บท 57: Grotto
After two kè or so, Chún felt he had gotten some control over the level of Essence his body was generating. He would have to add it to his daily practice until it became second nature, but it seemed that misfortune sometimes came with benefits, ah.
Feeling the mountain sulking in the back of his mind, he increased his level of Essence to three quarters of the maximum his body could currently generate and directed the surplus towards his locus, keeping a light touch on his Essence levels so he would be aware of any changes.
He sighed, more aware than ever that he needed to keep his abilities concealed. Forget being used to create free cultivation resources. Consumers would probably chain him into a formation and pull out endless Essence, turning any place into a Cultivation paradise.
The young teen looked up at the Golden Crow, gauging its distance from the horizon. It was late afternoon, but he should still have at least a shi or two before it got too dark to see.
He looked around the clearing, dropping into Essence Sense to see the best place to make an improvement.
The stream at the border of the pasture and his first achievement, the thousand year grass, put out a reasonable amount of Essence. But, in his opinion, thinking back to those old stories that he had listened to in the village, the grass was not enough to base a believable 'Fateful Encounter'. At most it could be considered a minor lucky chance. Also - it was an anchor for one of the concealment Dao Manifestations he had helped the Mountain lay down, he should be trying to draw attention away from it, not to it.
The rest was ordinary. Ordinary grass, boulder, tree - wait…
Chún walked slowly over to the enormous, familiar boulder that sat to one side of the clearing. He had sat or lain against it or on it many times while watching the geese flock and singing his songs. He had waited for that old man Yijing here and sat on it together with him to talk about Cultivation.
Maybe that was why it seemed to have a subtle shimmer in its Essence. Maybe it has soaked up a little extra something from exposure to both of them.
"Mountain, is this boulder suitable?" he questioned, laying a hand against its sun-warmed surface.
"Yes," responded his locus, "it actually extends and expands beneath the clearing - it is why there are no large trees here. If we change the boulder to have a small concealed passage leading below the clearing and create a larger hollow within the main body of the stone it will look like some Consumer found a natural grotto and hid it so they would not be disturbed in close door cultivation."
"OK. Are we making it easy to find?" asked Chún.
"No. This is not an 'inheritance' that we are creating, that is easy to find but with difficult challenges for worthy heirs," stated the Mountain, thoughtfully, "we should make it as if the Consumer was trying his best to hide his cultivation spot, but died there leaving behind some small treasures. It would be a 'fateful encounter' for a self taught Consumer of a low level, but not anything worth for someone at a higher level."
"Oh - like the stories where the bullied family waste finds a small treasure that helps him become a World level Cultivator?" agreed the teen with some excitement.
"Exactly," responded the mountain. "Hide it as best you can, since you actually are probably around the level of the Consumer we are pretending made this place in terms of skills… maybe a few small traps…"
"If we hide it too well, or make it too hard to get into - what if no one finds it?" asked Chún.
"Well if it is too weak, then people will ignore it as worthless," pointed out his locus, "If a few Consumers find it and fail to get inside without dying, their bodies might carry additional treasures which will make it an even better lucky chance.
The Mountain paused its explanation, "as for finding it - that is not our problem. Dao will take care of guiding people to find the chance and it is their Dao if they can take it. The longer the 'fateful encounter' survives the more profound effects it will have on the world around it which is also good - the end goal is to add to and advance the world."
"Mmhm… I understand. So what should be the first step? Open a passage into the boulder?" considered the young True Cultivator.
"Actually, you need to increase the level of Essence in the immediate area," directed his locus.
"I thought we were avoiding increasing Essence?" frowned Chún.
"Well, yes, but a 'fateful encounter', even one as small as this, requires Essence to support and maintain it." The sensation in the link felt like an impression of frowning in thought, "I was considering using it as a vent for excess Essence from the Mountain Plane - a decoy. If we do this right, Consumers looking for the reasons for the increased Essence levels will find this grotto and not look further."
Chún considered. "We could set up a small Manifestation to gather Essence, if you tell me which plants to pulse Essence into."
"That would be a good distraction," agreed the Mountain. "A small 'natural' Essence gathering manifestation could explain why a wandering Consumer set up here. We can tie the smaller formation into the Thousand Year Grass, which would let us extend the Concealment Manifestation from the major pattern over the boulder - and I can also flush excess Essence out of my Plane through the Anchor."
"That is not what I… Never mind," sighed the teen, "Will changing the Anchor break the existing Concealment Dao manifestation… actually, I have a more important question…"
"What is it?" asked his locus.
"Do I have to work all these things out every time I add to someplace? It is hard to think of everything - and what if I need to be quick? The Cultivators in the stories just call out techniques, make gestures or move their Essence in various ways and things happen… this seems like a very complicated process…" the young teen rubbed his head tiredly, wondering if you could still get headaches if your body was at Sky level.
"Hrrm… no, actually, you will be able to see the patterns instinctively in your Essence sense. Just, as it is the first time, so I am helping with some explanations… it is like this…" the Mountain sounded bashful, as if embarrassed to be caught out.
"Ugh." Chún ran his palm down his face. "Let us just start… I will give some of the grass around the boulder a bit of chicken blood…"
"How will that help…" his locus asked puzzled, "they need Essence to become anchors for a Dao manifestation."
"It is an expression…" ignoring the confused feeling floating around the link, he dropped into his Essence sense and studied the existing flows of Essence around the boulder, "which ones, what order… I think three here, here and here - if I use the thousand year grass as the fourth and the boulder centred…"
The young Cultivator poked three bits grass around the boulder in a triangle with the fourth point of the thousand year grass forming a diamond shape. The grasses thickened and grew taller, sending off small spurts of Essence mist.
"That will work," agreed his locus as Chún dragged the new Essence overflows into a circuit around the four plants, being careful to start from the Thousand year Grass to the smaller new Essence Grasses.
The Essence started to flow around the new pattern - pulling in and releasing Essence, but not doing much with it. Most of the Essence was coming from the Thousand Year Grass and then spun out after a few revolutions, which wound up balancing out anything the small manifestation pulled in from the clearing.
The most interesting part Chún noticed that some of the loose Essence coming off the small circuit was drifting inward to be soaked up by the boulder instead of floating out into the clearing. He tapped his staff a few times on the stone and noticed it soaked up the pulses of Essences like a sponge.
"Huh…" he said thoughtfully and disconnected the end of the small Dao Manifestation from the Thousand year Grass. Instead, he curved the flow of Essence into a spiral that swirled to a point just before the boulder at the centre - leaving the Essence to flow naturally into the stone.
The teen paused as an idea came to him, "I have an idea - increase the flow from the manifestation Dao anchor a bit to make sure the boulder is not soaking up more than the Dao Manifestation is gathering, please, Friend," he directed the Mountain, nodding as the Essence flow from the major anchor increased, "a bit more… there, that is balanced. All the excess flowing into the boulder without excessive overflow or starving the clearing of its usual amounts."
"OK. So let us imagine that our hermit Consumer came along and saw this natural 'formation'," pondered Chún aloud, "he thinks it is good for cultivation or maybe a treasure - so he decides to make a small cave here… or maybe he dug into the boulder looking for the treasure - but he does not want to have anyone else notice and maybe steal the treasure…"
The you teen followed the flow of Essence with his sense and pinpoint the exact place the Essence was draining away into the rock. "So - a concealed entrance," he tapped on the rock with his staff on that point and pushed Essence in carefully, focusing on forming and shaping the rock like he had been learning with the smaller stones and clay, "...we want a small gap wide enough for a person to slip into, but not obvious, so - overlapping rock outcroppings, like in the Crystal Node cave… it is not visible from looking at the boulder from the outside."
Chún carefully formed a tunnel into the centre of the boulder. Once it was deep enough he pulled the rock back over the hole leaving only a narrow side entrance. Then he pushed out some rock from the side to conceal the opening. You had to slide between both new outcroppings to discovery the passage and since the outcroppings overlapped, they gave the illusion of being a solid wall until you were close enough - and at the right angle to see the gap between them.
Working with the rock was not as hard as he thought it would be - sort of like moulding extremely stiff clay. He guessed that it helped that he was not trying to make it do anything un-rock like - just changing its shape; the extra essence he had available, now that he was not putting everything into the Mountain and the Essence flowing into the rock from the Dao Manifestation helped as well, he thought.
Once the passage was built he found himself in the approximate centre of the boulder in a passage just barely wide and high enough for him to stand upright in. Carefully, he pushed the rock away in all directions to widen the passage - enough for an average height adult to walk comfortably in. The excess rock he used to thicken the overlapping walls that hid the entrance or pushed it down into the larger mass beneath the clearing.
The end of the passage at the centre of the surface 'boulder' he widened out into a small room. "Should I put anything here?" he enquired.
"Maybe a trap," suggested the mountain, "You could add Water Manifestation Patterns near the beginning of the passage. Once someone gets here, they trigger and start slowly filling the passage with water. If they do not find the way down and out, they drown."
"If I slope the passage downward - then," he pushed essence into the floor of the passage giving it a slight incline, "There. Water Dao is easy…" the rock already had the water element running throughout oddly enough, possibly it had been in water previously - Chún just gathered and set the patterns at the beginning of the passage where they glowed softly like sun through water, lighting the passage with a wavy soft blue green luminescence.
"Ok. Now the solution…" He gathered from the rock a series of Dao patterns for the remaining Essence types around the small cave - into the traditional image for the Five Phases of Fire, Water, Wood, Metal and Earth. He frowned to himself and then laughed, removing part of the Dao Pattern for Earth that normally was included in a wǔxíng diagram.
Earth's Dao pattern was actually almost but not quite identical to the traditional character for Earth - which you could see quite easily via Essence sense. He suspected higher level Consumers would be aware of this too - more than the Essence blind civilians anyway.
He supposed this would be a good test to see if someone was talented and willing to think outside the normal ways of thought - and if the person did not know the correct pattern - then either their Dao would guide them or they could make adjustments starting from the traditional character. That would be much slower and more dangerous than just completing it directly though.
All the Dao Patterns except for Earth started glowing with appropriate shades once they were completed, collecting their respective elements from the Essence flowing in. This left the small room lit quite colourfully.
"Right," stated Chún, standing back and examining his work with satisfaction. "So completing the Earth Dao pattern and putting Essence into it opens the floor into the entrance to the 'real' cave below. Using or altering one of the others will just make things worse. Mountain, can you reinforce the walls like you do with the kiln so Consumers cannot simply blast their way out with techniques?"
"Yes," agreed the Mountain. "Do we want the water to go down with the person? Or drain away when the floor opens?"
"Flush them down," decided Chún, chuckling, "a good test of character to have the Consumer arrive all bedraggled. I will make a small antechamber to deposit them in where we can drain away the water."
With that thought he pushed downward at an angle, roughly tracing the natural flow of Essence as it sank into the stone. The floor of the small room quickly sank into a steeply slanted tunnel down into the main body of the stone formation underneath the clearing.
In his Essence Sense, the young True Cultivator could see that the flow of Essence was pooling in the centre of the massive rock formation almost a li beneath the clearing. He nodded to himself and dropped the tunnel to follow the largest flow of Essence until it was just in front of the deepest pools of Essence in the stone, then expanded the tunnel to make a small room.
"Mountain, just create the drains for excess water here - can you make it so the water can leave?"
"Easily. Anything else?" Chún could see the structure of the stone in the floor changing as the Mountain adjusted it.
"I need to make a door here," he gestured in front of himself, "maybe something slightly impressive. Consumers like impressive stuff, right? So if the Wandering Consumer was making a place for close door cultivation for himself, he would make it big and maybe with wise sayings on it."
"Make your large chamber first," instructed his locus. "We can add the door later."
"OK." Chún pushed the wall ahead of him into a narrow passage, and then as he hit the Essence heavy rock he began hollowing out a room that encompassed the whole area where the Essence swirled around. The result looked a lot like a natural cave, especially as he made a point to follow the natural swirls of Essence in the stone.
This stone was almost as malleable as clay, due to the concentration of Essence. He could sense his body reducing production of Essence to keep his internal Essence levels in balance and he grinned. "Excellent. This is actually, legitimately, a good place to Cultivate."
"Working with the natural form of things always produces good results," remarked the Mountain, "stop working the stone a bit, please, I am going to shift some of the natural manifestations here just a little to make sure the Essence circulates and does not drain away now that you have opened a space. I will gather some of the excess Essence into motes for light… shift around the floor and walls…"
Chún watched as the cave took a more 'natural' look with various 'natural' cave formations such as stalactites and stalagmites forming, ledges and shelves. The tips of the stalactites and stalagmites started to glow with motes of Essence of different types, just enough to light the area and coincidentally warming the damp air (fire motes), cleaning and circulating fresh air (air motes), collecting rivulets or drops of fresh water (water motes) and growing luminescent moss (wood motes). Veins of metal in the stone glittered with metal motes.
"It is beautiful," he admired his partner's work.
"Unfortunately, most Consumers would just see it as a resource and probably fight over it," sighed the mountain sadly in the link. "Anything else?"
"We need to create the resting place of the Hermit," replied the young teen. "Let see… can we turn one of those low shelves into a jade bed good for cultivation? Like in the stories? That spot over there where the Essence swirls."
"The jade beds in the stories are just different types of Essence Crystals…" remarked the Mountain, thoughtfully, "Yes... I can make one here - as long as it is not the completely absorbing type - it is a good idea as it will stabilise the flows here, which are getting a little extreme with all the changes. I have had to adjust the connection from the Thousand Year Grass to accommodate increased demand twice already."
Chún looked up, alarmed. "Is it a problem?"
"No, it is a handy release point for excess, but as you said, we do not want the Essence levels to get too high out on the old mountain location - just high enough to provide an explanation for any strangeness people notice."
As the Mountain explained, the stone forming the shelf began to shimmer in Chún's Essence sense and he watched as the stone began to form regular crystalline structures. Putting his hand on it, he followed the changes closely, quickly seeing how the simple crystal structure began gathering and smoothing out the Essence naturally, then almost breathed it back out into its surroundings. The stone turned a milky white, glowing softly as a light essence fog formed just off its surface and started falling to the floor.
"Ten Thousand Year Cold Jade bed," announced the locus with satisfaction as the Essence flows in the cave became tranquil, "Just that alone is enough of a treasure for a 'fateful encounter', but I will just…"
To the young True Cultivator's slight alarm, a human skeleton, made of slightly shimmering bones appeared, pushing through the wall next to the bed until it rested on it. The mist from the bed curled and flowed over it, hiding the bones in an indistinct humanoid shape.
"What is that?" he asked, taking a few steps back.
"I have been here a long time. Consumers have died on me over that period," there was a sensation of shrugging in the link, "I just moved the most suitable remains over. This is a much grander resting place than they had previously."
"That… makes sense." Chún blinked. "If you can gather up any old Consumer artefacts or techniques you might have collected we can do the same again - then do not have to make fakes - though we should probably edit them for accuracy."
"Hmm…" There was a sound of a number of items falling gently onto another rock ledge close by. "I do have a few - some even belong to this Consumer. Good Idea about fixing them up, they are not the best quality, but fairly simple so it will not take much work to make the amendments."
For the next while Chún examined the old artefacts and using the Essence healing he had learnt as a basis, restored the Dao patterns of the old weapons and technique manuals. The techniques were basic and with the Mountains help he went through and adjusted any errors to make the techniques be closer to what they should be - as much as possible under the circumstances - as well as taking note of them for his own use.
"You should have mentioned these before," he grumbled, "I can use stuff like this."
"You said you could not read," pointed out the Mountain, "plus it is not normally something I think about - it is just junk to me - humans scatter this stuff everywhere."
"I can read pictures and you can explain the words - and since they are wrong anyway - your correct explanation is better than my reading the wrong one," Chún argued, "or you could teach me to read…"
Eventually, they were done, staging the repaired 'treasures' appropriately around the cave. Chún looked about in satisfaction and headed back through the small tunnel and into the antechamber.
"Door now." The Mountain pushed the sides of the narrow passage together until they met then cut out the plug, leaving it on a 'natural' pivot point at the centre. Pushing one side or the other made it rotate, opening an entry. Continued pushing closed it again.
Quickly Chún walked up the slope into the trap chamber, which filled in behind him. "The floor is stone that will react to Essence being pushed into the Earth Dao manifestation to open it," explained his locus, "I suggest you leave, before the trap triggers."
Chún laughed and leapt to the entrance in a single bound, quickly making his way through the concealed opening. The last of the Golden Crow's feathers were disappearing behind the horizon and as he walked towards the forest he turned and looked at the clearing.
Everything looked the same. Chún could see the slight shimmer of the Concealment Dao Manifestation covering the boulder, but even looking through it, there was not anything remarkable to be noticed.
"Well, do I pass?" he asked as he crossed back over the stream into the trees, heading back to the Mountain Plane and his own cave.
"Basic Creation, yes," replied the mountain, " and you had good ideas to implement for the advanced parts. We can slowly work on you being able to do those things like that on your own over time. Congratulations, you qualify as a low rank apprentice True Cultivator."
"Thanks Friend," replied the young teen "And to celebrate, it is time to eat!"
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WheeledWriter
WheeledWriter Some significant changes to the Dao trap - to better fit the setting and traditional concept of wǔxíng. Thanks to a reader for pointing me in the correct direction for more accurate research.
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