A Young Boy sits with a Mountain

Chún arrived back at the Heaven and Earth Vine's clearing without further incident. There even was the occasional sunbeam pushing through the clouds, which raised his spirit even further.

Putting his burdens down, he stretched his back and then started looking for dry branches to start a fire with, looking carefully under thick foliage trees where the inner areas would have been protected from the rain.

The rain had not been hard, just a morning shower, so he quickly collected a large cord of dry wood which he lugged over to a large stony patch of bare dirt to the right of the clearing.

He hesitated, looking down at the bare patch of dirt. There was probably something hard underneath it, so it would be ideal to contain a fire without spreading, but would he be able to shift the dirt like he had with the Essence Beast's blood and fur? He remembered Teacher saying that True Cultivators could create 'inheritances' for Consumers to stumble on - surely they did not have a team of builders and Essence forgers following them about - which meant, True Cultivators had to be able to make things with Essence...maybe?

Taking a deep breath, Chún knelt and pushed his hand against the dirt patch. Remembering the Mountain's memory of the fight with the Essence Beast, he pushed his Essence out into the ground, imagining a shallow pit to contain a fire, like the ones the villagers used for cooking.

Without any fuss, other than the glow of essence and musical tones he was coming to expect from working with Essence, the ground rippled open into a small pit about an arm span deep and two across. Unlike a regular hard packed dirt pit, this one seemed to be lined with a thick stone, with no seams - like a stone pot had been placed into the ground - but it was ideal for what he had in mind - in fact… seeing the result gave him an idea.

He pushed the essence into the stone hole and it widened slightly to about four hand spans across. In the centre, a second, thinner 'pot' about a hand span and a half across, rose up to just above the lip of the hole. He tapped the inner 'pot' a couple of times and although thin, the stone was solid.

Chún smiled and darted back into the cave to grab out his small sack with the fire starting flint and punk.

A Diǎn later, he had a blazing fire going in the outer hole and the inner 'pot' was bubbling away with water he had pulled from a nearby stream that skirted the clearing and vanished under the Heaven and Earth vine into the cliff face - probably the one that fed the pool inside the cave with cool water, he thought - and some herbs, wild garlic and onion he had gathered.

With care he lifted the pelt containing the meat and untied it to get to the meat held inside. Using a sturdy branch, he stabbed the pieces of carcass and organs and put them into the boiling water.

When the pelt was empty, he dug his foot into the ground next to the fire, pushing his Essence into the ground again with the intent to close the inner 'pot' and as he had hoped, the top closed over with stone, leaving a small hole at the top to allow steam to escape.

"Predator meat is tough and stringy - leave it for a few hours...should be ok to let the fire turn to coals… stew slowly. Drop the vegetables in an hour or two", he muttered idly to himself as he went for his shirt sack and untied the knots keeping it together - spreading the fruit and vegetables out in front of the fire.

Picking up a few of the largest fruit he bit into them with relish, grinning. "Better than those withered old apples…" As he ate, he sat cross legged and sorted though the largest of the various roots and vegetables he had gathered, putting them to one side. The largest and hardest roots and gourds he wrapped in the large fallen leaves of the ubiquitous Heaven and Earth Vine, waiting for the fire to burn down before he placed them in the coals for roasting.

The smallest vegetables and fruits, along with his two withered apples, he brought over to the other side of the small grassy clearing beside the small stream, where the grass was thickest and dark and fertile soil was clearly visible.

He patted the ground with his foot and the grass turned over in neat furrows. He nodded, then grumbled, "Essence is a cheat. Forget about the Consumers, if the village farmers saw this they would never let me go..." he snorted then laughed, "At least having to do all of the worst jobs, chores and farm work in the village is finally worth something now."

Working quickly, he planted the small and withered fruits and vegetables in the waiting patch of tilled ground and then knelt down and pushed Essence toward them, worried about them being dead after being harvested for so long.

The small explosions of green essence - especially from the old apples and root vegetables - rippled out to form a large green-brown flash of Essence that raced across the clearing, splashing up against the Heaven and Earth vine that covered the cliff-face and cave opening.

The giant fruits shook, sounding like giant bells and resulting in exuberant fountains of colourful essence motes that showered in all directions from the vine like a tiny fireworks display. The gentle swirls of Essence in the vine fruit spun faster and brighter to his Essence sense and a distinct feeling of thankfulness and pleasure hummed from his link to the Mountain.

Chún shook his head, looking around a clearing that was now wreathed in swirls of essence mist and feeling much cooler and more energetic.

"It will take time to get used to things like that."

Finally, he looked around for a suitable place to squat and dispose of waste. He could bury it the same way he had manipulated the ground for the Panther innards and blood.

---

The Golden Crow was going to its nest by the time Chún stepped out of his cave and headed for the fire, clad in another set of rough clothing. It had taken hours to tidy the cave and clearing the way he wanted, gathering more firewood, and searching for more seeds of fruits and vegetables to plant while keeping his Essence sense out for any further beasts. He also managed to supplement his thin cotton sleeping pad with dry grasses and leaves. Then he had washed his soiled clothes in the Earth-fire heated water spring with soap grass - it had been scalding, and his clothing was the cleanest it had ever been.

After that he went to check on the pot of meat, dropped the medium sized vegetables that were left in to the pot, closed the top and put the larger,leaf wrapped vegetables into the coals.

Then he washed himself in the pool where the stream water from outside the cave mixed with the water from the hot spring - keeping towards the warm side.

Surprisingly he looked and felt cleaner than he ever had before - even his skin seemed paler and smoother...but it had been so long since he'd bathed in anything but waterfalls that he wasn't entirely sure it was not simply that more dirt than usual had swirled away down the centre of the pool.

And that had been a surprise - to realise that the pool was constantly being refreshed and drained. He wondered if even the nobles in their palaces had baths that good. He could not remember any of the stories the village storyteller told mentioning anything like that.

Arriving back at the fire pit, Chún scratched his head in irritation as he realised he had no way to serve the stew in the stone pot.

"I really need bowls, pots, cups...anything to eat with," he grumbled to himself, then started looking around for inspiration.

"Bamboo is there, but I need something sharp and a lot of time to create bowls out of that - grow wooden bowls? Aiii...I guess a stone bowl is just a smaller pot…

Sighing, he sat down and focused his Essence on a larger stone to one side of the fire pit - trying to make it into a bowl. Unfortunately, his Essence just flowed around the stone, not into it, and remained unchanged no matter how much Essence he channelled toward the rock.

"Uh…", confused, Chún wondered why he was suddenly having so much trouble with a much smaller change to stone than the previous fire pit and pot.

A sense of disgruntlement mixed with amusement suddenly flared across his link with the Mountain, accompanied by another 'memory' - that showed him what had really been happening when he thought he had been 'changing' things in the clearing, was the Mountain using the Essence he had been pushing into the ground to alter parts of itself to match with what it had 'seen' him visualising.

Chún flushed in embarrassment. That did make more sense than his being a genius with Essence shaping. "I am sorry, Mountain - I did not mean to take credit for your actions…"

Acceptance flowed across the link and Chún breathed a sigh of relief. "Can you help me make a bowl?"

Images flitted past his mind quickly of the fire pit forming in the ground - by shifting the stone around and melding it together with Essence - and the 'pot' growing from the displaced stone that had been shifted deeper to make the hole, like filling in a puzzle box, rather than changing the stone's shape. There was a lot of focus on how everything was still part of the Mountain, as well.

"Separating parts of yourself is hard - that makes sense - and changing stone into something it is not - is also difficult…"

"So there is no way to eat the stew…" Frustrated, Chún glared at the simmering pot, standing like a small barrel in the middle of the glowing pit. Wanting to take his mind off the hunger, he grabbed his impaling/stirring stick to roll out some of the vine leaf wrapped vegetables from the coals and unwrapped them to eat.

Some of the earlier stone forming and ground shifting had uncovered a few flint stones. Chún picked a small sharp one and used it to cut open the top of the largest gourd. As he pried off the top of the wild pumpkin - he was struck by a sudden realisation.

"This could make a soup bowl if I am careful not to make any more holes… first, I will eat some of the meat from the inside…" Suiting action to words Chún scooped out the roasted pumpkin flesh with his hands and ate in satisfaction until there was enough of a hollow. As he was about to try dipping the hollow gourd into the mouth of the pot to get some some stew, he had a sudden thought.

"Mountain, can you rearrange the pot?" Chún pushed Essence out of his body again - visualising stew falling into the pumpkin 'bowl' from a large opening near the base of the pot - and the pot sealing again as the 'bowl' filled.

The stone of the pot shifted in response and Chún hastily put his pumpkin under the newly formed opening which closed again as the pumpkin threatened to overflow. "Finally! Food." Eagerly, Chún lifted the stew to his mouth and swallowed a hot, satisfying gulp, then lowered it happily and grabbed another roasted vegetable with his other hand and took a large bite.

As the early stars started to show, Chún sat by his fire, watching the feathers of the Golden Crow paint the sky with its beautiful plumage as it went to sleep; while listening to the sounds of the wind in the trees, the calls of the nocturnal wildlife and insects with a warm breeze blowing over the fire pit and savoured the best meal he could ever remember eating, while taking stock and talking to himself and the Mountain to keep his thoughts in order.

"Pelt to trade - keep the Essence Stone - the villagers could not afford it… and it would just attract trouble. I need more clothing… I wonder if I could sell a few small Essence herbs...but I will need to disguise myself, or they will just rob me. Have to think on that…

Otherwise, I am better off here than I have ever been. Just need a way to make or trade for tools or goods I can not make...until the Mountain can show me how to face-slap properly, I will have to be careful…

...I will take a closer look at the Dao runes the Heaven and Earth Vine uses to conceal things…"

But those are problems for tomorrow. Tonight, eat, sleep and be merry - for I lived today!