Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 42 (Patreon)

Chapter 42: Mid to High

Donny was shaking me awake.  The fact that I could see him meant the dark qi was gone.  I sat up and saw the extensive damage to our Battle Wagon.  The walls were more of a collection of splinters held together by the shield plates than an actual solid piece of wood.  My aching body reminded me that I hadn’t healed the bruising from the wreck yet, so I spun some wood qi through my body to relieve the pain.

“You good?”  Donny was holding a strip of dried meat out to me, so I took it with a grunt of thanks.  “The wave passed by a few minutes ago, but waking you up was a chore.  Valerie already checked for the undead, but she didn’t see anything when she poked her head out.”

“It was so hard to wake me up because I had another dream.  It turns out, things aren’t exactly what we thought.”  Everyone gathered around me, and I explained what I had seen.  “So, what do you think?”

“Sounds to me like we need to help him.”  Chu looked around, seeking approval from the others.  “I mean, he lost his family.  The nox took advantage of that, and it seems to me like he has been trying to get free ever since.”

“Not just that.”  Jamila pulled out a jug containing some kind of fruit juice and started passing it around.  “If he has figured out a way to kill a nox, but save the host, don’t you think we should at least try it?  That knowledge could come in handy.”

“I thought you had to have a stained soul for the nox to join with you?”  Valerie frowned sharply, looking down at her hands that slowly curled into fists.  “That means he wasn’t a good person before his family died, right?”

“There is a big difference between being the stuck-up chosen brat of some clan, and a necromancer possessed by a demon hell-bent on twisting the world to darkness.”  Donny yawned, not having the advantage of getting a nap yet.  “No matter what, I say our safety comes first.  If we can get the nox out, that’s great.  If not, then so be it.  Either way, our lives are more important.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”  I climbed to my feet.  “We help him if we can, and kill him if we can’t.”  I took a moment to take a closer look at everyone around me, gauging their current readiness.  “We know the nox is preparing something for us, but charging in right now would be stupid.  All of us could use some time to recharge, especially Donny and Valerie.  They could use a nap.”  Both of them gave me a nod of thanks.  “The three of us will cultivate while you rest.”

“Jim, I’m pretty sure you are ready for the jump to High Saint.  Your qi is almost to the liquid stage without you even needing to compress it.”  Chu’s eyes flashed as he spun qi through them to see my meridian flows better.  “If we were to take a longer break, you could probably make the leap before we go in.”

“No.”  I shook my head, and spun my cores to move the qi through my system.  He was right, but I didn’t want to make the change right now.  “The qi in this area is too unbalanced.  I don’t want to risk going from fog to system in this environment.”

“It might happen in the middle of the fight whether you want to or not.  Remember the fight with those cannibal things at that roadside inn?  You were forced to ascend at the worst moment possible.”  Jamila pulled out a bunch of cores she must have been holding on to.  “I have a lot of the elements here.  The only thing you would be short on was light qi, and I think you could handle that.”

“Do it.”  Donny’s scarred hand landed heavily on my shoulder.  “A stage jump isn’t as big of a power difference as a whole level ascension, but it could make all the difference.”

“Fine.”  I sighed in defeat.  They weren’t wrong, but neither was I.  Any change in your cultivation base should be done while in as balanced an environment as possible in order to avoid future problems.  “I have enough cores stored away that I don’t need your stockpile, Jamila.”

“We will stand guard.  Go as quickly as you can, but don’t compromise your stability for this.”  Chu stood and made his way outside, where the horses must have been moved.  Jamila followed quickly behind, while Donny and Valerie laid down next to each other near the back of the former wagon.

I laid down a qi concentration plate and sat cross-legged in front of it.  Placing a handful of elemental cores around me improved the energy balance.  I only needed to use wood, air, and water.  Earth, fire, metal, and dark qi were already heavily represented, and I didn’t have any light qi cores to help.  What I did have was a light qi focusing stone.  It would turn a portion of whatever I absorbed into light qi, hopefully making the end result as balanced as I could manage in a place like this.

After setting aside my trusty wood qi focus, I held the new stone in my right hand.  You could only use one focusing stone at a time, so I would be without my slow healing for a little bit.  That made me pause, and I stood up to place some alarm plates around the area just to be safe.

Now feeling more secure, pulled off my armor to allow me use of all my meridians for the first time in days.  I let loose a groan of relief as they reflexively pulled in the energy leaking from the cores around me.  It was almost like stretching after being stuck hunched over for a long time.

I sat back down and started drawing in a steady flow of qi.  It wasn’t the maximum I could pull in, but it was as much as I could comfortably handle without using my brain core’s ability to speed up my perception of time.

The qi flowed through me, saturating my meridians as it circulated through my lower core.  After making sure all of my meridians were flowing at a smooth and steady pace, I started to spin my heart core.  Once it was at the same speed as my lower core and everything was still moving properly, I spun up my brain core.  I felt the world around me start to slow, and I was careful to keep my breathing slow and even.

After ensuring all parts of my cultivation were in perfect sync, I felt a thrum of power run through my body with every heartbeat.  This level of balance and perfection was impossible to maintain for long, so instead of enjoying the sensation I doubled down my focus on the task.  As I hummed with energy, I concentrated my willpower and squeezed.

Contracting my cores and meridians all at once forced the qi spinning through me to go from a thick fog to a liquid, the glowing energy finally making the jump in quality that separated the middle stage from the high stage.  The increased density created more room in my system, and my meridians dragged in all of the energy they could in a vortex of power that quickly refilled my cores.

No one ever wanted to talk about how painful it was to contract your cultivation system.  It was why most people only did it one core at a time.  The process was drawn out over a much longer time, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much.  I didn’t have the time or inclination to waste the hours or days it would take.

A quick inspection showed that I would need to bolster my body with some extra wind and water qi to bring my balance back to perfect, but the small amount of adjustment necessary wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared it might end up.  I could probably correct it in a few weeks of concentrated cultivation.

I opened my eyes, not sure how much time it had taken to make the change.  The first thing I noticed was that all the cores were gone.  I must have drained them dry.  The second thing was that my friends were gone.

Putting my armor back on didn’t take long, and I made sure to put my wood qi focusing stone back in place.  After cleaning up my area, I made my way outside.

“Ah, done already?”  Chu stood up from where he had been sitting next to the wagon.  “The others went to investigate some strange noises we were hearing.”

“How long was I cultivating?”  I was still feeling a mixture of the high from my system being perfectly in sync, and the pain from contracting my meridians and cores so hard.  “Did everyone else get some time to rest?”

“It’s only been a couple of hours.  We let Donny and Valerie sleep for a full hour, and then woke them up when we heard the scratching sounds.”  Chu nodded toward the area we had traveled through already.  “It is hard to tell with the acoustics down here, but we were all pretty sure they came from that way.  It was the same direction the horses had wandered, so they were concerned.  They went to find them so we would be ready when you were done.”

“Well, let’s go see if they found them, and then we can get back on task.”  I led the way, and quickly noticed the poor air quality.  I looked back at Chu as I used the meridian in my forehead to try and improve the air directly around my face.  “Hey, did you say you found spares of the plates that we used on the Battle Wagon?”

“Yes.”  He rummaged through his storage rings for a moment before pulling out an old shirt that had been converted into a bag.  “There are three of those kind, and nine of the shield plates.  That’s all I could find.  And the barrel of liquid qi was shattered.”

“It’s better than nothing.”  I took one of the formations from him, and shifted my spirit wood ring into its shield form.  I tied the formation in place with a few strands of some twine and poured one of the few remaining vials of liquid qi over it to power the formation.  “That should improve things some.”

“Good plan.”  Chu gave me a thumbs up and moved to walk behind me to take advantage of the trail of cleaner air I was creating.  After only a few minutes of walking, he grabbed my arm to pull me to a stop.  “Did you hear that?”

“No.  Where did it come from?”  I cast out my senses around us, trying to see if I could feel anything.  My improved cultivation level allowed me to feel things more clearly, even with the dense qi in the area causing some interference.  “I’m not detecting anything.”

“I think it came from above.”  Chu squinted in the dim light as he looked up, the light from the lichen not providing enough light to see anything clearly.  “Somewhere over there.”

“Careful, it could be something dangerous.”  I prepared a wind construct in the shape of a globe and filled it with light qi.  The whole thing formed almost as fast as I could think, proving that my friends had been right for me to take the time to upgrade.  After it was filled, I cast the construct straight up above us.

Which is when millions of tiny spiders rained down around us.