BOOK 9: CHAPTER 77: COCOONS AND CULTIVATION

With a flick of his head, Jackson threw the earth-worm aside. The thing’s limp form tumbled briefly before slamming into the canyon wall, and with enough force that it caused a small avalanche of scree. A second later, Escobar finished casting his spell, bathing the creature in a dense column of fire that reminded Elijah of a flamethrower. The only difference was that it came from the chihuahua’s mouth instead of a nozzle.

The flames were also hot enough to melt the rock and the earth-worm, turning it into a steaming mass of molten earth.

For his part, Elijah focused on healing the rest of the dogs as they fought a much larger enemy. This one was a creeping creature that defied its own element. With four long limbs, it moved with the jerky speed one usually only saw in horror movies. The thing was also as white as marble and carried much the same consistency. The group had been fighting the creature for more than half an hour, and their efforts hadn’t been in vain.

The creepy thing was covered in fine cracks, suggesting that it would only take one solid blow to shatter it entirely. The problem was that every landed attack had sped the thing up. Now, it was almost as fast as Jojo had been.

It zipped around like a white blur until, at last, Sophie summoned a shield just in front of it. It broke through fairly easily, but that slight decrease in speed gave Digby an opportunity to pounce. He tore into the joint of one of the creature’s legs, hitting it hard enough to break the limb free.

At the same time, Elijah hit it with Storm’s Fury. It twitched as soon as the lightning hit it, allowing the rest of the dogs to join the attack. In only moments, they’d torn the legs away. The thing still didn’t die, though. That was one of the key characteristics of earth-attuned creatures; they were uniformly durable.

So, even legless, the thing flopped around in an attempt to attack them. It failed, but its body was far more durable than its joints, so it took nearly an hour before the pack finished it off. In this case, Oscar did the honors, hacking through its thick neck with his hatchets. With a shower of marble chips, he decapitated it, and everyone received an influx of experience.

It wasn’t that much, but Elijah was accustomed to that. Working with a team was safer than going it alone, but he couldn’t deny that it resulted in a much more deliberate pace of prgoression. Still, he appreciated the company. Not only had Oscar and the pack proven themselves a hundred times over, but Elijah valued the simple companionship as well.

Perhaps that second part was even more important than the first.

Whatever the case, once the marble creature was dead, they followed the well-worn post-battle procedures they’d been forced to adopt. Elijah and Oscar inspected the corpse to see if there was anything of value, but as was almost always the case, they found nothing. Maybe if they’d had more storage space, they would have taken the stone body in the hopes that some crafter could make use of it. However, with their limited space, they chose to leave it behind.

Most of Elijah’s ring was occupied by his dwindling supplies, his gear, the geode he’d taken during the Drowning Depths, and a few elemental plants he’d picked up along the way. Not only had he found those intriguing, but he also knew that Nerthus would enjoy integrating them into the grove. They weren’t powerful – not even on the level of the weakest natural treasures he’d found – but their potent attunements made them useful.

Or that was Elijah’s hope.

He couldn’t take many, but he’d uprooted the strongest he could find. That wasn’t how he’d normally approach them, but as far as he knew, Primal Realms weren’t real. So, if they survived the trip back to Earth, then he was effectively saving them.

In any case, they found nothing of note on the marble creature’s body, so it wasn’t long before they moved on. It had been four days since the terrain had transitioned to a system of caves and ravines that reminded Elijah of the area south of Seattle’s desert, and he half expected to find some sand elves waiting for him around each corner.

There were none.

But what he did find was that the rising density of earth-attuned ethera came with a curious effect. He felt heavier with every passing mile. It wasn’t enough to really hinder his movements, but the pressure became increasingly more noticeable. It wouldn’t be long before the physically weaker dogs like Escobar, Ray, and Maymay began to flag. When that happened, they’d need to be carried.

Gradually, the days passed, and as the gravity continued to press down on them with more and more intensity, the frequency of attacks increased as well. And to Elijah’s annoyance, the native beasts seemed entirely unaffected by the pressure that came from the dense earth-attuned ethera.

For his part, Elijah felt like he was swimming through mud. Even the air felt thicker than normal, and at some point, his breathing became labored. Unfortunately, his Ring of Aquatic Travel had no effect, so he was entirely reliant on his powerful body to see him through.

Thankfully, it was up to the task.

The same couldn’t be said regarding the dogs. They panted audibly, their tongs lolling. Escobar never stopped trembling, and the rest were obviously miserable. At some point, Oscar picked the chihuahua up while Elijah held the other two casters. Jackson and Sophie were the least affected, and Digby and Freddy were capable of moving on their own as well.

Like that, they continued for nearly a week more, always following the density of the ethera and their map until, at last, their destination came into view.

It was a mountain, though unlike any Elijah had ever seen before. The thing looked like a funnel – much wider at the top than at the bottom, which gave him the impression that it was on the verge of tipping over. However, when they drew closer, he saw that the base was miles wide and surrounded by so much earth-attuned ethera that it was at no risk of falling.

Their destination was a simple cave, its entrance yawning wide. Elijah could practically see the ethera, it was so thick, and it cast everything in a yellow-ish haze that reminded him of the filter filmmakers used when trying to convey that their scenes took place in Mexico.

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Elijah and the pack strode forward, though the dogs’ legs shook. Oscar activated an ability to mitigate some of the strain, but Elijah knew from experience that he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.

When they reached the cave, he immediately noticed three things. The first was that it was a little bigger than expected. Maybe forty feet wide and half as tall. Clearly large enough to admit a giant, which was probably the reason. Second, it was no natural opening. The edges were worn but far too uniform to have occurred in nature. And finally, there was a plaque carved at the apex of the opening.

“Strength is the stone that does not yield,” he read, the glyphs translated by the system. He turned to Oscar and asked, “Any ideas what that means? Aside from the obvious.”

Oscar shook his head.

“Me neither. Here’s to hoping our ignorance doesn’t get us killed,” Elijah said. Then, he stepped forward and into the cave. Immediately, the weight of the earth-attuned ethera doubled, and the shock of it bowed his back. For the dogs, it was much worse. Even Sophie and Jackson collapsed.

Elijah cast his heals as the sheer pressure sent microfractures throughout their skeletons.

“Can’t go further,” Oscar growled through gritted teeth. He remained upright, but it was a clear struggle. Only Elijah was capable of continuing.

For now.

Elijah was no idiot. He’d read dozens of guides concerning body cultivation. And one thread seemed constant in all of them – pain and pressure were often catalysts for improvement. For dwarves like the ones on Kurik’s homeworld, that meant diving into lava. For others, like sea elves, it meant using the pressure of the deep sea to trigger the evolution of their cultivation path.

And it seemed that the cave represented a perfect opportunity. The pack only needed to seize it. Thankfully, Elijah knew that their previous experiences had added up. Simply walking through the outskirts of the Elemental Maelstrom hardened their bodies, at least to some degree. And they’d been using his supplies the entire time. The effects of the soap weren’t fast-acting. Nor were the grove fruits or the meals he’d shared. However, by that point, they had been in the Primal Realm for months.

Hopefully, it would be enough to prepare them for the next step.

With that in mind, Elijah explained what he was thinking. Oscar listened, and predictably, immediately conveyed the plan to the dogs. Only a second later, ethera swirled as they sank into deep meditation in an effort to take the next step in body cultivation.

Sophie, Oscar, and Jackson had already attained the body of iron, while Freddy and Digby were stuck at the body of stone stage. The casters remained at the first stage. Hopefully, that would change soon.

But they couldn’t do it alone.

Every passing moment broke them down, and after a while, even the three bodies of iron needed healing. That was where Elijah came in. He settled down in the center of the circle of dogs and sank deep into his own state of meditation. As he did, he focused on his Mind, pulling huge quantities of ethera through the apertures, which he put to great use with his healing spells.

At first, he overdid it a little, healing the weaker dogs as quickly as possible. However, it wasn’t long before he realized two important factors. First, his pool of ethera wouldn’t hold up to that degree of use. He’d run dry far before the dogs finished their cultivation session.

But even more importantly, it would nullify their efforts. Body cultivation required damage. That was one of the basic tenets of any technique meant to push someone to the next tier. The physical form needed to break down before it could be rebuilt. In that way, it wasn’t so different from building calluses. Or lifting weights. The issue arose when healing that damage came too quickly and completely.

It wasn’t such an issue with his own cultivation, because the damage required for him to attain the next tier was far too great for him to keep up with the healing. But with the power discrepancy between him and the dogs, it wasn’t difficult for him to completely nullify the damage.

So, he was forced to balance his healing with the needs of cultivation, and it took him a while to find the perfect amount. Of course, he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely, and after a day or so, the entire pack moved outside where the pressure wasn’t so strong. However, it wasn’t long until he’d regained his entire pool of ethera, and they returned to their efforts.

Even then, it took the better part of a month before a surge of ethera created a cocoon around Escobar. A day later, the other casters followed suit. Elijah could feel them changing within those cocoons, though the process was wildly different between the dogs. Escobar’s was suffused with so much fire that everyone had to shift a few feet away so they wouldn’t be burned. Meanwhile, the other two dogs’ cocoons felt somehow darker. Colder, but not regarding temperature.

A week later, those cocoons persisted, but Elijah could feel that they were almost finished. That was when the first of the second wave began his transition into the next phase of body cultivation. Freddy formed her cocoon only an hour before Digby.

Two days later, Jackson, Sophie, and finally, Oscar began their transformations by forming their own cocoons.

That left Elijah alone.

To distract himself from his solitude, he looked inward. He knew that he only had one more step before he could work on his core cultivation, but he didn’t really know which way to go with his mind. What’s more, the environment wasn’t really conducive to doing so. With that in mind, he looked at his core.

It was a comforting sight. Familiar. Domineering and nurturing at the same time. Yet, Elijah knew it would have to change. The first part of taking the next step in core cultivation was universal.

The last step had been all about widening the core. This time, he need to deepen it. And before he’d advanced his soul to the expert stage, he’d only vaguely understood what that meant. But now, he understood that the core wasn’t a three-dimensional construct. Rather, it existed in multiple other dimensions all at once. He couldn’t perceive most of them – not yet – but he didn’t need to. Rather, all he needed to do was to bore down into the fourth dimension, expanding the core enough to reach it.

There were techniques designed to do just that, and he’d memorized them all. Yet, putting those into practice was more difficult than he’d imagined. Not only did they require him to sink into a deep state of meditation – far deeper than any trance he’d ever achieved – but also to develop his own visual imagery to enable the process.

It was complex, and Elijah wasn’t entirely certain how it all worked together. But so far, his instincts had served him well. He leaned on his intuition, settling on the image of a tree to represent his core. It wasn’t entirely accurate – to him, it had always felt like a sphere – but changing that was key to reaching the stage.

Some people sculpted their cores.

Others molded it like clay.

Still others banged on it like they were trying to shape metal.

Predictably, Elijah chose to grow his. He started with the image of a seed, slowly and steadily enforcing his will to hold it into place. It was a slow process, and it strained his willpower, but that was the point. If it was easy, then everyone would do it.

He’d barely gotten into it when Escobar’s chrysalis finally cracked, and the dog emerged. However, Elijah was surprised to find that the dog was slightly larger than before. Maybe only an inch or two longer, and a pound or so heavier, but it was noticeable.

He also seemed to move a lot better, giving Elijah hope that the previous six weeks hadn’t been wasted. Now, they only had to wait on the others to complete their cultivation before they could attempt the trial before them. Elijah dedicated two facets of his mind to working on the seed shape of his core while he set about keeping Escobar healed.

After only a few minutes, the chihuahua sank back into meditation as he attempted to reach the next stage. He wouldn’t have enough time, but that didn’t seem to matter. Cultivation – or rather, the feeling of satisfaction that came with achieving a new grade – was addictive.

Elijah couldn’t help but smile as he saw the dog’s focused expression. Then, he turned the bulk of his attention to his own task. It would be a long time before he was ready to make the leap, but that didn’t matter. Any progress was good.