License to Cultivate [Progression Fantasy Tower Climber] (FOUR books completed!)

Chang-li resumed his cycling technique. He needed to figure out what was wrong with his core and how to solve it, preferably before they started trying to climb the tower.

Nothing in the scrolls he had happened to bring from Morning Mist gave him any clues. All of his information was limited to the levels of Peak of Spiritual Refinement and below. He had only a small handful of lux perception techniques available to him.

It seemed as though this Lens was a device used by lux Dominators. The General of the West might have been able to answer the few questions he had asked, but Chang-li was hesitant to reveal his weakness or to put himself any further in the General's debt.

His first step needed to be learning as much as he could about this device. So, Chang-li performed Purification of Mind and Soul, the simplest and gentlest cycling pattern he knew. All he was trying to do was feel how the Lens impacted his core and his lux channels.

He could feel and hear the way the Lens shifted all of the tones of the lux, making them discordant. The more he concentrated, the more he got the sense that it was not in his core exactly. No, it was changing things around and beyond his core.

Chang-li focused inward.

He hadn't intentionally been breathing in lux, but the rich atmosphere all around meant some had entered into his veins. It felt good to have lux there once again.

He vented out everything except green lux through his dual channels, then focused on his inner sight. Green lux, all by itself, rarely made a useful technique. That made it a good tool right now for exploring his own body and channels, especially since it could go equally down either his left or right-hand channels.

Very carefully, he channeled Breath of the Heavens, pushing the green lux out his left-hand spiritual channels, back in the right side along his physical channels into his core, then deliberately stopping and reversing the cycling pattern.

This seemed promising. He returned his focus to his core, which was, after all, where the trouble was. Circulating green lux around, feeling it out, he listened intently to the sound the green lux made.

He would never have noticed the change without the boon he'd earned at the Riceflower from the dragon, the ability to hear the tones different colors lux made, and to instinctively know how each should sound.

The note was slightly discordant and off-key, Chang-li held his breath and spun his lux in his core, focusing so slowly on the instant of the chime.

There. He heard it. The sound was wrong because there were two notes overlapping, like a natural and a sharp being played at almost, but not quite, the same time.

The first was the sound his core should be making, a pure note of green lux. The other, half a tone up and a heartbeat later. That was the influence of the Lens he had absorbed.

Now that he knew what he was listening for, Chang-li allowed the abundant red lux that filled this place to enter. He circulated that in his core, listening, and again noted the dual-note discordance.

Did that mean the Lens wasn't fully absorbed into his core but was reacting to what his core did?

Chang-li had never particularly studied music. It wasn't part of a scribe's education. But the boon he'd earned at Riceflower gave him an understanding of music as well as the keen sense of tone. There were harmonics, notes that could be played to offset each other, ways to bring harmony back in. The problem was finding them, and how to employ it.

Chang-li realized his head was throbbing and his core spinning too fast. He breathed out, pushing all of the lux out of himself, and opened his eyes to see the tent around him.

He had much to learn still, but he felt as though he'd taken a first step toward understanding the problem.

He could really use guidance. He'd have to look at the scrolls they'd brought along in their flight. It was unlikely anything here had help.

If only Noren were here, or someone else with a keen understanding of cultivation.

The tent flap twitched, and Joshi ducked in. He had a thunderous look on his face. Chang-li blinked up at him. "Something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. Why?" Joshi dropped to the pillows heavily. He reached for a flask of water and drank deep.

"Training's coming along well?"

"Very well. Nothing like beating some sense through their thick heads to get them to listen to me. Most of them have picked up on the first couple of cycling patterns, and I've left them to it. What have you been doing?" Joshi eyed him with suspicion. "Not cycling, I hope."

"Only a little," Chang-li assured him. "Mostly meditating. I think I've found out some important things about this Lens." He told Joshi what he knew.

"Hmm." Joshi frowned again and took another gulp of water. "And we know that the Lens itself seems to magnify your techniques. That Firepot you used to take out the dragon was far beyond anything you could have managed. If it weren't so dangerous to you, it could be a powerful boon."

"Yes," Chang-li agreed, "and I've been thinking about it. The only thing that makes sense to me is if the Lens was somehow increasing my own lux or purifying it so it hit harder. But it felt like there was just more of it, more than I could possibly handle. Like," he hesitated, "like I had opened a portal to…"

"And what we do know about this Lens," Joshi said, "is that it's a device for cultivators looking to learn to crack Lumos. It seems like that's an incredibly important step once they've reached a certain level of power. Why?"

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Chang-li approved of this approach. If they could figure out what the Lens was supposed to do, they'd understand better what it was doing to him. "At lux Embodiment, the cultivator remakes his own body using lux. That can include changing the nature and shape of his channels, but from everything I've ever heard, your core remains the same. Oh, it gets a little bigger, " he made gestures with his hands, "doubling or increasing by ten times or something. We've seen Prisms in action. Does it seem like their lux pools are only ten or a hundred times as big as ours?"

Joshi shook his head. "No, there's no comparison between them. Or at least…" he frowned. "It feels like their lux hits harder and never runs out."

"So, what if cracking Lumos isn't just about having an infinite supply of lux on hand, but about having, I don't know, stronger lux, better lux. A Lens is for teaching you how to focus your lux." Something about that felt right.

Joshi nodded along as well. "It makes sense, but you need to be careful about your experimentation. We don't have anyone here to help out if it goes wrong."

"Agreed," Chang-li said.

"Good. Then it's time you and I went hunting. There's a bunch of hungry young cultivators who are going to need Tower Beast meat if we're going to build up their bodies enough for this coming fight," Joshi said.

They were adapting their training of the Darwur to the way the army taught its recruits to cultivate, by feeding them heavily on the flesh of Tower Beasts. That built up more lux impurities, but since they also had the recipe for purification rations, it wasn't the danger Chang-li would otherwise have thought. It would lead to the new Darwur cultivators being heavily focused on physical lux and bodily enhancements.

That was alright. None of them were likely to make it past the Peak of Bodily Refinement before Eri's people got here anyway. They just needed to be capable of standing in a battle against cultivators at all. If they knew how to reinforce their bodies with red lux, they had a chance. Chang-li imagined a Darwur cavalry charge where all of the riders were strengthening themselves with red lux and their weapons with orange. It would be downright apocalyptic.

Min agreed to take the next session with the trainees, and Joshi had delegated a couple of the Darwur who spoke fairly decent Common to translate for her. They'd need to take Min out again for some more combat practice now that she'd reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement, but it was good for her to have some time to consolidate her gains, after all.

He and Joshi left the camp, Magen scouting ahead through the harsh red-hued landscape of the tower. Joshi grunted.

"Nest up ahead. A whole bunch of big lizard creatures. Looks like they might have an acid spit attack. How do we want to play this?"

Chang-li considered. He couldn't use any of his techniques just yet, but his swordplay needed work anyway. He drew Liar's Blade and looked it over. "See if we can draw some of them out a ways," he suggested.

Joshi nodded and sent Magen dipping down toward the nest. A moment later, the little lux creature came racing back toward them, pursued by three enormous, low-slung lizard creatures, each with three sets of legs and a head on a long, snake-like neck. Their heads reared up as they ran, making them look something like shell-less turtles. One spat a blob of something green that sizzled as it hit the surrounding landscape.

It made sense that the creatures here would have such attacks. With everything here reinforcing itself with red lux, they'd need to be able to get through some pretty tough shells.

As they came forward, Chang-li prepared himself. "I'll take the one on the right."

Joshi grunted, and an instant later leapt forward with a Meteor Punch. He came crashing down onto the middle lizard, and the one on its left turned to bite at him. Chang-li darted in, Liar's Blade flashing as he attacked. The lizard's head bobbed and wove. He swung, and the beast snapped at the blade of his sword. He barely avoided the thick, red-lined jaws. Though his sword was strong, he didn't want to risk it in the maw of a Tower Beast.

The creature reared its head back. Chang-li recognized the sign. He dove to the side, his reflexes not quite as fast as if he'd had lux in his body, but still far superior to what they had been when he'd been an ordinary man. The ball of acid whizzed harmlessly past his head as he rolled and leapt to his feet. He raced in, driving the blade in front of him and skewered the creature in the neck.

Dancing back, he noted with pleasure that it had drawn blood, but the beast's wound almost instantly began to heal up.

"They're tough!" Joshi shouted.

"Spiritual lux would get in through a wound," Chang-li said. He wished he was able to use Bloodflame Venom on his weapon.

The lizard he was fighting coughed again. Instinctively, as the blob of acid came too fast to duck, Chang-li raised his sword. Liar's Blade cut across the ball of acid, and it sizzled, then absorbed. His blade took on a greenish tinge.

He had known the sword was able to absorb lux but was surprised it worked on incoming attacks. Chang-li darted in. This time he opened a long, shallow wound along the creature's side. It hissed and turned on him, but the wound didn't heal. Liar's Blade still had a green tinge to it, the same color as the acid which had the aspect of life lux. Chang-li grinned.

The vault guardian had said the weapon had secrets, and he thought he was seeing one now. He'd have to experiment to learn what its true capabilities were. Happy that his swordplay, at least, had not deserted him, he managed to finish off his lizard as Joshi killed the second of his.

Then they waited, but no further emerged.

"This is a good start," Joshi said. "Let's clean them up and take them back to the camp."

He and Chang-li began to dress the lizards, ripping out their insides and vital organs, looking for the little pouches throughout the body where the venom was hidden. These Chang-li collected. They would be useful components, and he might be able to use them to charge his Liar's Blade.

As they worked, bent over the lizards, Joshi said, "What do you think General Li is truly planning?"

"Hmm?" Chang-li asked.

"I mean, I believe that he does want to go against Eri. Do you think that's the height of his ambitions?"

"I doubt it," Chang-li said briefly. "Splitting Lumos without permission is treason, and this bit with the Primal Tower sounds like it's beyond that."

"You think he wishes to challenge the Emperor?"

"Feels like they all do," Chang-li muttered as he checked the lizard's teeth.

They were long and sharp and looked like they'd be valuable. He began prying them out one by one. He would turn the bodies over to the expedition cooks, who had experience with preparing Tower Beasts for tender stomachs, but he wanted to take anything of value first.

"It seems like once you reach a certain point in your climb, you get obsessed with power," Joshi observed.

"Noren hasn't."

"Noren is strange," Joshi said. "He has not told us everything."

"That much is clear," Chang-li agreed. "I still don't know if it's coincidence that he appeared just as we were using the name of his old sect, but I do think he wants to help us."

"Then why isn't he here with us?" Joshi demanded.

"There was an Inquisitor on our tail, a Lux Dominator."

"And you think Noren was anything less?"

Chang-li had no response for that. Instead, he circled back to the last topic. "You don't trust General Li, then."

Joshi snorted. "Of course not."

"You think he's lying to us?"

"Probably." Joshi hesitated. "He told me to stay away from Hiroko."

Chang-li cleared his throat. Carefully, he said, "Oh?"

"Yes. He doesn't think I'm a suitable match for her."

"I think most fathers feel that way about their daughter's suitors," Chang-li said. "Besides, you were looking for an excuse to break the betrothal anyway. Convenient that he's done it for you."

"Yes." Joshi sounded unhappy about it. "I suppose it is." He bent and busied himself with his task, and Chang-li took the cue to shut up.