Thirty-Seven
 

Water splashed across his face, jerking him out of the drowsy sleep he had been fitfully resting in. Kon spluttered and swiped around, wiping the water from his eyes. Something foul filled his mouth, the taste of bile and rotten meat, his stomach roiled at the intrusion and he spun on his side to heave. The entirety of his body shuddered as he tried to escape the pervasive, cloying, taste that had invaded his mouth with that wave of water.
“Told you it would wake him up,” Alice said joyfully. Diur grunted sullenly. Kon scraped a thick, rubbery, goop out of his eyes as he blinked the last of the water free to look at where he was.
Thin sunlight streamed through the thin clouds above them. Kon froze as he realized for the first time since they had landed he saw the clear sky. Alice followed his gaze and looked at the sky and grunted in annoyance.
“What..What?” Kon’s words stumbled out of his mouth as he worked his jaw around. His brain felt like mush, his thoughts slow and muddled.
“You were really dumb. Then Diur was really dumb. AND THEN YOU WERE CATASTROPHICALLY DUMB!” Alice roared the last part in his face and he reeled backwards as the sound nearly sent him toppling to the ground. Which was an issue since they were on a tree branch thirty feet off the forest floor. Kon hadn’t even noticed in his addled state.
He noticed now as his face hung over the edge of the massively wide tree branch and stared downwards. He threw up.
“I told you. He’d be useless for a while. Those waters were severe for me. I don’t know how he’s alive,” Diur said quietly. The woman looked wrung out, her normally blue skin was nearly white and she had deep bags under her eyes.
“As I said. Stupid. Diur managed to pull you out of the rift and even killed the rift guardian. Didn’t get the treasure though,” Alice said.
“You got the big snake?” Kon asked.
“Yeah. Had to fight it and carry you at the same time.” As Diur turned, Kon saw where her clothes had been torn and the bloodstains on them. The fight hadn’t been an easy one from the look of it.
“Hey. Eyes back here,” Alice said as she nudged his foot with her boot. Kon looked down and realized he was scantily dressed at the moment, just covered in some underclothes. A slimy layer of partly dried black-green ooze covered his entire body. It was what he had cleaned off his eyes as he had tried to wake up.
“What’s on me?” A spike of horror started to break through the daze in his mind as he scraped at his skin.
“You began the process of body cultivation. The very, very, early steps of it,” Alice grumbled. She paced back and forth across the giant tree branch. Her fingers were tapping constantly on her thigh as she looked worried.
“Which should be impossible. Unless…unless it’s because you don’t have a full network yet? But you’d need to have to overwhelm your nodes to the point excess energy boils out of you and you're able to infuse it into your body to begin the process. Which is dumb. Since you’re boiling yourself alive to do it,” Alice stopped in her tracks.
“Diur. I like you. You have a fighter’s spirit. Don’t ever repeat this if you don’t want to watch your planet experience an orbital bombardment.” Alice was serious as she turned to look at Kon. He had managed to pull himself up against the base of the tree to look at the two women.
“Building out a Knight’s cultivation level is not easy and it cuts off the possibility of going about the traditional way of cultivation. Your nodes and cores will pull any energy you absorb to power your runes. Which means you can’t cultivate it, can’t gather it and build on it. It’s constantly being used. The moment you establish that first node you cut off that path. Same for them. If Diur tried to incorporate runes into her cultivation she’d never be able to ascend to the next realm, the nodes would drain away her gathered energy.” Alice froze for a minute, looking up at the sky. Diur was watching carefully, but hadn’t stirred from her spot near the end of the branch.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“What should have happened is you would have drank the water, which was an E-Grade treasure by the way. Your node, that first one you made that is a bit too big, would have started to process the energy and feed your other nodes.”
“Sounds about right. It was all a bit…hazy?” Kon tried out the word, but it didn't seem right. All the memories were there, but they were distant.
“Yes. So, if you weren’t the greatest energy manipulator I’ve ever met, you blow up at this point. Your body can’t contain the energy and your nodes blow up and scatter you around the room. Somehow, you were able to move the excess off of the overflowing nodes and into your body. Again, should be nearly impossible.”
“What is body cultivation?” Kon asked. He was still a bit dazed by what was going on but the longer it went on the clearer his mind became.
“It’s using rift energy to improve your body,” Diur cut in. Alice looked over at her and then shrugged.
“She’s not wrong, but that’s the most bare bones answer I’ve ever heard.” Alice paused and then shrugged.
“All that gunk on you is impurities. You purged your body of all the shit that’s been accumulating in yourself that’s not great. Microplastics, cholesterol, plaque, toxins, yada yada,” Alice said waving her hand around.
“It stinks. Which is why we’re up here. Hoping for it to rain,” Diur said. She was staying a distance away from him.
“Why didn’t you have the same reaction?” Kon asked.
“I don’t body cultivate. I used that energy to purify my channels, flushed them of remnants of all the bestial energy from the cores I’ve been consuming. I did have a reaction, but it was much less severe than yours,” DIur explained.
“She was able to clean off in a puddle. You need a bit more of an extreme cleaning.” Alice looked down at him and the crust of dried ooze that coated him. He looked back up at the clear sky and groaned.
“Yeah. First time the storm has ever broken,” Diur said. She gave him a sympathetic look.
“There’s no standing bodies of water close by?” Kon asked desperately. The stench was slowly invading his nose and burning.
“We’re locked down here for the moment. That peak D-Grade and Lupine packmaster are running around close by. There’s also a D-Grade rift over there,” Alice jerked her head in each direction of the people. They had formed a triangle with Kon, Alice, and Diur stuck in the middle.
Kon grunted and rested for a moment trying to think over all the information he’d just been given.
“What’s the difference between body cultivation and your cultivation?” Kon asked Diur.
“At your stage, nearly nothing. Over time you’d start to gain aspects that align with your body cultivation path. Body cultivators are generally tougher physically than most. It gets more esoteric the further you go on the path. For both paths.”
“What’ll this do for me? To me?” Kon asked Alice.
“I don’t know. You should be scattered across a room in a gooey mess of bits and pieces. Armor enhances what’s there, not the other way around. It’s what makes us different than all the other power armor wielding idiots. The stronger we are, the stronger the armor becomes. But, your body is going to be hungry for energy now that you’ve started the path. At least I think you will. This is a mess,” Alice complained as she wiped at her face with her hand.
“Once we get back to the fleet, we’re going to keep this quiet. Especially the information you have on that holopad. Good catch with that by the way. I recognized some of the runes on it, but the rest will take time to figure out. We’re going to be keeping it very quiet.”
“Why? Shouldn’t they be glad?”
“Maybe. I’m going to need to feel out the political waters. If this is an inter Chapterhouse war, or if this is going to be a problem with an Order, or something else, I don't know. Things can get…complicated, when there’s infighting like this. I only trust my team to have our best interests.” Alice was scowling as she marched around on the edge of the branch.
“It’s interesting seeing the inner workings of humanity. Most people think you are just a relentless machine. It is good to see that you are mortal,” Diur said. There was a trace of mockery in her tone. Alice threw her head back and laughed.
“We’ve been fighting each other for millennia. It’s a pastime.” Alice said with a wry shake of her head. Overhead the clouds had begun to gather together and there was an ominous crack as lightning split the sky.
“Looks like we’re going to get that rain after all.”