Chapter 32

  1

  John immediately felt himself transitioning from the room in which he had been confined to an arena similar to the one he had watched Liz fight in. Grassy terrain perhaps twice the size of a foosball field; there was nothing but flat open space between himself and K?tha, who manifested across from him a few seconds later. The arena was eerily quiet, and John got the impression that they were the only two people within Ozone base.

  He felt the first powerful beat of his heart invigorate his cells as Sublime Apotheosis activated in response to his will. He immediately began cycling through the pathways for Culmination. For several seconds, John just stared at his foe as he instigated the familiar feedback loop of his two cultivations.

  K?tha seemed as unperturbed as ever, just staring evenly back at John. His eyes seemed to carry a certain depth of understanding at what he was seeing. Unlike most anyone else, John could tell that the man was aware of what John was doing with his spirit.

  He understood the implications of that perfectly. K?tha had some means of inspecting John’s spirit, even as John himself did. The idea gave him a healthy dose of caution to sprinkle on the blind rage that had been boiling within him. A translator suddenly rose from a hole in the ground and hovered between them.

  “You’ve got quite the sophisticated spirit, John,” K?tha said, pointing an informative finger at him.

  John felt an inexplicable chill run down his spine. He would have formulated a response, but K?tha pressed on.

  “It’s much more complex than anyone I’ve ever met. In fact, I’ve never even heard of someone having such divine control over their spirit. Your Mind Cultivation must have unlocked some serious potential in you. I can see that it’s responsible for the adaptive nature your spirit embodies. Tell me, could you copy the flavor of my spirit?”

  John’s boiling blood suddenly froze. The sheer breadth of insight the man seemed to have just by standing in front of John was unsettling. He narrowed his eyes in suspicion and began to analyze K?tha’s own spiritual signature.

  What he found unsettled John. As expected, the man was circulating his own spirit in a particular manner demanded by his cultivations. What was so off putting was the nature of K?tha’s spirit.

  It was absolutely predatory. He was giving off an infected purple aura that churned with toxicity. It felt likely to reach out and grab anyone who came too close. Underlying it was a sort of shimmering ripple effect that was familiar to John somehow, though he couldn’t say where he had experienced it before.

  K?tha didn’t move. He simply stood there circulating his spirit just like John was. They spent several seconds just staring at each other, John coldly, while K?tha’s unconcerned expression persisted.

  “You know. I have to be completely honest, John. I didn’t bring you here to fight you. I don’t even mind to let you keep Teal base,” K?tha explained.

  “I don’t care,” John said.

  He was staring at the disgusting sight of the man’s aura with utter loathing. He recognized it from the poison K?tha had left in Jason’s body. Remembering just how far the man had gone to draw John into this very situation ignited the rage in him once more.

  “I know you’re mad, but hear me out,” K?tha implored.

  John didn’t respond. The rays of sunlight that shone down on him took more effort than the cool, cleansing rays from the moon to harness, but after months of practice, John was the moon. He felt his spirit swelling with each passing second.

  That served to increase his ability to circulate Culmination. That, in turn increased the effects of both Sublime Apotheosis and Lunar Radiance itself as John alternately fed the potential into his abilities. More energy was consumed from the light of the sun, more effort was fed into strengthening his body, and more Culmination was supplied to continue the process.

  For the first time, John realized the true purpose of Cultivating the mind, body, and spirit. His three paths converged and fed upon each other in almost perfect harmony. Each Cultivation provided benefits to the practice of the others. John felt the next powerful beat of his heart approaching and readied himself to act.

  As it thundered through his body, John channeled the effects into his legs. Without so much as a grunt of warning, he leapt implausibly far, closing the ten feet between himself and K?tha in an instant. The other man’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t raise any kind of defense before John was on him.

  With a punch he had loaded even as his feet left the ground, John threw his arm out to strike K?tha’s face. He was almost shocked when it connected. K?tha didn’t so much as flinch out of the way, and John’s punch, backed by every scrap of Culmination he had accumulated, slammed into the man’a nose.

  He tumbled back and off his feet, long limbs flailing to stabilize the abnormally tall frame. He landed several feet away, face down and sprawling. For several seconds, he didn’t move.

  John looked down at his hand in confusion. There had been something odd about the punch. He wasn’t sure why, but it hadn’t felt right. His hand lacked the familiar sting of striking something with all of his strength.

  Was it because of the massive amount of potential he had put into the strike with Culmination? Was it because his body was operating at a higher level with his use of Sublime Apotheosis? John continued to stare at his hand in confusion while he tried to pinpoint the discrepancy.

  Unbidden, his three Cultivation paths resumed their symbiotic rhythm. Sunlight fed his spirit, which he cycled into Culmination once more. All of the gathered potential was then looped back into his spirit and body, both of which supplied increased functionality of his mind with each increase in function they in turn received.

  With each new beat of his heart, John felt his fortitude enhance. With each new cycle of Culmination, he felt himself drawing in even more energy from the sun as it was fed into Lunar Radiance. And with each passing second, John felt himself come closer to smashing through whatever barrier prevented him from his final breakthrough.

  As he contemplated this, K?tha began to stir. John watched as his legs found their way beneath him unnaturally. Like a puppet being pulled inexpertly to its feet, he was suddenly standing once more.

  “Well, that was impressive.”

  2

  John looked at K?tha in perplexity. His face, which should have at the very least sported a bloody nose, appeared unharmed. Moreover, there was no change or interruption in the circulation of his spirit.

  He looked for all the world like nothing was amiss. He strolled casually towards John with the same unconcerned look he had maintained thus far. He spoke again as though nothing had happened.

  “Like I was saying, there’s a better reason for bringing you here than simply to kill you.”

  K?tha continued walking towards John without a care in the world. He stopped at roughly the same distance away from John as he had been. He held John’s uncertain gaze like they were sharing a casual conversation.

  “It took quite a lot of effort to track you down. But after I saw what you did in Teal base, I knew you’d be worth it.”

  “What are you talking about? John demanded.

  “I want you to help me,” K?tha said.

  John just stared at the man, astounded. The sheer incredulity of the statement was baffling. For several seconds, neither of them spoke.

  “If you think I would offer help you with anything after what you’ve done, you’re stupider than you look,” John finally said.

  “Rest assured, I’m under no delusions about your willingness to assist me. Nevertheless, I’ll have your help,” K?tha said with perfect certainty.

  John suddenly leapt at the man once more. This time, he was sure K?tha was ready for his attack. Strangely enough, he still made no move to avoid or block the punch John aimed at him.

  Once more, the absurdly tall man fell back, rolling across the ground with exaggerated flailing. John was certain he had broken something with his strike. Infuriatingly, however, K?tha rose to his feet yet again, showing no sign of injury or distress.

  “What the hell is going on?” John wondered as K?tha began to calmly return to his position.

  Just like the last time, he had connected with enough force to do serious damage, both to his target and his own hand. Yet, neither seemed to have taken the slightest amount of damage. Something was wrong with the situation in a way that made no sense.

  In the aura spectrum, John once again noticed the odd shimmering effect that he couldn’t place. It was like the air over a fire on a cold winter’s day. It was almost imperceptible until you were paying attention in just the right way.

  “Where have I seen that before?” John wondered.

  He tried to let none of his confusion or doubt show on his face. He must have betrayed something though, because K?tha’s calm expression turned smug. He spoke with derision and self aggrandizement.

  “Is something wrong John? Aren’t you going to kill me? Didn’t you promise your beautiful young love it would be so? You wouldn’t want everything she went through to go unanswered, would you?”

  This time, John held nothing back. His ocean of rage crested in a tsunami of fury that crashed into K?tha like the wrath of the gods. He threw himself at his enemy with such fervor that the man was on the ground before either of them knew what was happening.

  John’s fist slammed into teeth, nose and eyes alike repeatedly, meeting no resistance. Again and again, his punches landed, but while he felt vibrations running up his arm with each, there was still no sense of pain or any real effect. For all his efforts, he may as well have been punching a lifeless dummy.

  Frustration blossomed in his chest at his continued impotence. Summoning the essence of Lunar Radiance to his hand, he bent it against its cleansing nature. With a shout of aggravation, he expelled the energy through his fist.

  A burst of spiritual energy so volatile that John’s own skin crawled at the expulsion blasted from his hand as it connected with K?tha’s rubbery face. To John’s immediate satisfaction, the man’s head was completely devastated. To his immediate dissatisfaction, the rest of the man melted beneath him a few seconds later.

  “What the fuck?” John asked.

  “You sure do have a lot of aggression in you, don’t you?” K?tha’s voice asked from every direction.

  John wheeled about, searching for the source. He glanced back at the ground beneath him, but there was no trace of the body he had been pummeling. He turned around to see K?tha phase into existence the same distance from John that he had maintained all the while.

  “What is this?” John wondered as he glared at the man with open hostility.

  He looked once more to K?tha’s insidious aura. For the first time, he noticed something that had escaped his attention before. The shimmering effect he had been seeing, it wasn’t only happening around his foe’s body.

  In fact, as he traced the effect with his eyes, he became alarmed. The entire area seemed to be draped in the effect. John stared at the ground at his feet for several seconds, the answers suddenly coming to him.

  “Is this an illusion?” He wondered.

  No, that didn’t seem right. An illusion had no substance, and painless or not, he had definitely felt his punches connecting. That made him look down at his hands once more. This time, however, he inspected his own aura. That was when it hit him.

  With an involuntary shudder, he realized what was happening. His own body was draped in the same shimmering effect he saw lacing the entire world around him. That wasn’t what had caused the convulsion, however. What made a tremor run through him was that he recognized what the strange effect truly was.

  “Have you figured it out yet?” K?tha asked.

  John didn’t respond. Not out of defiance. He just couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  The shimmering effect that lay over everything was familiar to him because he had seen the same thing covering the area where he had found the giant ant hill. The queen of the ants had been using some kind of Cultivation method to hide the true size and location of the hive.

  This was similar to that, only John could tell it was an order of magnitude more complex. It wasn’t just an illusion coating everything he saw. It was an almost tangible effect that was tied to his own body as well.

  Looking within himself, he finally noticed the root of the infection. It was centered on his mind. The second he realized, Liz’s final words came back to him.

  “Guard your mind. Once he’s in, there’s nothing you can do.”

  John’s heart raced. Not at the idea that his mind had been invaded by his opponent, although that was certainly bad enough. It was because he did indeed recognize the effects.

  He had yet to broach the specific branch, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t studied the theories behind it. Like all other aspects of Third Eye of Callysta, the more he understood about each branch, the better he could understand how they all fit together.

  That was why his heart now raced. Because the effects of the infection accosting his mind fell neatly into a box he had already made a label for. He whispered it to himself, as though willing the world to correct him.

  “This is Falsification.”

  3

  John stood absolutely still. His focus was internal as he tried to find a way to penetrate the scene in front of him. Knowing it was all false, he completely ignored the man across from him.

  Falsification; the practice of creating a fictional reality. It went deeper than simple illusory vision. It was the ability to fabricate an entire world in a target’s mind.

  Sounds, smells, sensations, everything from pain to euphoria could be invented through Falsification. John was flabbergasted to encounter a foe who could partially mimic a branch of his own cultivation. Yet, he could also tell that what he was experiencing wasn’t a true representation of the concept.

  There were differences he could pick up on at closer inspection. Incomplete areas where the deception was more noticeable. Still, John looked around in grudging appreciation; it was no cheap ruse.

  Having identified the problem, John started working on a solution. He was unconcerned that K?tha would attack him, as he was already at the man’s mercy. If he had wanted to kill John, he certainly could have already.

  “Do you understand now?” K?tha asked, though John paid him no mind.

  “You can’t defeat me. You aren’t even in control of your own mind. Concede, and I will give you the opportunity to grow stronger than you can possibly imagine.”

  John continued to ignore the man, though his voice rang at the very center of his being. He could feel each word reverberate within him like the man was speaking inside his mind. With a start, John realized that was exactly what was happening.

  “So, he’s in my head, that much is clear. But he obviously can’t read my thoughts, or he wouldn’t be so certain of his position. This must be a test to see if I’m really worth the trouble.”

  John tried to reason with himself as K?tha continued to wax eloquent about his own power. John let him waste his breath as he searched within himself for the source of his entanglement. As he did so, he tried to understand how he had come under the deception in the first place.

  “It had to be early on. I didn’t wait long to start attacking. So, when did it happen?” John wondered.

  Then he remembered the unnerving chill he had felt run down his spine. It had happened when K?tha pointed his finger at John. With sudden certainty, John knew that was it.

  The knowledge didn’t ease his mind in the slightest. He hadn’t felt even a hint of invasion upon his spirit or mind. That could have meant only one thing.

  K?tha was powerful. So powerful that he could slip an entire fabrication over John’s mind without him noticing. It was unnerving to consider.

  Still, identifying the problem had given him a clear path forward. Third Eye of Callysta not only provided pathways to utilize abstract effects such as Falsification, but it also detailed methods to combat other representations of its branches. John hadn’t realized until that moment that he already had the tools to neutralize K?tha’s tampering, literally.

  John closed his eyes and started channeling his spirit into Neutralization. There was some slight resistance, like there was metaphorical sludge in his pathways. With concerted effort, however, he was able to start building up potential.

  After a few minutes of this, it became clear that K?tha had done far more than alter his perception. Insidious Spiritual energy coursed through his entire body, causing the sluggish response of his spirit among other things.

  He could tell from his use of Analyzation that this was somehow both identical to and unique from the infection that had coursed through Jason. It took him several seconds to understand what he was seeing.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The spiritual presence itself was identical to what he had neutralized in Jason. However, the effect it was having on John’s body was entirely different. That was what caused the discrepancy in his Analyzation.

  The revelation gave John even more information than he had been seeking. It answered questions he hadn’t known he was asking. Most importantly, it once again drove home just how formidable K?tha truly was.

  The man had some kind of Cultivation ability to change the nature of his infectious spirit. On Jason, he had used a straightforward type of spiritual poisoning. Here, he was doing something much more complex.

  After identifying the foreign presence, John had begun to decipher exactly what was being done to him. The answer was something akin to the relationship his own cultivations had with each other.

  His spirit was working alongside his mind to exponentially increase the effectiveness of the Falsification he was attempting to convey. The spiritual sludge flowing through John was acting as a delivery system for the false sensations and imagery K?tha was implanting in him. And it all stemmed from the seed of deceit that John could now feel in his mind.

  Liz’s words returned to him again, and a pang of guilt lanced his heart at the thought of how helpless she must have felt with K?tha inside her mind. It was quickly transmuted into even more rage as John considered how long she had been at his mercy. She had no defense once he was inside her mind.

  Well, John wasn’t so helpless. He could fight against the invasion. And he swore that once he was free of the curse, he’d make K?tha pay for every second Liz had endured.

  Directing his accumulated potential, he applied Neutralization to the source of deception within his mind. He felt it’s hold on him start to wane, but almost immediately, the spiritual poison throughout his body reacted to his efforts. John was just able to make out a pair of purple eyes a few inches in front of his face before his senses were overcome with pain.

  The false world settled over him once more as K?tha seemed to alter the effects of the poison he was pumping through John. It changed from a present but mostly benign substance to a volatile essence that ignited pain throughout John’s body on a cellular level. It subsided a few seconds later, returning to its previous function of transmitting false information.

  “You’re quite the determined one, aren’t you?”

  John heard K?tha say long before his mind had cleared enough to attempt further defense. His tone made it clear how sure of himself he was. But still, John didn’t despair.

  The world around him seemed to melt as his perception was altered once more. The wide-open stadium they had been standing in was swallowed in blackness. John felt gravity exert itself on him as the ground seemed to drop out from under him.

  He felt himself fall, but almost immediately a tug at the back of his shirt told him he was being held like a worm on a hook. The infinite darkness all around him made him feel like he was suspended in the void itself, and only the tenuous grip on his shirt kept him from being lost to it.

  “Distractions. Stay focused,” John berated himself.

  Despite the evidence that he would soon be swallowed by nothingness, John still didn’t allow himself to lose his composure. It wasn’t because he had unfathomable courage in the face of desperation. Instead, he had hope because of something he had learned in his half second of defiance.

  As the veil had lifted ever so slightly, John’s brain had started to sense genuine sensations once more. One of them was centered on his stomach. But instead of pain, he felt the absence of it.

  Everywhere else in his body, there was a dull, underlying pain that let him know he was in danger. But in his stomach, there was nothing. It was as if that part of his body didn’t exist.

  That was the answer he had been missing. Before that moment, he was assuming the infection throughout his body spread from the seed of corruption K?tha had planted in his mind. But that was just a clever misdirection.

  John was meant to target that seed, not realizing that the true threat came from elsewhere. It was only the supplier of deception. The danger came from the infectious spirit K?tha pumped into John.

  With his brief instant of near clarity, John had found the source. It was that information that kept his mind from hysterics. And it was with that information that John started fighting once more.

  His supply of neutrality had long since dissipated with his loss of focus. And while he could build it up again, a thought occurred to him. Perhaps it wasn’t Neutralization he needed.

  After all, Neutralization was such a passive effect. It couldn’t do more than return him to his natural state. A much more fitting course of action would be Sterilization.

  The polar opposite of Contamination. For that was what K?tha was doing. John was so enthralled by the discovery of Falsification that he had failed to realize that another branch of his cultivation was at work as well.

  K?tha’s cultivation methods were near perfect representations of Falsification and Contamination. One from the mind, the other from the spirit. But that was barely one tenth of a single one of John’s cultivations.

  The revelation gave John yet another example of just how complex his own path would be to walk. It also gave him more hope than he had a few moments ago. He knew now that he already had the tools needed to combat his foe. He just had to figure out how to use them.

  4

  John focused his scattered spirit on a branch of his cultivation he had yet to practice. Sterilization was one of the more straightforward concepts. And while he was unpracticed, John had at his sister’s annoying insistence, studied the theory behind all twelve branches by then.

  He was about to begin the circulation required, but something caught his attention. It had slipped his mind in the confusion of his situation, but now that he was thinking clearly, it came back into focus. Sublime Apotheosis was still running autonomously.

  His heart had long since learned to work at a higher capacity even without his input. He hadn’t realized due to the interference with his nerves and sensations. As a result, his body was flooded with potential, and he now had an outlet.

  Without some sense of the sunlight hitting his body, John could not use Sublime Apotheosis to increase the spiritual energy he was gathering. But that was not the goal. His body would continue that process on its own, albeit slower than a concerted effort would carry out.

  Instead, he focused his efforts on the pathways themselves. By spreading the presence of Sublime Apotheosis throughout every pathway in his body, he was able to increase the efficiency with which he utilized his sparse remaining spiritual energy.

  Suddenly, he felt the sludge K?tha was pumping into him glide through his body more easily. It was an unintended consequence of his actions, but it still confirmed his success. With a breath, he started channeling his spirit once more.

  It flowed through his body like salmon swimming up stream. Each inch was hard earned against the bountiful corruption flowing through him from K?tha. Even so, he fought on.

  Little by little, he felt the effects of Sterilization begin to course through him. With each pass of his pathways, a bit more of the invasive spirit assaulting him was pushed back. John started to rejoice, but there was a problem.

  He could already tell that the amount of energy he could put to the task was far insufficient to the job. He was running on what dregs his body could draw from his surroundings unconsciously. It was enough to put up a fight, but it would never overcome the continuous renewal K?tha could muster.

  Out of desperation, John gathered every ounce of Sterilization potential he had built up and sent it to the area in his stomach that had felt numb. He was surprised by the amount of energy he had, once concentrated. In fact, it seemed a good deal more than he had thought.

  He didn’t have the time to consider the anomaly, so he just focused everything he had on that point in his stomach. It formed a solid wall of Sterilization, stopping any foreign or harmful essence from passing. Or more accurately, it sterilized any essence that passed through.

  John almost gasped in renewed vigor as he felt a sudden influx of spiritual energy. It poured into him not through his skin like luminescence, but through his stomach. It was only then that he understood how monumentally stupid he had been for all those months.

  Sterilization worked on similar principles to Neutralization. There were distinct and significant differences, however. Neutralization was just what it sounded like. Taking any personality, flavor, or even essence and wiping it clean.

  What John hadn’t realized until that moment, though, was that Neutralization also wiped clean any potential a foreign spirit had. That was a double-edged sword, and one John had been cutting himself on in his ignorance.

  Sterilization worked much the same. The biggest difference was that it didn’t carry the property of neutrality. It was an invasive essence of its own, violently dissolving any essence foreign to John’s desires. However, the potential carried in that sterilized essence was preserved.

  In other words, all of the spiritual energy K?tha was pumping into John was being converted to usable essence. John was swelling with spiritual energy by the second. What was even better, K?tha didn’t seem to be aware of the change.

  That gave John one crucial piece of information. Since K?tha hadn’t adjusted the essence to bring pain again, it told him that the man wasn’t able to properly monitor his own spiritual presence within John’s body. Unlike the seed in John’s mind, K?tha wasn’t directly aware of his spirit after it left his own body.

  “Someone didn’t learn to project, did they?” John laughed to himself.

  With every second that passed, the Sterilization increased his spiritual energy as K?tha cluelessly continued to feed him. As it passed through his screening process, the energy gained the properties of Sterilization. It then moved on through the predetermined circulation method it had been given.

  Within seconds, the sludge coursing through John was scoured from his pathways. As various parts of his body were rid of the invasive substance, John began to feel sensations properly once more. The wind on his face, the pain in his stomach where something sharp stabbed into his flesh, and most importantly, the sensation of the sun against his skin.

  He still couldn’t see anything but black all around him, as the illusion K?tha cast was inside his mind. But he could once again feel the ground beneath his feet. He could feel the air entering his lungs, and the powerful reverberations of his heart.

  The return of sensation helped John to focus his efforts on the parts of his body still infected by K?tha’s spirit. When his extermination reached his head, John started to hear the world around him once more. After a few more seconds, only the seed within his mind remained.

  With a furious assertion, John pushed his spirit down the pathways of Annihilation. All the stolen energy from K?tha shifted from sterile to volatile. And all at once, he sent it to devour the mental connection K?tha had on him.

  “Now, now. Don’t forget your place,” K?tha sneered as he sensed the attack on his seed of corruption.

  But just as quickly, the sneering tone was gone. John even thought he heard incredulity when next he spoke.

  “What? How did-”

  John’s fist connected with the man’s face before he could finish the thought. Even before his vision had cleared John had focused his impending heartbeat on making the bones in his arm denser. As it reverberated through him, he lashed out with a right hook, exactly where he remembered seeing K?tha’s purple eyes during his brief glimpse through the illusion.

  Utterly confident in his own abilities, K?tha had not even bothered to restrain him. As John’s cultivation enhanced fist slammed into his chin for the first time, he discovered the true error of his ways.

  John gasped in pain as the man’s hand was pulled violently from his stomach. Blood fell in a miniature fountain from his torso as the stopper was removed. As he screamed in pain, John noticed that K?tha’s hand had taken the shape of a triangular blade.

  That had been the medium he was using to pump his insidious spirit into John. It dripped with John’s blood. Even as he watched, the blade returned to the shape of a human arm, complete with five fingers.

  Despite his grave injury, John ignored his condition and launched himself at K?tha before he could regain his feet. Rage fueled punches rained down on the prone man, audibly cracking ribs beneath the barrage. His nose sprayed blood, teeth flew from his mouth, and K?tha’s eyes were soon swollen shut.

  Unlike under the glamour K?tha had placed on him, John could feel the pain of every punch in his knuckles. Blood fell from his own ruined skin as he continued to pummel the man who had dared to violate the sanctity of people he loved. Tears of impotent rage fell from his eyes at the idea that he had ever let someone so horrid anywhere near his friends.

  John soon became dizzy from the blood loss at his stomach. He was unperturbed, however. From the state of the person beneath him, John was already the victor. That was when he noticed the skin melting off his hands.

  John screamed in pain and horror as he stumbled back from the pile of flesh once called K?tha. He stared in shock at his dissolving flesh. He shook his hands violently as if he were imagining the pain, but this was no illusion.

  “Good gracious, you really weren’t kidding, were you?”

  The voice reverberated out of the translator without any indication that K?tha had first spoken. Yet it was undeniably the man’s voice. As he was studying it, the ruined form of K?tha seemed to melt into a puddle.

  “I have to admit, even I didn’t expect you to have this much potential. You’re truly an astounding specimen.”

  John’s spirit was already hard at work trying to neutralize the damage to his flesh, but his vision continued to blur as the hole in his stomach leaked blood. It was all he could do to remain on his feet.

  While he worked, the melted form of K?tha started to bubble up from the ground. It looked like an almost clear fluid, but there were also several abnormalities swirling within its depths. It built like water filling a specifically shaped hole, culminating into the form of K?tha once more.

  “What are you?” John asked.

  “It’s been a long time since anyone has forced me to reconstitute like that. As I said, you’re truly formidable. Unfortunately, you haven’t unlocked your true potential yet.”

  “You’re some kind of mimic? You can take the shape of a human, like some kind of spy,” John accused.

  “I am a Polymorph. Ambiguous by nature, and my capabilities increased tenfold with the advent of my cultivation path. Now I can take any shape I wish, so long as I’ve done… thorough research on the anatomy,” the false human said.

  “You’re a native?” John asked.

  “Very good. Yes, I was born here, long long ago.”

  “Then how do you know so much about the Kumani? Or planets being enslaved?”

  The faux man smiled.

  “Because I’ve taken the information from the minds of more than just humans.”

  The Polymorph began to shift before John’s eyes. It first took the form of a small green humanoid. Before John had even taken in the sight, it morphed again. It cycled through dozens of forms in just a few moments before settling once more in the shape of a human.

  The implications were startling. How many sentient life forms had this thing terrorized? Was Liz just the latest in a long line of horrific torture victims?

  “What do you want from me?” John asked feebly.

  His blood had been draining from him at an alarming rate, and while he had already slowed the loss considerably through his efforts to heal himself, he was extremely lightheaded. He couldn’t keep his eyes focused on the fiend in front of him. He swayed in place.

  “We can discuss your employment later. It’s clear that you’re about to lose consciousness. Before you do, let me show you the difference between us.”

  And then, before John’s blurry eyes, the creature started to change once more. It melted back into its base form, just a mostly transparent glob of fluid. But John could tell that something had changed.

  The ground beneath the blob started to sizzle and smoke. Corrosive gas spread from the area in a visible cloud. It was like everything the gelatinous blob touched dissolved into an airborne weapon. Words came through the translator despite the blob having no mouth to speak of.

  “This is the true goal of cultivation! Behold the reward for visiting the waters of evolution! The Ascended State!”

  5

  John’s blurry vision didn’t impair his ability to read K?tha’s aura. Even blind, he would have noticed the absolute explosion of spiritual energy radiating from the being. It was far greater than anything John had seen except perhaps from Suné.

  It wasn’t just that K?tha was more powerful, either. John could tell from inspecting the crazy signature he was emitting that the Polymorph’s aura had completely evolved. Cultivations of Mind, Body, and Spirit had melded into a single deadly force.

  John was suitably horrified by the sight of a deadly cloud teeming with K?tha’s disgusting aura spreading in his direction. He scrambled backwards but nearly lost his footing in his clumsy state. A twinge of pain in his slowly healing stomach caused him to cry out.

  He put as much distance between himself and the gas as he could, but it continued to spread closer with every second. John felt on the verge of passing out, just as K?tha had observed. Everything in him wanted to fall to the ground and submit to the exhaustion.

  Everything but the angry voice within him that still wished to see this beast annihilated for its crimes. John’s heart thrummed, and it shook every cell in his body. For the first time, he felt the sensation activate something deep within the core of his being.

  There was a resonance there that responded to Sublime Apotheosis like it had been waiting for the call for John’s entire life. A barrier within him was smashed through like a paper door. His body swelled with vigor in less time than it took for him to gasp at the message that played in his mind at the same moment.

  “Congratulations! First Gate of Sublime Apotheosis has been opened!”

  John’s mind was overwhelmed with that single message, but to his astonishment, that wasn’t the end of it. With immense pleasure, he realized that he had done it.

  “Congratulations! As the first from your planet to break a Body Gate, you have gained a title! Physical Forerunner! All physical cultivation is now 20% easier! This title gains the Trailblazer distinction!”

  “Congratulations! As the first from your planet to Cultivate your Mind, Body, and Spirit, you have gained an Epic Trait! Adept Cultivator! Impact of any Cultivation is now 30% more potent. This trait gains the Trailblazer distinction!”

  John’s jaw dropped open in shock. Not only had he finally deciphered the last secrets that had kept him from advancing the last several weeks, but he had also achieved not one but two more world firsts! It was more than he could have possibly hoped for.

  He had been certain that someone else would advance a physical cultivation past the first gate long before he would have been able to. Little did John know, without his several Divine tier genes, as well as the maximum tally of every other rank, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to make a breakthrough in one year’s time. His own achievements were only possible due to breaking his Mind Gate on a technicality.

  If he hadn’t learned Third Eye of Callysta the cheater’s way, he’d probably never have been able to make such progress on either of his other Cultivations. He could very well have still been struggling to properly utilize Lunar Radiance. Never mind the much more complex practice of Sublime Apotheosis.

  Even more impressive was the Epic Trait. John’s last gained trait was Prophetic Speed Runner. It had also been upgraded to Epic due to John’s outstanding performance during his Shuffle. Like his new trait, it gave a quantitative increase to his ability to complete Trials the Garden threw at him in the future.

  Adept Cultivator was similar. It would make his every effort in cultivation that much more effective. It sounded like exactly the type of boost to his abilities he needed.

  Revelations streamed through John’s mind in seconds as his vision rapidly cleared. He felt a tightness in his stomach, but the sensation lacked pain. On the contrary, it felt blessedly soothing to John’s devastated flesh.

  Looking down, he saw his torn skin reaching for itself. The rift in his flesh started shrinking, and toxic remnants of K?tha’s intrusion dissolved into the air. As the next reverberation of his heart thrummed in him, the last vestiges of damage closed up, leaving John unblemished, albeit severely weakened.

  Sublime Apotheosis seemed to have many auxiliary functions, such as increasing the distance he could jump or letting him hit much harder than he could otherwise do. But the true purpose of the Cultivation path was to completely restructure his body down to the cellular level.

  John had actually been unknowingly hindering his own progress as well. By channeling the potential his body was attempting to build to specific tasks, he had been able to increase certain functions of his body in very directed ways.

  It was crucial to consciously introduce Sublime Apotheosis to every part of himself so that his entire body was able to make use of it. That was why John usually chose where to direct the cultivation as it was building. But doing so was actually counterproductive as it expended the potential before his body could evenly assimilate it.

  By taking control of John’s nervous system, partial and flawed though it had been, K?tha had actually prevented John from directing Sublime Apotheosis. The Polymorph had not been able to stop his practice of the cultivation, however. As a result; the continuous and powerful pumping of his heart had built a massive amount of potential.

  The massive stress and strain his body was under pushed it to adapt or submit. John had never been a quitter, and neither was his body, it seemed. With each new reverberation, John’s body had become that much more accustomed to the demands of Sublime Apotheosis until finally, the gate was opened.

  His newfound breakthrough couldn’t erase the effects of losing so much blood. He was still dizzy, and his legs shook with fragility. He needed to supplement his reserve of blood. He needed to culminate.

  With a channeling of his spirit that came much more fluently than ever before, John began building Culmination potential. As it grew, he quickly diverted a substantial percentage of it towards the reproduction of blood cells. After several seconds, the dizziness began to subside.

  By then, he was nearly imprisoned by the encroachment of corrosive gas. It had fanned into a wide net, building and spreading with every scrap of matter it came across. John had only seconds before it reached him, and he was quickly running out of space behind him to retreat.

  With his remaining Culmination potential, he cycled his spirit through Sterilization. As his energy transformed, he started to project his aura out from his body. Carrying the power of Sterilization, he hoped it would counteract the deadly cloud of gas.

  Unfortunately, what K?tha was doing surpassed simple aura projection. The gas cloud was a physical force. And while John’s aura did work to dissipate the cloud as it approached, he could tell at a glance that it wouldn’t be enough.

  K?tha’s boast had been accurate. There was an order of magnitude’s difference in their abilities. Whatever had changed in the Polymorph after revealing his acclaimed “Ascended State” had given his ability to corrupt a substantial boost.

  John didn’t despair. He drew in as much spiritual energy from the sun as he could and sent it to work building Culmination. Half of that he pushed into his projected aura to bolster the effects of Sterilization. The rest was directed towards making sure his skin cells divided quickly enough.

  Already, the corrosive gas was leaking through his aura defense in places. Anywhere it touched his skin, it blistered and ruptured, leaving raw and bloody lesions everywhere. His clothes were soon soaked as well, and the fabric quickly disintegrated under the assault.

  Sublime Apotheosis had given a quantitative increase to his body’s cell replication. But even bolstered by Culmination, it was unable to cope with the onslaught of the Polymorph. John couldn’t hope to make it through the cloud to even strike at his foe. Before he was completely inundated with gas, he retreated from the cloud.

  “It looks like you have more tenacity than I thought. Your ability to remain conscious is impressive. Never mind. It makes no difference. You are already too late,” the absurdly calm voice sounded through the translator.

  John didn’t rise to the bait but rather focused his energy on Neutralization. His entire body was riddled with corrosive injuries by that point. And while Sterilization was steadily fighting against the degradation of his cells, that still left the injuries themselves. It was all John could do to keep up with the pace of the damage.

  “You’re fighting to overcome the damage, but it’s pointless. You think that you understand my abilities, but this is only the slightest glimpse of what I can do. Don’t worry. We will have time to learn all about each other in the coming days. As for right now, you’ve succeeded in tiring me. Unfortunately, that means our game has come to an end.”

  And without another word, without so much as a gurgle from the glob of slime on the ground, the gas pervading the air changed. Not only that. The skin that had been touched by the gas was suddenly numb in a way John had not experienced before. His body stopped responding to his commands, like his limbs were asleep.

  As soon as the thought occurred to him, John realized he was right. He was getting drowsy, but drowsy across his entire body. It was like a thick blanket had been thrown over him, and moving only served to weigh it down more.

  As the first wisps of gas entered John’s open mouth, he tasted something sweet on his tongue. Within seconds, the world around him faded to darkness. His last thought was of the notification that played in his head.

  “Challenge Lost! You have lost ownership of Teal Base!”

  What is this chapter called?