NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 16
Orange-crest sat quietly in the cave where he'd left formless-gleam to her self imposed solitude. A drop of water fell from the ceiling, dampening his eponymous crest. He liked the drippy-spot. Not for always, but for now. He was in a mood to be jolted out of his ruminations every few minutes. He'd heard some humans meditated under waterfalls. Maybe he should try that for his next breakthrough.
Plop.
Orange-crest hoped the angry fox was alright. He'd begun to suspect more firmly that she was not. They were almost-friends, and she was sneaky. His name had risen high in rumor among the humans. She would have come to seek him out if she yet prowled the Azure Mountain as a free and living fox. But without some word of her whereabouts, orange-crest could think of nothing he could do to assist her without revealing the secret of her presence and nature, which she guarded so covetously.
She had asked he keep the secret, and he had agreed. But one small monkey could not keep such a secret alone. Orange-crest was proud of his master. If Li Xun had pressed, or searched on his own, orange-crest could not have kept their amity from his master. But he had not. It gave orange-crest hope that one day the two might meet without immediately gouging at the other's eyes.
Plop.
Orange-crest was getting distracted. He silently thanked the drippy-spot. It was his turn to be entombed, to seek advancement in the silence of the centipede's cavern.
Closed-door cultivation, men called it. Master Li Xun had been insistent that he should enter it as soon as possible. Orange-crest had obeyed after taking a single night to learn to better see Yang Wei. His master wanted him to break through. To seek the fourth, or even the fifth, stage of Qi Condensation in the week he had before his next duel. He wanted his disciple to not merely triumph upon the grand stage of Godsgrave Peak, but dominate.
He'd given orange-crest fifty spirit stones, almost half the fortune he'd made, and seen him safely off. The money-stones lay scattered around orange-crest, man's bounty arranged according to a monkey's tastes. Their gentle glow left his corner of the centipede cave a little brighter, the all-devouring darkness little less oppressive.
Even now, his master was fighting his own battle. Seeking to squeeze fellowship out of greed and indifference. Orange-crest wished him well, but still could not honestly say he understood why his master sought so desperately the approval of those that he neither loved nor respected.
Plop.
Orange-crest shivered. It was time. Past time, perhaps; but that was the same thing. The monkey began to cultivate. He opened his eyes that were not eyes to the mountain only he could see. He began to climb, drawing upon the ambient qi, even as he remembered his struggle to reach this place again.
It'd almost unmonkeyed him, the tight squeeze. He was bigger now, and taller. Closer in stature to a small man than a small monkey. As men measured it, he stood just over four chi at the shoulder. Not quite four and a half. His eyes met those of the smallest disciples now, rather than only rising up to their collars.
The tight tunnel that led to the vertical shaft had not grown during the year as he had.
It had taken half a dozen aborted attempts before orange-crest managed to squeeze his way through. Only the memory of the way it opened up at the shaft, the certainty that he was not squeezing his way to his slow doom, or an embarrassing rescue from his master pulling him out by his feet, had given him the resolve to push forward.
Even then he'd stopped and started repeatedly, bashing at the tightest sections with fist-sized rocks until he'd widened them enough he felt mostly sure he wouldn't be trapped coming back the other way.
Despite his preparations, his heart had spent the whole squeeze in his trying to exit his body via his throat. He had not relaxed until he'd stood up in the vertical shaft, turned around, and crawled back out. Only then had he let his master leave him to his cultivation.
The climb up had been easy at least. His added height let him reach both sides of the shaft at once, which made it as easy to navigate as a tree.
Heavens above, but orange-crest hated caves so very much. Almost as much as he hated the way Nascent Soul cultivators stood above the world, cold and unstoppable predators. Wildfires, storms, and killing winters bound within the frames of men. Close enough to touch, their wills as inevitable as the turning of the seasons.
Plop.
Orange-crest shivered, and returned his focus to cultivation. He took the memory, the way his chest refused to expand as it pressed against unyielding stone, the way blood filled his ears as his fingers scrabbled in time with his abdomen's twitches to force him through the too-small opening.
He offered the memory up to the qi that surrounded him. He held it out almost gingerly, in the same uncertain way he'd once seen a curious outer disciple seek to entice a rabbit into his arms with a small piece of oatcake. Unlike the rabbit, the qi bit. It shivered in time with the monkey, quivering with his fear, and then stilling with the resolve that had overcome it.
Its power soothed the trembling in the limbs of the monkey he saw with the eyes of his spirit, the one that again attempted the climb it had failed once before. Orange-crest put one hand in front of another, and this time, there was no fear in him. Not of this breakthrough. He knew, deep in his bones, that this time he was equal to the challenge.
Plop.
Orange-crest reached farther. There were more spirit stones here than just the fifty that surrounded him. Thick veins of power ran through the edges of the cave, the fuel that had carried the gluttonous centipede to the place he now sought to reach. Orange-crest could have taken them. They were not loose enough to be pried free with fingers, not even ones as strong as his now were. He would have needed a tool to take them, but his dagger would probably have proved sufficient.
But the very idea felt profane. Wrong in the same quietly gut-turning way as Shan's offer to help him become a human, or big-crest's untamed hungers. The centipede's crime and doom had been gluttony. But even it had not sought to consume the mountain itself, despite its long imprisonment. A place like this was special. Orange-crest felt with a strange certainty that if he could not take it's power by merit of cultivation, by strength of spirit, to break it down and cart it away by strength of arm would be wrong. Not a crime against another, against those who might stumble upon it later, but a crime against himself, or the world.
He didn't know where the certainty came from, but these days he was getting very good at dealing with thoughts and ideas he did not fully grasp.
Plop.
Hand over hand, orange-crest rose higher. He felt the air around him trembling with sourceless winds. In the distance, he could hear a mournful howl as wind ripped through the mountainside. If some other outer disciples came upon the cold cave now, he wondered if legends of hungry ghosts would follow them out.
He could see Yang Wei staring down at him in his mind's eye. That inscrutable judgement in his eyes. Orange-crest knew now that it was not merely arrogance with which he looked down at him, but impatience. Orange-crest had defeated him once, but he did not hold himself above Yang Wei in his mind. Yet.
He kicked off a protruding rock, trusting in his grip to see him steadied at the next hold.
Another orange-crest, the one who understood he was not truly climbing, felt the walls of his dantian begin to strain. This breakthrough was not like the others, desperate pushes toward something beyond him. But a gentle, confident, breakthrough, was still a breakthrough. One could grow without suffering, but one could not cultivate without pain. The fourth stage of Qi Condensation had bound him for so long, a ceiling he'd not had the strength to surpass.
Orange-crest wanted to grow stronger. To match the ancient monsters he'd seen and heard spoken of. Yang Shui, who could rival the Monkey King. The Azure Patriarch who shattered mountains. The covetous Elder Lu who sought dominion over his master. Even his king. One Monkey King was not enough. He saw the world more clearly now, the threats that could wipe bare Mount Yuelu in an instant.
He was not Yang Wei, forever simmering with a deeply buried rage. A hunger to stand at the apex of the world. He did not need to stand uncontested beneath the heavens. But monkey-kind needed more heroes. More paragons to match the never-sated monsters humanity birthed. And more than that, deeper than that, he did not wish to bow. To bend his neck before another and acknowledge them as his better. He sought freedom in a world that seemed to only readily offer servitude.
Once, his king and master had been horizons. Beings beyond him, shepherds he could trust to bear the weight of heaven. He could see them in his spirit's eye, standing atop the mountain he'd built. He understood now what it meant. In placing them on the mountain in his soul, he'd declared an intention he only now understood.
He would one day surpass them, or fall in the attempt.
Plop.
Orange-crest felt his qi surge. It was not his will that moved it now. It was the deeper thing, the thing that motivated his will, that offered up thoughts for his mind's consideration. The thing that he cultivated, what men called spirit.
His qi sped up, raging through his veins. His dantian and meridians were too small to contain the power he'd taken in, so they changed as his qi did. That which raged was bound, that which strained remade in cleansing fire. It hurt. It hurt quite a lot. But exercise hurt. Injury stung and the Monkey Refining Bath had burned. He knew hurt well, and it was not enough to stop him.
His breakthrough was sudden, but it was not forceful. He could not surpass the great figures he'd set in the horizon of his spirit. But he could take this step. He'd been able to for some time now.
A drop of water froze, quivering in the air. Orange-crest had not immobilized it. His surging qi was simply dense enough that it asserted control over the space around him. Something broke, and grew greater.
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Orange-crest had always thought of his qi as fire. A wild and airy force that surged and flickered. The change began in his dantian. His qi was pressed tight like a monkey-pile in the depths of winter, left without room to escape. The pressure grew until suddenly his qi collapsed in upon itself. It slowed, then thickened. The change surged outward, like ice spreading across a lake. His overfull meridians happily disgorged their contents into his now empty dantian, and the new droplets of denser power greedily drank in qi, transmuting the thinner qi into this strange new form. One moment his dantian was full to bursting, his meridians straining against the weight of borrowed power.
The next there was only quiet, the wild guttering strands of energy transmuted into droplets that were neither liquid nor gas, but something into between. His qi was now like a smoke thick enough to drink, or a water so light it threatened to float away.
The orange-crest in his mind's eye scrambled up a ledge, finding a safe spot to rest. The fourth stage of Qi Condensation.
Plopop-plop.
Three droplets of water dampened his orange crest, as the shroud of qi that he'd grasped was sucked into his body, converted into more of this new, denser, form.
The monkey's eyes did not open. He was quite curious to see what exactly this new stage meant, but he was not yet done. Orange-crest did not know how long it had been. The plops were infrequent. But the jade band Daoist Enduring Oath had made would vibrate when his time was up. He had time. He had qi. He pressed onward.
His resolve was not yet spent.
The power that had previously felt so abundant was sparser now. Every droplet-strand of smoke-qi took so much more gathered qi to condense. His breakthrough had left him with his dantian hardly half full, and filling it would take hours or days of cultivation.
He was beginning to understand why the disparity between realms of cultivation was so great. Why senior cultivators fought against their peers so rarely. Their earth-shattering strength might require years to recover if they exhausted it. Using it all up would render them far more vulnerable than a more lowly cultivator.
Plop.
Orange-crest steadily absorbed the power around him, taking it in, letting it rise, then drawing it in once more. It slowed, fell beneath his control, and then transformed into yet another droplet. He formed three such motes for every drop of water that hit his head.
He was tempted to crack open his eyes, to see how many spirit stones remained to be drained, but some part of him felt like that would be a mistake. So he resisted. Instead, he pondered the nature of his recent breakthrough, how it had differed from the others.
He'd known instinctively he was ready to advance. That the strength of his grasp was sufficient to gather the density of qi he would need to reach the fourth stage. But how had he known, and what had changed within him to make his breakthrough possible?
Plop.
Orange-crest considered the nature of cultivation. What little he truly knew about it. For a time, he'd thought it like eating. Or perhaps gathering fruit for winter. One just had to accumulate enough qi. Breaking through was just a matter of having enough spirit stones to eat in one sitting.
That was important, but it wasn't sufficient. Otherwise the noble scions of the empire would never be at risk of 'bottlenecking', having spirit stones beyond counting, but being unable to attain a breakthrough. Orange-crest hadn't truly suffered a bottleneck yet, his road had mostly been limited in other ways, but he already knew several recipes for pills designed to surmount them. They were some of the most common, and many cultivators gathered up several to consume at once before breaking through.
That meant there was something more to the spirit than mere quantities and qualities of qi. Yet, most breakthrough pills worked by filling the dantian with more qi than a cultivator could grasp on their own. Did that not contradict his earlier supposition?
Plop. Another three droplets formed. Orange-crest took in more qi, and began another cycle of cultivation.
He'd hated cultivation once hadn't he? It wasn't so bad. Next time though, he wouldn't do it in a cave. He definitely still hated those, yet he kept finding himself venturing into them.
Spiritual cultivation wasn't a matter of achievement or permission either. Orange-crest did not earn this advancement by defeating Yang Wei. This strange thing men the called spirit followed no rules so simple. Orange-crest did not know how he knew that, but he did. The idea that such a thing might be true had the same repellent stench to it as the idea of strip-mining the centipede cave, or becoming a human. It might be true for others, but it was not true for him.
Orange-crest still did not know what exactly it was, the spirit he cultivated. It was not intelligence. The painful crystalline edge of a sharpened mind. Having that certainly helped. He didn't think he could have done this without the pills that had changed him. But it could not be sufficient on its own, else his master would stand far higher beneath the heavens. It could not be knowledge either, for much the same reason.
To place his faith in purity of will seemed similarly flawed. It had served Yang Wei well, helped him rise over all the disciples whose hungers were weaker and divided. But if hunger alone were sufficient for a cultivator, red-eyes would have long since overturned the heavens, or at least reached Core Formation.
Plop.
Time felt meaningless, orange-crest drifted, unmoored from his body. There was nothing except the steady rush of refining more and more qi, making it his own, and making himself more than what he was.
He could see how cultivators gave over their life to this. There was a deep satisfaction to feeling pour into him, to the way his dantian flexed and strained.
But something still gnawed at him. If not will or intelligence, what then was the spirit? Men had many answers. But that wasn't exactly a good sign that any of them were correct. If they truly knew, surely they would only need one answer?
He kept at it, as he steadily cultivated away the days and nights.
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There is a will that governs this world. It is unbound by time or form. It is not fettered by identity, or chained by need. It does not seek to overcome, nor enforce its purpose.
It acts without effort. Punishes without malice. Underpins spatial laws by existing.
Men call it the Heavenly Dao. This is as accurate a name as any for a thing that does not need a name. Names are for things that are numerous, to distinguish them from their peers. Men might call it the Heavenly Dao, but it is a great conceit indeed to say that lesser daos should be accounted in the same breath as it. It is a will beyond wills, paramount and incontestable. Even in defiance, its nature is reified.
Yet sometimes even the Heavenly Dao gets... Itchy.
An irritation beneath its notice brews. Something not in accordance with the way it ordains. The dao it demands. The Heavenly Dao does not consider this violation. It is not a thing of consideration.
Instead, it scratches the itch.
In the skies above a sect that has never produced a true immortal, a storm brews. Dark clouds gather, heavy with rain. Lightning cracks like the reins of celestial cavalry, thunder the drum-beats of their hooves. Wild winds lash the Azure Mountain Sect, driving outer disciples too weak to simply still the air around them running for cover.
On another night, that would be the end of the matter.
But on this night, the Hall of Rarefied Heights shook with the wills of the mighty. Or at least those with the best claim to the title in this small place upon this lowly world.
And so a moderately drunken Yang Shui rose from his seat, driven by Elder Xun and Elder Lu's polite exhortations that he do something about the storm making it difficult for the disciples to manage timely service. There were only so many storage treasures capable of storing food to go around, but there were a great many guests who expected their food both hot and dry.
"You again?" He muttered, the words stolen away by the wind the moment they left his lips. "The Qianglong has little patience for your antics. Descend and crush us, or fuck off."
The storm did not reply. The Heavenly Dao did not notice. Blasphemy was not what it existed to punish.
The Storm that Walks flicked his wrist, and a spear appeared in it. Outwardly, it looked like a perfect match for the weapon his nephew wielded. Unadorned mortal steel. In a way, it was one. The only difference is that Yang Shui was not actually carrying a spear.
Some sword sages learned to cut down men with reeds. Others refined their intent until their fingernails could carry it as easily as any blade.
The Marshal of the West had broken spears beyond number. At some point, he'd found that there was always another to hand, if he reached for one without caring where he would find it. His soldiers sometimes reported their weapons mysteriously disappearing, but that was what he paid his logistics staff to handle.
"This mountain only has room for one storm." He said, falling into a stance more comfortable than any cushion. "Break."
With one thrust, Yang Shui pricked the clouds. And like a torn paper lantern, the growing storm system floundered, collapsing to the earth in shambles.
The marshal stepped back through the doors and returned to his seat, putting the spear back wherever it was he'd gotten it from. A couple of homesteads near the sect were probably about to receive a year's worth of rain in the span of an hour, but the Azure Mountain Sect's seniors and their guests would get their food hot.
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Orange-crest never did find an answer that satisfied him. But not knowing what the spirit was did not keep him from cultivating it.
He could feel the bottleneck of the fifth stage. The straining of the walls of his dantian that hinted he was getting close to another transformation of his qi. He was close enough to attempt it, but he didn't have that same certainty he could transcend it. It would be a difficult, violent breakthrough like his earlier ones.
Was that what men meant, when they referred to the depth of one's foundation? How prepared they were for the next breakthrough?
Orange-crest opened his eyes. The cave was dark. The spirit stones he'd scattered around himself were gray and cracked, indistinguishable from any other pebbles strewn across the floor of the centipede cave. The walls of the cavern had dimmed, the vibrant streaks of blue decayed into mottled sparks of light like stationary fireflies. Orange-crest might be able to breakthrough again, but if he did, this place would break.
Orange-crest blinked. He didn't think he would have been able to see so clearly in this lacking light before. But now he could all but count the spent spirit stones around his feet. The monkey rose to his feet. His legs felt unsteady, but when his qi surged through them, they forgot their weakness.
"Thank you." He said in the true tongue. "Good cave. Will not forget."
He didn't know why he was thanking this place. But he felt it was important not to forget the land that had helped him grow. He did not want to attempt a second breakthrough here. He might succeed. But success or failure, he felt like he would deplete this place beyond the point it could recover. The three cultivators that had known it had taken much from it in the last few years.
Orange-crest would not be the one to kill it.
A small part of him had hoped to go further. To surpass the other disciples entirely. But cultivation was not a thing to be greedy with, his experience with the bath had shown him that. This power would be enough for his needs. He would make it so, until he could make it more.
The monkey crossed the cavern, marveling at how easily his eyes pierced the semi-dark. He found the gaping entrance to the tunnel. On a whim, he stepped out into the void. He cycled his qi as he fell, feeling the denser power cut through the air around him. It gathered around his feet, a cushion of qi. As the wind ripped at orange-crest's fur, the urge to retreat to the safety of stone grew in him. He resisted, as he fell the forty or fifty chi to the bottom of the shaft.
He landed with a great crash, sending up a cloud of dust that almost blocked out the dim stream of light pouring in from the exit. His unsteady legs collapsed, leaving his arms to catch him. But nothing was broken. His qi had managed that much, turning what should have been a painful fall into a manageable impact. Orange-crest wondered how else he could utilize this new, denser, qi. He'd shown the Azure Mountain what his master was capable of, but he saw no reason to stop there. It was time he show them what he himself could do.
"Disciples won't know what him them. But it will be me. I'll hit them. From invisibility. Really hard."
Orange-crest snickered a laugh at his own terrible joke. The monkey did not yet know what he was becoming. But he was hungry to find out.
Orange-crest's stomach growled. Oh. Understanding-of-the-process-of-his-becoming wasn't the only thing he was hungry for. He must have been cultivating for days. That explained why his legs felt so weak and unsteady.
He could bear hunger more easily now. The familiar pain in his stomach was still there, but it was less sharp than it had been, less urgent. His qi alone was enough to sustain him, for a time at least. Orange-crest considered the sausage and twin balls of old rice in his sack. No. The squeeze would be easier with an empty stomach. And if he made it all the way home, he could have better food.
"Goodbye cave. Never doing this again." He promised, as he bent down to wiggle his way through the tunnel one last time. "Can't do this again if I grow any bigger. And I kind of want to grow bigger. Seems like fun."