Apocalypse Cultivation 2, ch 37

Fantasma led Jake to another alley that he wouldn’t have been able to find on his own in 1500 years.  Its existence was well camouflaged to begin with, and she did something with hand to open a hidden door in the wall.

Once they were through, the alley was clean and seemed somehow less weathered than the rest of the city.  There were doors lining both walls of the alley, all were different shades of grey.

Sounds from the city were beginning to get louder.

Yarissa never even said anything about this, thought Jake.  Then a realization hit him.  I wonder if she even knew. Has she even been in the Dead City!?

Jake felt a vibration through his feet as something very big and very heavy walked nearby.  “Last door on the left,” said Fantasma.  “I will stay here to hide our passage and I will follow.” Her expression moved strangely as she obviously hoped for his death even as she worked to prevent it.

With a nod, Jake moved down the alley.  He didn’t waste time asking questions.  At this point, Fantasma literally couldn’t betray him.  He could also feeling pressure building, as if something powerful was waking up.

He remembered the huge spectral things roaming on the highway.  After meeting the revenant, now he knew there were even worse things in the Dead City during the, “Day.” So what came out at night?

Jake didn’t want to find out.

He opened the door.  His hand tingled the entire time he had contact with it and he could instinctively sense that some sort of permission had been given.  A powerful feeling passed through his body as he crossed the threshold of the doorway.

Behind him, there was a crash and a screeching wail that set Jake’s teeth on edge.  He hurried down the steps and let the door shut behind him.

The stairs seemed to go on forever.  They continued in one direction and at one angle for so long, Jake was reminded of his basic tunnels he’d dug in minecraft.

Except this set of stairs was all carved out of solid stones with mystic sigils and other mysterious writing on the walls, all which glowed a pale, ghostly white.  Jake slowed his pace as the sigils grew more complex and an indescribable feeling of weight began to settle on his shoulders.

The ghost was not lying.  This is not a normal place, he thought.

After he walked for a few more minutes, he could sensen Fantasma approaching quickly from behind him so he stopped until she arrived.  Despite the speed she was moving, he felt no wind from her passage, all while her hair continued to move and undulate like she was under water.

“You have have made good progress.  I thought you would have needed to stop much earlier than this without me here.”

“Why?”

The ghost glanced meaningfully at the walls.  “This place is protected.  Even among the dead, not many know of it, and we are not able to descend these stairs unless we are in the company of one of the living.”

“Then why–”  ?”Jake gave her a flat look.  “You were going to use me to come down here if I was your slave.”

“Yes.  And eventually escape the Dead City.”

“And where do the other doors up in the alley lead?”

“I do not know…for most of them.”  She was definitely being evasive.  Jake decided to leave it for later.  Now he had something to do so he wouldn’t forget about it later.

Jake turned to face the ghost fully.  “Fantasma, I order you to never attack or harm a human being unless it is in self defense or I have ordered it.  If you ever escape from this Dead City, you will come find me immediately to receive further instructions.”  Even though it was part of her own spell, for good measure he added, “I order you to never harm me and to always work to my benefit. You will warn me of any known or potential threats quickly, and you will never withhold important information from me, or information that I might find important.  I order you to never lie to me.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.” She glared, her eyes full of hate, but her own spell prevented her from hurling insults back or really talking back at all.

Jake nodded and continued down the stairs.  He was under no illusions about Fantasma.  She was a savage, merciless, evil abomination.  They would never be friends and she would never stop wishing for his destruction.  If their roles were reversed, she would be happy as a murderous clam.  But for now she was useful.  The rage that Jake had suppressed was still there, still lurking.  He was tempted to cause her horrible agony, to hurt her for what she’d try to do.  Maybe even find some other way to pay her back for attacking him, like forcing her to do a petty, menial task for all eternity, or at least until he died and the control faded.  But none of that would change her nature.  She was a spirit, not flesh and blood, and would not ever change or even reflect on her actions like a person.  There was no way she could hate Jake any more, her existence was already pitiful, and she’d never feel sorry for what she’d done.  Torturing the ghost would have no effect Fantasma, and would likely only warp him instead.

Besides, her current state was a sort of justice already.  And if she ever did stop being useful or he thought she might slip her control, he’d just destroy her.

It occurred to Jake as he descended the ancient stairs into the unknown, deep underground when he'd just recently been imprisoned underground that he led a terrifying life. If not for the horrifying experience of existing on Ahriman's world, everything that had happened to him since then would have been far more difficult to deal with.  Jake thought it was a little weird to think about and brought back bad memories so he focused on the present.

Besides, so far the Dead City had offered up its own fair share of nightmare fuel.

He reached a landing of sorts after another ten minutes of walking.  The stairs continued down straight ahead, so he wasn’t sure what the purpose of the landing was until he passed over it and it lit up with its own illuminated script.

“This place is very well protected,” he said out loud.

“Yes, Master,” said Fantasma.  Her tone was sullen, but the spirit was examining the landing, too, probably as curious about the place as Jake was.  Maybe more.  She’d known about this place for a long time but could not enter alone.

When he finally reached the bottom of the steps, a door stopped his progress.  It looked like a normal door made of heavy wood and banded with metal.  Jake’s sense were telling him it was not simple, though.

Oh well. Yolo, he thought.  He reached out a hand and touched the door.

A warm feeling ran through his body as he was hit with some kind of scan.  A second later, the door popped open.

“Huh?”

He moved forward slowly, looking for some kind of trap and not finding an obvious one.  Fantasma followed behind him.

The stone tunnel was wide, spacious, and perfectly square, like a proper hallway.  Elaborate carvings lined each wall, mostly art depicting mountains and nature.

There was another door at the end of this hallway.  Jake opened it accompanied by another weird feeling of a scan.  Beyond was a foyer with five doors.  The door in the middle was twice the size of the others.

Without saying a word to the silently observing Fantasma, Jake started opening all the doors from left to right.  The first door made him smile and Fantasma made a strangle noise.

“A treasure room!”  The room was fairly large, with shelves, racks of weapons, and sacks full of what looked like alchemy ingredients.  Jake didn’t want to touch everything and some of it would require examination later, but for now he wasted no time sweeping the shelves full of gold and treasure into his storage ring.  The boxes full of spirit stones followed.

He had no idea what kind of spirit stones they were, or even what the relative value of all spirit stoes were in the Murim world, but he recognized what they had to be.  Cultivators didn’t care about gold, but used spirit stones like currency.  The higher the power and purity, the more they were worth.

The next door had a hallway that Jake went down far enough to see it led to a simple set of apartments with a common area.  There was a pantry and a kitchen off the common area and Jake made a mental not to check it out later.

He kipped the middle, largest door to save for last.

The third door opened to a strange looking room.  There was nothing in it except a pool of cloudy liquid filled a pool in the middle of the room.  It wasn’t until he saw the writing on the walls that it clicked and he relized what it was.  “A meditation room.”  The pool in the middle was probably to help with sensory deprivation for certain types of meditation.

On the walls, Jake saw diagrams of various elements interacting with each other.  Tribes and sect names with lines drawn between them seemed to be some sort of political diagram.  On one wall, someone had written all the stages and substages of cultivation up to Seeking Enlightenment.

Dao Expert

Body Refinement

-Copper 10

-Silver 10

-Gold 10

Reforged Body

Foundation Pillars

-Pillar One

-Pillar Two

-Pillar Three

Core Refinement

-Pearl Forming

-Pearl Strengthening

-Pearl Polishing

Soul Hardening – Synthesis

Meridian Refinement

-Ruby 5

-Sapphire 5

-Diamond 5

-Spirit Meridians

Three Stages of Dao Manifestation

-First Dao

-Second Dao

-Third Dao

Power Refinement

-Eternal Fire Spark

-Eternal Fire Flames

-Eternal Fire Transformation

Eternal Mastery – Life Spring Cycle

Seeking Enlightenment

-Flower 3

-Vine 3

-Tree 3

-Enlightenment

Jake stook before all the writing for longer than he’d intended.  A feeling of peace and empathy began to grow.  Whoever had used this place had been on their own journey just like hime.  They’d obviously been a hell of a lot richer, though…

Actually…

The loot he’d just stashed away and the house he’d taken from Conophta intruded on his thoughts of poverty.  Jake wryly had to admit to himself that if he could actually make it back to his house, he was actually starting to acquire some fortune.

Being loaded was a new feeling, even if the only house he could say he owned was on another world full of illusions.  Illusion House, he thought.  That’s a good name for it.  Better than calling it Conophta’s old place, too.

He left the meditation chamber and checked out the last door on the right of the foyer.  This one led to a workstation or laboratory, with different stations devoted to different disciplines.  Jake knew next to nothing about any of it, and only paused to collect whatever looked valuable and stash it in his storage ring.

The last door to check out was the big door in the midd.  Jake opened it and was almost immediately hit with such a strong wave of death energy it almost managed to overwhelm the multiple layers of protection he had in place.  “Wow,” he muttered.  Then he walked down the short, curving hallway to a scene that just made him stop and stare.

Beyond the short hallways was a natural cave with a large pool in the middle.  Huge eddies of energy swirled around the entire room.  As the different forms of pure chi interacted they were extremely powerful and volatile, yet they still moved peacefully, without conflict.

The natural pool had likely been some sort of powerfully infused, pure water judging by the crystals on the rim, but over time, the death energy from the city above had seeped down through the earth.  There must have been a massive battle in the Dead City with incredibly powerful cultivators at some point, too.  The stalactites on the ceiling were dyed red from blood chi and had been dripping into the pool for so long it was now a deep crimson.

Despite the size of the cave, there were only two sources of light.  One lant on the fire side with three flowers, and another to the right with two.  The flowers gave off a clear, pure light.  Life energy.

In a bit of a daze, Jake walked deeper into the cave and finally spotted this place’s former owner, or at least he assumed so.  The corpse was long dead, it skin nothing but old leather now but otherwise well preserved.  All the power in this place had preserved the man’s body.

He was seated lotus-style, a huge book in front of him on the stony ground.  Even in death his body gave off a profound aura.  Jake bowed respectfully to the dead man and held the pose for a long time.  This man had definitely not been simple based on the fact that he’d had an entire home beneath the Fighting Time Dead City.  But it looked like he’d gone into secluded cultivation, perhaps trying to break through to Seeking Enlightenment phase, and he’d died while doing so.

Jake shook his head.  The man might have been in this place for hundreds of years before dying of old age or maybe an accident.  As Jake got closer to examine the pool, he absently picked up the book in front of the corpse and put it in his storage ring.  He decided not to rob the corpse itself.

He could still remember the Goonies movie that had captivated him as a kid.  The message of the movie had been clear.  You don’t fuck with One Eyed Willy’s personal stash.

The pool was full of terrifying energy, but also inviting.  Darkness energy was as thick as death energy in this place.  The darkness, blood, and earth energies helped Jake, nourishing his monster body and his cultivation base, making the death energy less unpleasant.

He could already feel the death energy beginning to leak its way into his spirit, though.  Fixing it might not be possible anymore.  At least he’d finally found a place he could cultivate.  In fact, the only way this place would be more perfect was if didn’t have all the oppressive death energy.  He wasn’t sure how that was going to affect his attempt to achieve a Reforged Body.

Luckily, the flowers gave off life energy.

Life and Death

Darkness and Light

Blood and Soul

Earth and Air

Jake took a bundle of cheap, gas station incense sticks out of his storage and lit one with a “Sexy and I know it,” novelty lighter he’d picked up back in Georgia.  Then he set the incense stick on a rock, with others next to it to catch, creating one long taper.

Now, Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Spirit were all represented in some way as well.

“Fantasma,” he said.

“Yes, Master.”  The ghost was at the entrance of the cave.  She looked captivated, but also terrified and would come no closer.

“I want you to wait outside in the foyer and protect this place.  Do not disturb me while I cultive.”

Without responding, the evil spirit turned and left.

To prepare, Jake took off all of his clothes.  Since his storage ring was not physically on his body, he didn’t need to remove it. He laid out all of the monster cores that he had on the ground next to the pool.  He was going all in for this one.  There was no data in his head about what evolution to expect anymore, and since he knew he could vent off spare energy into other “directions” of improvement, there wasn’t any reason to play it conservative.

He kept thinking about the energy he’d taken from Conophta and really hoped he didn’t turn into a minotaur, but it was too late for that.  There was a possibility that he’d get a form too large to fit through the door, but he was playing the odds.  He should wind up with a new form, and some sort of transformation from being a Reforged Body cultivator.

Jake chuckled a little.  All cultivators physically changed some and got a new form when they achieved a reforged body, but not many ever probably changed as much as Jake was expecting to.  This was going to be the riskiest, most explosive breakthrough he’d ever attempted on purpose.  There had been some hairy cultivation sessions in the past, but he’d been forced into it with no time to think.

This time his nerves were getting to him.

When Jake was about to lay in the bloody, dirty water, he had one last thought.  He han’t dared take out Blooming Honor in the Dead City, but this place was heavily protected and far enough down that it might be worth the risk.  He pulled the saber out of his storage and admired it for a moment.  Then he set the divine artifact on the ground by the pool.

It felt like ever since Jake had been sent back in the past, his life had turned into one roll of the dice after the next.  He was fairly certain he’d be successful achieving a Reforged Body in these conditions–it was what he might turn into that was completely unknown.  If he truly did turn into some huge monstrosity that couldn’t leave the room, maybe he could call upon the Morrigan to get out of it.  That would be awkward.

And even if everything went well, he still needed to reunite with Slim and survive to make it to the Skull of Secrets Sect so he could lift the geas forcing him to become and Inner Sect Disciple.

He still had to find Master Zi’s granddaughter, too.

These were only his short term goals in the Murim world, and all of them were practically impossible if he stayed weak.

“Okay, fuck it.  Let’s do this.”

Jake swallowed all the monster cores at once, fell back in the sinister water with a splash, and began cultivating like mad.