Jake's Story ch 8

This is where Jake's story really begins.

Enjoy!

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Pursuit, other monsters, and every other way Jake’s unlife might end made him decide to find shelter.  He really needed some relative peace to do some thinking.

The cave he found to hide in was more of a hole in a hill, and he could barely fit into it.  Low crawling into it head-first was the only way to go.  If he’d still been alive, he would have suffocated for sure, but that wasn’t exactly a problem now.  It was good he didn’t seem to be hit too hard by emotion anymore either, or he might be feeling fear, or at least anxiety.  For someone who was claustrophobic, his current hiding place would be the stuff of nightmares.

After he was fully in the ground, he wiggled further in until he judged his feet were hidden.  Luckily, he still had some room ahead of him and to the sides, just enough to barely move around in.

After some fumbling, he produced the phones he’d taken.  Clicking on some buttons made one light up, and he was able to use it to examine his surroundings.  He only had about a couple of feet until the hole ended, and the walls were just earth.  Luckily he hadn’t stumbled into a badger den or something.  It might have been a badger den in the past.  Then he examined the phones.  One had a stylus.  Jake removed the stylus with a stiff grin, and tried swiping each screen.  They all came to life, but they were all password protected.

Jake stared at each screen, and growled when he realized all of them were password protected. He poked and prodded them with his stylus, trying to find a way into them.  One had four blank spaces for a numerical password, along with a convenient number pad.  There is no way this could work, he thought, but tried, “1, 2,3,4.”

When the screen changed and flashed to a home page, he closed his eyes in silent appreciation for lazy people.

Now that he had a functional phone, even with the crappy signal he was getting under the ground, Jake figured out where he was, at least in general.  He verified he was in Georgia, different from right after the Purple Rain in his first life.  Ahriman must have had a limits to where he could teleport Jake to fuck him over.   Otherwise Jake might have wound in Jerusalem.

And now that he thought about it, he could come up with several other reasons he had been sent to this location, but he might not ever know the real reason.

His parents’ house was right outside Macon, and he was at least a few hours away by driving.  They would die in less than a week, and Jake was a zombie, so moving fast was going to be tough.

He wasn’t sure what to do.  After Purple Rain, the world had rapidly been changed and had become more dangerous, both because of monsters, and murderous humans.  Even if he somehow managed to drive as a zombie, it wasn’t a solution.  Driving long distances would be difficult for a long time, until the roads were cleared, and that took at least a year during his first life.

Phones wouldn’t actually be all that useful for very long either.  He did his best to memorize the best way to get to Macon from his current position.  In his first life, the flow of data began to slow about a week or two after Purple rain, then stopped altogether.  Since Jake had already consumed all the information he could about the end of the world after his first Purple Rain, there wasn’t much for him to actually look into now.  Instead, he got on a popular message board, signed in, and left a long post for anyone who would read it, telling everyone what was going on, what to expect, and gave the best advice he could on how to survive.

At the bottom of his note, he signed his message, “Jake M, Monster for Humanity, Grasshopper Mice leader.”  The line was pretty cheesy, but he was a zombie lying in a hole in the middle of the woods and decided he didn’t care.  Then he pondered further, thinking about anything else he could do with his slow 4G while he had it, and tried looking up some of his old team mates.  He couldn’t find all of them, but the ones he tracked down on social media he sent a short message.  Hopefully they’d see it before communication all over the world ceased.  He sent a few more messages to some very influential people, or at least who would be in the future.  After that was done, he turned the phone off. 

Jake tapped the dark screen of a locked phone with a finger and patiently used what was left of his mind, trying to focus on a solution, not the problem. 

The weapons he’d taken were all tangled up with his legs, and not of much use right now.  Thinking of the weapons reminded him of what else he’d found.  After turning on the light on a phone again, he reached down and managed to awkwardly wiggle one arm up, then opened his hand to reveal the monster cores.  The one he’d taken from the zombie was small and smooth, about the size of a peanut.  The core from the ghoul had flat edges, and was bigger by about 20%.

Monster cores would be valuable in the post Purple Rain world, since they could be used to power all sorts of magic, or alien tech, and techno-wizardry that a few powerful companies would make in the future.  For instance, a simple, monster core-powered caster cannon was many times more effective than most conventional firearms against monsters.

But monster cores, even while being used to power tech, attracted monsters.  This was one reason Jake’s old team had shied away from using them.  They were expensive, and in his experience, his team ended up needing to fight more when they had them, which actually raised their operating costs, and had increased the danger for everyone.  It was better to only have monster cores in their possession on the way back to a fortified base.

Like many aspects of the changed world, people hadn’t understood monster cores at first.  In fact, for a long time, nobody had known for sure why monsters were attracted to them, probably because people had only really been able to study weak monsters like zombies for a long time.  Then footage had come out of monsters killing other monsters, usually of a different type, and eating their cores.  After this, researchers around the world had realized that instances of monsters preying on and eating each other had likely actually been mostly about the other monster’score, plus either impatience or gluttony.

And the most powerful monsters killed plenty of other monsters--this was a known fact.  It was likely they also ate a bunch of cores as part of they grew in power.

Jake flicked on light from a phone again when it timed out, stared at the monster cores and tried to decide what to do.  He closed his eyes to think as best he could about the problem, and after a while on a whim, tried to meditate.  It didn’t work.  He was dead, and couldn’t feel any of the life force around him at all.  While he’d never been a particularly powerful cultivator, and never would have been due to his study of Western magic before switching to cultivation, purifying his body and opening his chakras had become a part of who he was.

Now as a monster with reason, and likely a soul, he had no idea how he could be classified.  All he knew is that eating a monster could change him into something else, but maybe something that couldn’t think.  Being a zombie meant he wasn’t exactly drowning in lighting fast ideas, but at least he still knew who he was.  Could that change?  He wasn’t sure, but one thing Jake absolutely had to do was try to save his family.  As he was now, it would be next to impossible.

He hit a button on a phone to make it light up again, made sure he was holding the core from the dead zombie, and popped it in his mouth.  Jake hadn’t known what to expect, but what he actually experienced in that moment was completely unreal.  The second he’d actually begun the act of swallowing, the core had just...dissolved.  Then energy, raw, undiluted power slammed through his body.

Somehow, Jake knew that he was only catching the edges of what was actually happening since his body was dead, and he couldn’t feel much.  Wisps of visible power in the form of glowing mist began to rise from his skin as energy from the monster core escaped into the atmosphere.  Strange sensations, like pressure, raged through his limbs, moving toward his center, and Jake felt something begin to change.

Uh oh, he thought.  Through some new instinct he had, he knew that if he let the energy run its course, he was going to change into a new sort of monster.  This confused him for a while until he realized why.  Zombies were very weak monsters, and couldn’t effectively harm or hunt any other type of monster.  Hell, they couldn’t even effectively harm humans.  It probably wouldn’t take much for a zombie to evolve, likely to a new type of zombie.

Jake tried to think, tried to move his mind.  Turning into a new type of zombie wasn’t necessarily a good thing.  Some zombies that were considered more powerful could barely move, just stayed in one place and threw bile.  Maybe he’d even turn into an even stupider creature than he had already been becoming as a basic zombie.

He focused on the power running through his body, and when he noticed an ever so slight recognition, like a kinship he half-sensed, he immediately took action.  Lying down as he was would make it more difficult, but Jake began to meditate.  Then, just like he had on the hell world, he channeled and cultivated the monster core just as he had demonic energy.

All the power had been rushing one direction, so Jake pulled it back, diverting it entirely into his body instead.  As he slowly wrestled with the energy, bending it to his will, letting it touch his soul before sending it to where his dantian would be if he were alive.  Then he began revolving power through his near-nonexistent chakras, and he marveled at what he was doing.  This process, moving around energy, then chi through his body without actually being able to see it or handle it properly was similar to what he’d done while surviving in the demonic tunnels before he’d died.  He was sure there was no way he could have even begun saving himself from transforming right now without that experience.  It wouldn’t have been possible without having cultivated unnatural, and likely evil energies before.

Jake wrestled with the energy from the monster core, and realized that the sensation was likely like a medicinal pill his teacher had mentioned before, something from his homeland.  Jake had never seen one, but apparently some medicinal pills could contain great power.  They were usually used for immortal cultivators to break through into new realms of power or enlightenment.

Light from the cell phone screen faded as the device’s time limit was up again and it powered down to save battery life.  Now that he was struggling in the dark, eyes closed, Jake had a sudden flash of understanding.  His cultivation efforts in the last few minutes had...anchored him to the power of the monster core, allowing him to see what was happening inside his body more clearly.

Now he understood.  As a monster, or at least as an undead, he could not cultivate regularly.  Living, natural energies were beyond him, but unnatural energies were not.  As a monster, he hadn’t had a dantian before, at least not really, nothing he could feel.  But trying to control the massive amount of power raging through his body was resulting in something amazing.  He was actually creating a dantian in his body, and reopening his meridians that he’d had when he was still alive, filling them with infernal energy.

While it was sort of similar to what he’d done when he’d been trapped in Ahriman’s hell world, this was much more powerful, more pure.

Jake felt truly grateful for the first time that he was undead.  If he could have actually felt anything in this moment, the pain and trauma would have killed him.  He was being reforged, and not just in body.  His mind, spirit, and soul were all undergoing changes too.  Jake desperately tried to modify the energy, bring it into his newly formed dantian, and begin cultivating.  Old, half-learned mantras weren’t going to cut it.  There was no way anyone had ever done what he was attempting--he was on his own.

Fumbling around for words wasn’t easy, but it would have been impossible if Jake had also been able to experience all the pain he should be experiencing.  The mantra he’d used before as part of the cultivation techniques he’d been taught had been in a different language.  Since then, he’d read about a few other techniques.  He could feel the pressure building; energy pressing against his dantian, his core itself expanding, and his screaming meridians.

I am Jake, he thought.  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 which I carry within, and bring to the world.  Energy lasts forever.  The energy I cultivate will carry my will.

A light flashed through Jake’s spirit, and he knew he’d experienced something like enlightenment for the first time in his life.  He’d come close while cultivating demonic energy, but now...this was different.  The words had been close to something like a personal mantra he could actually use.  He needed to make some changes.

I am Jake.  The mountain is strong, and the mountain is me.  I am strong, but I am weak.  The weak and the strong combine to create the spirit, which is unbreakable.  No matter my form, I am who I am, and who I will be.  There is no greater truth than that which I carry within, and bring to the world.  Energy lasts forever.  The energy that I cultivate and bend to my will will carry my will.

Jake’s mind felt like it exploded.  Pressure from the energy weakened as he began to process the flood more easily, and he felt himself change more quickly.  As his understanding of what was happening deepened, Jake realized that the energy he was absorbing from the monster core was going in three directions; deeper, higher, and forward.

He followed each path of energy, and finally knew how he could guide his own development.  Taking the energy and cultivating deeper would result in increased ability to process energy, and in his basic abilities to grow more powerful.  This direction was how he’d reforged his meridians.

Investing energy into moving higher was how he was nearing being something...new.  This was how he could evolve into a new type of monster.  Using monster cores this way was likely how normal monsters evolved.

Then last, there was moving forward.  This was hard for him to understand at first, but he reasoned it resulted in something like refining, and cultivating the type of monster he was currently.  He suddenly realized he was thinking more clearly, much faster, almost like his old self.  At first he thought that cultivating energy deeper was the reason for his clarity, but then he began to wonder if moving forward was part of it too.

If he’d been a human, there’d only be one way to cultivate, basically moving forward, but humans didn’t transform, they just purified themselves and gained more power.  In order to reach new stages of cultivation, Jake had three dimensions he could move between, which would be more difficult, but maybe more rewarding too.  He wasn’t sure yet.

What he did know is that he didn’t want to evolve yet--he was still sure about that.  Being a zombie was awful, but at least he could sort of think and walk.  What if he turned into a giant leech or something?

With an effort of will, Jake continued his new mantra, and pushed the energy he was channeling deeper and forward.  His meridians spasmed as they were revitalized and pushed open.  Even without being able to actually feel anything, Jake thought he sensed stars of pain.  The feeling was amazing, and also frightening.

Jake let himself fall into a deeper meditation state,  and also continued mimicking the breathing exercises he’d learned from his teacher.  Even being dead and not able to breath, he could still move air in and out of his lungs, and the entire process was much easier now that he didn’t feel any pain and didn’t actually need oxygen to keep functioning.

If he’d been alive, keeping all the moving parts of his cultivation in sync would have been impossible, which would have resulted in death or a destroyed dantian, at least at his new, vulnerable stage of basically reforging himself.

Before Jake completely submerged himself in his meditation and cultivation, he wondered what he was becoming.  He was a zombie.  His old teacher had called cultivators, “immortals,” which was how Jake had become interested in learning such a different new power in the first place.  Based on what he’d learned from his teacher, the types of immortals were immortal cultivators, demonic cultivators, and rogue immortals.  He’d started in his first life using immortal cultivation techniques, then sort of used demonic techniques when he’d been trapped in Ahriman’s domain.  He might have been considered a rogue cultivator then.  But now, whatever he was, he wasn’t sure there was a name for it.

Jake dove into saving his life, clearing his mind and focusing on pulling power into his dantian, pushing it through his meridians, and cycling his chi.  The process itself wasn’t complicated, but would have been impossible without all the on-the-fly modifications he’d done

***

There was no way to tell how long Jake had been meditating until he swiped a phone awake.  Five hours, he thought.  It felt like avoiding complete destruction had taken much longer.  With a start, he realized he could definitely think more clearly now.  He was still dead, but his brain didn’t feel like it was falling apart on him anymore.

Acting on a hunch, Jake used his phone light to check the skin on his arms, and realized that all the damage he’d taken in the car crash was gone.  Little glittering pieces of glass had been pushed out of his skin and had fallen to the ground.  Somehow, cultivating the monster core had repaired his undead body.

More importantly, Jake could sort of feel again, and his meridians were back.  Actually, he amended that thought--he had twice as many meridians as before.  What the heck? he thought.

The changes his body had just gone through had been enormous, so much so that he couldn’t even wrap his head around them all yet.  Unlike in his first life, he didn’t feel...cleaner, or more pure, after a profound meditation session.  The first time he’d had a big breakthrough when he’d been alive, junk like puss and dirt had been forced out of his body.  He hadn’t believed it would really happen until it actually did.

But as a zombie, he just felt...smarter.  He fleetingly wondered what he might have turned into if he’d continued processing energy automatically, or pushing it upward, then dismissed that thought.  Going directly from a basic zombie to another monster just didn’t make sense.  Maybe one day he could evolve after he was stronger.

When normal monsters ate other monsters cores, they must get energy flowing to their three different directions either at random, or in some predetermined amount based on the core itself.  Jake also had a very strong feeling that the way monsters naturally absorbed the cores was super inefficient, losing most of the power the cores had in the process.  Using his dangerous new way of cultivation, Jake hadn’t lost a drop of it once he’d started.   

He stared at the ghoul monster core long and hard, wondering how much more intense it would be to process than the zombie core that had almost just killed him.  After a brief hesitation, he tried to say, “Fuck it,” but just gave a normal moan before shoving the core into his mouth.

Jake saw stars, and began repeating his mantra while cycling his ki like mad.  The sensation was how he imagined it would be running from a bull.  If he was alive, the sense of elation would have messed up his meditation, but as a zombie, it was surprisingly easy to keep a calm mind.

***

This time when Jake came out of his meditation, he checked an acquired phone and noted he’d only been out for two hours.  It was amazing that he’d been able to internalize such a large amount of energy in even less time than it’d taken for the zombie monster core.  He could only imagine that each time he used a monster core, the process would get easier.

Then he wiggled his limbs, feeling his newfound power, exploring it.  He grinned as he realized that while he was still a zombie, now he could move more freely, and felt more coordinated.

Saving his family in less than a week didn’t feel like nearly as impossible of a task anymore.  Getting to Macon was still his main goal, but acquiring and cultivating monster cores was now a priority too.