9 Chapter 8: A Step On The Path

I groaned as I regained consciousness.

Pain….

That one thought was all my mind could manage. My body was in agony. Breathing sent spikes of blazing fire to shooting through my chest, while dull throbbing aches seemed to radiate from my limbs and back. On the bright side I supposed the pain meant I was was alive but at the moment that seemed a poor consolation.

I blinked open my eyes and inspected the ceiling of my hut. I was really getting tired of ending up here. I started circulating what essance my body had left to repair my injuries but my reserves were basically empty. It took less than five minutes to run out and the injures it healed were a few grains of sand on the beach of my misery.

I was alone in the hut and had no desire to try and move. With little else to do and needing more essence to recuperate I summoned Rupert and started to cultivate.

My body drank deeply of the world's essence as my injured cells absorbed the energy in a desperate attempt to repair themselves. The internal injures I had suffered had damaged my meridians but that only seemed to amplify the effects of my cultivation path. There was almost no way to train or stress your meridians in a controlled environment, but getting beaten half to death had done the trick. It was a gambit with a razor's edge. The amount of damage your meridians could take without being injured permanently was small, but I seemed to have landed in the sweet spot.

I cultivated until Rupert started to dry out then took stock of myself. I had at least three broken ribs, a broken wrist on my previously good arm, a few bruised organs, a spleen that had nearly ruptured, numerous bruises and strained tendons, and two broken teeth. All in all, I'd had the hell kicked out of me.

Once again I was thankful for my cultivation. Injures like these would take months to heal back on Earth and even when they healed I'd never be back to 100%. Here however, not only would I make a full recovery but my body would be stronger for the experience. It was an extremely masochistic way of training but it was effective.

Near sunset Shimak stormed into the hut like a whirlwind. She must have had to work other wise I had no doubt she would have been here when I woke. Her small body was nearly vibrating with rage when she saw me and I spoke up before she did anything crazy.

"You're making a habit of dragging my broken body around." I said with a wan smile. Her face contorted in rage as she took in my injures and my grin widened.

"If you hadn't been so hurt I would have already murdered that bastard." She said through gritted teeth." We all thought you were going to die. Your mom cried over you all night."

I did my best to pacify her. With Shimak's cultivation and martial arts skill she really could murder them all and the worst part was I was pretty sure she'd do it. I couldn't hurt Kalar but Shimak would break him like a cheap vase.

"You can't murder him." I said seriously. "Not that you physically couldn't, but his uncle would have both of us, plus mom and dad killed if you did. We'll have to tread carefully." I said meeting her brown eyes. I was just as furious at Kalar and his lackeys but unless you had the biggest hammer you couldn't just smash everything that made you angry. The weak had to use subtlety. We'd have to bide our time and hide our power until we could turn the tables.

"So you just want to let him get away with it?" She asked incredulously, her anger still boiling. Her face had turned tomato red clashing magnificently with her orange-red hair. She looked like a toddler with her cheeks puffed out and her red face. It was a shame she could snap me in half.

"I didn't say that. I'm not one to forgive a bully, but his status is a lion to our earthworm. It makes everything too difficult. Sure you could stomp him like a dog but I can't let you fight all my battles." I said with a shrug. A man did have his pride after all.

Shimak snorted loudly. "I could twist that fat bastard like a pretzel." Her comment made me laugh out loud as it summoned the mental image of her tiny from breaking the much larger boy. The laughter sent waves of agony through my ribs and moaned in pain.

"I know you could but this is something I'm going to have to deal with. Otherwise even you putting your boot on his neck will just make more problems for me." Even if we just defended ourselves against Kalar it would cause problems. He was strong enough now that it would be obvious to everyone that Shimak could cultivate if she beat him. Hiding our talent had bought us time to develop but the truth was bound to come out sooner or later. When it did, it would be impossible to tell what the fallout would be.

The nobles would probably prefer to just dissapear us. After all, we were low caste and noone would care. What we needed was a spectacle. To leave a deep enough footprint the uppers couldn't just sweep us away. Either way I needed to get stronger.

"Shimak, go down to the river and dig up my money. I need a big barrel." I said with purpose.

She looked at me angrily. "Would you stop giving me orders. I'm not your slave and I could kick your skinny butt."

I looked up at her from my place on the bed and put on pitiful expression. Then I made a show of trying to push myself up. It really did hurt like hell and It didn't take much acting to convince her I was unable to rise.

Her face softened for a moment in sympathy before hardening again. "God's above, Fine! " She shouted as she stormed out of the hut.

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It took me nearly a week to get out of bed and a month and a half to heal completely. My teeth were the last to grow back. I'd pulled the broken ones myself but the snows were melting off the mountain by the time they started to grow back in.

The much maligned barrel Shimak had purchased for me had of course been for Rupert. He dried out too quickly in the dry winter air but with a barrel I could melt snow for him over the fire and stick him inside the barrel to keep him moist. I had Shimak sit the barrel just outside the hut on the other side of the wall from my bed. It was close enough to exchange energy with him and let me cultivate nearly 24/7 while I healed. As long as I didn't let the water freeze it worked well.

Winter in a bronze-age village is exceptionally boring. The sheer fantastic wonder of the place had kept me occupied for months. A world where martial artists ruled for centuries, controlling the elements with the power of their Qi. Where humanity was besieged by maddened beasts and peerless experts could flip seas and crush mountains.

This world was the stuff of legend and myth and loads of people on old earth would love to live in such a world, but after months of winter stuck in a hut with nothing to do but cultivate I had to admit I was missing TV, football, and online gaming.

Even when I was healed I had to stay out of site. Such a beating would kill or maim most people and I had to keep up the pretense. I stayed in the hut all winter until the trees started to bud in spring. The results of this nearly constant cultivation combined with the abuse my body had taken had catapulted my cultivation forward. My meridians, bones, muscles, tendons, and organs soaked in essence as they rebuilt themselves. Pushing my body farther and farther from the scrawny starving wretch I'd been we'd I'd first woke up here.

I was still far behind my peers but I'd condensed half a year's cultivation into the two months I was indoors. I was gaining ground but it wasn't enough. I needed to be faster. What had started as childhood bullying had escalated and now my life and the lives of my entire family were endangered because of petty cruelty and tribe politics.

My frustration simmered. It wasn't that I hated Kalar. There was no use hating a spoiled child. He was just making everything so damn difficult. The weight of it pressed down on me during those long months. It seemed every time I overcame a hurdle another popped up in its place. First I'd needed a beast core, so I'd gotten myself one. Then I'd needed money, so I'd taken it. Now I needed….. something, Power, time, resources, room to breath, something….

It was on one such spring morning when Jical finally had enough of my moping about.

"Get Up.." He said suddenly, as I sat cultivating in the hut. My relationship with my parents had gotten awkward. I didn't really love them and they both knew it. I acted like an adult, made more money than they did, and was a cultivator. Our parent-child relationship was nothing approaching normal. They were both really nice people and cared about me a great deal but that sense of true family just wasn't there.

"You've been in here too long. You're starting to stink. You need some sunshine and fresh-air." He turned towards the door and walked out before I could argue. Shrugging, I dismissed Rupert and walked out after him. I took my crutch from the corner and hunched my back as I stepped out into the spring air making sure to walk with a convincing limp.

We walked out to the fields in silence. Both of us enjoying the sun-shine after spending the long winter indoors. There was something profound about a spring morning. The bite of the morning chill, the smell of the world as it slowly came back to life after it's seasonal slumber. It was invigorating, and it really had been what I'd needed.

He lead me outside of the village to the fields and I was forced to sit and watch as he dug in the rocky soil of the mountain. The top-soil here was nearly non-existent and I couldn't imagine it was very fertile. It was nothing compared to the soil from my own lost Illinois. I had been down-state a time or two and everywhere south of Chicago had cornfields as far as the eyes could see in every direction. Farming here would be like carrying boulders up a mountain. Not impossible, but definitely a horrible grueling task.

"So what are you planting." I asked, curious. I couldn't say farming had ever been of particular interest to me, but I did wonder how Jical made his money. He received two ration tokens a month, which was basically enough money to feed the family for two weeks. Mom, got one token a month for her work. That was why I'd been starving when I'd first resurrected. They just didn't make enough to feed me. Sad, but not really uncommon for the lower casts. Now we had plenty of money, but the extra wealth had done us more harm than good.

"Therris grain this year." He said as he continued to dig. Therris was a something of a cross between wheat and corn from back on Earth. Apparently, it grew about four feet high and looked like a really fat cat-tail reed, with a top like a corn-cob. It was a basic staple and most of it was ground into flour, while some was fermented for beer.

"And how much will you make when you harvest." I asked to keep up the conversation.

"The quota for Therris is two-thousand jin. If I make it I get four tokens a month. Anything over that I can sell on my own, and anything less gets my pay reduced to two tokens a month." He explained as he continued to work. "People see farmers as the lowest class. Yet we are closest to nature and the world. It was farmers who made civilization possible. Before man learned to grow plants from the earth we could never have true homes. We wandered from place to place, never able to settle down."

He reached into the sack on his back and tossed me a small seed. I caught it and looked down at it confused, but Jical had worked up a head of steam now. "Look at it. Small, dirty, and ugly. Just like us in the low caste."

It really was a rather sad looking thing. About the size of a kernel of corn. It was small, covered in dirt, and heavily mis-shapen. Even as therris seeds went it was a poor specimen.

"But that seed is the basis of this village. Without food, how could there even be a village? How could the masters set in their mansions and lord it over the rest of us. It's that seed and those who tend it who are the true masters."

I really looked at the seed. Jical was right in a way. Agriculture was the root of civilization, but even more than that it was the root of life. A small ugly item it may be but it was marvelously designed. Protection from the elements and nourishment for the seedling all right where it was needed and in one neat package.

It was not just a seed it was a symbol. Not just of civilization but of humanity itself. It was like a tiny little cultivator, absorbing the essence of the sun and the earth as it reached upward for the sky. It was life, but more than that it was potential. Each seed was a chance. A chance to grow, to live, to make it's mark upon the world. It was like me in a way. My cultivation wasn't one of power, or speed, it was one of potential. A tiny seed, a gateway, a single chance.

Thoughts swirled in my mind as I pondered upon the seed. I was so focused I didn't even notice what was happening around me or within me. Rupert, who normally swam lazily in my dantain, had begun to stir. He swam frantically as my dantain became a vacuum. Sucking away the energy from inside me and reaching for more, but it couldn't get more. It was a vaccum hose with someone's hand over the end. The pressure building but with no way to release. Rupert became even more frantic bashing against the walls of my dantain until he finally broke free of my body and appeared in the world completely on his own.

The effect was immediate and overwhelming. The seal was broken. Our connection sprang to life and world's essence flooded into me in a massive wave. If our normal absorption was sucking air through a coffee stirrer than this was taking a single deep breath of the sweetest air.

The shock of all the essence hitting my system at once knocked me from whatever state of mind I'd slipped into and the effect ended instantly. Even so the sheer volume of corrupt power within me was staggering. It was like swallowing the power of that boar's beast core but even worse. The power beat against my meridians pressing them to the breaking point and sending waves of agony through my body.

I had no idea what was going on and wasn't in anyway prepared. The power seethed inside me begging to return to the world, but even in my near delirium my instincts knew what to do. Hell, I'd spent most of the last two months doing nothing but cultivating. It was practically second nature now.

I unraveled the giant ball of power. Peeling off a single thread and feeding it slowly through my meridians while following my cultivation path. I knew I couldn't digest all of it right now. I had no idea what had happened but I'd felt the ripple it had caused in the world's essence. The area around me was now completely devoid of essence for a good fifty feet in every direction. Most of the cultivators in the village would have sensed it, and I really needed to not be here when they came to investigate.

Still, I had to relieve some of the pressure before fleeing. Blowing up my meridians would be an extremely silly way to end my cultivation career. I purified for a few seconds until I thought I could make it back to the hut then unsummoned Rupert and ran into the village. Once I hit the first couple of houses. I pulled out my crutch and slowed to a limping walk, acting as natural as possible. It was about thirty seconds later that a group of warriors ran past heading towards the fields.

By the time I made it back to to the hut the massive ball of energy was taking its toil. My whole body was sweating with fever chills and my stomach roiled with nausea. I started to cultivate immediately, frantically trying to purify the power inside me before the corrupt power started to twist me. Shimak had warned me what could happen if I held on to unpurified power too long.

It was one of the reasons consuming beast cores was so dangerous. Most normal people could handle a soldier core assuming they started to purify it soon after it was ingested, but an elite core was simply too much power for a non-cultivator to deal with. It would take them days to purify it all and the whole time they'd have corrupt power sloshing around in their bodies.

The block of power I'd absorbed just now was about half of a soldier core, but It had taken me most of an hour to walk back from the fields at my fake-crippled pace. Even as I rotated the energy it seemed reluctant to break apart. It was like I'd eaten a week old hot-pocket. It just sat in my body like a brick unwilling to digest.

It took hours to even purify half the energy. Then things got even more complicated. As purified power rushed into my daintain the cloud of energy inside expanded pressing against the walls. However, the walls didn't expand and soon the sensation of pressure building became uncomfortable.

Crap…..

I knew what that meant. Shimak had explained what attempting to break-though felt-like and this was definitely it. Under normal circumstances I'd have come up against my first bottleneck gradually and Shimak could have helped me through it. Now, I'd painted myself into a corner. I HAD to purify the essence inside of me before it made me ill, and to do that I had to create more space for the energy to go.

Shimak had given me a few basic instructions but now that I was here things seemed a lot more critical. I tried to calm myself and let the pressure build like she'd instructed. The trick was proper timing. You had to have enough pressure to weaken the walls, while not too much that the pressure over-loaded. If that happened your daintain would crack, and power would rush through your meridians randomly. That would cause all sorts of havak and a bunch of the essence would be lost. You'd lose months of work and could damage your meridians. However, if you break through too soon you'd have a weaker foundation.

I forced myself to calm down, even as the pressure with in me became painful. I held on for another minute. Then reached within myself and grabbed hold of the energy in my dantain. I formed the energy Into a hammer before smashing it against the barrier. The wall held and the essence rebelled at the collision, sending my body into chaos. My organs trembled and I coughed up a mouthful of blood even as I forced my essence into another hammer.

I smashed the wall a second time and it finally broke. Essence poured into my body and soaked into my muscles sending bolts of comforting warmth through me. At the same time my Dantain expanded outwards and re-sealed itself, now much larger and more durable than before. I took a relieved breath thinking the worst was over but then noticed the warmth in my muscles had started to build. The heat quickly became uncomfortable, becoming a burning fire. My muscles swelled until my skin split. Black ooze bled out from the hundreds of tears in my flesh and I screamed in agony. Luckily, it did not last long. The pain in my muscles subsided as the foul smelling ichor was expelled. Then the skin knit back together as I fell to the floor. I had to push myself back to a sitting position but I couldn't stop yet. It took another two hours for me to finish purifying all the leftover essence before I finally collapsed into an exhausted sleep.

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"What is that smell?"

Someone asked from far away.

"Gods Chok?... What happened?"

Groaning, I sat up. I was expecting pain but instead I found only comfort. I felt great, better than great. I felt amazing, smelled terrible, but felt incredible. Shimak was standing in the door of the hut looking at me like I was some diseased dog.

"What happened?" She repeated looking equal parts disgusted and confused.

"I have no idea actually." I said honestly. What had happened? Where had all that essence come from? It was like I'd turned into a giant essence vacuum for two or three seconds. Even when I'd drank that elixir, it was nowhere near as powerful as what had happened in the fields.

"Jical was comparing the low caste to a therris seed. He threw me a seed and started talking about how it was the base of civilization. Then I started looking at it….. And I don't know. "

I told her the story about the therris seed, the big wave of power, my escape, and finally my breakthrough. Her eyes became more and more incredulous as I talked until finally she burst out laughing.

"I can't leave you alone for two minutes. To think you were the one. I felt the essence ripple and knew what happened but I can't believe you it was you. You actually took a Step."

"I took a what? I was sitting still the whole time." I said completely lost.

Shiamak gave me her eyeroll. "No, You found a Path and took a Step. With a capital 'S'"

"And what exactly is a Step."

"Didn't your parents ever tell you stories as a kid? Like some hermit is out picking berries and sees a Saw-tooth Crane catch a fish. Then in a moment of insight he develops some peerless sword technique." She asked looking at me.

"I don't think our parents told us the same sorts of stories." I said with a frown.

"I don't know how to explain it. It's like. Say your looking at a leaf on a tree, and a gust of wind hits it. All the leaves around that leaf fold one way, but for some reason this particular leaf seems to move against the wind. Then you have some interesting thought about why and come to some conclusion about something. POOF! You've taken a Step and gained some insight about yourself, or the world, or martial arts, or anything really. " She tried to explain. Her explanation didn't really make sense but I was starting to get the picture.

"Alright then what's a Path?"

Shimak snorted. "That is a question for people smarter than me. On some level it's exactly what it is, a path. A way of getting from one place to another, but it's MUCH more than that and really is impossible to explain. The Path that can be explained is not the true Path."

"So there is more than one of these Paths?" I asked still trying to wrap my brain around it.

"There are as many Paths as stars in the heavens and at the same time there is only one Path." She quoted as she made grasping motions with her hands obviously struggling. "Like I said, I really can't explain it. That's how it works."

"So basically, because I was thinking about that seed I came to some sort of truth about the world and therefore could absorb a bunch of essence really fast?" I said, more confused now.

"Basically, although truth isn't exactly the right word for it. A truth is true for everyone. A Step is much more personal. If I said I'm short, that's true for most people, but to an Ant I'm a giant, and it's not true at all. Steps and Paths are about how you personally see the world. Someone could walk out to that field right now and think the exact same thoughts you did for a thousand years and get nothing, or they could pick up the same seed and come to some entirely different but no less profound conclusion."

"Do these steps happen often?" I asked after a few seconds of pondering her words.

She shrugged. "It's not exactly common, but not really uncommon either. It's sorta like a left-handed cultivator. It's not exactly special, but it is kinda rare. Usually someone has one in the village once every couple of years. It's actually a shame. Normally when someone takes a Step the warriors will go investigate and the person who made the discovery will get gifts from the village. You on the other hand had to run away."

I sat frowning while I thought and as I did finally looked at myself. Reeking black sludge covered my entire body. More than that though, I noticed my muscles had returned to their previous size. I had a vague impression of them swelling crazily during my breakthrough. Speaking of which…. I glanced into my daintain and was shocked by the size of it. Rupert was swimming happily inside as usual as if nothing remarkable had happened at all today.

I summoned him and then used our link to glance at my cultivation paths. They were definitely quite a bit brighter now. Even taking into account all that energy I'd ingested. Something about my Step must have affected my meridians because now Rupert's cultivation paths were well lit. Not good, but about even with a slightly below average beast. It was like the difference between Heaven and Earth compared to yesterday. I looked over to Rupert and only then noticed how big he was. He must have grown another six or eight inches at least, and that was in only a few hours.

"What is this black crap all over me." I asked finally.

"You broke through." She said with a shrug. "Why do you think they call it Muscle Rank? When you break through the energy you use to break through the blockage rushes into and purifies your muscles. That sludge is all the crap that you've managed to accumulate in your muscles since you were born. When you break through Blood Rank to Bone rank, your blood and organs will purify." She wrinkled her nose. " Dad always said body rank breakthroughs are really disgusting. You need a bath."

Sighing I stood up and headed outside to the water barrel. It had been a productive day, and I'd finally taken my first step on my road to greatness.