Chapitre 59: Just call me... Mr. Plot Armour
The next morning, when Chún walked down the entrance tunnel of his cave, he realised it was raining heavily. "That is different," he marvelled, looking at the crystal clear drops of water as they slid along the vine leaves.
"It is because the connection between the Mountain plane and the Golden Crow planet is much more stable and solid with the gateway in place. I was able to use your grotto as the threshold," his locus' voice sounded down the link.
"Good morning to you too," replied the young Cultivator, "Why would a more stable connection make a difference?"
"Because the weather patterns on Golden Crow Planet can affect my plane again. Lately, even though it has rained on the original site, it has not rained here - and I am not large enough to have more than very localised weather."
"I remember you saying you were moon sized," queried the teen, looking by reflex up at the clouds as if he could see the Princess or her two attendants.
"A small moon. More like the size of a large continent, if it got turned into a sphere," clarified his locus, "I am still growing though."
"Well - I guess that is good, I was wondering why it had not rained for so long," said Chún. "The last time was… when I first woke up, I think?"
"There might have been one or two rain events, but they were either small local ones or happened prior to the dimension starting to drift seriously apart," explained the Mountain.
"Hmm, I did not realise it was so important - although it still seems weird - a continent is usually large enough to have its own weather," pointed out the teen as he happily took in a deep breath of air that smelled of rain.
"Yes, but the smaller area means less of it. Also, I am mostly land. I have no oceans, so things get dry," explained his locus, "the gateway is still really necessary."
"You keep calling the cave we made a gateway. Does that mean people can only come into the Mountain by going through the grotto?" asked Chún in concern, "I did not see any path into the rest of the Mountain."
"No, the clearing and the rock containing the grotto beneath it, are the anchor between the two planes. The grotto and clearing exist in both places, whereas the rest of the original mountain site and this plane do not match at all anymore."
The Mountain's 'voice' was very excited as it explained, "The Geese Pasture is the gateway - the grotto we made holds it stable - instead of the boundary flexing and opening and closing all along the edges of the site where there are similar things - it is open there, everywhere else is no longer connected."
Chún shook his head. "I do not understand these things. But I guess this means… no one can get into the Treasure Land - you - without going through the pasture?"
"Yes. At least from Golden Crow Planet, the boundary is closed to anyone else," agreed the Mountain, "it is much safer. But it also means we are solidly connected, so powerful phenomenon like weather, star light, moonlight, Essence and so on can exchange across the boundary freely. Before we were starting to drift away so we were not able to exchange well. I am not large enough to be self sufficient yet - as I said."
Chún looked outside then shrugged, and stepped outside to enjoy the feeling of cold, clean rain water hitting him. "It is going to be sort of obvious when we have long lines of Essence Beasts travelling to and from the pasture, though."
"You would be surprised how hard it is to spot travelling Essence Beasts," replied the Mountain, "but actually, really heavy Essence areas tend to spontaneously develop connections between each other. They do not last long, but most of the higher level Essence Beasts spread between Secret Realms, Treasure Lands or dimensional planes through those, which is why you do not normally see World Class or Immortal Beasts just walking from place to place, but they always seem to be in Treasure Lands."
Chún frowned and then nodded as he walked over to his garden, watching the swirls of Essence and general outpouring of green, brown and blue sparkling Essence motes that filled the air. The two flying Essence creatures swirled and dance around the raindrops and sparkles like larger, faster moving motes, joyful sounds of chirping emanating from them. "I feel like we have discussed this a bit before? But I do not remember when exactly."
"Perhaps." The Mountain paused, then continued more slowly. "In our case - because of you and the fact that we developed a World Tree so early - this plane has become stable very quickly, so we have had very few spontaneous rifts. That is why you have not encountered anything above Sky Level Cultivation. The tree is controlling the spatial connections to make sure that higher level Beasts do not come through before there is a place for them."
"What about their Majesties? And that worm creature and those invaders," asked Chún with distaste at the last.
"The first three made homes on me when I was a regular Mountain, surviving on my relatively higher, but generally meagre Essence levels - mostly by staying in hibernation," explained the Mountain. "That situation improved massively when you started walking, living and singing on my slopes. My Essence levels exploded massively in a comparatively short period of time. Each day you were spending time on me, you leaked free essence - and then my plants generated more and so on. My Essence levels basically doubled for each day you spent on me."
"Which is why Yijing was so surprised," realised Chún, "I had been running about on you for a couple of years - since mother died, by that point."
"We were lucky it was him who found you," stated his locus soberly, "A lot of True Cultivators finding a young boy with a just barely attached locus would have overwhelmed the connection and linked to it themselves. If they were Eradicators, well…"
"Oh." Chún shuddered and headed for the stew pot and fire pit. "That's definitely a hot stew thought - and this is a hot stew day."
The Mountain snorted. "Are you planning on lazing about today then? I had hoped we could look for a lightning core - a storm like this would be ideal."
"Storm?" Chún looked around as he filled a bowl of stew, "This is just a nice heavy rain."
"It will get stronger in the next shi or so," predicted his locus.
"OK. So let me know when and I will head out - I will go and have a nice hot bath and leisurely eat my hot breakfast in the meantime," he teen joked as he raced back to the cave with his empty hand held over the bowl to minimise cold water spoiling the stew. "What about the invaders - you did not answer that?"
"They attack planes to drain them of their Essence, basically Consumers gone completely rogue, but it is a sort of collective intelligence instead of individuals. Everyone hates them - even demon planes will fight with other races against an incursion of those creatures," the mountain's feeling in the link had gone spiky with anger, "they tried to force a spatial connection because they could sense an abundance of Essence and few defences. Fortunately, they had not planned on running straight into a True Cultivator of unusual strength."
"Uhuh? What did I have to do with it?" asked Chún in confusion as he walked into the hot spring in his cave and sat down comfortably in the water to start eating.
The Mountain laughed. "True Cultivators - change things. They stabilise and create. Generally it is based on their Dao - and the more powerful they are, the wider the area of effect." The Mountain's voice turned serious, "in your case your Dao is one of protection, strength, independence, healing, building - you fix things - essentially."
"Okay…" Chún said slowly, "I am still not sure how…"
"The way it works is… you know dice, gambling?" asked his locus.
"Yes…?" answered Chún uncertainty.
"OK. If it would help the world in some way, making things better, fix a problem or a danger to you or people you care about - now or in the future - you would eventually win every game." stated the Mountain, "the stronger you get, the more powerful the effect - not only in distance but in time."
"Ah… what?" Chún stared blankly up at the cave ceiling in confusion.
The Mountain mumbled awhile to itself, then 'spoke' again, "To put it in terms you understand, at some point in your life you will meet people or places - who will either be people or places who you care about or your enemies - for some variation between the two. As you get stronger, your Dao will find ways to adjust things for the better or worse for those people, so that when you do meet everything works out in your flavor."
"That is insane. I would be a god overnight," said Chún in disbelief.
The Mountain scoffed, "Do not think so much. It is slow and subtle - it just nudges things to work out better or worse where there is a chance, it cannot create a chance where there is none, but tilts positive possibilities to be more likely in your favour," reassured the Mountain, "and there are other True Cultivators out their with their own Dao, who counter or work differently to yours, changing outcomes. For example, Yijing's own Dao of 'bringing balance' probably helped him find and start you off to begin with - combined with your own power spreading into the past of course. But you know what is really amusing?"
"No?" answered Chún shaking his head.
The Mountain chuckled, "Somewhere out there, there are people who you will meet in the future, or would affect people you would meet. And probably all the nasty ones, are suddenly having all their plots fall apart - and others - people you will someday care about, are having extraordinary runs of good fortune - and none of them with any idea as to why…!"
"I guess that is funny?" said the teen uncertainly, "but it does not really answer how that helped to defeat the invasion."
"It was a combination of unlikely, but possible outcomes - all working in your favour, one after another," pointed out his locus, "The chance I would direct you to that spot at that time, chance you would have the bonded Essence Weapon Treasure, chance there was an Essence spring there to use, chance that igniting it did not burn you out, chance that the blast would destabilise the rift and cause the invader's plane to collapse into energy instead of destroying everything…" the Mountain paused his listing of unlikely occurrences, "you get the idea?"
"It was a combination of all the best possible outcomes?" asked Chún.
"Well, the best possible outcome would have been that they failed to create a rift," the mountain stopped and then disagreed with itself, "actually, no without the battle, we would have never wound up with a world's worth of energy and a World Tree's protection or stabilising effects - so yes, best possible outcomes. But never - impossible."
"I suppose that does explain why everything has been going so well," the young True Cultivator said, "but it seems, unbalanced."
"Golden Crow is actually in a very bad position in terms of balance," said the Mountain, "things are much worse than they should be - as the last few True Cultivators have had destructive or violent Dao and actually made things worse in the long term."
The Mountain sounded sober, "Too many have joined the Eradicator school of thought or had to be destroyed by other True Cultivators and Consumers working together - they may have created more resources or increased the world's store of Essence in the short term, but before you were born, there was every chance Golden Crow Planet was heading towards becoming a dead-world in the next million years or so. Your positive interventions are barely scraping the surface of pushing the scale towards balance. I would not concern myself with it."
The Mountain paused, then continued, "Actually, this True Cultivator effect is probably not as good as you are thinking. You cannot cause the best possible choice to happen all the time. At most you can make something more likely or less likely to occur in a pattern that will lead to a positive outcome for you."
Chún scratched his head in confusion. "But you said, in a dice game…"
"Sure, but dice are simple," pointed out the Mountain, "every dice has six sides that have equal chance of appearing. If your effect tilts the chance in your favour, then you will win the pot in the end. But - go back to the battle with the invaders - that rift was very unstable. It was definitely going to collapse."
The Mountain hummed thoughtfully, then continued to explain. "There was a good chance it would fail here - that usually happens because the energy is coming out of the rift towards this end. Normally let us say - five out of eight chance. But there was a reasonable chance it would collapse on their side - three out of eight."
The mountain fell silent again. "Forgive the pauses - I am trying to explain something so complex that a god would have issues with calculating it into simple terms," it apologised, "but this is important for you to understand."
Finally the Mountain resumed. "So, three out of eight chance the rift would fail catastrophically on their end. Then we added a much stronger flow of energy into it than they were pushing out - increasing the chance that it would explode on their end - to maybe six or seven out of eight. And the True Cultivator effect further increased that chance in our favour, while decreasing the chance it would fail on our side. So then it became a certainty - and they lost with such a big collapse their entire plane basically vaporised - and all their energy became available for us."
"The massive collapse and then their energy leaking for us would have been another set of chances the effect pushed our way, right?" asked Chún.
"Yes, especially since that once the collapse happened on their side with the extra energy we poured in, there was already a very high chance that the place would be reduced to pure energy," explained his locus, "Those creatures tend to drain so much from a plane it becomes very unstable and that is when they leave, usually all at once."
The Mountain chuckled, "So there was a lot of powerful creatures sitting just beyond the rift who also all released a lot of energy all at once when they got caught in the rift collapse… I would have loved to see their expressions!"
Chún made a weird face at the cave walls and the Mountain 'coughed'. "Anyway, the conversion of that plane to energy was a certainty at that point. The positive part was the rift kept leaking energy over to us - although if you had not helped your staff Advance into a World Tree, then… there would have been other problems."
Chún frowned as a sudden thought occurred to him. "Those creatures… I am surprised they have not attacked in retaliation - I assume we could not have killed all of them."
"No, just any connected to that plane," answered his locus, "nothing is going to be coming via that direction for millions of years - until it cools down enough not to be instant death."
"What about others?" asked the teen.
"Each group of those things operate independently from each other - they even fight each other for resources," explained the Mountain, "the others will not care we wiped out one group - except possibly to note that are a more attractive target. But they will have to find another avenue to attack through - and get past the World Tree's defences - again, your True Cultivator effect showing itself.
Chún nodded. "I get the picture. Funny how Yijing never mentioned this - True Cultivator Effect."
There was a silence from his locus and Chún's eyebrows climbed. Finally the Mountain responded in an uncomfortable tone. "They do not know."
"Because?" asked the teen.
"Too short lived, too many things to know and keep track of to observe over too long a period," answered the Mountain, "The Planet knows - and by extension I know - because it has watched thousands of True Cultivators over uncountable trillions of years; it has observed the Dao effect of True Cultivators over aeons - and on that scale of time it can be observed as a real thing."
"But other True Cultivators have locii…" protested Chún.
"Most locii are not sentient as I am, or as complex. And none are as large. In fact, I do not believe there has ever been a True Cultivator linked to an - entire - world," pointed out the Mountain, "remember how we communicated prior to the World Tree, before I had advanced to a full plane?"
"Just feelings, emotions, memories?" asked the teen, putting his empty bowl to one side and relaxing into the hot water. "Yes."
"Most True Cultivators would consider that a very high level of communication with their locus. None of them have ever had a deeper level of communication than that. Most have much less."
Chún contemplated that in his thoughts in silence for a while, his old street rat instincts prickling.
"I will just be keeping the fact that we chat like regular people constantly to myself, I think. Even from other True Cultivators."
"That would probably be wise, yes," agreed his friend, "and I would consider it a favour if you did not mention that I am anything but the original Mountain site if anyone asks; if you can let them think your locus is just the grotto we created, that would be even better."
"It depends on how much Yijing has told his fellow True Cultivators," remarked the teenager, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, "But I will not mention it myself. And that goes double for this… effect."
"Actually," the Mountain laughed, "in some ways, the effect is common knowledge. But is generally dismissed as something that only happens in stories - you know - to the heroes that always win."
"If I understand your explanation right," said Chún slowly, "if I make enough mistakes, or there is only a very small chance of success, I am still likely to fail."
"Yes." agreed the mountain, "it is not an automatic win. Just a weighted chance."
"Why was it important I know this?" enquired the teen, looking up at the silver light that reflected off the cave surfaces.
"So you never give up. No matter how bad it gets, there will always be a chance. Many seemingly inconsequential events could add up over time to save everything," answered his locus.
"There were others who did give up, then?" asked Chún, quietly.
"Yes. There were." The Mountain's response was sorrowful.
"I will try my best," promised the young teen, after a long moment then he deliberately adopted a long-suffering tone "I suppose I should go hunting for this lightning core then?"
"It will be very beneficial for The Heaven and Earth Vine's cultivation as well as the Silver Tree and Silver Snake," assured the Mountain.
"Lightning is like Air, though," pointed out the silver-haired cultivator as he started to walk out of the hot spring, "it is outside the wǔxíng. Will it help her Highness become a Five-Elements Tree?"
"Your understanding of the 'five' elements," the Mountain said dryly, "is perhaps, imprecise? Lightning is like Air, that is true, but that is because they are part of Wood - you can think of them as the yin and yang of the Wood Element."
"Surely she gets hit by lightning on occasion," questioned the teenager, "Why is a lightning core necessary?"
"Not necessary, but it will allow for a more balanced and stable supply of the Element," assured his friend, "Especially at times when Yin is very strong, it will help maintain a balance. You might have noticed this area is very Yin aligned - a lot of water and earth. And it will be like giving wings to a tiger for Metal Element treasures and Essence Beasts."
"Wings to a tree and a snake in this case," joked Chún as he bent over and washed his dirty bowl with some soapgrass in the hottest part of the spring, "I guess Shé Yin will get to become a dragon earlier than expected."
"How very droll of you… and unexpectedly brave," remarked the Mountain.
"Huh…?" The young man's confusion lasted only until the sound of a loud hiss came from above his head. "Aw, hells… guess it is sparring time first."
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
WheeledWriter
WheeledWriter Some edits to the discussion on lightning's place on the five elements. Likely still too simple, but hopefully more appropriate to the setting.
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