Calculating Cultivation

I checked my locator on my wrist, floor 50,128. The display flickered slightly. I was pushing the range, but Bones assured me it could handle quite a bit but might lose a bit of accuracy before it completely failed. Even with my cultivation, my legs still felt a bit tired. I had to go above floor 50,000 in order to find a place to leave the interior of the tower through a public floor. This public floor was a loading and unloading dock.

Staying within the drawn white lines, I made my way towards the public transports. “No matter what happens, don’t panic. You can’t fall to death.” Well, you technically could, but it was a lot more difficult than it sounded. But I appreciated the words of encouragement regardless.

I made my way between two vehicles, getting looks and then reached the edge of the tower. I felt a blast of absolute freezing air and then an immense amount of pressure. Gravity twisted and began doing a weird corkscrew thing. I took a deep breath to orient myself and make sure my body force barrier was still in place. I stepped over the edge, as the entire world reoriented.

Now down for me was the tower’s side. I began walking. My short stature helping me out here and helping me feel less queasy. I could barely make out other towers through the swirling yellow clouds. What really got me was how quiet everything was. I felt my force barrier wobbling. I had to focus to maintain it.

Air was trying to leave from around my body. Then a yellow cloud swooped in and the pressure massively reversed. Note to self, the clear areas were vacuum, which made no sense. Pressure couldn’t vary that wildly that closely. Well, that was normal weather, all of this was clearly not normal.

“Adjust course a quarter turn to the left,” Bones said, and I instinctively corrected my direction. That training was quite useful. The outside of the tower was just gray stone. No decorations, no windows, nothing. Bones had told me that the inner rings and the core of the Forever City was much better and impressive, but out here in the slums, there were no changes made, since no one was out there to look.

“I see a bridge,” I said, and I did. In my view, the tower was now the ground, while the bridge was a tiny pillar reaching up to the sky where there was another tower.

“Cross it, we are going to be following this route for a while,” Bones said. I wanted to chat more, but it was too dangerous, and I had too many things to pay attention to. Now that I had to keep up two techniques, it was important that I keep my focus. Also, the risk of an attack was much higher out here than on the staircase.

A sudden blast of wind hit me as the toxic clouds were blasted away from the space between buildings. “A vehicle. That is why we don’t leap across or try to fly.” Bones had warned me about them. They just plowed their way forward at immense speeds. I had kind of realized they were fast after taking one from the fifth to the sixth ring, but fast was an understatement. They were pushing speeds that would make a plane feel like a sloth. They also had shields to plow through everything in their path.

I reached the tunnel, or bridge. It was a physical connection between towers. I stepped onto it, and forced my mind to reorient that this was my new down. I had stepped on the side, so the towers were still sideways, horizontal pillars. The training helped me resist the nausea and headache from the directional change.

The first part was the most exciting. After that, there was nothing much of note. Just gray towers, the occasional connection, and swirling toxic clouds that cut off my vision. Even the spatial, pressure, and temperature changes became fairly boring after a while. There were no plants or moss, or anything out here.

Bones had explained that what did survive was quickly purged by the constructor golems. They did not allow anything to grow on the outside of the towers. The distance between the towers wasn’t that large either. Only about 100 meters or so, while the towers themselves varied slightly, but were around a couple miles on one side.

“These towers aren’t in a grid pattern,” I said after crossing my sixth bridge to a tower that was slightly askew.

“Right half turn. The towers form, they aren’t built,” Bones said and I tried to process that answer. “Since it is bothering you, the towers are part of the make up of this nexus. They naturally form in this space. Higher Firmament science is complex and a lot of it is classified. But this is not a fully material space, it is a space within the Firmament, which means it has a conceptual base, and don’t ask me to explain that. I am just telling you what I read once long ago.”

“Ah, thanks,” I replied. Bones didn’t say anything more as I continued. It was a similar answer when I asked what was at the bottom of the towers. That was apparently material thinking, not Firmament thinking. There was no bottom or top. I only thought there was a bottom because of gravity, but even that was some kind of deception.

That had led to questions on physics and Bones said that science was an elite subject only done by the smartest of the smart. Even his esteemed self, did not qualify. He was familiar with natural science, like pressure, temperature, and so on. Even physics, like forces and gravity. But anything involving particle science was not taught. There was no periodic table of the elements.

He said that while something like that might exist, it would touch on secrets of beings much more powerful. If someone did work things out, then they would be recruited for research or silenced. That was why Bones explained he focused on more practical directions, like crushing people with his body cultivation.

I had noticed that when the topic came up, he liked to brag about his body cultivation. While it was only a hunch, I sensed there was jealousy on his part about my cultivation. My base was much better than his, at least I thought so. The topic was always turned to credits when I asked more about cultivation.

It hadn’t escaped me that was one of the topics he wasn’t talking about. With how helpful Bones was, I had to make inferences based on everything. My guess was that if karma was actually a thing, then he might be under some kind of limitation in regards to talking about cultivation. Or I could just be imagining the entire thing.

“Threat, half left,” Bones said, and I pulled out my sword at the word ‘threat’. It wasn’t worth the hassle keeping it out all the time. I looked into the swirling yellow clouds in that direction along the tower. “Back slowly.” I couldn’t make out anything. It was frustrating how useless my eyes were in the Forever City.

Based on my understanding, almost everyone had observation absorbers and a strong handle on their energy. The ones who didn’t were supremely confident in their ability and backing. Even the monsters had evolved, so only the most cunning survived in the environment of the Forever City.

I saw a cloud of yellow moving across the tower. “Leap into the air now!” That was meant to be a last resort, but I listened, I leapt into the air spinning away from the tower as the cloud rose up to try and grab me. Thankfully I escaped in time as I spun in the air, as more turbulent spatial forces hit me. A cloud of gas hit me as well, so I couldn’t even tell which way the towers were oriented.

The first thing I did was stabilize myself. That had been part of the training. Mid-air stabilization, in the event I lost contact with the surface of a tower. “Shield!” I pushed more energy into the force barrier around my body. A thick yellow cloud hit me. No, not a cloud, a swarm of tiny spiders. Incredibly tiny spiders, each the size of a mote of dust, that was yellow. My energy began to be devoured.

I pushed in more energy into my barrier, pushing the tiny spiders away. I then quickly put the barrier back up, another part of my training, and went flying in the other direction. The spatial turbulence was stronger than I could use force energy. I couldn’t fly long, without burning through energy. But this was an emergency.

Wall walking, at least on the towers, used up a lot less energy compared to flying, since there was some kind of connection to the tower. They were energy reactive, which made them easier to repair and maintain. Also, they absorbed the energy around them to power their existence.

Regardless, all this meant that I was burning quickly through my reserves, as I moved away from the cloud of spiders as quickly as possible. The gravitational pull shifted and I was plummeting away from them for a couple of seconds, before my course was adjusted and I went flying towards the side of the tower. I landed and immediately began running away as the cloud of tiny spiders chased after me. “Stright, there is an opening in the tower 87 floors down. Once you get there, don’t enter, but go over the gap. The monster shouldn’t pursue,” Bones told me. I didn’t respond as I was focused on keeping up my wall walking and force barrier.

A quick glance over my shoulder showed the spiders were still after me, and only gaining ground slowly. I put my sword away. I wouldn’t be cutting them. I saw the gap ahead of me. Thankfully there was no cloud of toxic smog. I leapt over the gap and saw the open floor with several vehicles. The tiny yellow spiders stopped pursuing me after I crossed the gap. “Keep going. Quarter turn to the left, and eventually we will circle the tower and come to a crossing,” Bones explained.

“What was that?” I asked.

“A hive type infestation of micro energy spiders. If they get out of control, or break into a tower, they are quickly purged by the constructors or the faction controlling the tower. There are regular sweeps, but a few always survive and persist.” I was almost killed by the rats of the Forever City. I was weaker than the lowest tier monster that infested this place.

“That infestation was fairly large. Since they propelled themselves into the air after you. Good job avoiding them and not letting them burrow inside of you. That could have been bad,” Bones said.

Now I was really curious? “What would have happened?” I asked hesitantly.

“They would consume your astral soul and physical body, quickly reproducing while they did so. You would have had about thirty agonizing seconds before you died.” I shouldn’t have asked. Thankfully there was a spot I could pause in. A public drop off point for transport vehicles.

Once I reached the landing area, I pulled out worn down black robe and tossed it over myself. Once that was done, I picked a spot on a far corner of the platform. People were moving about, move pallets of supplies, but I didn’t even warrant a glance.

“They won’t look at me?” I asked Bones.

“As long as you stay in an out of the way area, it isn’t worth the risk or hassle to go after you. This kind of thing, while not common, happens quite a bit. We might run into other beings who are doing this. That is why there is a small area set aside. The expectation is to be quiet and not start trouble,” Bones explained.

“Alright, I am going to sleep,” I said.

“Don’t worry, I will keep an eye out,” Bones replied. I was used to going to sleep in odd places while traveling. The dark robe on top of my usual outfit was to further obscure anyone looking at me.

There were no incidents while sleeping. I woke up without incident. I had a small bit of food and water, put away the extra robe, and then left. I quickly learned that the most annoying thing about traveling through the Forever City was the fact I needed to go up and down before I could move horizontally across the gaps between towers.

The hike would take about three months. Without Bones giving directions, it would have been much harder to figure out where to go in the endless gray towers and yellow smog clouds. The only excitement was when I ran into monsters.

The second encounter was a month into my trip. “Stop.” I came to a stop. “We have to reroute. Look closely at the tower across from you,” Bones said, and I looked at it. I finally spotted the fate outline of something where the yellow smog clouds moved around.

“What is that? It has to be massive?” I said.

“A baby doom spider. The adult ones are tower destroyers, will hollow one out to make a lair. Very good camouflage and patience. The real issue is when one of them manages to eat the implants of one of a person. They have great internal bio-manipulation to make them functional.”

“So, immortal? But wouldn’t they have drawbacks?” I asked.

“The implants only have so big a range. The doom spiders will consume their own body and regrow it. They are also quite smart. That location is probably where vehicles slow down on a rare trajectory. The doom spider will use the metals to strengthen its massive body.” That was insane.

“Which way for the detour?” I asked.

“We can, but we also might be able to kill it, and sell it. Worth around 10,000 credits in raw supplies,” Bones said.

“It is as big as half a floor. That thing is massive,” I said.

“But it is small, compared to adults. Its camouflage is really good. Looking at it, no one iota of energy leakage. I suspect it has consumed a couple observation blockers. But it can’t use techniques with the implants,” Bones said. That was a weakness, but not a big one in my mind.

“And its physical body is massive. How would I even kill it?” I asked.

“Frustrating. It is like free credits, but you are too weak. Let’s keep moving. A turn and a half to your right,” Bones gave me new directions. I agreed it was a shame, but something that large would require a lot of damage to kill or a precise attack. My sword wasn’t big enough, and aiming with my gun would be a big risk to get the perfect shot.

A month and a half since the start of my journey I ran into the third monster. “Urg. How do the spider people have a tower.”

“Spider people?” I asked Bones.

“A faction, kind of. They are nominally part of the Heavenly Alliance, but they use questionable cultivation methods. Spider body cultivation, grafting spider parts onto their bodies. We need to circle around that tower. They won’t hesitate to go outside the tower to kill you.” I adjust my course.

“I am sensing a theme with all these spiders,” I said.

“It is fallout from the war with another super-organization, the Spider Cult. These kind of remnants are the traces of that conflict that spilled into this section of the Forever City a long time ago. The Spider God made a deep push, into this portion.”

“That happens? I thought that other super-organizations were kept out?” I asked.

“They are. But that doesn’t mean they won’t attack if they think they can gain an advantage. Conflict is never ending between super organizations. But like other attacks, it was repelled out of the Forever City by the Heavenly Alliance. But now you see remnants from that conflict. Micro energy spiders, doom spiders, spider body cultivation, the list goes on. If spider remnants are all that we see, then we aren’t doing that poorly in our trek.”

“How many years, or cycles ago was this war?” I asked.

“You need to talk to a historian to answer that question. Only the top-rated factions have one among their members. As for cycles, a massive obscene number most likely. Cycles are just used as a measure of credit and energy consumption. Like you and me might measure stuff in seconds, factions measure stuff in cycles.”

That was interesting, on the aftereffects of a war lingered on. It was like the special areas on the continent. Only instead of altering the terrain, it altered the monsters that inhabited an area. “But didn’t you say the micro energy spiders infest all of the Forever City?”

“And that is why I know about the Spider Cult. There tends to be a higher proportion of spider themed monsters, but there are other kinds out there. Some I might not know of. And they aren’t swarming at the moment, since there is no invasion and they have been purged. No one wants a doom spider on their tower.”

“The immortals can’t sense it?” I asked.

“No. Its skill is that good. If the immortals scanned the outside in person, then they would spot it. But they aren’t going to do that unless there is a problem. Also if the problem fixes itself, less work for them.”

“And these immortals just sit around all day and manage the tower?” I asked.

“Or they are off doing other things. Looking to expand their power and influence. It is a lot of floors and there are constant issues. Getting supplies, shipping out supplies, and so on. Threats of attack. Faction politics. I was offered a position managing a tower, but I turned it down. It is a trap. You aren’t going to get stronger running a tower. They are retirement homes at best, prisons that immortals make for themselves at worst,” Bones explained. He clearly wasn’t a fan of the Forever City and the towers.

“Why not ship in supplies from the continents?” I asked.

“Because longer term the continents are more profitable. Sure, stuff is shipped in, but you see how big this place is. How many floors each tower has. Immortals can just use techniques to get a tower up and running.”

It was an interesting situation. I could tell Bones didn’t have all the answers, or he might not be able to share everything. But he explained more than enough about why this place was the way it was. The Forever City was a post scarcity civilization run by immortals with immense personal power.

While I was in what was considered the slums, the place was immense. The thousands of levels in each tower had entire civilizations that never left and rarely interacted with outside forces. Eventually they would experience a catastrophe and there were risk charts the factions had. That was how the rings were created, dividing things up by the probability of a disaster happening to a tower within a billion cycles.

The sixth ring meant that there was a sixty percent chance of something occurring. The eighth ring had an eighty percent chance. This information was released by the Heavenly Alliance and also determined the worth of ownership of a tower.

Something like the Spider Cult attacking, was the last disaster to hit several areas. But the time scale was a billion years, or cycles as they called it in this place, which I was quickly coming to dislike. The dim light, the poisoned clouds, and the oppressive atmosphere gave the entire Forever City a grim feeling.

Two and a half months into my trip, we came across a tower that was damaged. The docking area for vehicles where we stopped at had numerous potholes and burn marks all over it. There was also another person resting there in a heavy cloak. They briefly glanced my way as I put on a heavy cloak and settled in at the furthest point away from them.

“Greetings,” a feminine sounding voice said.

“Be careful. I have no idea about their strength,” Bones told me.

“Hello,” I replied neutrally.

“I am headed out towards the conflict, you?” the being asked me.

“Something similar,” I replied.

“We should consider teaming up. Two independents like us,” the cloaked figure said.

“I am not sure that is a good idea. We would have to share skills and techniques,” I replied.

“I will go first then. I am Rhiza, blade for hire.” The figure then pulled off the hood of their cloak revealing a woman with short light green hair, eyes, and a hard face.

“I am called Yuan,” I replied as Bones warned me to not share my first name while I removed my hood. The woman gasped.

“A child. You are not vat grown. Are you?” she asked.

“No,” I replied.

“How rare. A lost scion perhaps. Sorry, I shouldn’t pry. I decided to quit my job and seek a life of fortune with a blade at my side. One day, I will raise enough credits to cultivate,” she said.

“I require credits for my cultivation as well,” I replied.

“Well, then we should consider working togeather. Have you done this before?” she asked.

“I know what I need to do, but working togeather is difficult. There is the requirement for trust, the rarest resource in the Forever City,” I countered and she nodded.

“That is a fair point. But if people don’t work togeather, then you will always have your heart closed.” The fact that the woman saying this looked like she was chewing on a lemon did not help her case. “But it is ultimately your choice.”

“Perhaps if we run into each other-“ the tower shook.

“A side battle has spread in this direction. We need to take action, we can’t rest here. Mask on, cloak off. We need to leave this landing area and ascend this tower before we are cut off. Hurry.” I quickly got to work following Bones’ instructions.

Rhiza had pulled out a massive sword from a spatial dimension, that was as tall as her and just as thick. The blade only had an edge on one side. She rushed off, while I picked another direction that Bones told me to go in. We exited the tower and began ascending the outside. There was an explosion below and the tower shook. Beams of searing light cut through the air around the tower.

“Ascend, keep ascending.” A beam cut into the tower near where we were running. Molten globs of tower material bubbled up and deformed the outside. “Left!” I quickly moved left as another beam hit where I had been running. Thankfully there were no more attacks after that.

Once we climbed up to floor 45,712, there was another landing we stopped at. “I thought you said there would be no attacks on the outside?”

“It happens occasionally, if a tower is assaulted. This is good news, we arrived at the front early, in an area where it is expanding. This gives us the opportunity to scavenge.” The tower shook. “We rest, then go back down. The outside fighting will have stopped by then as emplacements are set up and the ground slog will start.”

I glanced to the side as I noticed a Rhiza come out of the tower stairs, or at least where it should be. The layout of the key portions of each tower was the same and that was the direction of the stairs, so not a huge assumption since I saw her down below before.

“Yuan,” she said and walked over to me. “You must be strong to risk going outside.”

“It is challenging. Congratulations on avoiding the soldiers sent in,” I replied.

“Just have to be quick enough to get above the bridge to the next tower,” Rhiza replied while sitting down at the farthest point from me. “We have some time, since I doubt, they will try to flank from higher up.” I nodded at this. Bones had explained most conflicts between factions happened in the 50,000 levels above and below level 0. This was truer the further one went out into the rings.

“I am scavenging, you?” I asked.

“The same. That is why we should team up,” Rhiza replied.

“We seem to have different ways of getting about,” I countered, and she nodded.

“True. Well, truce at least?” she asked with a smile.

“I can agree to a truce, but why so friendly?” I asked. It just seemed odd.

“Yuan, you are one of those people who worry about everything. Planning, and thinking. It is not a bad thing, but it weighs you down. I prefer to live in the moment. To trust my own strength,” Rhiza said.

“This woman is insane,” Bones muttered. While I was tempted to agree, there was something refreshing about meeting someone who wasn’t worried constantly. She would probably die horribly from betrayal or making a mistake, but it was still refreshing.

“That is a very brave way to live. I don’t think I could do that,” I replied.

“It is my choice. Now, I am going to rest before checking below. The real trick is getting in between the two battle fronts and getting out,” she replied as she pulled out a dark set of robes and put them on. I did the same.

I wanted to ask Bones some questions but didn’t want to alert Rhiza about my companion. “I will keep an eye out don’t worry. She is a modded human. Not a cultivator, that’s for sure. I can tell by the observation blocker. It is implanted into her. You don’t do that unless you are modded. Also, she indicated she was vat grown, which heavily indicates being modded. Still, can’t be sure.”

“Physically, she is quite strong based on her movements and that sword she had before. I would place the energy locking implant as one of the best possible ones. She is probably from the second or maybe even first ring. She would be around a stage 6 cultivator, or about the strength you will have if you breakthrough,” Bones explained to me.

That was a lot. A shame implants and cultivation did not mix. If she got them pulled, she would have to have the funds to pay to be cultivated to immortality, or a high enough stage so she wouldn’t die. There were ways to speed up the lower stages of cultivation immensely in the Forever City. They weren’t cheap and they had serious issues, but they had the technology.

Bones had sounded slightly bitter about that, so my guess was that they used templates that had issues. Unlike my cultivation, which I designed from the ground up. It would make sense if they had equipment that it was standardized with standard cultivation.

I glanced over at Rhiza again and couldn’t help but feel slightly less alone in the Forever City. I couldn’t trust her, but she was a literal breath of fresh air. I would honor the truce we had agreed on. There also had to be something more about her. Probably some ability at stealth if she managed to get up the stairs during the assault on this tower.

Since she wasn’t going outside, stealth seemed like the most likely option. By being a modded human, she was much more likely to escape notice. While the observation blockers were good, Bones had warned me they weren’t perfect, and my presence alone would draw questions.

I drifted off to sleep thinking about how I was going to gather up a lot of stuff and earn piles and piles of credits from various battlefields. And no spiders, definitely avoiding the spiders.