It was physically impossible for every crystal shard on the edge of the pit to cut John as he fell, but it certainly felt like that was what happened. The fall lasted several lifetimes, and he was only barely able to summon enough of his remaining energy to prevent his body from falling apart on the way down, though it was devoured by the area even as he fell. It was almost difficult to believe when he found himself at the bottom… even vaguely conscious still. Unless he’d blacked out for a few minutes.

Next to him he sensed Renato. He turned his head to see disciple of the Order of the Amber Heart in only slightly better condition than himself. “Why are you down here?”

Renato crossed an arm over his chest and held up the clump of crystals sticking out in all directions. “You threw this away, so I would say you have no claim on it anymore.”

“You wanted it that much?” John shook his head. As he moved to sit up, the ground stabbed into him. Not so much as the bladelike crystals on the way down, but in the dull pain of stepping on an unbreakable thing on the ground… like lego. He scrounged around in his pack, though it was half on the floor already. He pulled bandages out of the pile and started applying them with some herbs. “Why give up on it then? You could have won that fight.”

“Perhaps. Though I imagine we would have ended up here regardless.” Renato shrugged. “I felt that fate was guiding my hand.”

“But now we’ll both just die,” John shook his head. “It will just be slower.” John winced. “Well, slower for you maybe. Or quicker. The energy down here…”

“It’s quite something. Condensed. Hungry.” Renato took a deep breath, a serene smile on his face. “Dangerous. Perfect for a breakthrough.”

“Unless you explode. Don’t forget that can happen.” John shifted and heard something crack beneath him. It wasn’t him… but the crystals couldn’t possibly be that weak. When he looked down he realized he wasn’t lying on a bed of crystals at all. Irregular hard objects? Absolutely. But aside from a few poking through, he was mostly on a layer of bones. “Oooh, that’s not good.”

“What’s not good?” Renato asked. “Did something happen?”

“The bones…? Oh, you can’t see in the dark.” John held up half of a shin bone. Or maybe not. The bone radiated energy… from the environment, or did it belong to the former cultivator? “These are bones.”

“Ah. I see.” Renato reached around and picked one up, feeling it in his hands. “Hmm, that does seem to be the case.” He pulled his hand away and rubbed his fingers together. “Dusty.”

John dug his hand into the pile. “Bone dust. And many little shards. Like people exploded down here.” He walked over to the edge of the pit. He barely had the energy to stand, let alone lift himself up by sharp crystals. He didn’t need to bleed anymore. “I don’t sense them at the top… though who knows if I even could.” John shook his head.

“You dropped your urn,” Renato held up the darkness element treasure. “I thought you’d want to know. Don’t want to leave it down here.”

“You say that like… we can get out of here. Can you even stand up?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Pretty sure you have someone’s leg through your leg.”

“Correct. Do you have any more bandages you could lend me?”

“Did you not bring any?”

Renato held up a bundle of cloth that was completely torn to shreds. “Of course.”

“Ah. I see you found the walls too.” John handed him the rest of his roll of bandages. “Here.”

“Thank you.” Renato pulled the shard of bone out of his leg and wrapped the bandage around it. He attempted to use energy to help seal the wound, but the energy around them reacted, focusing on the energy and pushing into the wound. Fortunately, it was only for a moment. “I suppose I shall settle for wrapping it.”

“Might as well.” John picked up the pot. “You said this was an urn?”

“Is it not?”

John opened it. “Might be.” He frowned as he turned it around. The thin layer of bone dust that was on everything- including getting into his lungs now that they’d stirred it up- simply wasn’t on the urn. With nothing better to do than hope something useful would happen, John dug for a handful of bone shards and dust and tossed them in the urn. Nothing happened. He put the lid on and shook it. Maybe it just didn’t stick well. Upon opening the lid… he found no dust or bone shards inside… and the energy had seeped from the bones into the urn. “Fascinating. I’d love to have a chance to study this.”

“Then just live.”

“There’s no way we can climb out of here. Two exhausted Soul Collection Phase cultivators like us…”

“We mean it, you know. The Fate thing.” Renato held the earthen treasure they’d fought over firmly between his two hands. “We could be fated to die here, or some of the extras… but maybe we were supposed to end up exactly here. If so… won’t we end up something special? I don’t know you that well, but without bragging I can say I’m not just an average disciple. It would be a shame to just give up.”

John thought for a few moments. Was he anything special? His talent was… fine. But there was indeed something that made him special. He couldn’t say how many people transmigrated into new bodies only to die within a few months- but he was hoping that something about that made him special. “Well, I do need to get back to my family.”

“Exactly. And with two of us, the chance of one of us making it out is twice as high. If it’s me, I promise to carry as much of your body as I can with me to return to your family. I’d appreciate being brought back to the sect if I explode myself.” Renato shifted slightly further away. “We don’t have that much room down here, but we either die not breaking through… or try to make something of ourselves. Might I try my breakthrough first? I’d rather we not interfere with each other.”

“Go ahead,” John said. If he didn’t have to try to breakthrough in a danger zone, he would be quite a bit happier. He didn’t have the energy for it regardless. He moved away and started adding more bones into the pot. How much could it hold? If it started seeming unstable he would stop, but he found himself quite curious.

He messed with the urn while watching Renato. He was actually gathering energy, disturbing the area around them. He was right that they had to try, but it was crazy to do so. The energy was thick and dense like stone crushed by the weight of a mountain above. The crystal treasure in Renato’s hands was dense in a different sort of way. As Renato began cultivating, he drew the power into his body… and into his bones particularly. Immediately the energy reacted, pushing down on him like a crushing wave. Renato’s body trembled, but he didn’t stop. He was like a whirlpool at the center of the energy, drawing in power faster and faster. It was already beyond the point a Spiritual Collection Phase cultivator could handle… probably beyond what a Foundation Phase cultivator could or should deal with… and it wasn’t slowing. John felt Renato’s bones trembling, a keening sound coming from them. He was going to explode… and that wasn’t going to be good for John either.

Thinking was for those who had options. Sometimes when there was a rush of customers you just started working, not thinking about whether you could handle all the orders but just doing it. Likewise, John had no options now. Renato was moments from exploding and wiping him out along with him. He threw himself next to Renato and placed his hand on his head, atop his skull where he had the most contact close to bone.

He was able to siphon energy off of others and convert it to his own, and that was what he began to do. The sapling inside of him greedily consumed the incoming energy, but John felt his meridians trembling under the power coursing through them. Fortunately, he was merely drawing in from a secondary source, so the whirlpool of condensed energy in the area didn’t focus on him. However, his body still was having trouble standing up to just being next to it.

Then John felt a tugging. The urn was still in his other hand, and it began to pull energy out of him into it. The urn charged with earth elemental energy, and soon it was filling to the brim. John pulled the energy back into himself. He’d already attempted to break through to Foundation Phase once in his memories. The problem then hadn’t been a lack of energy, but certainly more would have been better. Now he had far too much… but energy flowed from the condensed crystals and the surroundings into Renato, from Renato into him… into the urn and back into him. At all times they were just a moment away from an explosion… until finally it happened in a great cataclysm of energy.