Calculating Cultivation

“A lot of food and water good. We can leave those four spatial rings alone. They are packed up well. Also eat and drink what you need now. Once we leave this room, well, you don’t want to take in the toxic air.”

“Why is the air toxic? It would seem like a negative?” I asked.

“For who? You? You are too weak. Anyone else won’t need to breathe or can filter it slightly. There are cheaper filter masks available, but yours will work long term. So, need to replace it.”

“But why have a toxic atmosphere? Can’t someone in charge fix it?” I asked.

“It is a left over result of the ongoing battles between super-organizations. Either as an attack or a defensive measure. Regardless, it is above even my paygrade. We need to put all your rest and long term supplies into one spatial ring. The other can be for your weapons. While the last needs to be emptied.” I got to work moving everything. Bones’ bones were moved into my long term storage ring.

“The sword you have is trash, but it can injure other trash at least. We need to find something better for melee weapons. Your gun is better used as a threat, than fired.” What Bones wasn’t saying was that most of the bullets were trash.

I finished sorting out my supplies the way he wanted so I had a single empty spatial ring. “You need the empty ring for what we find. Preferably we would have more, but you will run down your food and water. Now for the technique I came up with.” I listened closely to the next part. I would prefer my skin not to melt off.

“Force is a good concept, quite versatile. The concept is to create a layer around your body, pushing away the toxins in the air.”

“If it drops, will there be issues?”

“Depends on your exposure. It is hard to measure, but I wouldn’t worry too much, since you don’t appear to have any issues from short term exposure. Long term exposure, not good as I talked to you about. Also the effects compound and your body won’t process these toxins.”

“Wait, so they remain?” I asked with some worry and surprise.

“Yes. They will remain and build up. It is bound energy, which means it isn’t going to change unless something much more powerful makes it change. Which is never going to happen. This place has always had toxic yellow clouds as far as I can remember and has been talked about. Getting them out of your body is possible, but that costs credits. Credits we need to save up.”

“Got it. So, try and keep the technique up at all times,” I replied.

“Exactly. Now, you can feel force, right?”

“Yes, I have a sense of force. It is like I can sense force energy. But I didn’t sense any on the vehicles,” I replied while thinking it over.

“Waste energy, which you probably saw in your trash dump is the byproduct of sub-par energy usage. If anything is leaking energy, you can tell it is damaged. Only the physical remains in the Forever City. Anything else is pulled into the towers to keep them running. We can talk about the technical aspects of the city later. Now we need to get the technique working. The hardest part is going to be not losing energy,” Bones explained.

“I am guessing I need to push out energy from my channels, and keep it in a layer around me?” I asked.

“Good guess. That is the basis of the technique, but keeping that energy as a layer around you and just pushing away the toxins will be difficult. You will need to divert a portion of your attention to constantly maintain the technique.” After that Bones began walking me step my step on how to release a tiny bit of energy from my channels while still maintaining control.

The key trick was visualization. “Most techniques are just about visualization and power. That is why most cultivators stick to flashy elemental techniques or weapon based techniques.”

“But isn’t there something more? Like hand signs, or words?” I asked.

“Those are mnemonic devices to help a person focus and visualize properly. It helps, but for Force Skin Barrier, it needs to be a long term and passive technique. You need to be able to maintain it constantly.”

“I keep losing hold of my energy,” I muttered as I focused on doing the technique again.

“You are getting better. But I can’t help you with this. We start mixing like that, well it won’t be good for either of us. I will replace you, and get stuck with your body,” Bones said. I paused my attempts at that.

“You can replace me? At a whim?” I asked with quite a bit of concern.

“Which would be cutting off my future in every way possible for slightly more agency. Trust me, I dislike this situation, but our respective power differences are so much, I could have taken your body even if you objected when you showed up. Now focus on the technique, visualization,” Bones said.

I kept repeating the technique, over and over again. I could feel the energy inside my channels dropping and then drawing on my core. This would set my cultivation behind. But better my cultivation was delayed than my skin melting off.

The energy easily flowed through the edges of my channels, not just the main portion. This was another benefit of perfect attunement. My complex meridian structure, allowed me to feel the energy to an incredibly fine degree, combined with their number, I quickly began to get my energy under control around my body and create a thin layer of protection.

“It seems to be working,” I finally said out loud. I had been testing Bones, but it appeared he couldn’t read my mind, or was playing that ability close to his chest. I could only hope he couldn’t. I had no other choice but to go along with him and trust him.

“Good. You managed to stabilize the technique. Very little energy loss. Now you just need to work on making it more efficient and keeping it up all the time. Now we have to make a couple of decisions,” Bones said.

“What kind of decisions?” I asked.

“Where we are going to go. We have three choices that I can think of after thinking about what to do and assessing the current situation. The first option is to try and find the one being I know that owes me a favor. It would be a long shot and require looking. They might be dead or have moved with how much time has passed.”

“With how big the Forever City is, that isn’t possible I am guessing. There is no directory?” I asked.

“There are communicators if you are rich and powerful enough. My friend isn’t and we certainly aren’t. Communications within the Firmament are risky. The longer the range, the riskier they are. Too easy to intercept and trace,” Bones said.

“Wouldn’t people communicate in code then?” I asked.

“There are ways like that, but even then, it is risky. Regardless, we would have to physically look ourselves, which would take a couple decades. Any option, we are looking at decades maybe centuries of investment in terms of time.” I had explained my understanding of time. He had responded that my year was considered a cycle. I had thought it meant a day before Bones had explained some thing to me.

Rooms were cheap in the Forever City. There was a lot of space in the middle rings. Since people didn’t eat or sleep, there was little need to rest. People constantly worked or managed whatever their job was. Just taking any kind of credit from a person was seen as a key aspect of survival. That lizard being was designed to wait long periods of time, just managing this place.

They had agency and could make decisions. They weren’t golems, which were much more dangerous, but limited in terms of what they could deal with. Living beings with implanted modifications, were much freer in a sense, but also designed to fill up the Forever City with people who would maintain a tower and not do anything else. It almost reminded me of non-player characters in video games.

That was where huge swaths of conflict came into play. As various factions used their resources to vie for control of the towers and whatever meagre income, they would draw in. Vast portions of each tower were devoted to producing resources and the communities that cared for them.

The far between factions meant that production was streamlined in various ways. Plants grown in the dim light of the interior of the towers to produce raw materials in carefully made hydroponic bays. These plants, which were renewable resources, fed the vast industries in other levels, for weapons, clothing, equipment, and other resources.

Even a bit of optimization was squeezed out. These free markets were used to process waste goods and handle aberrations wanting to get stronger, since there was no trash. Also, if a conflict area shifted closer, the free markets in the area would see a resurgence. That was why no one was giving up their spots even if it was fairly quiet at the moment. It was just a matter of time, until things cycled around again, and business picked up.

There were biological modifications to help pass the time for these beings. They would speed up their perception of time, reach the point of a cycle a second for the more advanced models. Most used what income they earned to buy better resting modifications, rather than try and get save up. Since the beings standing around were not the ones willing to go out and fight.

If the lizard left, then another one would be dispatched to replace it. It wasn’t slavery, but it was the next best thing. Bones explained that using actual beings, meant that they were cheap, but they had free will. Enslaving all of them led to less optimal outcomes of rebellions. Hence, the beings working, could quit any time, but few would do that.

It was cheaper to just produce beings from vats, imprint their brain and energy with enough knowledge, put in modifications, and then assign them jobs than it was making golems. These created beings would cost about 100 credits with only 10 credits being spent on non-recoverable costs.

I was still having a hard time understanding how big the Forever City was. The arrival terminal I showed up in was just one of hundreds scattered about. There were more continents that were used as resource generators than one could imagine. The concept of infinite was immense. What was more impressive was that the Heavenly Alliance had set things up to run on their own. This place was the apex, or end result of cultivation culture. While I was in what would be considered the outer slums, it was still considered better than the continents. And all this was just one infinitesimal piece of the Firmament.

The sheer scale in front of me was something I could not comprehend. Even Bones had told me not to over think it too much. It had driven people mad in the past.

“The second option is that we attempt to repair stuff for more credits. This is useful but the buy and resale prices aren’t that far apart. Enough people have the skills to repair trash. Which brings me to the third option, we scavenge and repair the stuff we find ourselves.”

“You already suggested this. But it is dangerous,” I said.

“Factions have their own scavengers. Moving behind their battle lines. They are incredibly territorial as you can imagine. Leaving only the worst of the trash behind, which is scooped up by desperate people. We won’t earn enough being in the second group, we need to be in the first group. This means we need to move to a conflict area, and move in on items from the outside,” Bones explained.

“You said the atmosphere outside the towers is death. The towers have a field around even the open parts which stabilizes their environment. Outside of that, there are a lot of unknowns. Including monsters,” I replied.

“Yes. I don’t like it either, but out of our three options, it has the best chance for success in the next 1,000 cycles. The credits I need, the credits you need, are immense.”

“Alright, so how does it even work then? Will this technique protect me from the outside environment?” I asked. Bones was silent at that question for a couple of seconds, which was a bad sign.

“Yes, if the weather isn’t too bad, and you aren’t shredded by something living in the toxic clouds. But that is why you need to learn the next technique. Wall walking. Just use the layer of force on your body and counteract gravity,” Bones explained.

“Just counteract gravity,” I replied.

“Or create your own. The towers create their own gravitational field. Same with the environment. Once you step beyond the edge of them, then it will get much more intense and dangerous.” I then began working on my second technique.

Day after day I practiced to get it right. It wasn’t enough to just walk on the wall. I had to be able to leap from the wall to the ceiling to the floor, while keeping the force on my body controlled perfectly, with as little energy loss as possible.

I was running low on energy partway into my training and Bones had me go to the lizard being at the front counter. There I paid 2 credits for two energy potions. These rest areas were often used for recovery, so they had items for sale on site.

“We can’t rob them?” I asked out of curiosity after getting two potions.

“Each tower that is under long term control is often assigned to an immortal to manage. A theft of any kind or an attack would see you found out very quickly. For now, I need to show you the proper way to use one of these potions,” Bones said.

“I don’t swallow it?” I asked.

“If you were stronger, then yes. But with how weak you are, you would just explode. Your soul can’t handle that kind of pressure. The annoying part is that they lose their maximum effectiveness very quickly once opened. Pull out the metal tank you have with water. We will dump the potion into the water and then seal it back up. That should keep some of the properties and dilute it enough.” I followed the instructions Bones had given me. That was my water supply, so it was worrying that I was putting something into it.

After sealing the tank back up. I used the attached spigot to fill up a canteen and took a sip. “Ahhh!” I felt my motes trembling and my entire cultivation come under a lot of stress. There was energy leaking from my physical body into my astral soul which held my cultivation.

“Your soul is being pushed on. But nice thing about these low-level trash tier potions, is that they are mostly universal. Each one is about a single drop. You can feel your channels and core filling back up slightly. Keep drinking,” Bones told me.

I finished off the canteen, and felt sore, but full of energy. “That was horrible,” I muttered.

“While they might be trash tier, they aren’t designed for someone as weak as you. If your cultivation wasn’t so absurd we wouldn’t have had a chance, or had to dilute it more, but thankfully it is dense enough and your body strong enough to take in the energy.”

After that I went back to practicing. Bones insisted that I had to be flawless with the technique. Once we went outside the tower, there would be no second chances or time to improve. That was why I had to practice and sip energy infused water. The effects of the water diminished over time, but in the small gray room, which was a box, I constantly moved as Bones gave new scenarios.

“Flip across the room. Half turn to your right, leap to the ceiling. Sword slash downwards. Flip downwards. Dodge left, turn around, slash.” He said he had better senses than me. I wasn’t sure with my eyes, but being able to work togeather was important, and combat was not my specialty. While I wasn’t sure if it was Bones’ specialty, he had far more experience than me.

I also went along with this training, since it took my mind off of the constant feelings of depression. The sheer scope of the society I was dealing with was so immense that it was weighing me down. I had a second life, but it felt like I tossed it all away to pursue power and immortality. It was hard to put into words. I regretted turning away from my second family, but I didn’t regret overcoming challenges.

Bones wasn’t helpful in his advice. He would just tell me that everything I had done in the past was preparation for the present. Now more than ever, it felt that I had fallen for the sunk cost fallacy. I had put in so much effort, I felt like I had to keep going. I had a return ticket. I could leave the Forever City and return home at any time and live out my next 1,000 years.

That was ten lifetimes. An immense amount of time. I could easily live a comfortable life. The option to give up was there. The more I understood the enormity and the scale of the society I was in, the crushing it felt. Imperial City had been a shock, but the Forever City and the truth that the continent was nothing more than a farm, was soul crushing.

As much as I wanted to quit, I couldn’t. I had promised my past masters to raise a cup of tea in their honor once I made it. People had placed their expectations on me, and that duty to see my path through was the primary driving force to continue in the face of impossible hardship.

The worst part of the Forever City wasn’t the toxic atmosphere, the toxic culture, or the massive power scaling. It was the command economy. Back on the cultivation continent, I could go out and kill beasts to raise some money. Here there was no option like that. Instead I had to scavenge under the noses of factions fighting against each other.

When I wasn’t bouncing around the room, I would pull open my pad to pull up information about the surrounding factions and territories. While the information was kind of out of date, Bones assured me that the boarders shifted slowly. Even if there was a surprise maneuver, the factions were quick to react. Also, quick gains were much more volatile than slow and steady.

After a couple months of practicing, I felt incredibly in tune with being able to control the force energy surrounding my body seamlessly while forcing away the toxins in the air and not wasting too much energy from lack of control.

“Looking at the pad, there are two options. The first is closer, but there are only two lesser factions contesting several towers in the seventh ring. It is a larger than normal battle front, and my guess is other factions are using them as proxies to secure the area. The second option is a long trip across the Forever City, but there are seven factions contesting a cluster of towers on a major causeway in the sixth ring. Whomever controls that cluster will get quite a boost in income from beings transversing that area.”

“We don’t have the credits to go far. And it sounds like the factions for the second option are more powerful,” I said.

“That was my thought. But with seven factions, it is a lot more chaotic, not as clear battle lines. It would give us a much greater chance of scavenging. Since factions would be unlikely to risk pursuing us. But in a one-on-one conflict, the scavengers behind their respective factions would be more likely to act, and less space for us to maneuver.”

“You don’t have a preference?” I asked.

“These two are my preferred options. But there is the risk of higher order factors being in play if I make a decision. Better to occlude any chance of tracing me by you deciding,” Bones said, and that comment opened up a lot of questions. I had asked about the higher levels, and he told me that it wasn’t a concern with how weak I was until I made it past the eighth stage. One of the benefits of being weak was that my actions blended into the background noise. Knowing of threats could draw unwanted attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the knowledge or experience to push back on these claims, so I was forced to accept them.

“When you say something is far, I am guessing really far. Better to go with the closer conflict,” I said.

“Alright. Let’s leave this rest area. I have already worked out the optimal route, with breaks. And I also memorized all the side areas and routes in case we need to detour.”

“That is useful,” I said as I left my room and I paused at the front of the rest area. I wanted to confirm what Bones was telling me.

“Excuse me,” I asked the lizard person at the front of the rest area.

“Yesss?” they hissed out.

“Do you like working here?”

“Of course. Do you need anything? I need to be ready for the next customer?”

“Nope, just wanted to see if you enjoyed just standing around.”

“Good job. Food and safety. If there is nothing else, please let me get back to work,” the being said. I left the rest area and made it to the staircase before pausing.

“You see. No one will be going in or out for a while, but they will just stand there forever. Or at least until this tower comes into conflict, then they will be reassigned.”

“I…I can’t believe they just like standing around.”

“Some don’t. And go and do other things. Factions are good at using their resources. And if a couple of really troublesome creations are killed, well their materials will be repurposed.” I shook my head at that.

“What about the constructors and other things maintaining the Forever City?”

“They move through the various areas, but the towers are incredibly hard to damage for anyone not an immortal. Even then the damage tends to be minimal. If we do run into one, don’t say or do anything to it and it will ignore you. The maintainers of the Forever City are incredibly dangerous, but they don’t act unless provoked. We don’t have to worry about them.”

“What about luring a monster into one to escape it?” I asked.

“Don’t. The golems are incredibly advanced. They will know what you did, and you will be killed. The first step is to climb up the interior staircase. We need to get to level 50,000.”

“Isn’t the conflict closer to level 0?” I asked.

“Yes, but the lower levels will be much more heavily watched. While gravity isn’t necessarily one direction outside, it tends to go down more than average due to the towers,” Bones explained as I climbed up the overly large stairs. I had my sword out. I had thought the stairs of the Cloudy Moon Sect were bad, this was far worse. “Stay to your left. Hidden threat to the right,” Bones said. I looked in that direction and made the faint outline of something standing on one side of the staircase. I brought my sword up to point at the camouflaged thing and it didn’t react as I passed it.

“Why not kill things like that?” I asked.

“We could, but you never know how strong they are. I can spot them, but you are wearing an observation blocker, so are they. If you can spot a lurker they will leave you alone, since they figure you are probably stronger. If you miss them, they will ambush you.”

“They just stand there?” I asked.

“Many are content to wait until something moves nearby. Just like the other people doing tasks. A fair few just want to either get lucky or wait until their tower is attacked and then move. The lives of such beings are pitiful. But there is nothing they can do.”

“They can’t band togeather?” I asked.

“Bands are cleared out regularly, as a threat to the tower. Bulk goods are moved up and down stairs and the lurkers shift or know the lesser used portions of the tower. Just countless beings doing the same things over and over, with the ones that mentally break becoming lurkers.”

“Why not use golems, wouldn’t they pay for themselves over time?” I asked.

“Upkeep and initial cost. The only thing worse than the air is the goop that is used as the occasional food source. The water and food you have would be considered luxuries for the majority of beings.”

“And they grow it on various floors,” I said after reaching the next floor and looking at the double doors leading off the staircase landing.

“Yes. Again, being weak is a benefit. Unless you go into a restricted area, no one will care. We have already been scanned twice while climbing up the staircase. If you were stronger, then we would have to deal with the faction if they dispatched anyone to intercept us.”

“From the top of society to the bottom,” I muttered.

“That is just how it is, and how it always will be in the Forever City.”

“Won’t it be destroyed one day?” I asked.

“Perhaps. But that would take a super-organization. The conflicts beyond the rings are not something you can handle. The eighth ring is basically lawless. There you would have gangs of lurkers, and very little infrastructure that isn’t heavily fortified.”

“Why the staircase? There is an elevator?” I asked.

“Common design. And the elevator costs credits to call a platform or a lot of personal power to risk moving in the central shaft. The platforms would turn you to paste without time to dodge them. It would also draw attention we don’t want. A group coming down, stand to the side and lower your sword,” Bones quickly said. I quickly moved to the side and lowered my sword.

Eight humans in gray clothes and masks, came down the stairs, each carrying a large pallet over their heads. Their eyes briefly flickered over to me, but they didn’t stop moving. “A transport team. If we could ambush one, it would be worth a lot, the impossible part is getting away,” Bones said in my mind regretfully. They people soon passed, and we continued upwards.

“They weren’t wearing cloaks like the others,” I pointed out.

“That is a cultural thing in the Forever City. Wearing a cloak with an observation blocking device indicates you are someone of note. Not having either means you are a worker of a faction and are protected. Anyone who doesn’t cover their face or body, you should consider too dangerous to fight. Even if they are weak, the people who are in charge would be very upset if they were injured,” Bones explained.

“And they are content to do that forever? Just carrying supplies back and forth?” I asked.

“Yes. They are created that way. Most tasks they do are repetitive, so they just zone out as their body goes through the motions. The implants help in that regard. To mindlessly keep existing, eating goop, and doing what they are ordered.”

“And if I talked to them?”

“I would recommend you don’t. It will be like that lizard being talked to at the rest area, but riskier, since any delay in their duties will draw attention. At least if the faction running this tower knows what they are doing.”

“Since any delay indicates the possibility of a theft,” I replied.

“Or tampering. Sabotage is quite common. We couldn’t do anything in the rest area, so it isn’t watched, unless the being running it is injured or dies.”

“Then why leave the staircase open?” I asked.

“Some factions don’t. Those are the closed towers. But with the free market, this tower is considered open. If they close the staircase, then traders won’t be able to pass through. If they make travel too restrictive, then the free market will dry up,” Bones explained. This Forever City was giving me a headache as I continued to climb.

“I don’t see anyone passing through,” I replied.

“They often move in groups for safety. While they might not trust each other, groups of scavengers will stick togeather against outside threats. I don’t know too much about the sub-culture.”

“You went out into the Firmament. But what did you do before?” I asked.

“I used to be a scion. Or a descendant of an immortal in one of the factions. Immortality came quickly and I had tutors. After that I was a commander in ongoing conflicts. Once I got strong enough, I began venturing out into the Firmament.”

“Your own faction betrayed you?” I asked.

“Yes. My parents were killed in a conflict. And I was betrayed. So, I can’t go back, and almost all the contacts I had were lost. Now I am stuck as a pile of bones.”

“So, revenge if you get your body back?” I asked.

“There was no love lost between my parents and me. They didn’t like my escapades into the wider Firmament and preferred my siblings. But revenge on the one who poisoned me, absolutely. I am strong enough to get offers or easily make my own way. But first I have to fix the lack of a body.”

“Which costs half a million credits,” I said.

“And the fact you need more, should let you know how insane your cultivation is. Only the richest of scions with the most loving and powerful of parents would dare have your three path cultivation. Regardless, we will figure it out,” Bones gave me encouragement as I kept climbing. I was really beginning to dislike stairs. But running up the outside of the tower I was in was a large risk. Better to be a bit slower and safer.