Apocalypse Cultivation 2, ch 32

“Is this far enough to talk?” asked Jake.

“I have no idea, boss.  But we’ve been walking for two days straight, so if not, I doubt another day will matter.”

“Good point.”

The two of them had suddenly found themselves in an empty, arid place after making their Cultivation Oaths to become inner sect, Skull of Secrets disciples.  One moment they’d been in an opulent mansion in the Web Burrows, and the next, they were outside.  There’d barely even been any feeling of transition.  Jake had found it…interesting and scary at the same time.  If cultivators as strong as Lady Brima could just teleport people like that at will, could they do it with themselves, too?

After that, through unspoken mutual agreement, Jake and Slim had made tracks, trying to make as much distance as possible before even speaking.

On one hand, they’d been lucky not to encounter any demon beasts along the way, but it likely hadn’t been a coincidence, either.  Between all the largest outcroppings of rocks hung massive spiderwebs.  Whether they were functional or a warning, Jake didn’t know and didn’t really care.

They’d emerged into the world again at night, which had been helpful.  Even as cultivators, it’d taken some time to get used to the light of day again.  Their eyes had adapted quickly, though.  Being cultivators helped with moving day and night without rest, too.

They could move pretty fast, too.  Slim wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Jake, at least as far as he could tell, but the gaunt, bizarre looking man had still been able to keep a breakneck pace moving faster than an olympic runner could ever dream of without rest.

Now that they were a full two days away, Jake removed a tent and other camping gear from his storage ring.  The last thing to come out were a couple of camping chairs.  “Sit, please.  We need to have a chat.”

Slim nodded and examined the folding camping chair from earth with curiosity before sitting.

The entire time they’d been running, Jake had been thinking.  He liked lists, and he preferred to write them down, but given enough time, motivation, and a simple enough subject, he could just create a mental list.

Making the list had helped him get his emotional shit together, too.  At first, when they’d just gotten out of the Web Burrows, he’d been really angry at Slim.  It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that was just misplaced frustration.  Even if Slim hadn’t said anything, hadn’t asked any questions, it was unlikely that Lady Brima would let them go without a Cultivation Oath.

That realization had led to a fwe others, including the fact that the situation had changed, so his relationship with Slim probably needed to as well.

“Alright, Slim,” said Jake.  “Let’s lay our cards on the table.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means let’s be straightforward without hiding anything that it relevant to our situation.  But there’s no need to pry into unnecessary things.  Like for instance, I’m not going to ask you about your Dao enlightenment.”

Slim leaned back and folded his arms.  “Okay, Boss.  I’m listening.”

Now that they were stopped, Jake was finally able to pull a pad of paper and pen out of his storage ring.  It felt good to have a pad in his hand again.  “Back in the Web Burrows, the situation was much different than now.  We worked together because of necessity and convenience.  But now we are in a much larger world, going into the unknown, and you are the only person I know and can trust.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Jake scratched the back of his head awkwardly.  “I guess, after everything that’s happened, I’m saying that you are my friend.  The loyalty should be deeper than just a working relationship now.”

Slim was quiet before murmuring, “I don’t really need to change anything, at least not in here.”  He pointed to his head, and then his heart.  “I have considered you my friend for years now.”

Ouch, thought Jake.  He suddenly felt like shit and was glad he was sitting down.  He was getting hungry, too.  He needed to kill something with some spiritual energy soon, but that could still wait a bit.

“Sorry about that,” he said lamely.

“You forgot another reason we might need to stick together,” said Slim.

“I did?”

“Yes.  “We look like this.”  He gestured at the two of them.  “We don’t know what kind of sect we are going to, and Lady Brima isn’t exactly an average looking cultivator.”  He glanced around meaningfullly and Jake got the message.  They still didn’t know if they were outside Brima’s hearing range or not, so Slim wasn’t going to say she looked like a freak.  The gaunt man continued, “For Lady Brima to have come from the Skull of Secrets sect, they must have some inhuman cultivators or hybrid body cultivators, but we still don’t know if they will accept us well.”

Jake nodded.  He was reminded of his recent trip back to Earth.  Prior to that, he’d just become use to the fact that everyone already knew what he looked like and took it for granted that there were plenty of others as monstrous looking as him.

Slim plucked at his sleeve and said, “I know you said that we shouldn’t pry into things that don’t matter, but maybe it does.  Either way, I have to ask you something or I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.”

“What?”

“She said we have both reincarnated.  That must mean you also have memories of a past life.  I don’t know how she knows so many secrets, but Lady Brima has never been wrong when she’s made observations like that. “

“You met her before?”

“More than once.”  The man shrugged.  “I tried escaping a few times.  This was the first time it worked.”

Jake didn’t try to hide his surprise.  “You never said anything about that.”

Slim chuckled.  “I have kept plenty of things hidden, or flat out lied.  The only thing that I never play with is loyalty…or who I want to be this time around.”

“So you really remember your past life, huh?” asked Jake.

“Yes.  I was a cultivator.  Not all of my decisions were the greatest.  I died violently and I can’t even blame anyone but myself in the end.  When I woke up in this world, I vowed to be a better person.”  He chuckled and pointed at his face.  “You can see where that got me.”

“So others really changed you, made you that way?” asked Jake.

“More or less.  But it’s a complicated thing.  I hate how I look, and it has changed my cultivation method to be much more difficult for many years.  That could change, though.  I also have the potential to grow in power very quickly.  It will just…mean I need a lot of money.”

“Why?”

“I need to eat.  A lot.”

“Ah.”  Several things made sense to Jake immediately, not least of which why Slim had been so eager to do things to get more rations in the Web Burrows.

“What about you?”  Slim met his eyes.  “If we are friends, now.  Official friends, you said.  So what is your story, Jake?”

Jake absently scratched the back of one hand with one of his pinky claws.  He really didn’t want to spill his guts and tell his whole life story, but he didn’t want to lie, either.

He said, “I am from another world that functions completely differently than the Murim World.  Cultivation is not a normal path to power.  In fact, no magic existed at all, just technology that even had the power to destroy the world if used in certain ways.

“My world was attacked, changed, and used as a playground by evil gods.  After this happened and civilization was destroyed, I worked as a…mercenary.  A low level mercenary with a good tema.  We killed monsters…demon beasts, for money.  I was taught cultivation by a powerful dragon visiting my world from this one.

“Then I was kidnapped, sent to a hell dimension by an evil god’s minions.  While I was there, I existed by eating demons, and one thing after another happened…  Well, I sort of destroyed that world.  Accidentally.  No regrets, though.

“The evil god me with me and he offered me a job, but I refused.   That pissed him off.  Well, he was already pissed at me.  So he fucked me over by sending me back in time and doing it in a way that I got turned into a zombie.

“As a zombie, I learned a new style of cultivation sort of based on how I survived in a hell dimension in my first life.  I learned how to transform into other monsters after meeting a goddes who helped me.

“I fought the warrior of another evil god in my home town after trying to rescue my family, and I won.  Then I agreed to become the warrior of the goddess I met before in exchange for some help.  She sent me here to the Murim world.  I need to get stronger, then go back and fuck up the warriors of the original god I angered.  I think.

“But right now, I guess I’m becoming sort of like a myth or a folk hero for the people of my world.  They’re scared of me, but I keep bumping into people who need help.  It probably doesn’t help that I keep biting things in the face that deserve it.”   Jake realized he’d been talking faster and sharing too much.  He abruptly stopped.

Slim looked at the ground, apparently processing what he’d just heard.  Finally he looked up and said, “Are you serious?  Like, are you messing with me, boss?”

“Yes I’m serious.  No I’m not messing with you.”  Jake frowned.  “Why would I?”

Slim just shook his head.  “A folk hero?  …You know, as much as I want to say you are just spouting shit, I also have my own, silly story.  And I think you are telling the truth, as unlikely as that might be.”  He slapped his knees.  “Fine.  So be it.  So what now?”

“Now we figure out a plan,” said Jake.

“Wadda you mean?  We need to travel to the Skull of Secrets sect.  Lady Brima said it was East, and then North East after we found a rock that looks like a turtle.”

Jake nodded.  Before he responded, he remembered Slim’s caginess earlier.  Now was probably not the time to explain in detail how he planned to abuse his cultivation oath without actually breaking it.  Just in case Lady Brima was listening in, he pointed to his ears as a reminder.  Then he said, “Yes, but we can grow in power and maybe find some fortune on the way.”

“Ah.  I think I understand.  You are close to a Reforged Body, right?”

“Yes.”

“But do you have the medicinal pills or good fortune you need for that?”

Jake paused, unsure how exactly to explain it.  He said, “I have what I need, but I need to find the right place to actually attempt the breakthrough.”

“What do you need?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Try me.  I know more about cultivation, and about this world than you might imagine.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Boss.”  Slim’s tone was firm.

“Why?”

“Remember how I said I was a cultivator in my past life?”

“Uh huh.”  Jake agreed.

“I was a cultivator in another world.  All of my past life’s knowledge and experience was useless in this world.  Where I came from, cultivation itself worked completely different, which should be impossible.  So I wasn’t able to cultivate or grow in power any faster than others, in fact I was slower, but I was able to understand all theory very fast.  And I’v been reading from a very young age, learning as much as I could.”

Jake blinked.  “You’re a cultivation nerd.”

“What?”

“Nothing.  It’s not important.”  Jake rubbed two fingers together and said, “Okay, I will tell you what I think I need.  To break through to a Reforged Body, or my best chance at it, I probably need a place that has a lot of darkness energy, or maybe even death energy.  There has to be some old blood, maybe elements of the earth.  Fire, too.  Old ruins might work, that was what I was going to be looking for, before.  At least that was my plan.”

Slim rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “Actually,  I think you may be in luck, boss.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  The Fighting Time Dead City is not far from here.  In fact, I was trying to figure out how to get inside when Lady Brima put me in the Web Burrows.”

Jake pulled a glass marble out of his inventory and rolled it around between his fingers.  “I sense more of a story here.”

“There is, but you said we would only share what is important, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s not important, at least for this conversation.  But the Fighting Time Dead City would probably be perfect.  There are many ancient and powerful places and treasures hidden inside.”

“I sense a, ‘but.’”

“Yes.  It is guarded, the entrance is.  And there are dangerous demon beasts and ghosts that roam the city.  It is an extremely dangerous place.”

Jake mulled over that for a moment.  He didn’t really have any better leads.  He was entirely too weak for the Murim world.  A little risk might be worth it.  “Is it on the way to the Skull of Secrets sect?”

“It is, but…”  Slim fidgeted.  “I kind of regret mentioning it now.  Boss, it is an extremely dangerous place.  I know where the entrance is but I have never actually seen the city.  Higher level cultivators go there to study death and ghosts.  For cultivators at our level, it would be a death sentence.  We’ve worked together for years.  I really should have known better than to say anything to you.  I can see you’ve already made up your mind.”

“Sorta, yeah,” Jake admitted.  “I had a sure way to break through to a Reforged Body before, but I gave it up.  Calculated risk.  Now I need all the help I can get.”

Slim sighed and stretched out.  His thin, knobby legs stuck further out the bottoms of his old, ratty pants.  That reminded Jake that he should probably get into his storage ring and change clothes.  He decided that he would in the next couple hours.  Slim said, “Jake, none of these plans are going to go anywhere.  I don’t know what Lady Brima expects of us, but this entire journey is suicide.”

“What do you mean?”

“We are two Body Refinement stage cultivators, by ourselves, in the wilderness.  There is no road for days further.  We got lucky coming here, but the luck is going to run out, Boss.”

Jake gave a sly grin.  “What about flying?”

Slim sighed again.  “Cultivators need to be in the Foundation Pillars stage to use flying swords, or use a scripted device.  Or one that runs on spirit stones.  We’re doomed, Boss.  Even if we could fly, we would need to stay low in case there are any flying demon beasts out there.”  He shook his head.  “We’re doomed.  Doomed.”

“Don’t be so sure,” muttered Jake.  He checked his inventory.  The Clay Bat was still damaged, but almost healed.  “Hmm.”  Jake pulled the flying machine from the world of illusions out of his storage.

“What the hell is that!  How big is your storage!?”

Jake ignored him and started testing the vehicle.  When it lifted off the ground and seemed to work just fine, he grinned.  “Alright Slim. I think we have a ride.”