts that creep up on whenever Im alone for extended periods of ti. Rhea is busy sowhere, probably ordering the many new students about while the rest are all busy with other stuff.
Actually, its pretty nice. I didn't really notice, but Ive had constant companions since kidnapping those kids in Tower City, and Lola before that. Compared to the centuries of solitude back on the cultivation world, its quite the difference. Now that Im not distracted by students or Rhea, I have so ti to work through issues that have been piling up.
Like poop. The forest Im slowly floating over is just so peaceful and quiet that all these thoughts only now managed to catch my attention. All my students can use qi to convert food into energy and sustenance, but only a foundation realm expert has zero need to poop. Where does all of it go? I suspect that Tree has been digging the stuff up, and is composting it or sothing, but Im afraid to ask.
My qi clone will contain qi that has been extracted from poop. People do shit while theyre on the moon, right?
And what about pregnant won? Will qi contaminate a fetus? Will the placental blood barrier prevent the energy from seeping into the fertilised egg? Wont the first generation of children born inside Tree have a horrible handicap? That first qi-soaked generation will need to perform the arduous task of separating neutral qi in their bodies with the qi thats their own. That very process takes a very, very long ti and was the main point why not every single mortal was cultivating back on the cultivation world.
And then there are the changing lifespans. From all I have seen, the human population on this planet lives to be seventy on average. I've observed that the dreadful state of hygiene and dical science causes a rather high child mortality rate, but people that survive their childhood have a good chance of becoming eighty. The initial stages of cultivation adds just a few decades here and there, the foundation realm is the first big jump with average lifespans of around half a millennia.
And then there is that conniving grandmother. Im marking my own words here. I wouldn't be surprised if she is currently working very hard to undermine any form of authority I hold over Trees inhabitants. I nearly wanted to leave her behind, but Ferah wouldn't have it. Shes just got this aura about her, like a politician.
Also, the qi levels inside Tree are rising again. My speech generated a new portion of qi, but the primary cause of this effect is all the stagnant qi that I roused. You can leave a bit of ordinary steel in a qi rich environnt for a few thousand years, and youll end up with so mystical tal. The qi in Tree had started seeping into every rock, drop of water, and leaf of grass, I just shook it up for a bit. Ill start stockpiles of crafting materials in a year or so, I first want Tree to settle and grow a bit more. Any qi thats locked up in so precious material is qi not circulating in the qi generation process, after all.
I decide to take imdiate action on this one and formulate a quest-generating-process that allows people to suggest possible recruits. A steady stream of good - well, at least not purely evil - new people will be great for Trees developnt and slowing the qi enrichnt down a bit. My qi clone is still pulling in all the power that cos near the moon. It is not near my own power level yet. Once it reaches the lofty heights of power that equals my own, it will split the power between it and , supplying with a steady stream of easily cultivatable qi, probably in a few weeks.
Angeta crosses my mind, but I gave Ket and Tess a rather lucrative quest so she should be fine. I can already sense the horde of massive animals coming closer to my position, due to the minuscule amount of qi I have been expelling. I think I've got a good grasp on how sensitive the detection chanism of this planet are. Sothing has been guiding this group of beasties and the groups of dragons I have co across so far.
Im floating upside down, spread-eagled, as I bob about in the breeze. Honestly, I don't want to think about the future and the potential threats I could face. Wouldn't it be nice if things could just stay the sa? Is that not the reason why so many people sought power in the cultivation world? They all strove for the most static thing a person can wish for, eternal life. Immortality.
Things can co and go, places can change, and people shift and change. But your own life is the only real constant. From the perspective of the observer - that would be - the self is the most important. I never understood those weird people that wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, to have people sing stories about them. Nah man, I want to be the person singing stories and stuff.
All this thinking of futures leads my thoughts to so thought experints I have running. Those processes are thinking about what would happen if I were to be stuck here for a couple of millennia. And the results are interesting. The pictures I get from the extrapolated data points is headache-inducing.
Would I need to teach to advance my cultivation at a certain point? Who would I steal stuff from at that level? Cooking food? Ah, having sex, now that one I can do. Gathering more qi has diminishing effects after a while, only the mind can be developed further after maximum qi saturation has been reached. Thats another true bottleneck, similar to the step from a solid core to a true foundation.
Training animals That one might also work. I could do so animal training and dostication. Brawling Near-ascension level brawls will crack this planet like an egg, that's not happening anyti soon. Wait a minute No, I got my solid core really quickly. I got here, made qi, did so stalking, killed a bunny, saved a bunny, did more stalking, killed a wasp...
That reminds , I need a weapon. I don't like relying on crutches like that, but punching animals that weigh dozens of tonnes is not effective at all. I put all my power into punching those stupidly strong and large mana mutants, but it did rather little. So I need a weapon. And I need to break this stupid ingrained thinking process. There are no near-immortals on this world that can peer into my spatial rings and take what they want. A habit a thousand years old is hard to break...
A weapon, lets focus on that problem for now. What materials do I have available? What weapon do I want? A spear would be the most effective. A sword would be cool though. A large sword. Like one of those stupidly large and unwieldy door-sized slabs, a fantasy sword that's all kinds of ornantal, glowing and covered in mystical runes. Oh man, how cool would that be?
Ive got loads of pure chemical elents stored under Tree, its still processing right now. So sort of fibre strengthened alloy would work. Tungsten for its tensile strength and hardness, titanium to prevent the sword from shattering and to make it corrosion resistant. Maybe chromium for its hardness? That might make it too brittle, though. The brittleness could be solved through an inlaid and interwoven carbon tube sh. Then I could cover the thing in more carbon, structured in a three-dinsional lattice. Just cover the thing in diamonds, yes Yes indeed.
The qi would need a good foundation of symbolism, maybe put a tree motif in the middle of the blade? One edge molten red, the other icy blue cold, representing the two mountains to strengthen the bond with Tree. Maybe not, that would probably look a bit too Nah, these people have zero exposure to fantasy art, I can totally pull that off.
Now the most important question, do I go for curvy and tribal, or straight-edged and stylish? Do I want a frozen fla made of fire and ice or a massive razor blade? I think Ive still got so ancient smithing techniques laying around in my mind sowhere. That should be enlightening even with all the useless mysticism stripped out.
Okay, Ill admit that that mysticism was a lot more useful on a planet that had millions of years worth of supportive Dao developnt. Not that those stupid coagulations of aning ever reacted to any of my experints The sll of rotting flesh and old fire wakes from my rapidly derailing thoughts.
I've arrived. Maybe I should pay attention to that instead? Below is a ruined village. Every single barn, house and fence is burned to charcoal or half molten slag. Lets get an expert on the scene. I check inside Tree and notice Rodrick standing around doing nothing. I put my hand inside Tree - ssing with the dinsional portal has beco so much easier since reaching my foundation - and pull him out. He freezes, his body rigid and eyes darting about. His hand flies to his axe but stops when his brain processes what hes seeing.
Teach? Should have guessed. Is that Yep. Thats Treefields. Whats left of it, anyway.
Treefields? Thats about as original as Goodsumr. Are all beastkin towns and cities nad so imaginatively? No, don't answer that one. What needs to be done? I start floating downwards, searching for a landing spot clear of decomposing corpses.
Rodrick closes his mouth again and thinks for a bit. In terms of?
I roll my eyes. Do we let them rot in the sun?
Rodrick's face gets a stern cast. No, I would appreciate it if they could be buried.
I drop the big guy to the ground and land myself. I pull two simple tal shovels from my spatial ring. That reminds , put this on. I throw him a standard issue Tree ring.
These are thousands of points?
And it prevents your qi from spilling everywhere.
He nods and walks off. I look around and sigh. I see dark shapes lying everywhere, large patches of darkened grass and earth painting stark contrasts to lighter fur and feather. I dont even need to scan and process to understand what happened here. The debris is scattered in a pattern from which the direction of the attack can be easily read.
The walls and buildings on the east side of the village are totally gone, only blackened foundations and charcoal remain. I try not to look at the way most of these people were cut down from behind. Or the way this particular form of humanoid charcoal has a rather large trail behind it, clear signs of crawling evident in the tracks. I imdiately assu that that shape over there is very burned, ignoring the smaller skeletal structure.
I could use qi to bury everyone imdiately, but Thats just so. It feels wrong to . I sigh again as I start dragging the first body I co across. This is going to suck.
Angeta is pretty sure she is dying. The shivering stopped a while ago, the coldness it was ineffectively keeping at bay now creeping further up her limbs. She used her last infused seed to grow a protective shell around herself, and that shell is cracking. The large pink claw that nearly decapitated her is frozen for so odd reason, but she has lost too much blood to be able to focus clearly.
I really don't see how nearly dying will cure bitchiness. How long can you keep them at bay?
The only thing keeping her from bleeding out is the ring on her finger. The field preventing her from expelling raw qi is keeping her power infused blood trapped in her fur. It slowly drips through the field as the qi is stripped from the warm liquid drop by drop.
Maybe he ans to give her so perspective? And we got so ti. These beasties dont do well with ntal interference.
Now Angeta is hallucinating. Her obsession with taking the humans to task must be ssing with her mind. Images flash before her eyes, the story about recalling your life before death seems to be partially true. Her images focus on one thing and one thing alone. Humans...
Do you an actually ntal interference or tal spikes in their brains?
How her father was sent to the border to guard against humans. She now recognises the look of hopelessness and dread in his eyes as he told her that it was a promotion, that things were going to be great... How everyone in the village seed like they didn't want to be there, but stayed anyway. How the human mage didnt even give them a chance, their scouts failing to raise the alarm before a large chunk of the town was up in flas, flaming debris raining down everywhere, hitting her father...
Combination of both! Who knew that those giant insects are the smartest ones? They keep shrugging off the electrical interference I put in their heads. You've got her?
How they shackled her while laughing. How they had the gall to be angry that her villages warriors managed to kill a few of them. The absolute humiliation, for one born in the largest beastkin city in the world, of being enslaved, chained and shackled. How everyone she had ever known was killed or taken away.
Yeah, shes too weak to take through my shadows. Lets use the temporary portal.
She barely registers the hands that grab her, pulling her limp form from the crumbling wood as the enormous animals surrounding her barely move, looking around with glassy eyes. All she can think about is the fact that humans took away everything from her. Unjustly. Why else would a being from another world pick her from a barn filled with other slaves? That was simply the universe showing her a slight smidgen of justice.
On it... There you go.
But that smidgen is not enough, oh no. Luzden was just the beginning, she rambles to herself. Those filthy humans will learn their place. How dare they lay hands on her, one born from a noble lineage. Her forefathers were so great, their blood so aweso and pure that even the Flight had shown them favour. And even Teach, as the human he is, will learn of her wrath. How dare he compare her to that brainless fool Bord. The gall, daring to tell her that she is uncreative with the use of her qi.
Ket, Tess, shes in a horrible state. How did this happen?
New voices surrounding her fail to penetrate the fog of blood loss, pain, and righteous fury that Angeta is now cloaked in. The qi in the air hesitantly travels through her lungs and her blood, where her empty cultivation core sucks it up voraciously. It spins and turns the power until it has Angetas fingerprints on it a few seconds later.
Dunno. Teach just told us to keep an eye on her She wont die, right? Oh, hi, Ares.
The green qi then rushes through her body. She barely feels probing fingers on her skin as a foreign, white-tinted, and human-stained power starts probing her wounds. And she will not have it! She pulls her qi from her wounds and starts fighting the invading force with all her remaining ntal might.
Why are you bothering with her? You can feel her aura, right? She hasn't changed at all, been an ignorant city-spoiled daddys girl all her life. Dont bwaste your ti om her.
The white power retracts. Her qi, now free to start attending her wounds, clears her head little by little. Each broken and painful breath brings in new power, she can even feel it soaking through her skin, so power starved is she.
Hmmh, whats your na, young beastkin? No matter, Im a healer and so I heal. Who and why I care not. Ares, bring one of the drafts we just made. And a few coagulation pills. This bone is broken, so so calcium supplents too. And have Valerius and Vox tested the knockout gas sufficiently yet?
That voice, she knows that from sowhere. Wasnt the voice that spoke earlier one of the maids in her fathers employ? And the old sounding geezer was nad Dee sothing. Danar?
I really don't see why you would bother. But I won't give up an opportunity to punch the bitch, here!
Definitely one of the maids. Angeta hopes that she has at least learned so form of healing arts, that way she wouldnt have to keep fighting the power of those fucking, disgusting naked faced-
A furry fist breaks her barely healed nose once again. Pain explodes from her face as the back of her head is buried into the dirt.
Can I punch her too? The uppity bitch.
The voice was another she recognised. That was the smiths apprentice. He was of decent caste so she had had so fun with him. Opening her eye a crack, she sees his chiselled jawline and handso fur patterns staring down at her with disgust. She is about to ask for help - they seed happy to help in the past after all - when his fist knocks her lights out.
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