Jakes Story 2, chapter 8

Light exploded in his mind but then there was just stillness.

Enlightenment felt different than Jake had expected.  He’d thought that he would feel physically different, something like when he achieved another level of cultivation–becoming something more, stronger.  Instead, one moment there were still holes in his knowledge, and the next, he just understood.

Veil Piercing Phoenix Eyes and Phoenix Piercing Talon.  They weren’t only techniques, they were pieces of a great Dao.  Jake took a while to reflect on what he’d discovered.  All of his plans and haste were temporarily put on hold, forgotten as his mind began to rise, observing the truths he’d discovered.

His plans might change now, but he wasn’t ready to think about that yet.  Instead, he meditated, assimilating what he’d learned.

Veil Piercing Phoenix Eyes was not really a technique.  It was a…state of truth, of seeking truth.  Now that he understood this fragment of Dao, Jake already had access to a tiny part of it, but it was unlike anything he’d ever heard of before.  If he incorporated Veil Piercing Phoenix Eyes into his normal cultivation, it would become part of it, getting stronger.

Now that he had the Veil Piercing Phoenix Eyes, the entire world looked different, even himself.  After observing himself, turning his vision inward, he could truly see how his own cultivation up to this point was mostly draconic.  These new Phoenix-derived mysteries did not perfectly mix, but were also not directly opposed.  With some practice, he could juggle the two.

Phoenix Piercing Talon, what he’d originally understood to be some sort of piercing technique–per its name–that might bypass the restrictions he’d been under, was actually so much more than that.  What he’d believed before was part of the truth, but not all of it.

Jake sat back for a while, his newly freed mind expanding, growing, settling.  He continued to meditate, holding his spirit together as the enlightenment shifted and integrated itself in his spirit.

The mental glow from his enlightenment began to fade.

Finally, he was ready to move again and think about more than what he’d just discovered.  He knew his to-do list definitely had to change a little now, even though, thankfully, his senses told him he’d only been meditating for about two hours.

Before, his plan for the next day or two had been to use the Phoenix Piercing Talon to get through the locked door to Lady Brima’s home one way or another, hopefully, and escape past her suppression field.  His Clay Bat would be able to teleport him again very soon, in one more day, so all he needed to do was get it out of his storage ring and ride the thing to freedom.

But now he might have other options.

In all the time Jake had been in the Web Burrows, he hadn’t told anyone that he’d met Lady Brima.  Her warning hadn’t been necessary.  Jake wasn’t dumb enough to volunteer any information to the prisoners when the first thing that happened to him in the Web Burrows was getting attacked.

And he’d since learned that if anyone else had met her, they were lying about it.  The only reason most of the prisoners knew of Lady Brima’s name at all was because of the automaton-style guards.  They proclaimed her magnificence every day during food selling time.

Some of his plans had changed now, but not for this day.  He still needed to get all the way across the Web Burrows to his next destination.  However, now he had a much higher chance of accomplishing the next item on his list.  Phoenix Piercing Talon was both more limited, and far more powerful than he’d assumed.  There’d been a low chance of success for what he was going to attempt next.  Now he was much more optimistic.

He was already resigning himself to the fact that how he traveled there was going to be different, though.

Originally, he’d been planning to go the long way to the other side of the current center of the Web Burrows to avoid Jailtown.  If he were a more patient man, he might have just written off the day entirely, just gone back to town, slept, and gone on with life like usual for a few days.

However, freedom was so close he could taste it, and more importantly, he didn’t trust the world not to throw him a curveball.  Every once in a while, the guards would move Jailtown to a new location, probably just to fuck with people who were trying to store things like Jake was, or who were getting too comfortable or knowledgable with the tunnels they’d explored.

For the most part, it worked.  Assholes.

It didn’t take Jake long to get back to Jailtown, especially with so much on his mind.  Time was moving too fast now.  As he got closer to Jailtown, the walls had more light lichen and the light level rose.

The entrance to Jailtown was blocked by two prisoners.  One was in mid-Silver and one in the late-bronze stage of Body Refinement.  They were paid just enough food per day by the guards to keep living.  Some chose stable servitude like this instead of braving the mines.

Both of them swallowed when they saw Jake.  His reputation for being dangerous was well-earned. He felt no loyalty to the other prisoners, not any more.  At first, he’d been naive, optimistic, hoping at least some of them could work together.  He’d been roughly disabused of that notion, and now he wouldn’t hesitate to kill one of them if he had to.

It’d been a rough nine years.  Hopefully in the next couple days after it was a full ten, he would be gone.

Both guards hastily moved to the sides.  Jake idly wondered how they’d act if they knew what his real power level was, but then he squashed that feeling.  When he’d first come to the Web Burrows, he’d made a promise to himself not to let this place break him, to change him too much.  He knew some change was unavoidable, but his moral core was still mostly intact.  And unnecessarily acting like a bully was against his morals.

Not only that, revealing his real abilities just to scare people would be extremely stupid.  These guards were both spineless nobodies.  He gave them a measured nod as he moved past and they sagged in relief.

Once inside Jaintown, he eyed his surroundings.  It was important that he pass without creating too much suspicion, so he kept his walk casual and his mannerisms normal, which meant he was ready to move at a split second’s notice.  He had an errand to run in town anyway, so doing that before leaving would probably be a good idea.

Jailtown was formed sort of like a giant circle with a ten foot tall ceiling, two entrances, and over twenty stone partitions that extended from the edge of the circle to the middle.  They didn’t join, but ended about twenty five feet out, creating a 50 foot, open circle in the middle with a water fountain at its center.  The fountain was surrounded by three pillars, and each pillar had two automaton guards.  They looked sort of like pale golems.

If anything, Jailtown sort of looked like a wagon wheel.

The town could randomly change locations.  There were at least ten different locations in the Web Burrows shaped like Jailtown.  Every time it moved, the prisoners followed.  Whether the automaton guards went was the location of Jailtown.  The prisoners depended on them to buy food.

Two partitions of every Jailtown were set up as male and female latrines.

The entire area was lit by gowing stones that were set in the ceiling, giving the place a sort of illumination that reminded Jake of warehouses on earth.

There were three main gangs that ran Jailtown.  The Enlightened Jail Army had a stupid name, and they were mostly orthodox cultivators and a handful of unorthodox human cultivators that didn’t dabble too deeply into dark techniques.  This was the largest group in Jailtown.

Peyate race people, who were something like lizardmen, made up most members of the Stinging Earth Guild gang.  There weren’t very many humans in this gang.

The last gang was simply called Han Ten’s Group.  This group had most of the demonic cultivators in Jailtown and a few creatures Jake wasn’t even sure were completely sentient.  They were the most brutal group in the Web Burrows.  Han Ten, a dark, lion-maned man was their leader.  He was a full Reforged Body cultivator and was one of the most powerful prisoners in Jailtown.

Jake always gave him a wide berth.

The days when Jake hadn’t completely understood cultivation advancement stages past Body Refinement were long gone.  He’d had plenty of time to study.  Now he knew every stage all the way up to the end of Seeking Enlightenment.

More importantly, he knew what the next steps would be if he was ever able attain a reforged body:  Foundation Pillars.

That was a long time off, though, and he definitely needed to escape this prison first.  He’d been preparing to escape for a long time.  If he fucked everything up by daydreamers or being careless, he wasn’t sure he’d feel sorry for himself.

One the last two groups in Jailtown were the crafters and traders.  This group was small, only about seven people, and three of them were the town’s prostitutes.  One of the prostitutes, “Miss Sweet Orchid,” was probably one of the craziest people Jake had ever met.  He avoided being anywhere near her.  She was as likely to try knifing someone as randomly begin singing a song on her weird, bootleg instrument she’d made out of roots and braided hair.

Jake was part of the last group, the outcasts.  He had some trading to do now, but not in the trading section of Jailtown.  Instead, he headed near where he theoretically slept, near where Slim also slept.  As usual, Nag Geru was squatting against the wall, playing with sticks.  The mysterious cultivator was an oddity in the Web Burrows, which were already odd.

Not for the first time, Jake wondered if Nag Geru was actually even a prisoner.  Maybe he worked for Lady Brima.

Nag Geru was a middle aged man with a long mustache and bushy eyebrows.  He wore a little paper hat with embroidered thread in it that never seemed to get dirty.  In fact, the man was always clean in general.  He looked more like an orthodox cultivator than the members of the Enlightened Jail Army ever did.

As usual, as Jake approached, Nag Geru was seated in a lotus position, drinking tea out of his signature cup, decorated with blue flowers.  “Ah young Jake.  Your claws look extra sharp today! What can this one do for you on this auspicious, if somewhat rainy day?”

Nag Geru always spoke this way.  Jake decided not to point out the obvious that they were all underground and living in tunnels.  “Hello Nag Geru.  I would like to exchange ration chits for monster cores.”

“Ah, so our usual vehicle of interactions.  How many?”

“I have 21 this time.”  Jake had briefly considered waiting long enough to turn in his milk stone for more ration chits, but this should be enough and he was pressed for time.

“Very good.  Very good.”   The unusually clean man began digging through his belongings, most of them inside bags on the ground.

Jake watched him with interest.  Sometimes he caught sight of rare or expensive treasures in the bags.  It was obvious Nag Geru had a lot of wealth, especially for being in the middle of a prison.  And while nobody knew exactly how strong Nag Geru’s cultivation level was, he was at least a Reforged Body cultivator.

Attaining a Reforged Body actually literally reforged an immortal’s body.  Exterior physical changes could include becoming taller or shorter, muscular or more lean, and a number of others.  Some cultivators even grew an extra appendage, or got an aura of some kind.  These more flashy changes were usually shared by large sects or followers of a great dao.  But one thing all Reforged cultivators were marked with was Reforged eyes.

Now Jake knew what to look for.

Mortals–regular people– couldn’t always see the marks, but anyone on the path of cultivation could spot them immediately with a little know-how, even through closed eyelids.  In Nag Geru’s case, the man’s eyes bore a shimmering green rune of whorls, with its deepest portion being near the edge.

Another ability all Reforged Body cultivators shared was the ability to transform.  For most, this meant their minor physical changes would become greater, more pronounced.  But some immortals could completely transform.  Reforged Body transformations varied as wildly as the physical changes did.

Jake wasn’t sure why cultivators in the murim world called all other cultivators, “immortals,” since except for at the very highest levels of cultivation, everyone still eventually died of old age.  But he’d been talking to these people for almost a decade now and he was used to the terminology.

Finally, Nag Geru handed over a bag full of monster cores.  Jake didn’t bother to count.  Nag Geru is one of the very, very few people in this prison he trusted, at least with trades like this.  The man smiled knowingly at him as Jake bowed and began to back up.  By the time Jake was turning, Nag Geru had returned to his tea.

Jake made the monster cores disappear into his dirty robes.  He made for the exit on the opposite side of Jailtown he’d come in from, trying to avoid everyone he could.  Luckily, his carefully crafted reputation helped a lot.

He thought he was going to actually make it without any problems until an unseen force shoved him to one side, almost making him lose his balance.

A familiar voice, one he really didn’t want to hear, boomed, “Where is your manservant, Jake?  Are you carrying your own things these days?”

Shit, what now?  He settled his features, making his face like stone.  Then he turned and said, “That felt suspiciously close to an attack, Han Ten.”

The big, leonin leader of the Han Ten Group stood near the fork of hallways with two of his cronies.  “Oh no!  Good thing it was Han Wan here, not me.  But either way, what are you going to do about it?”

God dammit, I really don’t need this shit right now, thought Jake.  He rested his hand on the pommel of his wooden sword and drew his upper lip back from his fangs.  There hadn’t been many opportunities to study his reflection in the Web Burrows, but he’d still had some time to practice making various intimidating expressions.

He knew it wasn’t going to work on Han Ten, but had still been worth a try.  The man slowly approached, his cronies at his side.