Behemoth [Primordial Titan Cultivation/LitRPG]

Whistling, Cyril wandered out into the monster-infested cavern.

During the hour or so he had chatted with the ifrit-woman, his core had replenished to full. He brimmed with power, the various stone-encrusted wounds around his body no more than a distant ache.

Which meant it was time for a little hunting.

The Wyrm had doubtless regenerated some of the damage it had suffered, but there was a limit to what an abomination of its rank could do. Damage from an ifrit could not be easily shrugged off. Cyril was confident he could deal with the Wyrm in his current state, especially after he had finally saturated the Reinforcement Cantrip to its full capacity. Or, at least, the limit that his body was capable of containing. He felt like one more droplet of Mass would make his body burst open like a gourd.

The marble of smoke drifted in front of him, a complementary moon to the sun of his Flicker. As promised, it matched his speed, maintaining a few pace's worth of distance in front of him. His heavy steps plodded into the ground, one after another.

Cyril whistled louder. The catchy tune echoed throughout the cavern. Vibrations in the surrounding stone offered a silent harmony. He had moved far enough from the temple to catch the monsters' interest, like a snake charmer descending into a pit of vipers.

It wasn't long before the first of his prey leapt straight into his clutches.

It came from beneath his feet. That old trick. He thought he may have been getting better at deciphering the knowledge contained within the vibrations he sensed around him, such as the size and position of his enemy. It didn't take much experience to gather that this was definitely a big one.

A thin layer of stone grew over his existing Stone Shell, filling the gaps in his armor; only his mouth and eyes were left exposed. He braced himself.

When the wyrm breached the surface of the cavern beneath him, it found itself striking a pair of stone-encrusted slippers as if a vein of adamantium had suddenly appeared in its path. Its ability to burrow through solid earth with great speed was turned against it, as it was crushed between the weight of its undulating body and the immovable barrier it had encountered.

Cyril squeezed his mouth and eyes shut as most of the wyrm liquefied against his feet. Loose bits of monster pelted his armor, but the thin layer of stone skin repelled any of the gore from tainting him.

He dismissed most of the new protective layer, leaving the Reinforced Stone Shell. Fortunately, the gore from the wyrm vanished along with it. His clothes remained spotless as ever. The tailor that made them deserved a hug once he reunited with his tribe.

"That was disgusting," he muttered to himself, endeavoring to find a less messy method of extermination in the future.

He cycled the wyrm's death essence straight into the Dominion of Earth. Two more sources soon followed. Both wyrms came at him a minute apart and died much the same: erupting from the ground nearby, only to be crushed into a small crater by a Pressure and roasted with divine flame.

After that, the monsters no longer appeared alone. The vibrations around him felt slightly different--were they warning each other? Did the stench of their brethren's death tickle some instinct to hunt as a group? Both? Either way, Cyril welcomed them. Killing the first three had brought the Dominion of Earth to 91/100. He just needed a bit more fuel.

Tremors rumbled beneath his feet. Four wyrms, he guessed, forming a circle around him. He considered making a stalactite-covered barrier like before, but parts of it seemed redundant to him now. His body served as a far more resilient bulwark than wrapping himself in a stone cocoon.

Earth qi surged through his body, straining his channels to their limit.

Over the course of his feud with the sandwyrms, his understanding of the aspect had advanced by leaps and bounds. Both the investment of death essence and actual experience in combat allowed for rapid progress. He felt like a tiny god, able to shape the world with his will.

Despite the intoxicating flow of power, he understood he was far from Divine. At his current level, Cyril had no way of expressing the full potential of the power Behemoth could provide. An Early Condensation core made for a pathetic conduit for the Titan's might. But it was more than enough for these monsters.

Rough stone spikes sprouted from his body, including a long, curving horn from his forehead. He waited until the monsters erupted all around before shrouding himself with a thin layer of protective earth once more.

His Flicker raged into a sudden bonfire, swooping toward the wyrm to his left. Hands rotating about one another to facilitate the flow of qi, Cyril cast a wide-scale Pressure around him; it had a radius of around twenty paces, with him in the epicenter.

He groaned as the self-inflicted force crashed down, forcing him to his knees. The effect on the wyrms was far greater. They slammed back into the ground hard enough to leave indentations. The nauseatingly delicious scent of roasted flesh wafted over from where the Flicker Cantrip was tunneling through the entire length of its target's body.

Another quick Pressure pulverized the wyrm in front of him.

Just like that, two were down, but the remaining pair recovered quickly. Cyril spun in time to catch both the wyrm behind him and to the right within his field of vision. They flung themselves at him, shadows dancing across their scaled hides, disgusting mouths spasming with want.

The stupid creatures impaled themselves on the stalactites jutting from his armor, failing to force him back even a step. He willed Earth qi to flow through the spikes skewering their bodies: they expanded rapidly, branching out like the roots of trees to shred the wyrms apart from the inside.

When it was over, their death essence lay thick around him. Grinning, he absorbed enough to fill the final stretch of the First Sphere of Earth.

Slaughtering wyrms brought little more than the satisfaction of a task completed, but his heart pounded with excitement at the thought of his first breakthrough since his bond with Behemoth.

A faint tingle crept down his spine and spread throughout his body. He settled into the lotus position and closed his eyes. After dismissing his layer of stone skin, he began to meditate. Deep breaths, slow and steady, circulated air through his lungs and qi through his spiritual channels. Soon, his mind fell into a trance, focused solely on his impending breakthrough.

The process of ascending to the Second Sphere was not instantaneous, but was still much quicker than the later stages. Rumor had it that cultivators near the peak spent centuries, even millennia, in seclusion, breaking through the bottleneck into the next realm.

Such an early ascension required no priceless treasures or ritual arrays. The qualitative improvement to his soul did have a cost, but it was one easily paid. The prior fights had exhausted around a quarter of his core; the breakthrough greedily drained his reserves until only a tenth remained.

He ignored most of this, though some small, detached part of his mind observed the process with curiosity. The majority of his attention revolved around memories of utilizing Earth qi--forming crude spikes and shells, the sensation of it circulating through his body and soul as naturally as breathing air, even the secret language of vibrations. Over it all loomed the vague image of Behemoth, a mountain in the rough shape of a man, the weight of its presence like a metaphysical world in itself.

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Cyril focused upon this imaginary figure, like a pupil sitting before their master. The qi circulating throughout his body flowed into his mental channels. It seemed to drain away, lost to entropy. As it did, the image of Behemoth in his thoughts became more profound, more real.

The illusory Titan took a single step forward. And, as if it could somehow affect reality, the physical world around Cyril trembled.

His scattered memories crystallized, and for an instant he felt like he had achieved a state of nirvana. He floated in an endless sea of knowledge, his mind flooded with everything there was to understand about shaping tools of war, the esoteric flow of the earth, the entire field of seismic manipulation.

As quick as it came, the flood of information vanished. His mind retained fragments, a small sliver of the whole, though they were not completely random. Some uses that felt pertinent and reasonably within his grasp stuck with him.

After having most of his qi depleted, the weight of his Reinforcement almost felt suffocating. He was glad he had already dismissed his stone skin, leaving only the plate armor behind. Wearing it for more than a few seconds made him feel like he was being boiled in a cage.

In the aftermath of his ascension, he sat there, mulling over what he had acquired. The process had taken a couple of minutes. No new monsters tried their luck--no doubt the physical echo of Behemoth's step had sent them fleeing for their lives. Though he didn't like how empty his core was, nothing short of the Half-Ascended Wyrm could break through his current defenses.

The marble of smoke meant to lead him to the abomination hovered next to his face, waiting for him to resume his journey. He doubted it would provide him much of a warning if the target was nearby, but it hadn't moved or offered any other indication the Wyrm had changed direction recently.

He was as safe as could be, for the moment.

Closing his eyes, he delved into his soul and focused on the relevant information.

Dominion of Earth:
First Sphere- basic manipulation and manifestation of earth qi, simple material types. (100/100)
Second Sphere- wider range of manifestation types based on personal experience and insights; Transmute Cantrip acquired. (0/1000)

He skimmed through his soul and, as expected, there was a new addition at the bottom of his list of Cantrips.

Transmute Cantrip - base earth materials may be transformed into a higher-tier.

Simple enough. Light on the details, but many people had no insight into their souls at all. Without the Dominion of Knowledge, others had to rely on wisdom from those on the same path, or insights acquired from long and intensive meditation. There was a reason Knowledge was considered one of the supreme support affinities, born from the Phoenix herself.

He wondered why his new ability had taken on this form. Was it related to him trying to form tools of war from the earth? Stone and dirt made poor construction materials alone. Maybe he was trying to assume a causation where one didn't exist, as the academic discussion regarding whether one could affect their own boon was long, torturous, and ultimately inconclusive.

However, Cyril had his own slightly divergent theory, born from half-remembered lectures his father had forced upon him: A cultivator could direct their path as long as their spirit embodied that concept, granting them access to visions and insights related to it.

Behemoth should contain everything there was to know regarding Earth and its associated Dominions, but Cyril's soul was currently incapable of understanding and utilizing the full extent of that knowledge. Exposure and a need to overcome adversity should, in theory, allow him to tap into Behemoth's profound insights. That meant that he had the potential to acquire any possible boon his Dominions were capable of offering, no matter how rare or esoteric.

Even beyond that, Cyril was interested in seeing how his relationship with Behemoth would develop over time. As a cultivator advanced, it was said that they became more in tune with their bonded spirit. Often, they evolved together, fusing together into a higher being once they reached the Spirit Severing Stage. Tales abounded of street urchins bonding with imps, one day ascending to become an upper-echelon elite--both elevated far beyond their base nature.

For now, Behemoth was a silent presence looming within his subconscious.

One day, he thought. We'll have a nice chat. And hopefully I'll figure out what it is, exactly, you hoped to achieve with me.

As expected, there was no response. Cyril tried to suppress a twinge of disappointment. The feeling soon vanished after he searched the rest of his soul. There was one last surprise.

Knowledge, Second Sphere 631/1000

The flood of insight from his breakthrough had advanced the Dominion by more than sixty.

A grin spread across Cyril's face. Knowledge was notoriously difficult to advance. As part of his training to become the tribe's future Librarian, he had been required to memorize much of their oral history and traditions. All those years of effort had resulted in him gaining a few hundred points total. If he received sixty points each breakthrough, advancing his other new Dominions would already see him to the precipice of the Third Sphere of Knowledge.

More inspired than ever to push forward, Cyril opened his eyes and stood up. Curious, he manifested a chunk of stone in the palm of his hand. The Transmute Cantrip was simple enough: circulate Earth qi in a flowing rhythm, shifting back and forth upon itself, while visualizing the final material he wished to create.

Unfortunately, his options were quite limited at the moment. He Transmuted the chunk of stone into a handful of dirt. Dirt became sand. For now, these materials alone were the only three options he could Transmute.

He had to suppress his disappointment that the Cantrip didn't work retroactively. At some point or another he had touched many of the legendary weapons that passed through his tribe. He smiled at the thought of creating a fountain of lovely gemstones. Diamond in particular seemed useful, capable of slicing through some of the toughest monster hides with ease.

More importantly, most of his family adored ostentatious jewelry--especially his mother. The Transmute Cantrip may very well have eliminated one of the greatest worries in his past life: trying to figure out an appropriate last-minute gift for his family's Matriarch. So many spirit diamonds.

Depending on the scope of his Transmutation, it may be able to replicate anything from ancient spiritual herbs to pure mercury. Technically, The Dominion of Earth could encompass almost any resource that naturally occurred within a landmass. Cyril indulged in another daydream about conjuring an endless hoard of riches.

Despite its current limitations, he was quite pleased with the technique. The information about his boon claimed the Transmutation options were based on his personal experience and insights. Apparently his current level of comprehension was restricted to base materials. Still, he was confident he could expand his list of options merely through interacting with relevant objects. Mundane materials in particular would be simple enough to replicate.

Time to move on.

He gathered the remaining death essence from his most recent prey and brought the First Sphere of Gravity to 43/100.

While he wanted to meditate more to improve his other Dominions, he couldn't allow himself to waste time on the small gains such introspection provided. Hunting a couple wyrms would eclipse the benefit of spending hours in meditation. Depending on how far the Half-Ascended Wyrm had fled, he may even have a breakthrough with Gravity by the time he found it.

Cyril resumed his stroll, following the marble of smoke deeper into the cavern. The ground grew rougher and more uneven. Darkness pressed closer against Flicker's pale light. He plodded along for a few minutes, straining to sense any vibrations in the area, until the walls around him began to narrow. A quick glance at the marble of smoke confirmed it floated forward, as confident in their course as ever.

The pathway continued to close in around him until he was squeezing his way through a cramped tunnel. Doubts began to arise regarding whether the woman-ifrit's magic was able to adjust for these sort of unforeseen circumstances. He didn't mind the presence of the earth close around him, but the deep, unnatural darkness tickled some primal fear of his. Cyril told himself he was being childish.

Right before he considered turning back around, the marble of smoke stopped moving on its own for the first time. He stopped an instant before his face collided with it.

Curious, he let Flicker drift ahead. The pallid light struggled to pierce the darkness until he imbued it with twice as much Sun qi.

As the gloom retreated, he caught sight of a rusted iron door wedged into the end of the tunnel.