Apocalypse Cultivation 2, ch 27

I just realized that I called the last chapter part of, "Jake's Story 2," and I'm gonna leave it. lol

------------------
When Jake woke up, his first thought was how happy he was that he was still alive.  His second thought was that maybe it’d be better if he were dead.  Everything hurt, both his arms and shoulders were badly burned, and he was completely out of energy.

What was worse, the backlash from using Phoenix Peircing Talon had poisoned his energy.  He had no outward pressure, so the caustic energy had begun invading his dantian, burning him from within.

Jake was absolutely going to die unless he could figure out a way around it.  What he really needed was more energy.  He briefly thought about his stash of monster cores back in the Web Burrows.  Be nice to have those right about now, he thought.  Fucking up his cultivation and his monster evolutions was still a lot beter than dying.  Again.

He might have a few cores kicking around his storage ring, he thought he did, but it wouldn’t be enough.  It would require a lot of energy to push the poisonous energy out of his system.

His head felt like it weighed a million pounds.  Jake barely moved his neck enough to see the fireplace and briefly thought about using some of the the fire to try purifying himself, but that was wishful thinking.  Fighting fire with fire, literally, was possible, but Jake had no idea if the fire was even supernatural, much less how to control it.

However turning his head brought Conophta’s body into view and he noticed something that gave him hope.  The dead champion really had been a monster.  A large, deep pink monster core had generated and lay on the floor nearby.

Jake wondered if he’d create a monster core when he died.  He didn’t like thinking about it, so he decided to focus on survival instead.  He could follow Conophta’s example, not giving up until the bitter end.

He crawled over to the monster core and barely managed to extend a hand far enough to grab it.  It felt like it was going to burn his hand with its energy it was so intense.

Now he was lying in Conphta’s blood on the floor, so Jake flopped over into an awkward roll to get away.  His path of travel took him past the restraints on the floor and he thanked his stars again that they hadn’t reactivated when he’d returned to the room.

When he was in the middle of the room, past the wooden sword driven into the floor, Jake managed to get on his back, both hands on his chest around the monster core.

He goes nothing, he thought.  The core was way too big to swallow, but that was not a problem anymore.  With an effort of will, he dispersed the outer shell of the monster core and inhaled the energy into his body.

Red lights exploded behind his eyes and his meridians boiled.  Jake gritted his teeth and hardened his resolve, riding the agony, buffeted by energy that burned, healed, and changed.  The experience felt much like Jake imagined drinking lava would feel if the lava was half supernatural power and had a mind of its own.

It felt like he was trying to hang onto a bucking rhino with a coke and speed habit.  He was being hit harder, much harder than the first time he’d ever assimilated a monster core as a zombie.

Jake bent his will to cultivating forward, but there was way too much energy to handle if he only channeled it that way.  He had to begin cultivating the energy deeper, too.  Improving his ability to handle and move energy would normally be a no-brainer, but this was untested, volatile energy, taken directly from another champion, one sworn to an evil god.

It was like trying to swim laps in a pool full of barbed wire.  And if he got snagged or slowed too much, he’s be pulled under.

His new mantra came to mind and he repeated it over and over.

I am Jake. The mountain is strong, and the mountain is me.  I am strong.  No matter my form, I am who I am, and who I will be.  There is no greater truth than that with I carry within, and bring to the world.  Energy lasts forever.  The energy I cultivate will carry my will.

His flesh had already knit back together, his body restored, but Jake’s soul and spirit were in danger, like a glass shelf with far too much weight sitting on it.

He had to release some pressure, and the only way to do that was let some of the energy flow into his, “upward,” cultivation.  Jake wasn’t sure how it was going to affect his future monster evolutions, but he didn’t have a choice.

The energy wanted to explode outward, upward, but Jake really didn’t want to turn into a cow, now or ever.  He kept tight control of the river of power, only allowing a trickle upward as he madly, wildly cycled his cultivation base and added more and more energy to his dantian as quickly as he dared.

He wasn’t sure how long this process lasted, not at first, but when the energy transfer finally slowed, then halted, and Jake collapsed on to his side, his internal clock told him that weeks had passed.  Several, actually.

Now there was a tree growing in the center of the room, a large one, too.  Jake wasn’t sure what he was seeing at first until he noticed the pommel sticking out of the trunk.

The wooden sword had somehow sprouted and turned into a tree.  What’s more, it had some roots above the marble floor, a few leading to an absolute next where the dead minotaur had been.  The body was gone.  There weren’t even any blood stains on the floor.

Roots led to where the chains and restraints had been, and now it looked like they’d begun integrating into the wood itself, like they were being absorbed.

If Jake hadn’t been so emotionally and spiritually exhausted, he would have been creeped out.

Instead, he checked his body, his meridians, his dantian for damage.  He was fit as a fiddle.  And now he was at Gold 10, the peak of Body Refinement.  There had been so much energy in the monster core, he’d barely survived.  In case, he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t had other directions to channel the energy into.

He would have exploded.  Of course, that was if other cultivators could process monsters cores in the first place, which they couldn’t.  Maybe a sacred beast or a demon beast might have been able to do what Jake had just done at his level, but probably not.

His unique situation had helped him survive this ordeal, but now he had no idea where his monster evolution was heading.  And now he we really close to a Reforged Body, too. He’d been shooting to become a Vampiric Ghoul Lord.  Now he had no idea where his evolution might go.  There was nothing even resembling whatever the hell Canophta had been in his goddess-given evolution information.

Oh well.  At least I’m alive.

He was also probably lucky that the mysterious new tree had not attacked him while he’d been helpless.  Then again, maybe it hadn’t been luck.  He felt a resonance with the tree, a kinship.  Ignoring strange things happening was really not smart anymore, not after everything he’d been through.

Jake stood on shaky legs and bowed to the tree, his fist cupped in his other hand.  “Greetings and thank you for your service when you were in your past form.  I am about to claim this building and I plan to share it with you.  As long as this place belongs to me, you will be safe to the best of my power.”

The tree’s exposed roots twitched.  Its trunk disappeared in the ceiling.  Jake wondered if there were any branches and if so, if they would have moved, too.  He held the bow for long enough to clearly convey goodwill before stumbling around the bunker-like dwelling.  As he walked, he slowly regained his strength, walking more normally.

A cultivator’s body at the peak Gold level of Body Refinement was very resilient, after all.

It turned out that Conophta’s home was a lot bigger than Jake had thought.  The room he’d been in had really been more of an antechamber.

The entire structure was built to Conophta’s massive scale.  Jake had no idea how many square feet the house might be.  There was an entire wing of guest rooms, what looked like enough to house half an army and their families.  A well-appointed gym with what looked like simple weights as well as modern gym equipment occupied a space next to a truly massive sparring or training area.  There were even private rooms that could be great for magical study or cultivation.  Each was different, some entirely made of rock, or steel, or wood, and others with their own small, enclosed gardens.

There were two large libraries.  Jake didn’t have time to go through them.  Now that he was waking up and firing on all cylinders again, he had a small but growing worry that he might be too late to make it back to the portal on Earth to return to the Murim world.  Time on this world obviously moved a lot faster so there was still hope.  But Jake figured there was a big difference between taking a few minutes to check out his new house versus spending a full day, or a week, or even longer going through the libraries.

The second library in particular held a collection of obviously magical tomes that Jake was itching to check out.  He avoided the temptation and kept exploring.

Every room had subtle lighting that was nicely done.  Jake caught sight of little contructs darting here and there as they kept the entire place spotlessly clean.  The climate control seemed to be handled by stones in the ceiling corner of every room that either warmed or cooled, respectively.  Art hung on the walls, most of it showing scenes of endless plains under two suns.

Canophta might have been Jake’s enemy and had served an evil god that was chummy with Ahriman, but the champion had had great taste.

Jake found the home’s power center through a hidden trapdoor under a rug.  One good thing about Conophta being so large was that Jake was able to find the secret rooms and hallways much easier.

The room containing the building’s heart was deep below the room above.  Jake descended over fifty feet down, then down a hallway, through several thick doors that easily opened with a push.

“Wow,” said Jake.  As a cultivator he might not have appreciated what he was seeing, but as a mage it was absolutely astounding.

The chamber looked like it had been a natural cave, but now there were pylons and magical scripts in each corner and one in the middle of the ceiling.  Spells were engraved in every wall and on almost every surface.  A purple crystal hung in midair, turning slowly.

However, Jake immediately recognize the roots that had tunneled through the solid rock of the ceiling.  He’d seen many that looked exactly like them back in the Web Burrows.  His old sword, the new tree, had somehow gotten its roots all the way down here.  When Jake examined more closely, he saw something incredibly curious.

One of the tree’s roots had touched a portion of the spellwork on the wall and was very clearly drawing

“Is it…cultivating the power?” wondered Jake aloud.  It looked like the tree was drawing in power, cycling it, and returning at least some of it back to the crystal.  Maybe it was actually joining with the power source or with the home itself.  “Weird.”

Jake walked up to the control panel and examined it for a while.  At first, the symbols written next to some of the mystic readouts meant nothing to him, but slowly, like his brain was waking to new understanding, the writing gradually made sense.  His Champion status could be downright convenient at times like this.

Of course, he probably would have been fine without it.  There are only so many ways to magically power a magical construct, no matter how complex, and even fewer ways to channel that power in an efficient and meaningful way.

But now that he understood the writing and better understood the room itself, Jake swallowed.  If Canophta had still been alive, the doors he’d just been through would not have opened so easily, and if he’d made it to this room, he likely would have been blasted to atoms.  The security was actually very good.  He was somewhat surprised at first that the building had defaulted to being ownerless upon its master’s death.

Maybe someone else would be along eventually to try claiming it, like maybe Conophta had a will.  That was a cheery thought.

Jake made a face and stopped stalling.  He cut himself, cycled his cultivation base, and dropped blood on a control crystal at the same time he injected his energy into it.

He felt a resonance–first with the crystal, then with the structure and its surrounding area, then again with the tree.

Jake’s instinct to be respectful to the tree had been correct.

He moved out of the power center back up to the main house.  As he left, every heavy door closed behind him, and he knew this time they would not open with a push.

Now that the house was his and he understood how good the security was, he was glad he hadn’t taken anything before, at least not to be labeled as a thief by any hypothetical security systems that monitor for it.

But now that he was officially the new owner, Jake went from room to room, throwing anything into his storage that he thought might be useful later.  He didnt’ empty out the entire armory, though, just half of it.

Most of the furniture was too big for him, but he decided that if he came back, he’d replace it with stuff more his size, so he actually took most of the furniture, too.

That done, he headed for the garage-like entryway.  He bowed once to the tree as he passed and sensed a calming power run through his body.  On impulse, he said out loud, “Guard the house when I am away, please.”

Then he facepalmed.  He’d forgotten all about Bloom!  The wooden sword had turned into a tree and was so crazy, Jake had forgotten to find out what had happened to his divine weapon!

He found it where Conophta’s missing body had been.  The tree’s roots had moved all around the area, filling it, but had not actually come in contact with the sword anywhere.  “Excuse me,” said Jake.  He was only half surprised when the roots actually moved slightly, giving him a bit more room to draw out his weapon.

It seemed even a potentially sentient, mysterious, energy vampire tree was wary of Blooming Honor.  Jake stowed the sword back in his storage.

In the garage, he explored another two rooms that he hadn’t seen before.  One of them held tools of all kinds, it was basically a mystical workshop.  Most of the tools were too big for him but he could still use them.  The second room held vehicles.

He checked on the clay bat before even examining the vehicles, but it was still damaged and regenerating.

Luckily, some of the transportation options here were human-sized.  He wondered what the story was behind that, and just as quickly decided he might never know.  Jake selected a flying vehicle, kind of like a motorcycle with mini wings.

Then he mentally keyed open the garage doors.  As they opened, he got his first view outside in weeks, at the roiling sea of power and the clashing illusions.

Canophta hadn’t expected Jake to have any way to return home, but there might be a way.