Elder Cultivator

Barely holding on to his corporeal form was the limit of what Abder could do when subjected to Moturn’s true environment.

Which… was actually pretty amazing already, wasn’t it? He wasn’t instantly vaporized or crushed. It was small comfort, but something. The only question was how he could survive. He couldn’t break through the barrier- and even if he did the damage to the city would be significant. There were a few points where it was meant to be passed through, but Abder didn’t know where they were. He could walk around the barrier but that was far too casual… and some were meant to be entered in flight from New Ibbore.

Crushing pressure and relentless heat decided Abder’s actions for him. He needed to do something, so he did it. He didn’t exactly have a lot of sources for advanced body tempering to draw from, so when he thought about his mentors in that field his thoughts immediately moved to the one that didn’t seem to overthink things.

He pushed himself away from the barrier, barely felt through the storm even for all of its power, and then struck downward. He probably should have had a pick or at least a hammer to attempt what he did, but his strength was enough… barely. Compressed rock cracked beneath him, and he reached for a chunk. His uncovered ears screamed at him as his fingertips compressed around the meter wide piece, wrangling it out.

Dropping into a small hole wasn’t really any better, but this was only step one. The edges were rough, and he wanted to do better. It didn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing, but he needed the stone to fit out of the opening he’d already made and he couldn’t be fiddling with rubble.

Lifting hundreds of kilograms with a poor grip would already be difficult enough. When that rock was hot enough to be molten and only retained its solidity due to massive pressure, it was even more difficult. It sure felt good when he managed it, though.

Piece after piece, he broke away the ground. He tried to build a shelter atop his little hole, but his continued need to expel what he removed around him meant that was a foolish plan. He soon realized that using his fingers to carve out the edges he wanted was better, since he didn’t have any particular experience with mining. Still, Durff’s vigorous videos to him- or really anyone who would listen since he probably didn’t even know Abder existed- had inspired him to action.

He dug out an overhang which didn’t really make him less hot or reduce the crushing pressure, but at least his proto-tunnel made him feel assured he wasn’t going to be blown away. His trained density was probably the only thing that had gotten him that far.

He half dug, half mined down at an angle. Eventually he had to widen his tunnel so he could turn around a block or vaguely block shaped thing. The deeper he got, the less hot it was. The pressure remained, but as long as he kept his eyes closed and his lips pressed tight… well, he still had problems with his nostrils and ears, but just because his lungs burned with each breath didn’t mean he was going to give up. It wasn’t much worse than it had felt to intensely train when he first started.

His goal was to get under the city. The barrier didn’t extend forever underground. Probably. And if it did, it shouldn’t hurt too much to break through from underneath.

The passage of time was unclear to Abder. Maybe it was minutes, maybe hours, maybe days. It could have been any of those. He had no idea how far he went, but when he could no longer sense the barrier above him he began to dig up- he certainly couldn’t have gone past the city. His sense of direction wasn’t that jumbled up.

His determination wasn’t just for his own survival, though he certainly didn’t want to die. There were others who relied on him, and the attempt to kill him meant the Twisting Spike Sect- what was left of them- weren’t likely to stop. Abder should have yelled, or otherwise drawn more attention to the battle. Someone had to have noticed but… putting effort into it would have been smarter.

But he hadn’t really faced that much adversity, had he? After Anton arrived, his life had been fairly nice. Training had been difficult, but satisfying. The hardest thing he had to do was… well, usually tunneling like he was now. Though usually in a more intentional manner.

Abder felt something above him. Obviously there were many things above him, because there was a city. But specifically he felt some energy fluctuations that weren’t just the storm outside. Unfortunately, it did feel like a regular barrier.

How many people would he kill if he opened a hole and let the pressure in? With the way his tunnel wound and its size… that was complicated. He tried to dig closer to the barrier, to see if maybe someone could feel him past it. Then his arm reached through.

That was… bad? Except his arm felt cold. Or maybe normal temperatures felt cold when you’d been at extreme temperatures. His body acted almost on his own, breaking more stone and pulling himself up. He risked opening his eyes, only to see nothing. For a moment he worried he had gone blind… but it was just dark. Poking his head down from the little perch he’d carved out, even with his eyes closed he could ‘see’ the stone was still white-hot past the barrier, the glow penetrating his eyelids. The light and heat just didn’t pass the barrier.

Abder had to admit he didn’t fully understand how the barriers worked. The dome was clearly solid but this was… not. He didn’t mind, though. Because he wasn’t dead.

He took a moment in relative safety to catch his breath. It was a good thing he didn’t need a standard complement of gasses to breathe, wasn’t it? That training had been specifically tailored to Moturn, so it wasn’t a coincidence… but even so, he was glad Nthanda had insisted on that.

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Abder had wanted to become strong to overcome future dangers. And now they were here. He didn’t regret it, and if anything he almost wished he’d somehow worked harder- though he didn’t think he’d slacked off. He was just lacking the current need. There was no way he could have carved that tunnel in such a time with his normal mindset.

With his break done, Abder had to continue on. Hopefully, the peacekeepers weren’t in on it or the city would fall even if he returned. Either way, some particular individuals were going to learn that just because he didn’t choose to train with weapons or focus on combat didn’t mean he was a pacifist.

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When Abder put his ear to the stone above, he could hear the sounds of civilization… which meant he was fairly close to the surface. Based on the intensity of the sound, it shouldn’t be more than five or ten meters more.

His fingers ached from tearing apart stone, even if his technique was slightly improving as he went along. From what he had heard, ‘normal’ stone wasn’t so hard as Moturn’s solid core, but the compression it underwent due to the significant pressure bearing down on it made it difficult for even an early Life Transformation cultivator like himself to deal with. Or Life Transformation equivalent, anyway. Advanced body tempering didn’t precisely match, but given how he’d held his own against a significant number of Essence Collection cultivators he felt quite solid in that assessment.

Speaking of which, he could finally feel his injuries now that he was out of the heat and pressure. Few attacks had gone further than skin deep, with a few having gone a centimeter or so into muscle. However, those relatively manageable wounds were made worse by the scouring heat. Abder had a number of charred wounds, and his skin had barely made it through. Recovery was going to take a while… but at least he wasn’t bleeding out and his organs were no longer trying to boil, so that was good.

Nothing stopped him from moving, but even though his training included taking some actual wounds, these were the worst he’d had. The stabs on their own wouldn’t have been that bad, though.

The street gave way above Abder as he reached into empty air. Or maybe the floor, since it was still dark. He smelled food. Mushrooms, specifically. They had a particular scent that he could pick out even through his burnt nostrils- if barely.

Inside, then. Hopefully it was a business of some sort. He had some sense of what was around him from the sense of energy in things and the flow of air, but he was missing an important sense. Aside from sight, which simply didn’t have anything to work with, he was missing his hearing.

That was why he didn’t notice anything until he was hit on the back of the head. It hurt. It really, really shouldn’t have hurt. Fortunately, he was confused enough with the situation that he didn’t lash out. When something whacked him on the head again, he held up a palm to try to catch it. There was something there, but his sense of touch was also not great at the moment. Abder tried to speak, but just coughed smoke and gasses.

Whatever it was in his hand struggled against his grip. From the shape, some sort of long handled weapon? Maybe a spear? People had just tried to kill him earlier, but he wasn’t really feeling killing intent.

“What are you doing?” he managed to croak out. His ears didn’t really work, but he thought he heard something. A voice, maybe. And he felt the slight change in pressure as whatever he was holding was released.

His eyes adapted quickly as light suddenly filled his vision a few moments later. His eyelids hurt like hell, but they’d protected his vision well enough. What was revealed was an angry old woman holding a lamp.

With one hand she wagged a finger at him. Then she seemed to spot the hole in the ground and got an exasperated look.

“I can’t actually hear right now,” Abder tried to say at a reasonable volume.

She paused her rant for just a moment. Then she continued anyway.

He should have learned to read lips. Now he was going off vague gestures. She pointed at him, and the hole.

“I’ll get someone to fix it. It’s difficult to explain why I came out there,” Abder said. That should be what she was bothered by, right?

That did seem to solve one issue, but she gestured to him from head to toe. Abder looked at himself. He was a real mess. Burned skin, stone dust, and little else covered him. Barely a few scraps of cloth dangled off him, and it was not kind enough to be strategically located. Right. His clothing might have been durable, but he hadn’t had anything that was outside resistant. The fact that any of it still existed said a lot.

“Yeah, my clothes burned up. Sorry.” He wasn’t ashamed of his body, but it was still embarrassing to be seen in such a state.

The woman gestured at him. Maybe to stay? She trudged off, taking the lamp with her. Abder considered following her up the stairs, but decided against it. If she was going to bring someone to arrest him or whatever it might take some explaining, but his story was fairly easily verifiable if anyone followed the hole. It was a good thing the lower part of the barrier worked.

The old woman returned with her lantern, a bucket full of water, and some pants. She dumped the bucket on Abder’s head, which kind of stung because of everything, but it was better to be vaguely clean, especially since he would begin healing rapidly.

“Thanks,” he said as she handed him pants. He had just about finished putting them on when his stomach grumbled. Now that he was safe, his body was telling him to consume food to sustain its healing efforts. He could already see slight traces of healing on his hands.

The old woman tore a head sized bundle of mushrooms off the wall, shoved them into Abder’s arms, then shoved him up the stairs, down a short hallway, and out of her house. Abder didn’t recognize the specific street he was on, but he’d be able to navigate from some of the more impressive structures in the city. When he turned around, the door was shut behind him.

“I’ll be back with someone for your floor,” he mentioned again before he began to stuff his face with mushrooms. He’d need a lot more than that to heal- as well as some days or weeks- but it was a good start. Now he just had to figure out who to contact first about people actively trying to murder him.

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