CHAPTER 16.

I slumped to the ground tired and immediately began to cultivate. I felt a massive rush of refined essence cycle through me, relieving some of the aches in my wounds and clearing some of my fatigue. I spent another hour pulling in essence until all the essence released from the worm at its death was fully absorbed.

Cultivation was a bit painful for me as I had to keep out other essence types except earth, but my visualization trick helped.

The fell and dark essence pressed in on me, trying to get in and I grit my teeth in pain, each time I lost concentration and one got through.

Was cultivation supposed to be this painful? I needed more information if I was to advance, but I suspected that as a slave, I would be getting zero support to advance my personal power.

I was beginning to understand that the only reason my body was cleared of corruption was to make me a more effective slave that can survive taking dangerous jobs like clearing monster ridden mines.

Thanks to the refined essence I had absorbed so far, I was now at mid G rank of the absorption stage, I stood up, thinking of finding a new area to mine and was about to leave when I heard movement from the other end of the shaft.

I tried to hide, but save for the hole the drillworm made entering the tunnel, there were no visible hiding spots and there was no way I was entering the drillworm excavated tunnel.

So I sat down on the ground waiting for what was clearly a group of miners based on their bawdy talk about using their points to visit a local brothel.

When they finally noticed me sitting on the wall of the shaft, next to the drillworms corpse, they all became silent.

A bright beam settled on my face and I raised my hand to block the offending light.

"I haven't seen you before, you must be the new worm bait we were promised, we were expecting you hours ago."

As my eyes adjusted with the light again I was able to see the owner of the voice. A skinny gangly man with a pox ridden face, he had a rusty blade pointed at my throat and a nasty smirk on his face. He was surrounded by four other men; equally malnourished, ill looking and like me, all except the leader at the low end of the essence absorption rank. For some reason, I could instinctively tell that he was at a higher rank than me

I could feel small amounts of essence leaving their bodies due to lack of a proper core. Plus my implant could tell their rank from the slight difference in density of the essence leaking from each of them.

I turned on my headlamp, unwilling to be intimidated.

"I hear you're a pet for one of the mistresses. Tell me worm bait, does she take you with a wooden cock, is that what tickles your little worm"

"Only you would know, isn't that how ugly one to four take you on the regular." I said with my own smirk plastered on my face.

Suddenly his cutlass flashed forward in an attempt to cut me, but I reacted faster, thanks to my new seismic-sense and rolled aside, standing in one fluid move. I pulled out my cutlass and before he could recover from the swing, I grabbed him in a headlock and placed my cutlass on his neck.

For a moment I was shocked that someone, and a human being for that matter, that I had just met for the first time would try to kill me. Where was the solidarity amongst people of the same species. But slowly starting to understand how this new world worked. The only thing that was respected was power and the ability to use that power decisively and ruthlessly.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't plunge my blade into your neck." I said as I dug the tip of my sword in his neck and drew a bit of blood.

"You idiot, I'm the leader of your digging crew, you just signed your own death warrant. Let's see how you meet your quota of ore and even earn points without a crew to guard your back. You're dead man outrealmer."

"You're not making a good case for your continued existence. Maybe I should just end you and save myself a lot of trouble." I said, my blade still on his neck. I noticed in my periphery, the other members of the crew trying to circle around me; rusty blades in hand.

"Fool, my boys are going to gut you slowly" He said with false bravado, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He tried to buck and I nearly lost my hold on him. Despite the difference in our size and mass, he was clearly stronger than me, probably close to rank D of the absorption rank.

But I was no slouch in the strength department, my essence type, combined with my already huge frame more than made up the difference.

Essence was the key to power around here, just having it in my body, altered it in extreme ways that would be impossible back on earth.

I spun and pulled him in a headlock in front of me; blade to his throat and backed myself against the wall. I dug just the edge of my blade into his neck to prevent him from trying anything.

"Stay back and no funny business or the dickwad gets it."

The men stopped a few feet away, I guess they were waiting for orders.

"You don't have the balls, I hear you mechanists are a squeamish lot when it comes to taking life." He said with false bravado in his voice

"There's no way to escape outrealmer, either you let me go or my boys will finish you."

"What's to stop them from attacking even after I let you go?" I said in rebuttal.

"I have no reason to kill you fool, the mine will do that for me. I just want front seats to watch."

I took a bit to assess my options, there was no way I was placing my fate at the dubious mercy of someone that has already tried to kill me in cold blood once. I needed to create my own way out of this situation. We could not remain like this forever, sooner or later he is going to try something and I doubted I had the strength to resist if they all ganged up on me

In a fit of inspiration or madness, depending on your perspective, an idea struck me. Without waiting to talk myself out of it, I immediately cut off the small trickle of essence from my headlamp to turn it off and began to hit my blade on the rocky wall beside me.

A resounding clang spread across the shaft and I felt something stir all around me. It was subtle, I had activated my ultrasonic-sense as soon as my light went out. I pushed the leader towards the nearest man to create more chaos and then moved outside the reach of their lamps and stood still.

Suddenly a piercing cry went out and was abruptly cut off as one of the men was cut in half by a surprise drillworm attack, his other half crushed in the worm's maw.

The other three men rushed to attack the beast, while the leader looked around trying to find me. I was burning through my freshly cultivated essence, so I slowly sat down and began to cultivate, while keeping my senses on the battle before me. This was extremely difficult as I hadn't gotten used to refining essence but my implant helped by keeping track of the battle while I focused on pulling and refining essence.

One of the men nearly lost a leg as another drillworm sprouted close to his leg and now the three men were now hard pressed, fighting two worms. They refused to turn off the glow rock, relying on the false safety of the light, instead of their affinity for earth. I was very grateful for Zalla's instruction right now.

"Callum, forget the dark blood, come and help us before we become worm food."

Callum seemed conflicted between going after me and joining the battle.

So me; all round good guy and friend to assholes, decided to make the choice for him.

I carefully picked up several stones and threw them in his direction. Immediately one of the worms about to charge the men rushed towards Callum.

Unprepared for the assault, he was caught unawares as the worm slammed into him and latched onto his arm. A heart rending scream filled the shaft as Callum cried out, followed by a quickly cut-off gurgling sound as the worm finished him off.

So much for front row seats.

I turned to the battle between the remaining men and the worm to see that they had already killed one of the drillworms. They were about to focus on the second worm, when another worm rushed out from the nearest wall and latched on to another man. His scream vibrated across the entire tunnel and I knew I had to wrap this up quickly as more worms would be coming to crash the party.

The remaining two men both turned to attack the new arrival, but the worm feasting on Callum, drawn by the commotion joined the fray. The men suddenly found themselves pinned between the two beasts and we're quickly dispatched.

I continued to cultivate and a large amount of poorly refined essence flowed into me from the dead men and the dead drillworm. It would seem that the large number of deaths in the area had released a considerable amount of essence.

With my senses I felt the gaze of the two worms turn in my direction and slowly they began to slither towards me. One had been damaged by the combined attack of the last two men and its stilted movement reflected this.

For a moment I almost acted in panic, moving to attack them before they reached me

But I calmed down to think.

What was I doing that was attracting them to me?

And then it became obvious to me, I was still cultivating. When they were focused on prey, I went mostly unnoticed, but now the battle was over, they must now be able to detect the fluctuation in ambient essence. It made me wonder if beasts could cultivate and what would happen if they were allowed access to the newly released essence. I did not know, but I also did not want to find out.

Immediately I ceased cultivation and they stopped, swaying slightly in an attempt to detect me.

I picked up another rock and threw it towards the opposite wall. Immediately, the two worms rushed to get at the perceived prey slamming into the wall. I rushed the undamaged worm and immediately sliced under its mouth.

My rusty blade was nearly wrenched from my hand as I tried to cut through the tough leathery hide underneath the worm. With a burst of strength, I cut across its throat. The other worm turned but I launched myself across the room. As I expected it rushed towards me and I dove to the side, clipping my shoulder but unwilling to let out any expression of pain so as not to give out my position.

The other worm was still thrashing in its death throes, leaking a noxious fluid everywhere. The second worm damaged from its previous ordeal wailed in response to the death of the second. I picked up another rock and threw it across the room to get its attention. This time it was cautious, reluctant to act impulsively.

So it can learn and adapt. I wonder how I can use that to my advantage. I picked several stones and threw them in the same direction. Unable to ignore the flurry of false movements, it rushed in that direction and slammed into the wall. Immediately while it was mid-rush, I plunged my blade into its already gaping wound and finished it off, but my blade broke inside the beast.

It was then that I noticed that my blade had broken under the corrosive effects of the worm's stomach acids. Soon with everyone and everything dead, I was able to cultivate in peace; desperate to pull in all the essence floating around.

I sent a pulse to my center and received a reciprocating pulse in return. I began to funnel essence into the little guy knowing he would be happy with all the free refined essence.

For the first time, sitting in complete darkness, I felt safer than I'd ever felt since my kidnapping. I could feel everything, the constantly shifting earth around me and even the little critters that moved above and below me

We spent several hours in the dark relative quiet and as I cultivated, I thought of the next step I wanted to take on my path to power.

As much as I wanted to wait until I had access to the library, I needed a core formation technique now. I was not going to survive down here without the ability to properly store essence and use techniques. I needed to either find a cultivation technique or make one of my own.

So far, I've survived most of my encounters with death by the skin of my teeth. If I wasn't an atheist, I would say there was someone looking out for me.

Even my handling of the worms surprised me, I was able to react and adapt quickly, without much hesitation or fear of falling apart.

Come to think of it, that seemed unnatural to me. I had a good measure of my character and basic disposition. Even though I can say with certainty, that I've never been in a situation like this, I know I should not have been this collected, either fighting the worms or facing Callum's gang.

I queried my implant for an explanation, and after a few seconds, received an answer.

It was a confluence of factors that created my calm demeanor.

First, now that the implant is totally under my control, it helps regulate my brain chemistry and optimize my neural processes, especially in times of danger or during complex problem solving.

The location of my core also factors into my improved mental state as my mind is currently housing the location of the purest refined essence within my body.

And finally, there is the mysterious awakening of my soul that is having a qualitative effect on every aspect of my being that the implant was at the moment, unable to properly analyze in any way. I would need more information or higher cultivation ranks to pursue that line of investigation.

Satisfied that I hadn't been somehow body snatched by a more competent version of me, I decided to query the implant regarding any information it had on cultivation. To my surprise I received several terabytes worth of data on eastern cultivation techniques, fantasy novels and board and video games.

I decided to focus on the eastern cultivation data for the simple reason that I was not in a novel or a game. But the information I found was of little help.

It focused more on mysticism and martial arts, which might be useful somewhere down the line, but no practical information on how to create a core. I decided to experiment and attempt to make one of my own.

I directed my intent towards my center and its response was lukewarm.

While it wanted to be able to store more essence and grow, I also got the impression that it thought I would damage myself. If there was a way for my soul to call me a moron, I'm sure it would have done so. But it let me continue regardless of its misgivings.

I wouldn't have considered attempting this if I didn't have the words of the old man driving me. Plus I needed an edge if I was to survive here alone. I remembered what the leader "Callum" said, about waiting for me, something about the way he said it rubbed me wrong and my instincts for sensing an incoming shiv, honed in prison, were flashing warning lights. It seems that my unwanted status as Astrel's pet was causing me even more problems than I already had to deal with.

I closed my eyes, still cultivating and I considered everything I knew about the core creation stage.

From what I gathered, a core's primary purpose was to gather, refine and store essence within a cultivator's center. Although I currently refined essence by pulling it into the center in my head and rotating it rapidly across my entire body and separating the denser corruption from the more refined essence I wanted.

But the process was poorly done and inefficient; over time I lost essence to my environment. It seemed to me that relying on the image of simple centrifugal force alone would not be enough. I needed a construct that would be able to improve essence purity while preventing loss.

Although essence had similar properties to matter; at least mine did, it did not act like any known substance I was aware of.

For one, essence changed density not only due to volume but also type. For another, unlike actual matter, it could move through any material quite easily without causing any obvious interaction, I noticed this as the essence levels within the enclosed shaft began to drop even as I pulled it in.

Then it hit me, how do I draw essence into myself. I closed my eyes and observed the process of cultivation instructing my implant through my soul, to record the process for later analysis. I immediately noticed four things.

First, essence acted like a magnet, in the sense that it usually was attracted to, for lack of a better term, the better conductor in a particular area.

I observed that when I stopped cultivating, essence began to drift outwards, towards the walls and the ground trying to return the area to its previous levels, I still had no idea how essence density in a particular area was determined.

Second, while I could not physically interact with essence, it responded to my desire to absorb it. The difficulty of cultivation lay in holding the image of refining my essence in my head with near perfect focus, over long periods of time and keeping out unaligned essence types.

Near total concentration was necessary or else essence of less refinement or other alignments would spill into already-refined essence, causing setback.

Was there a way to automate the process? Gain passive aligned and refined essence? Maybe if I commanded my implant to attempt cultivation on its own.

"William, focus, you're going off topic." I chided my easily distracted brain.

I took a deep breath, sending an instruction to my implant to shelve the idea for later review.

Third, I detected an increase in essence density within me the more essence I absorbed. I came to the conclusion that this was how cultivators rose in rank. Increase in refined essence-volume will automatically lead to increase in essence-density.

This increased density improves the body's essence-conductivity. Basically I increased my "suction" of essence the more I pulled in and refined.

And finally, a core, or even any part of cultivation, was mostly a mental construct.

My center did not really have a physical location in my body that I could actually discern and trust me, I had my implant check.

But regardless, it improved my control of essence within and around me.

With these four discoveries in mind, I Finally decided on several rudimentary designs for my core.

First I tried a funnel-like construct where I spun it ever downward, reducing surface area steadily towards my center, like a corkscrew.

I immediately noticed several problems I had not considered, some with even painful or fatal consequences.

First, although a core was a mental construct empowered by essence, any design would need a lot of my refined essence to build, support and sustain.

Also since it would be based on a physical structure, it would have to be quasi-solid in form.

Size I observed did not matter, merely the concept of containment and refinement. I was going to need more refined essence than I currently had if I was going to do this on my own.

Another problem was that I needed a design that completely enclosed the essence or I still would be unable to contain it.

I was reminded yet again that although essence acted like a physical substance, it was not. My funnel design was inefficient as it only allowed for essence flowing in one direction. I had to keep in mind that essence was not air and I could somehow pull it with equal pressure across my entire surface area.

Another problem was the amount of clumped refined essence I had floating in my core when I broke down the prototype core. It became immediately apparent that it would take me time to break down each essence construct in order to get back my refined essence after each attempt. I also noticed that I also lost essence during the refinement process.

If I was going to continue my experimentation on core designs, I would need access to a lot more essence; already-refined if possible.

Throughout all this, my implant accumulated data on my failed attempts.

I thought of leaving the mine and mentally cringed when I thought about what was waiting for me outside. More suffering, more pain, Astrel…

No, better to stay here, at least I now had a method to hunt the drillworms and with what I now called my ultrasonic-sense, I could now perceive them before they reached me.

I decided I was going to stay and mine the area. Ignoring the whispers of cowardice telling me that I was running from my problems, I decided to mine and hunt worms for as long as possible, but first I needed to harvest what I could from my assailants and the dead drillworms.

Pulling my knife and grimacing, I set myself to the unpleasant task.