Unseen Cultivator

V3 Chapter Five: Burdens



It took exactly fourteen hours – Sayaana was remarkably good at keeping track of time's passage – for Qing Liao to acquire a distinct set of annoyances that threatened to suck away all his enjoyment of the freedom to wander about the Ruined Wastes he'd been granted, and it was not the wretched stink of the plague qi that tainted every breath and scent on the wind. That, like any other bad smell, was something the mind learned to ignore given time. Instead, what he came to find more infuriating than anything else was a seemingly minor logistical problem: he did not possess a storage ring.

He knew what a storage ring was, of course. All the cultivators of the old world had carried such artifacts. Their ability to distort the spatial dao of their own forms and thereby create a pocket capable of holding vast volumes in a space that wrapped a single finger was a feature of almost any pre-war legend. It was even said, and only halfway a joke, that the seed of Mother's Gift had been Orday's own storage ring, a mighty artifact said to be capable of holding an entire city. At least, that item had not been recovered following her ascension.

Such spatial storage devices were widely considered the most valuable and utilitarian of all artifacts, valued by many above even weapons and armor as the essential equipment of any cultivator. Several old stories spoke of cultivators who traded away even the clothes on their back to pay down debts, but retained their storage rings to the very last. The Spatial Binding Sect, legendarily based in a tower amid the icy wastes at the bottom of the world, had spent millennia producing these devices and had been universally known as the wealthiest sect in the old world.

But it was impossible to bring a storage ring through the gateway to a hidden land. Nor could one be produced within those boundaries. Some sort of fundamental property of spatial dao, of the very foundational nature of space itself, forbade this, all interactions between such distortions were blocked by the Heavens themselves.

There was a story, of dubious validity, that said Bloody Roam had once taken the storage ring of a fallen foe and hurled it with all his might at the gateway of a small hidden land, a blow that could pierce through a mountaintop. It had stopped, perfectly motionless, at the edge of the boundary, all momentum completely erased.

Theorists found this fascinating. Most people found it irritating. Bloody Roam had slaughtered the entire hidden realm in fury.

The Celestial Origin Sect, confined to Mother's Gift, had learned to live without storage rings. Centralizing everything in one place in Starwall City served to largely mitigate the issue. Large objects could simply be carried from place to place if needed, relying upon the great strength the elders possessed. Everyone understood that commentary upon the awkward appearance of such movements was not to be uttered, ever.

Liao, dispatched into the vastness of the forested wilderness beyond the gateway, discovered that he was thrown straight into the face of this problem.

It had not been unanticipated, this challenge. Zhou Hua had equipped him with a frame backpack carrying numerous pouches, a press to compact plants and fungi, and extra bags with room to expand considerably. Weight was not an issue, he could haul several times his own mass without any real loss of overland speed, but the barrier of bulk was not so easily overcome. There was simply only so much that could be stacked, tied, or otherwise added to the frame before it got stuck on branches and toppled over every other step.

Fourteen hours into his first trip into the wilds, moving through the thickly forested mountains just to the south of where he had aided Artemay in battle against Rust Reaper, and he'd used up all his packing tricks. There was no more space and he inevitably faced the prospect of turning back.

"This," Liao noted as he tried to find ways to strap down a chunk of bark from a type of oak he'd never seen before onto the bulgy top of the pack only to find that the straps were already so tight they threatened to snap in half no matter where he squeezed and eventually gave up. "Is going to be a problem."

Plants, fungi, and insects, could mostly be broken down into small bits, but even those might be desired in large quantities. Some things could be introduced to Mother's Gift and grown in gardens later – nearly half his pack was full of pinecones, acorns, bulbs, and other seeds – but that would not work for animal parts, minerals, or mighty trees. Worse, he knew this would only grow more important as he traveled further and needed to preserve anything prior to bringing it back. He could treat some materials in the wild without provoking notice, but the demands of stealth precluded any method reliant upon prolonged fire. Large hides, antlers, or rare ores would be almost ridiculously cumbersome to transport one backpack full at a time, especially if he did eventually reach the ocean.

"Agreed," Sayaana appeared before him, lips set in a hard line. Green and bark-textured, the remnant soul seemed to vanish into the background of the forest almost instantly. "Though I'm sure that calculating new partner of yours will have many ideas." Liao had realized, from the very start, that Sayaana did not especially like Zhou Hua. Considering the way his fellow thought weaving realm disciple so closely matched the expectations of the Celestial Origin Sect this had not come as much of a surprise. "But a storage ring is still the best solution. It's barely a risk, really. They bind qi inwards. A demonic cultivator would only notice one if they were standing next to you. You could just dump your prizes out at the edge of the gateway and throw them inside."

Crude as the method sounded, it had been done before, starting at the end of the demon war. Storage rings recovered from ruins by the scouts centuries ago had been smashed open and had their contents recovered in this way, across the course of history.

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"There must be some set of ruins or tombs within reach," the remnant soul speculated. "You don't need a powerful ring, just something with a lot of volume."

"I will have Zhou Hua petition for any available information," Liao agreed. The alchemist was a better writer than he was, and possessed exactly the sort of formal, proper style of calligraphy that the grand elders seemed to find impressive. "Hopefully there is some old secret that can be used. For now, we might as well go back." He'd been granted a full twenty-four hours, and had intended to use every minute of it, but the full backpack made moving about awkward and uncomfortable enough that it reduced the joy of walking through new lands down to nothing.

Nor, in truth, were the forests here all that different from those he knew well, in the southern reaches of Mother's Gift. He had not expected them to be, no more than a few dozen kilometers south of the gateway. There were changes, of course, but they were subtle. The same kinds of plants, but different varieties. Conifers with slightly altered needle and scale forms, oaks with oddly shaped leaves and acorns, a variety of bamboo unknown to his eyes and tongue, and similar variations extending down into the undergrowth and soil below his feet. He'd added mushrooms, beetle grubs, mosses, lichens, and even pond slime to his collections.

Apparently someone in one of the twelve pavilions could make use out of practically anything.

There were no animals in his pack, not yet. That was a more complex effort. If he ran out snares and traps, it would take at least a night to retrieve anything, and hunting required hours of scouting and stalking. Besides, Liao knew that Zhou Hua was correct in saying that plants varied more across short distances than animals. He supposed it had to do with the inability of the former to move about. For now, immobile life took priority.

Not that he hadn't noticed new animals, of course. He could feel them, even in creatures that remained cloaked in shadow. The qi of the fish beneath the alpine lakes and streams he ran across, the calls and songs of birds, monkeys, and frogs heard among the trees. He'd marked these signs out in his head and on the provided map. When the time came he'd return and add them to the growing collection.

For now, he simply walked back as swiftly as the awkward pack would allow. It was not a leisurely stroll, forced by his burden to continually adjust pathing and posture lest he tear his cargo apart in the canopy. This only compounded the difficulty of travel through forest untouched by humans for two and half millennia. Spider webs, fallen logs, snags, and vines all blocked any sort of open trail out of existence. Unburdened, he could have glided past them nearly effortlessly. Cargo made everything significantly more complicated, he felt more lumbering than any ox.

Sayaana mitigated this frustration somewhat by choosing to remain apparent throughout the return, walking beside him and matching his artificially restrained pace. "I spent a lot of time in forests like this, years and years," she murmured as they scrambled over a narrow stream. "Each one is different, but they are all still forests, somehow. One word, it covers many things, strange. I never had any chance to count up differences like this. Movement was the only way to survive."

"That was how you evaded the demonic cultivators?" Liao took the chance to ask this question as bent and twisted beneath the eaves of a low-hanging chestnut. "Always running?"

"Mostly, yes," the green-skinned woman nodded. Her expression was softly sad, the common face made when reaching into the depths of her memory. "If I sensed one and immediately ran the opposite way, then unless they followed exactly the right path, we'd miss each other. My technique, it makes me fast overland, among the trees. The wild pulled me, the opposite of what that pack it doing to you. Most demonic cultivators are slow, or lack agility. They have bad techniques, the price paid for cheating their way to immortality."

Liao recalled Rust Reaper at those words. The little of his fighting ability the armored demonic cultivator had displayed offered partial confirmation. His movement technique had been fast, but still slower than the Stellar Flash Steps, and in terms of maneuverability might as well be considered crippled. All power, no control. It was a noticeable weakness, though Liao doubted it was even close to a universal one.

"How were you caught then?" It felt like a natural follow-up, one he'd never dared to explore before. He did not believe it was simply a matter of unfortunate chance, not after two centuries.

"I got tired of running and tried to claim something that wasn't mine." Deep sorrow impelled this reply. "The way to find a hidden land is the same for us as demonic cultivators: follow the demons as they begin to form a horde. Timed correctly, its possible to slip inside before the horde finishes forming. I managed it several times, only to be driven away again in shame or loss. Here," she turned her head towards the gateway beyond the hills. "I almost made it, only to be struck down before the door. Your grand elders came out and slew my killer in seconds, while he was still trying to pin my soul between the trees. Foolish of him, to come so close without the horde surrounding him, but I suppose I'm the same."

She shook her head, braids shaking with sorrow. "Safety is an illusion in this world of plague. I should have just kept on running forever."

Loneliness. It took no effort at all to hear it then, to know the power it held even over one who had discarded mortality. Whatever the transformation that formed the soul into a force of living dao, it could not leave humanity behind entirely. Perhaps, Liao dared to guess, only ascension allowed that.

The need for contact, immortals experienced it. Across decades and centuries instead of days and weeks, perhaps, but they still required to hear the voice of others, to touch them, to share pieces of their lives. Reaching the celestial ascendancy realm did not make an eternal hermit out of a cultivator.

Liao knew he survived on little contact compared to his peers, but his situation was not the same as Sayaana's had been. He could always go home and find a warm place, a friend to talk too, a space to belong. It was simply a matter of desire, and in knowing that it was possible, the need vanished.

To be totally alone, lost in a wilderness surrounded by enemies, that would be very different indeed. Wisdom, he realized, had been displayed in great quantity when Itinay bound Sayaana to him. It had not been simply a matter of instruction. So long as Sayaana walked beside him, Liao could never truly be alone. Perhaps, someday, that would save him from the fate she'd faced.

"I'm sorry you were not able to join our sect in the flesh," he mumbled, unable to think of anything better to fill that sorrowful silence.

"You more than me, I think," Sayaana quipped, and her green lips extended into a grim no more than partly feigned. "I would never have been part of your sect, not truly. If Artemay dragged me bleeding and broken though the gateway instead of bodiless, it would not be that different. They would give me a house, somewhere far away from everything, call me out to fight demons, and otherwise pretend I didn't exist. Tied to you, even like this, I'm closer to your sect than ever. Besides," her smile somehow broadened. "If you do manage to save the world, I'll live again without needing to hide. This whole mess will just be a sidestep along the way."

Those words, so hopeful and horrible all at once, quickened Liao's step. There were some things that must be done, in time. Sayaana was one of his.

Perhaps the most important of all.


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