PtM Book 16 - Chapter 9: The Heartforge Realm

4/4 this week ^^.

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“Oy! Neighbor!” A booming voice called out to them the moment they left Huxian’s residence. Cha Ming looked over to see who it was and tensed before summoning the Savage Deity War Staff and preparing for battle.

“Don’t!” Huxian shouted. He blocked Cha Ming before he could take a step forward. “You can’t fight. At all.”

“No fighting?” Cha Ming muttered. He trusted Huxian, so he put the staff away. “What do you mean, no fighting?”

“What dear neighbor Lord Eight Directions means is that fighting is strictly prohibited on the Two Mountains,” the Paper Tiger Clansman said. His skin was pale, and his hair was white with black stripes. Much of his body was covered in Inkwell Clan markings, making it obvious where he’d gotten them from.

What wasn’t obvious was why he was currently showing them off while wearing what looked to be swimming trunks. He was also carrying a large pair of hedge clippers. “I hear the penalty is severe if you violate it. I haven’t seen it personally, but I’ve heard it said that the Heartforge Spirit immolated the last one to make an example of him.”

“Our neighborhood is pretty good, for the most part, but as you can see, certain… undesirables have managed to crawl in,” Huxian said to Cha Ming.

“That’s hurtful,” the paper tiger clansman said. “And I have name. Baleful Vision isn’t the best name, but it’s still my name.” A paper tiger clanswoman without stripes stepped up beside him. She was significantly weaker than he was, and Cha Ming’s impression of him didn’t improve when Huxian whispered why that was. “This is White Mirage, my mate.”

“Why are you even on this mountain?” Huxian said. “Your kind belongs on the ochre mountain.”

“Devilish faction, angelic faction… jade mountain, ochre mountain… it’s all so troublesome,” Baleful Vision said. He clasped hands and bowed to Cha Ming. “It’s nice to meet you, Daoist Clear Sky. My residence is the one with the pool over there. You’re welcoming to pay a visit anytime.”

“Can’t you see we’re busy?” Huxian grumbled. “And don’t you think it’s a bad idea to choose this mountain when all your other clansmen chose the other?”

“There’s nothing wrong with playing both sides,” Baleful Vision said. “Plus, those guys all want to kill me. All because I’m not a bad guy and didn’t cripple them a few decades back.”

“Let’s ignore this clown,” Huxian grumbled. “Go ahead.”

Cha Ming sighed. He had no idea what was going on, but the other party was keen on seeing his residence. And there was no avoiding it, so tossed out his Heartforge Medallion. A small mountain popped up, taller than even Huxian’s mansion. The entrance was a cave entrance, and it was well warded.

They entered the strange dwelling that, according to Huxian, was supposed to reflect the internal qualities of the individual who’d summoned it. Baleful Vision tried to follow, but fortunately, he was repelled by a forcefield.

“Hey! Don’t you think it’s impolite to not invite a neighbor in?” Baleful Vision shouted. “I brought pie Pie!”

“What’s with him?” Cha Ming asked Huxian.

“He’s a strange guy,” Huxian said. “We ran into each other in the void once, when I was rescuing some Inkwell Clansmen from the Paper Tiger Clan. He chased after us, and I blew up his boat. While he was on it.”

“He doesn’t seem to hate you,” Cha Ming noted.

“That’s why I said he was strange,” Huxian said. “It’s completely out of character for someone form the tiger clan.” Huxian then proceeded to give a rundown of what had occurred in the demon part of the entrance trials. It was very different than what Cha Ming had experienced, but upon further reflection, there was no need to test a demon’s ability to cope with the wild.

“Why are there two mountains, and why is choosing a mountain so important?” Cha Ming asked. “Why have two factions, angelic and devilish? Why not a demon faction too? A Buddhist and Evil Spirit faction?”

“I have no idea,” Huxian said. “My guess is we’ll probably be fighting each other at some point. Plus, isn’t it for the best if they split us up? Do you want people practicing blood cultivation and devouring souls and creating sin objects right next door?”

Cha Ming couldn’t argue with the logic, but he didn’t see why it was necessary in the first place. “If there was just a jade mountain, things would be better.”

“Well I’m sure the ochre mountain thinks the same,” Huxian said. “And Patriarch Heartforge is pretty famous. He must have his reasons.

“But like I said, Baleful Vision is a strange cat. He’s clearly drained some Inkwell Clansmen. But then he doesn’t seem very evil and all his evil siblings hate him.” He chuckled darkly. “I bet his father’s very disappointed.”

“I guess you both have that in common,” Cha Ming said. “By the way, my residence is pretty terrible.”

“Agreed,” Huxian said.

To describe it as barebones would be an understatement. Whereas Huxian’s mansion had countless rooms and stories, depending on his needs, and even entire floors dedicated to entertainment, Cha Ming’s residence had a total of four rooms. But that was only if you counted the spartan half bathroom at the entrance.

The floors were bare stone, as were the walls. They were clean and well swept, but still stone. The kitchen was also completely inadequate. Even Cha Ming, who didn’t cook these days, thought so.

“I don’t think I’m intended to live here,” Cha Ming said after some time. “Maybe they expect me to live in the Clear Sky World?” Now that he’d left the entrance trial, it was functioning properly and could be accessed at any time. “To be honest, the Clear Sky World makes this place completely redundant, especially if you’re going to play host.”

“This place has no upgrades,” Huxian said, looking around. “I think Petros’s place is nicer than yours. What the hell, Cha Ming?”

“He invited you in?” Cha Ming said.

“I was curious, so I paid him points to see it and promised not to tell,” Huxian said. “You don’t count.”

“There’s one upgrade,” Cha Ming said, looking over his Heartforge Medallion. “Apparently, it’s physically quite small and in one of the rooms. This way.” Despite having never gone inside, he already knew the place like the back of his hand. Aside from the welcome room, the bathroom, and the kitchen, there was a fourth room, the cultivation room. It did not have a bed, but it did have was the most intricate and complex energy gathering formation Cha Ming had ever seen.

“Whoah….” Huxian said, kneeling down beside it. The energy inside it was viscous. The formation was steadily drawing in energy from heavens knew where and accumulating it at its center.

Curiously enough, the energy vanished once it got there. No, not vanished. Cha Ming thought. Instead, it’s being compressed to the point that it’s not the same substance anymore. “Huxian, I could be completely off the mark about this, but I think this formation is upgrading the energy. Specifically, it’s creating immortal grade energy.”

Huxian nodded gravely. “Anything else would be a waste. Look at this thing. It’s got to be an immortal grade formation.”

“I don’t think I can use it to cultivate,” Cha Ming said, eying it. “It looks like one of those things you just let sit there and gather for a while before coming to collect.” He tapped at a few lines, and it zapped his finger. “Let’s see what happens when we feed it this.” He pulled out a handful of objects out of storage. Low grade-grade inkwell jades.

The jades landed on the formation, and nothing happened. Cha Ming had expected as much. He followed up by tossing increasingly high denominations in, until finally discovering that the formation would met high-grade inkwell jades. They melted quite slowly, but the formation sped up significantly as a result.

“Now for top-grade,” Huxian said. He pulled out a handful of top-grade inkwell jades, things that Cha Ming had a lot of trouble procuring on his own. They began to melt the moment they landed on the formation. The rate at which they melted was considerably slower than for the high-grade inkwell jades.

“But the energy density is ten thousand times higher…” Cha Ming muttered.

“It looks to me like it takes the formation just as much time to compress mid-grade energy to high-grade, high-grade to top-grade, and top-grade to immortal,” Huxian said. “Interesting.”

“So you’re saying that by feeding this formation high-grade transcendent jades, I could shave off a third of the time?” Cha Ming asked.

“And if you fed it top-grade spirit stones, you could shave off two thirds,” Huxian said. “Let me do some math on this.” He took out what appeared to be a calculator, except it was covered in runes and made of jade. He did not punch in any numbers, but instead pressed a finger to and closed his eyes. “It looks like this formation can make one immortal jade every year. So if you wanted to cut that time by a third, you’d need to supply it with that much energy at a lower tier.”

“That’s…”

“Then thousand top-grade immortal jades worth,” Huxian confirmed. “Every year. And that’s if you could even get so many. They’re pretty rare. How many do you figure you need?”

“I’m not sure,” Cha Ming said. “I spent most of what I had. I have six immortal jades left over, and I need sixteen for my next advancement and thirty-two for the one after that.”

“So you need thirty-eight to get to peak of rune gathering,” Huxian said. “What about entering the Law-Stitching Realm?”

Cha Ming hesitated. In truth, he didn’t know. “Maybe double? Maybe five times as much? Who can tell?”

“No way that’s right,” Huxian said, shaking his head. “Look, if things keep on like this, you’ll need enough immortal jades to blow up the entire inkwell plane to break through. How will that not destroy you?”

“Better yet, how has it not destroyed me so far?” Cha Ming asked.

Huxian raised a finger, then put it down. “That’s a good point. I guess I don’t understand how this whole qi cultivation thing works.”

“Either way, I can’t afford to make immortal jades any faster,” Cha Ming said. “Not yet at least. And assuming things continue as is, there should be a full 60 jades by the time we leave. If I use 42 of them to get to the peak of rune gathering, I’ll have 18 left.”

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

“Okay,” Huxian said. “Let’s say we accelerated the entire 60 years.”

“If we fed this formation a constant supply of high-grade spirit stones starting now, we could, in theory, produce almost 91 immortal jades,” Cha Ming said. “An extra 31. And if we used top-grade spirit stones the entire time, we could produce 181. An extra 121. If I used 42 of those to break through to the peak of rune gathering, I’d have 139 to play with. Assuming it takes 64 to get to the law stitching realm, that’s 75 left over. Basically 25 years of full out production.”

The worst part was that neither of them knew whether it was even possible to get that many top-grade spirit stones. “Maybe just high-grade spirit stones then?” Huxian suggested.

“Then I’d just be short 15,” Cha Ming said. “But do you have that many high-grade spirit stones?” Judging by his expression, he did not.”

Both of them knew that they would not be solving this problem any time soon. There were also more pressing matters to attend to. The others had mentioned training, but Cha Ming wasn’t sure his soul could handle it.

“You don’t have to break through to the law stitching realm,” Huxian said.

“Sure I don’t,” Cha Ming replied. “I’m sure Cao Wenluan will sit on his thumbs for sixty years and not do anything else.”

***

Huxian and Cha Ming made their way down the mountain, and as they travelled, Huxian introduced the realm to him bits of lore from his ancestral memories combined with things he’d discovered before coming here.

The Heartforge Realm was ancient. Over a hundred aeons old, in fact. Without context, Cha Ming wouldn’t have any idea what that meant, but Huxian’s example left him flabbergasted. “That’s how long an immortal king lives, Cha Ming,” the fox said. “And they’re like a thousand times stronger than normal immortals.”

“And it’s always been the same?” Cha Ming asked. “Two cities built on jade and ochre mountains?” He couldn’t help but note the similarity between these mountains and the twin mountains he’d seen at the core of the Inkwell Plane.

“Patriarch Heartforge is big on balance,” Huxian said. “He throws in a mix of good guys and bad guys, trains them up, then throws them out again. Not one really knows what they go through though, because everyone who goes out has a memory seal that stops them from talking about it or getting soul searched. My ancestors included.”

“But we can surmise that it involves training and learning techniques and buying treasures,” Cha Ming said. “And probably going on missions. All involving points.”

“Lots of points,” Huxian agreed. “You can’t do anything without them.”

The ochre mountain was too far to see in detail. It looked like a sharp orange blob through the mist that separated them, and glowed with an eerie, devilish light. Just looking at it made Cha Ming want to go on a crusade and eliminate them for evildoing.

Their own Jade Mountain was naturally built of a solid chunk of jade, upon which solid metal platforms had been erected to create a terrace-like structure.

The peak of each mountain was occupied by a few hundred castle-like residences. These were where the immortals and gods that would instruct them lived. No one knew where Patriarch Heartforge or the Heartforge Spirit lived.

Their own residences were located one tier lower. Out of the 5,000 or so cultivators that had entered the Heartforge Realm, roughly 2,200 had chosen the angelic faction and 2,800 the devilish faction. Apparently, the devilish contestants had gotten lucky and pulled through with minimal losses in comparison.

Their own gated community had 21 residences, all of which hailed from the inkwell plane. The other communities contained groups of 20 or 30 residences from various worlds and planets.

Like their own community, the size and luxury of each residence was according to the grade of medallion one possessed. No community had more than one gold-ranked residence, and very few had more than one or two silver-ranked residences. In total, there were only ten gold-ranked invitations, and every single one of them had passed the entrance trial.

Ten black obelisks were located on the third level. They were each three meters tall and stood several hundred meters apart. A large black board displayed five thousand names with corresponding rankings.

“The Heartforge Realm has a bunch of trials,” Huxian explained. “This is the first trial, one that everyone can participate in. It’s called the monthly battle trial, and even the weakest people can get points this way.” He then pointed at the top of the list.

“Cao Wenluan, 3,480 points,” Cha Ming muttered. “Of course, he’s in the top ten.”

“He’s pretty persistent, isn’t he?” Huxian said. “I hope someone stabs him one day. Anyway, I don’t think we’re going to be able to catch up to him any time soon. Especially in your condition.”

“You said this trial was a monthly thing?” Cha Ming asked.

“Yep,” Huxian said. “It was probably best to wait till the end of the month, but everyone was curious.”

Cha Ming saw a few people approaching the obelisks. The pressed their hand on the rune-covered obsidian monuments and ceased moving for about three seconds before a name appeared on the board along with a corresponding score. “And this obelisk just measures your combat potential or something?”

“Oh no, it’s a pretty realistic simulation,” Huxian said. “Basically, you control a projection of yourself. Everything seems real. You keep going until you die. Whether its body death or soul death or whatever. The damage is simulated, not real.”

“I think I see why I won’t be able to measure up,” Cha Ming muttered. “How far did you get?”

“Rank 997,” Huxian said proudly. “Not bad for someone who just downgraded their bloodline?” Then he grimaced. “Just don’t be too disappointed by the result.”

There was no changing the present, so Cha Ming simply walked up to the obelisk and pressed his hand on it. His vision darkened, and when he opened his eyes again, he was in another world.

***

The land was parched and broken, and the rocks and cliffs faded. There was no green here, and the sky, once blue, had long since faded to a violent mix of purple and green.

Void rifts peppered the land such that travel in a straight line for any significant distance was impossible. Only the place where he’d landed was free of them.

Creatures crept out from the edges, and Cha Ming immediately recognized them as fiendish demons. They were ugly, discordant, and wrong in every way imaginable, and the loathing he felt for them came from the depths of his soul.

There were ten fiends in total, and they cautiously surrounded him. Like all fiends, they asymmetrical and mutated. These ones were covered in teeth, but their tiny claws were completely lacking. But Cha Ming would never underestimate even those.

They simply sat there, watching and waiting, sniffing at the air as thought it would allow them to see him better. Cha Ming was wary of them, but if they were content with waiting, he would rather take the initiative. He charged out at the nearest fiend bore down on it with Savage Deity Aura before following up with a staff strike.

The creature was stunned for a split second but recovered quickly, just enough to block the staff as it shattered several rows of teeth and found its core, trapping it while the other nine pounced on him while cackling madly.

This was a death match. A last stand. Cha Ming knew it, and they knew it. Both sides would use everything they had before finally meeting their end.

Cha Ming poured destruction qi through his staff without limit. He used Words of Creation to continuously summon talismans of all elemental varieties, clearly worried that he wouldn’t have time to completely empty his qi reserves before the trial was over.

Crush. Intimidate. Jump. Smash.

Cha Ming summoned walls of stone to protect his flanks, vines to entangle, and flames to burn. He created spinning blade obstacles to cut through the creatures as they fell apart into pools of black blood that covered the earth in a slick sludge.

But death was not permanent for these creatures, for their blood had a life of its own. It poured into every fiend that entered the battlefield, strengthening it until it too died and joined the bloody mess once again.

The creatures grew stronger, and Cha Ming could barely tell where one wave of them ended and another began. They were so savage and fierce that they put the demons from the entrance trial to shame.

They burnt their blood essence. They threw themselves on his staff. They bit his arms and legs to limit his movements just long enough so that their companions could self destruct in his proximity.

It wasn’t long before Cha Ming suffered his first injuries and fell leeward. The only mercy was that these creatures were so vicious that this made them predictable.

In thirty seconds, he’d already killed twenty of them. In the next thirty seconds, he eliminated another wave of ten, these ones bats with strange blades growing out like feathers.

A fourth wave of ten came, and this time, he fought for a full minute. He fought with the desperation he’d found in the wilderness, despite the poison corrupting his veins, despite their strange adaptability.

The fifth wave spat a blood mist that attacked his body like acid.

The sixth wave spun webs of ice and lightning and paralyzed him with their empty eyes.

Cha Ming only managed to kill a single fiend in the seventh wave. He used all the tools at his disposal, including his divine abilities, Descent of the Five Sovereigns, his Savage Deity Battle Arts, and his Runebound Arts.

It wasn’t enough. He fell. There were just too many of them. Perhaps in the outside world he could have used consumables, but here, he only had himself.

Perhaps if he wasn’t wounded, he would have lasted longer. If his soul was fine, he might have lasted a few waves longer.

Before he died, he tried one last thing: he activated his soul burn ability just to see what would happen. Only the first level. Nothing much.

The simulated pain was so intense that within seconds, the artifact considered him dead. Only then did the pain fade, and his consciousness with it.

***

When Cha Ming opened his eyes, he was panting heavily. He’d only tasted the consequences of having his soul ripped apart, and he had no desire to try it again. “I thought I’d rank pretty low, but this…” His final standing was 4,578th out of the 4,859 who’d attempted the trial thus far.

“Burning your soul is a pretty powerful ability,” Huxian said. “If you could do it, you could probably kill your way through another few more waves.” According to the leaderboards, Cao Wenluan had cleared about nine and a half waves.

“But three and a half waves more?”

“What, did you think he was weak?”

Cha Ming shook his head. “I guess his cultivation is a full level stronger than mine.”

“It’s got nothing to do with that, Cha Ming, and you know it,” Huxian said. “The trials are adjusted to everyone’s power level, so he was facing stronger fiends. I know you don’t want to admit it, but pound for pound, he’s just that much stronger than you. A lot of it probably has to do with his soul burn ability, but remember that while you were busy teaching school children, he was fighting.”

Cha Ming knew that Huxian was right. It was one of the reasons he hated Cao Wenluan. A man like that couldn’t stand peaceful times. He lived for battle.

Cha Ming was not a fighter. He was a man who happened to fight when it was needed. He wasn’t even an amateur, but Cao Wenluan was a professional.

“If you want to cheer up, take a look at last place,” Huxian said.

Cha Ming’s eyes flicked to the bottom of the board and saw Petros Sullivan. “That did the exact opposite, Huxian.” Petros had killed precisely twenty-one of the creatures before falling. Not even a third as many as Cha Ming. “I guess I just thought I was top tier, you know?”

“You are top tier,” Huxian said. “It just so happens that everyone else here is as well. The worst part? They’re not in the top 100 of their plane, they’re in the top 3-10.”

If Cha Ming’s emotions weren’t so numb from all the medicine he’d taken after waking, he might have taken a heavy blow. Instead, he was uncharacteristically calm and analytical. “I guess now I know.”

“Now you know,” Huxian agreed. “And that’s half the battle. The Heartforge Realm isn’t just a place to increase your skills, Cha Ming. It’s a place to find yourself. Everyone who comes here gets the chance to see who they really are. Then they get to decide who they want to become and go from there.”

The rest of the tour was uneventful. Huxian led him down one platform after another. Each level was built of metal and became progressively larger the lower they went.

The fifth level was the nicest, and where medicinal plants were grown. It was filled with training fields and all sorts of natural training environments imaginable. An army of transcendent cultivators maintained these places – they were native to the Heartforge Realm and did not have special privileges like the invited.

“Most of this space is just practice areas,” Huxian said. “Safe sparring grounds. That sort of thing. But see those big buildings? Those have special training facilities. They also have trials that you can pass for points, but only the first time you pass them.”

“Do those also scale to cultivation level?” Cha Ming asked.

“They do,” Huxian said. “No idea why, but that’s how things are.”

The trials were separated into four main streams: body, law, soul, and craft. The first three could be cleared for points, but the last one, craft, could only be challenged by paying points. It spoke volumes about Patriarch Heartforge’s philosophy for training geniuses. In the beginning, foundational exercises like these trials would be popular, because people were lacking in points, and this was a good way to obtain them.

There were other notable buildings. There was a hospital for people who overdid their training, a Buddhist temple, and a Daoist temple. The ochre mountain apparently had an evil spirit temple instead of a Buddhist temple. As for Daoism, it wasn’t an exclusively angelic path, and could be pursuit by those pursuing every Dao in existence.

The level was located on flat earth at the base of the mountain. It was a large city that spread as far as the eye could see. There were restaurants, shops, even an open-air marketplace for bulk food supplies, where Cha Ming took the opportunity to stock up on several years worth of high energy foods and squirreled them in storage items he kept hidden in various locations.

Cha Ming was pleased to discover see that most things could be bought and sold with hard currency here. To a point. There was a quality cut-off for most items. Rune-gathering and below items could be purchased with transcendent jades. Anything better would cost points and could be ordered from a specialist or from the Rewards Hall.

“The Rewards Hall has everything,” Huxian said. “Expensive weapons. Flame focuses. Armor. You could probably find plant seeds for the Clear Sky World in there, so probably keep that in mind.”

“Could I turn in law-stitching grade equipment for points if I made it?” Cha Ming asked.

“You could, but you would probably do better by selling items privately,” Huxian said. “The Rewards Hall has pretty much everything, but they really like ripping people off.”

In the end, it all came down to points, which were in very short supply at this point in time. After completing the monthly battle trial today, Cha Ming had obtained 380 points. Every month, he had to spend a thousand points to maintain his residence, which meant that he had to find a way to make an extra 620 a month going forward just to break even.

“Let’s go to the library,” Cha Ming said. “Those three healers said I needed a soul anchor of some kind? And potentially an ability to train my soul? I think that’s the kind of thing you read up on first.”

“Yeah… the library,” Huxian said. “Not my favorite place, but it has to be done. To the library we go.”