Calculating Cultivation

After five days of traveling, we stopped, since there was no end to the red cylinder so far. Yang Heng had lost quite a bit of energy and going any further would be a risk. I needed a break as well.

“Why a cylinder?” I asked.

“Hmm, you mean the object we are following? Why do you think?” Yang Heng asked.

“Geometric shapes grant stability and easier to use concepts for energy,” I responded. There was speculation that energy went through Chaos monsters before bubbling up and one of those was some sort of geometric shape, imprinting on energy at a base level. Other theories posited it was a natural consequence of energy.

“But, there is no energy,” I added on to my earlier explanation. That red cylinder was complete devoid of energy as far as I could tell and Yang Heng hadn’t disagreed with me. There seemed to be no clear purpose to the mega-structure and it hadn’t been destroyed or broken apart. It didn’t appear new, which meant that it had survived for a while, despite everything moving about the Mechanical Layer.

“It is an artifact. An unknown item of a lost civilization. Their purposes are often inscrutable and dangerous, but they tend to have value. Either the pinnacle of technology, or a new way to use energy. Also, it isn’t just a cylinder, it is a ring,” he replied.

It took me a moment to process that comment. It was a ring, around, since it was cylinder shaped. Then I realized what he meant. The entire structure looped around. I looked out the window. How?! It was massive, so massive that it boggled my mind. There was no way to measure long distances, so I had defaulted to putting it outside of my sensor range and making measurements based on that metric.

It was hundreds of sensor ranges long already, how much longer could it be to loop back around. The spatial instabilities would be too much. “The size is too big,” I finally replied and Yang Heng nodded.

“Indeed. Everything we have seen so far, even the other super factions, are just basic structures. This is a super-structure, built by a super-organization. Something that exceeds those possible contributions of a single individual,” he said.

“Then there must be something at the center or inside,” I replied. It was only logical to assume if it was a ring, there was something in the very center of the ring, or inside the ring itself. There had to be purpose, since clearly there was a lot of time and effort to build something so large.

“The curvature is slight. At first I thought it was due to spatial warping. Instead the warping is all in the same direction. I estimate we have traveled about one hundredth of the way around the ring.”

“In five days at high speed, the size…compared to the cylinder dimensions is very disproportionate. That big of a construction there must be energy use. Otherwise physics would break the entire thing apart,” I realized.

“You are aware of the limits of such things. I can’t detect the energy being used. There is nothing in this region of space. We only ended up here due to the replicators, forcing us in this direction. Why do you think that is?” he asked.

“This is a cleared region of space, just like the space the Forever City has claimed in the Mechanical Layer,” I speculated. Yang Heng nodded at this.

“It is like someone coming across one of the outposts of the Forever City. There is a stable environment and a structure. Nowhere as large as this, but the simple geometric shape implies energy use and a super-organization behind it. If we bother the ring, there will likely be a violent response,” he finally said.

There was silence as I processed all of this. “Any idea which super-organization it could be?” I finally asked, not recalling anything form our discussions.

“No. Which is why I am considering the situation and recovering my energy. This is a complicated position we find ourselves in Yuan Zhou.”

“The journey to the center would be around sixteen times the journey we have already completed.” That just took some simple math. I set the circumference at 100, since Yang Heng said we had traveled about one hundredth of the way around the ring. Then it was simply a matter of using the equation of the circumference of a circle equaling two times the number pi and the radius.

That meant about another 80 days of high-speed travel. “It isn’t that simple,” Yang said, cutting off my thoughts. “Navigating will be impossible. While I can create a beacon to lock onto. The distance is too great. I will eventually lose track of it. Since we know there is energy being used, and I can’t sense anything, I would guess there is a defensive bubble.”

“That large? The energy needed would be impossible to cover such a large space,” I replied.

“If it were active. Most defenses remain inactive to conserve energy in the Mechanical Layer. That is one sign that a civilization has matured as a super-organization like the Heavenly Alliance. This cylindrical ring structure is probably a defensive and offensive structure combined. If it takes damage, it will activate.”

“Even against something like replicators? Or one of the natural phenomena we saw?” I asked.

“It could activate in sections, and grow in strength with more activated sections. Create a large shield to force whatever is showing up to move away.”

“But you have been like a beacon for the last five days?” I asked.

“But there was no threat to the structure itself. Why do you think the outposts remained closed no matter what?” I considered that question based on everything I had just learned.

“Dangerous things might occasionally poke about and will find nothing of value. If they do attack, they would have attacked regardless. But by presenting no weak points, it deters individuals like ourselves from digging any deeper,” I replied and Yang Heng gave me a small smile.

“Exactly. Anyone with any experience and intelligence beyond that of a monster, will realize what such a structure and lack of available energy means. It is a warning, defense, and staging point. Or this could all be incorrect and the ring has some other purpose. That is the danger with super-artifacts. If you can build this big, you have the power and will to protect something this large.” He took a small breath before continuing his explanation.

“There is the chance the super-organization has fallen. If the Forever City ever experiences disaster, there would be strong opportunities presented by the outposts. A way back down to the Firmament.”

“Could we get close to the ring, and try and work out what it does?” I asked.

“If I was alone, I might consider that option. But you are with me. You have thousands of cycles left to live. But it would require thousands of cycles of to analyze something like this ring without creating a disturbance. I would have to slowly diffuse my energy into the environment. Do you want to wait around that long?” I shook my head. That was not going to happen. If I waited around that long, I would die of old age eventually after thousands of years.

“Well we have three choices from what I can tell. Keep circling around, hoping to find something of interest. Attempt to find the center point of this ring to see if there something there. Or leave, without attempting to locate anything,” I said to see if Yang Heng had any disagreement with my assessment.

“We will try for the center. The trip will take long enough for me to recover more of my strength.” He then got up and went to the airlock for the hover craft. He opened his hand and there was a small crystal in it. “I will be leaving this here.”

If we were going to aim for the center, that would take a very long time, since he clearly wouldn’t be speeding up our travel. If we managed to find the center, it would be a long time from now. But there was no better direction to head towards. Best to take this chance.

“Could you make a trail of them?” I asked. He then looked at me. “If you leave two of them, that would create a line, we could follow. While they might shift positions over time, it would help us to keep heading straight.”

“Out of the mouth of babes,” he muttered. “I had not considered that. Well done. It is rare that I miss something. I will do that. It should hopefully help us head in the right direction, compared to if we did nothing.”

Yang Heng left the hover craft and then quickly returned. Once he was done leaving crystals he had made himself, behind, we set off again. I flew, while he meditated, which was different than his hibernation. He had to focus to keep track of the direction we were going and have me make corrections.

Once a day we stopped and he left the hover craft to leave another small crystal behind. After forty days of traveling, we finally came across something as we exited another gas cloud. “Um. Senior Yang Heng, you need to take a look at this,” I quickly said.

He got up and came to look over my shoulder out the window. There was nothing but blackness ahead of us. There was gas to either side, but in front of us there was nothing. Whatever light there was wasn’t present. Normally there would always be gas clouds in the background. Here there was nothing but darkness in front of us.

“A vast bubble,” he slowly replied. “A very vast bubble.” A bubble meant a place that had its own rules governing it. A self-contained environment. The continent I grew up on and the Forever City were both examples. There was a clear line between the interior and exterior of such a location. “I know what this is now.”

“Really?” I asked waiting for more of an explanation.

“In addition to defense, the ring probably acts as a stabilizer for this bubble. What did I tell you about civilizations that use too much energy?” he asked me.

“They destabilize. The Material naturally forms bubbles, but too much energy corrodes that boundary, and they sink into the Mechanical Layer,” I replied. It was more of a dimensional collapse but with reality being viewed as a cake, things sunk down to lower layers based on energy. “Places like the Forever City prevent that, by limiting the energy in the environment,” I replied.

“But let’s say you are a powerful civilization. Who has conquered your bubble in the Material. Probably from finding a source of energy, and leveraging that into more energy. There would be sinkage and panic.”

“And there would be a response as well. A civilization would either collapse societally or attempt to stop the issue,” I replied.

“It can’t be stopped. Each usage of energy in the Material speeds up their descent. It cannot be reversed or stopped. Only slowed down. And if any have succeeded, we would never know. Since we cannot go higher up. We can only see the failures,” Yang Heng said.

“So, a civilization tried to save their material bubble, built that ring?” I asked.

“Yes. I have heard a story about something similar once before. It was before my time, so I didn’t make the connection, but this is a civilization that tried to save themselves with everything they had. This way they didn’t end up like the Ek or the countless other trash civilizations that only saved a fraction of themselves,” Yang Heng explained as we both looked out at the darkness.

“Should we enter?” I asked.

“They probably don’t pose an individual threat. But if they had enough energy to build everything that we have seen, they probably have a link to the lower layers to draw it upwards.”

“But wouldn’t the just sink down even lower?” I asked.

“That ring is bleeding off energy into the environment with a purpose. You can’t stop sinking in the Material, but it is possible in the Mechanical Layer to stop your descent. Most civilizations don’t manage in time. That ring, they built, is something equal to the construction of the Forever City,” Yang Heng replied and I looked at him in shock.

My elder traveling companion had an immense amount of pride in the Forever City, the Heavenly Alliance, and even cultivator culture as a whole. To hear him describe the construction of anything, equaling the Forever City was the highest form of acknowledgement I had heard him give in our long discussions. He respected super-organizations, but he wasn’t impressed with the few he talked about.

They were powerful, dangerous, and not to be taken lightly, but they weren’t impressive in his mind. If the cultivators came out in force, they would be crushed or easily defeated. For him to recognize this civilization who had built the mind bending massive ring showed how impressive they truly were.

“Should I try the communicator?” I asked.

“Sure, it wouldn’t hurt,” Yang Heng said. I pushed the button and there was no reply and no connection. “No response. I was expecting that.”

“Should we risk going forward, trying to enter this bubble?” I asked.

“Entering is easy. Leaving is hard. Also, once we enter, we will be under the authority of whatever super-organization controls the place. Either we are so little of a threat that we don’t matter, or this place has been abandoned. If the second outcome is true, then the Heavens truly favor us. If there is a super-organization still present, we will be in dire straits,” Yang Heng explained.

“We should explore,” I said. I didn’t want to keep traveling around pointlessly. I knew Yang Heng knew this as well. We could be out here endlessly. While I didn’t mind taking time to accomplish something, all my other periods of isolation had been focused on improving my cultivation over a long period of time.

“I will focus on shielding us.” Yang Heng might be cautious, but enjoyed finding new things as well. The fact he didn’t want to remain with the Ek and had investigated several locations showed he was willing to take some risks. All cultivators, including myself could stave off boredom for long periods of time. But eventually something needed to be done, otherwise what was the point of cultivation? I wouldn’t call it boredom, but more like the need to exercise one’s capability.

I sent the hover craft forward into the darkness. There was some minor shaking and then suddenly the hover craft emerged over an ocean. The sudden change was jarring. I let out a gasp, as what little energy was entering my body, was restricted even more.

There was very little light outside the hovercraft as we hurdled forward. I tried to bring us up, but we were losing altitude. “We are going down,” I said. There was no response. I looked over my shoulder and Yang Heng had collapsed.

“Senior!” I shouted, but he didn’t wake. That was a very bad sign. He was not one for jokes or flights of fancy. There was a bright light and turned back to the front of the hovercraft. The protections had failed, and the entire hovercraft was losing energy. We were burning up in the atmosphere.

Even at the fast speeds we had traveled, the hover craft’s protections had held. When we had gone faster while traveling around the ring, Yang Heng had to increase the protection we had. Now we had no protection.

I couldn’t see anything as the hovercraft began to shake more violently. We hit the water and skipped off of it. The hovercraft began to turn slightly while flying forward. All the controls were completely unresponsive. We hit the water a second time and bounced upwards once more.

I blacked out.

“AHH!” I let out a yell as a sharp pain forced me awake. My entire body hurt, but at least I could feel it. I focused on my breathing, while moving my fingers and toes. They were all there. Looking around, it was quite dark inside of the hovercraft. I could barely see.

I reached up to touch my face, there was blood. I was bleeding. That wasn’t good. I slowly got up and looked behind me where Yang Heng was. He was passed out, but he didn’t look that injured. I checked his breathing, he was still breathing which was good. The energy I could sense from him was very limited.

That was not good, I had never sensed his energy being as low as it currently was. “Yang Heng,” I put my hand on his shoulder and shook him. There was no response. “Yang Heng!” I shouted, but he didn’t stair in the slightest.

I went to the airlock that was used to get in and out of the hovercraft and then hesitated. All my equipment had stopped functioning. If there was nothing to breathe outside, I would be killing myself. Yang Heng had a chance of survival. Pushing the door open, I was glad there were mechanical releases for everything. Various handles had to be forced and the doors were wedged into their frames, but pushed the hatch open. A bunch of gravel and dirt fell down in front of the hatch as I opened it.

The atmosphere was thin, hard to breathe, but it wasn’t toxic. I couldn’t breathe deeply. Looking around, I could see water in the distance. Looking up, there was a small white star in the distance. A property of the bubble we were in, like on the continent. Whomever set this place up controlled the surface of the bubble to regulate the environment. The same with the Forever City.

There, toxic clouds were the norm, here it was nothingness. We were on a large mountain of some kind, the hover craft having wedged itself into the side of the mountain. I noted there was tiny weeds and moss, but no trees. Looking around, I couldn’t see any animals or anything else.

“A trap. Of course it is a trap,” I muttered. This entire place was squeezing my connection to energy, which was probably why Yang Heng had passed out. It was the same reason why immortal cultivators couldn’t go to the Material. The second breakthrough in cultivation moved their consciousness from their physical body to their soul, releasing the chains of mortality their physical body held on them.

I went back into the hover craft and got my spatial ring. It was dormant, but still functional. I focused a bit of energy out of my hand, and I could access it for a brief moment. I let the bag close. I then began checking the other systems. They all still worked if I put some of the energy I was still receiving into them.

That was also why Yang Heng hadn’t instantly died. He was still drawing energy, but not enough to wake up. I left the hover craft again and looked up the mountain we had collided with and then back at the hovercraft. Despite the lack of energy and impact, it was still completely intact, with only minor exterior damage. That was the quality of construction that the Forever City had and part of the reason we were still alive.

There were emergency impact mitigation systems that were part of the hover craft. They had limited functionality except in cases where all the main systems failed, and they would work a short time after that.

I left the hover craft and climbed up the mountain we had crashed into, in the dim light, and sparse atmosphere. Once I reached the top, I had to focus intently to see off in the distance. My eyes had always been incredibly good at picking up on energy. But I saw no energy. There were more smaller mountains and then large snow capped peaks in the distance. So far away they were hard to make out.

Looking around, I couldn’t spot any kind of civilization, animals, or plant life more complicated than moss and weeds. “Well, this is very bad,” I muttered to myself. Whomever or whatever had set this place up, really had created a perfect trap. Sucking out all the energy from this bubble.

Making my way down back to the hover craft, I considered the situation. I was hurt, sore, and tired. But I was alive, nothing was broken, and I could breathe. My guess was that this place was set up as some kind of super-continent. Similar to where I grew up, but on an even larger scale. Rough water at the edge to force the locals from exploring where they shouldn’t and being able to manage the environment more easily.

If I was going to find any kind of civilization, I needed to head for the center of this place. On foot, that could easily take years. I still needed to sleep, eat, and drink. While it hadn’t been that much before, those needs would increase due to the lack of energy I was able to draw on.

Going back to the hover craft, I tried to let out a sigh, but all that came out was a short wheeze. I would have to take the modules apart. I would be able to bring along the one that provided food and water. Being able to barely live from what little energy I drew upon to use such equipment. The rest of the equipment I could pack away in my spatial ring.

It wasn’t broken, but any kind of energy was being drawn away. I couldn’t tell where. That left a much harder question. Yang Heng, and what to do with him. I wouldn’t be able to bring him with me. Just moving myself was tiring. To carry him, would be too difficult. If there was a fight of any kind, I couldn’t protect him while also protecting myself.

I would have to construct a tomb of some kind, to hold him until I returned or this place was destroyed, or there was more ambient energy. There was nothing else I could do, except make sure he was safe. Even if this bubble broke apart, he would survive. The physical body of an immortal cultivator could be rebuilt from the ground up and Yang Hang had done such a thing. Without some kind of powerful energy attack, he would not be in any danger. I could try and stab his body with my sword, or shoot it with my gun and they would only scratch him at best. This place had no energy.

The breathing his body was doing, was an automatic reflex if there was an atmosphere to try and draw in what little ambient energy there was. With nothing to draw in, and his connection to his soul blocked, there was not enough energy for him to remain awake.

I got to work disassembling the hover craft or at least the various modules inside of it. The twilight from the small white star overhead didn’t change. It wasn’t really a star, just a well crafted illusion used to help maintain this bubble of reality.

There was no good way for me to keep track of the time. It wasn’t worth the energy to check the clock I had on me. I had lots of devices and pieces of equipment, but I had to power them myself, which was something I wouldn’t normally do to begin with. Now that the energy entering my body was reduced even further, it was even more concerning.

I fell asleep three times while working to take the modules apart and put them away in my spatial storage. I then wrote a note carved into a small metal plate that I would leave behind. Any kind of paper or parchment, would crumble to dust. If I was leaving the plate outside, it would probably crumble to dust as well with how long Yang Heng would be left here.

Senior,

We entered a location restricting energy. I salvaged the modules needed for my survival but left the rest of the hover craft intact. I have gone exploring to find energy and to live. I hope we meet again at the Forever City one day. If I return, I will let the Heavenly Alliance know has happened to you so a rescue can be attempted. It does not appear you will awake and I dare not try anything extreme.

Yuan Zhou

I left the metal plate tucked into his robes. Other, less scrupulous cultivators might have used his body as an energy source. The thought had crossed my mind, before I quickly discarded it. Just because Yang Heng was unconscious, did not mean he was defenseless. If he truly felt threatened, he might force his physical body awake, rip apart his soul in a suicide to take his attacker with him to death, or some other kind of hidden technique.

He might even be observing me as I went about disassembling parts of the hover craft and leaving the message. I also suspected he might have gone into emergency hibernation in order to build up energy before acting to leave this place. It might take eons, but that was the power of being immortal and being able to go into hibernation. Time was an endless resource he could spend.

This was the danger of traveling about. The situation could change very quickly. One mistake could easily mean death or being trapped in some way. Would there be hordes of cultivators and other beings trapped in this place? Once I had packed up everything, I took one more look at the massive ocean behind the mountain I had crashed into.

The waves had to be as tall as a skyscraper as they crashed upon the rocky coast. Taking what air I could, I set off, with my sword on my hip. It had seen me through quite a bit. I had thought melee weapons were not that useful, but it was good to have a backup. The gun I had would not work properly. It was powered by energy. I could quickly get it out and try and fire it, but the crystals and other energy heavy components would lose a lot of their power.

I could put my own energy into the gun, but that would only do so much. I was back to melee weapons. Using faint white star as a guideline, I left towards the snowy mountains in the distance. There was a very good chance that the white star was directly over the center of this place, since it appeared that way while I had been taking apart the modules from the hover craft.

I had routinely checked the sky to see if there were any changes. There was the occasional whisp of cloud, but beyond that it was fairly cold and windy. The last two didn’t bother me that much. It wasn’t freezing and as long as I didn’t use my energy for other things, my physical body was in decent shape.

The problem was how thin the atmosphere of this place was. Each breath was another struggle.