-Lost Village-

Lost Village wasn’t actually lost, it would be more accurate to call it Forgotten by Everyone Village. The reason it’s called lost village was ironically lost to time and the some 500 odd residents didn’t particularly care what the town was called. It was quiet and out of the way, a good 25km from Gau City and within the influence of the monolith.

As long as they joined the great harvest twice a year they could be paid a gold coin for every full wagon of grain they can deliver to the Gau City silos. On the odd occasion if a villager should accidently catch a grain fly they can receive 4 gold pieces from the Gau Clans Sword Hall.

The Golden Grain Fly may have given James a hard time but that was only because he ate them in the dozens. In normal cases they can assist in a short spurt of instant spirit power growth but their greatest attribute is the power to assist in cultivation. In other words eating one can help increase the speed at which your Spirit Realm gathers spirit energy. The time varies person to person but generally if the Fly has lived for a good long period they will increase your spirit growth rate by nearly half again for anywhere up to a month.

James, unfortunately, missed out on taking advantage of this chance seeing that he was too busy being in a coma to meditate and consolidate the strange energy that would have granted him the cultivation bonus. He did however get a massive influx of primal spirit energy, or at least to a spirit barrier realm it was massive. Regardless of James’ misfortune within fortune we’re not in Lost village to talk about James, instead we’re here to visit an old friend of James’ who recently stumbled into town.

After a rocky start with the townspeople when he strolled in smelling of a multitude of strange things and looking as if he’d been chewed up and spat out by some vicious creature, he managed to score some rest and a job in the stables shovelling shit. It was also the only place in the entire town where the smell he was generating was slightly offset by the smell of his work place and sleeping arrangement.

He was paid 5 coppers once he’d finished in the stable and he was also given a horse brush and something that resembled a rock that smelled of soap, then thrown into the horses bathing trough to clean himself. After that whole thing and covered in the bite marks of horses that took exception to the smell, he returned to the stable and slept the night away in a deep sleep on some mostly clean hay.

When dawn awoke him from his slumber the first thing Fatty realized was that he was hungry. So hungry was Fatty, that he was almost prepared to climb into a stall and start gnawing one of the horses to death just to satiate this hunger. Once he finally managed to get control of this urge he walked back out towards a grain paddock and madly started consuming raw grains off the stalks. He ate as much as 5 full grown men and only then was he satisfied. He’d been so hungry upon waking up that taste didn’t even matter.

Fatty’s hunger never used to be this gluttonous. He used to eat a bit more than others but it was never like this before. However ever since the forest experience this level of hunger ‘felt’ normal and his mind was too busy on other things to discern any major change in his diet. When the need struck him he just knew he had to eat!

After this quick snack fatty wandered the village and managed to use 3 coppers to have a villager tailor some cloth into a great big poncho to replace what little of his jumpsuit still remained. When he first started walking around the village he was worried that people would question the nature of his glowing red hand. Opposite to Fatty’s expectations, everyone treated it as par for the course and even seemed somewhat respectful and maybe a little fearful towards him.

At one point, a boy playing in the street bumped into him while he was walking and when he reached out his glowing hand to help the boy up a villager ran out and flying jumped into an incredibly impressive sliding kowtow with his forehead grinding through the dirt. Other than being impressed by the man’s ability to slide nearly 4 meters on his knees with his forehead pressed to the ground Fatty was more surprised when the man started calling him mighty cultivator and merciful lord while simultaneously rebuking the child for upsetting the powerful lord practitioner and then had him on his knees apologizing and begging leniency as well.

Fatty being a conspiracy nut decided something was afoot on this alien prison/enslavement/breeding world and began asking questions. Once he started he couldn’t stop himself and asked nearly everyone in the village every question he could think of.

Although Lost Village was tucked away in the middle of grain fields in a nice quiet area the villagers still knew a little bit about cultivators and explained everything they could. Once he learnt all of this he made the decision to try and get to this Gau City that he’d heard about. The next day he set off with nothing but his glowing hand and great big poncho. He took no rations because the entire area around Gau City within the 35km radius of the monolith was covered in grain. Fatty no longer cared what he ate. As long as his hand didn’t flash when he went to stuff it in his mouth he’d eat anything.

And so Fatty travelled towards Gau City at a level jog looking like a bouncing meat ball. Interestingly it was later discussed by many locals that a strange pestilence had popped up in the southern fields, where entire patches of grain into the tens of square meters would just disappear every now and then for no rhyme or reason. When it was investigated by Gau Clan disciples they found nothing but barren patches with debris of grain stalks scattered about appearing to have been chewed on but they could never find a creature capable of eating that much grain.

-Madman Laboratory-

James and Skay had discussed and argued over many things for many hours. Finally they felt they had a clear idea of what they needed to achieve for the best results when they stepped into the True Spirit realm.

The first thing they decided on was to gather cultivation resources. When they discussed this Harvey chimed in about a sizable vein of black-iron he’d discovered in the endless forest. If he used a Gau Compass they could investigate it properly and maybe use the rewards for such a discovery to accumulate some resources from the clan.

So that’s what they decided to do. Skay stayed behind in the lab to complete the breathing technique they needed to gain better control over their spirit elements as well as speed up their cultivation. James took the Ghoul and the Slut into the forest with a bunch of odd tools given to him by the old madman.

It wasn’t too difficult to find with Harvy leading the way and only took a few hours for the ragtag team of the Dark Brotherhood to reach the ore vein. When they reached a small valley in the forest they branched off from the cobblestone paths that apparently stretch out across the entirety of the Endless Forest. On arrival at the base of the valley they found a number of dirty black stones scattered around the area and a cliff face reaching upwards with a long dirty black streak through it.

“Dark Lord and Lady this black streak is the edge of the vein of black iron-ore. I don’t know how far it reaches into the earth but for it to be so big here must mean the vein is quite large. At least, that was my assumption when I first discovered it.” Harvy gave a respectful bow with his fist cupped towards James and gestured to the dirty black streak across the cliff face.

James took out a black pad they’d recently found in the wreckage they’d come through with and flipped it open. After pressing on it a few times then handed it to Jessy, who was essentially just here to be his assistant. Also she was bored, not knowing what exactly to do with her time, she actually volunteered.

Once he’d handed it to her he took off a backpack and pulled out a small box that resembled the base of his compass with a number of wires and electronics he’d recently soldered onto it. He then began plugging the wires into the pad.

Once he was ready he nodded. “Alright looks like we’re set. I hope that old madman’s program actually works. Just for a test ... Harvy bring me one of those ore rocks.” James pointed at the biggest black rock he could see near the cliff base. It looked more like a boulder and was close to 2 meters in height and width. He could have just walked over to it but he took a perverse delight in giving Harvy unreasonable tasks.

Harvy didn’t even question the order and walked up to the great big boulder. Circulating his earth element he dug his hand into the boulder like it was tofu. With a great huff out, he poured his power into his legs lifting the boulder. Great heavy steps thumped the whole four meters over to James and then dropped the stone to the ground.

James and Jessy were both rather surprised. He expected to be given the chance to berate his zombie servant a little but instead had no choice but to praise him. He decided to take the middle road though because he didn’t want the ghoul becoming too full of himself with praise like some spoilt dog that gets a pat just taking a crap even if it’s on the carpet.

“Harvy, I thought your earth element was the weakest it could get. I could understand it being a little more powerful now that you’ve consolidated your true spirit but how did it become so fuckin’ stupidly powerful. I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting you to lift that boulder. I just wanted to fuckin’ yell at something. Now fuckin’ explain yourself!”

James’ middle road quickly joined back onto the first path of berating despite a great deal of effort on his part to hold it in. However no one could ever say he wasn’t honest with his employee base.

Harvy had no great reaction to this and his lifeless dead eyes remained lifeless and dead he simply made a bow to his Evil Overlord and explained. “Master this servant believes that death is closely related to the earth. It was explained to me by Vice Guildmaster Skay, in the cycle of life and death all things eventually return to the earth in one form or another. When I meditated on this insight I gained enlightenment from my element of death and my understanding of my earth element grew.”

James cupped his chin slightly. ‘So even abstract notions like this can affect the level of control we have over our elements. Fuck that’s bizarre. There’s still so much we don’t understand about the laws of spirit energy control. Fuck we can’t even figure out a way to measure it!’

Having thought that far James put away the notion of abstract thought affecting control and walked the whole step to the rock. After placing his hand on the rock he stared intensely at it for a good fifteen minutes. Finally he figured out how to pour spirit energy into it through his hand. Although this was close to materialising spirit energy outside his body he was in contact with it and wasn’t trying to control his spirit energy once it’d left his body. He had a sneaking suspicion this was similar to how all those martial techniques worked and allowed even barrier realm cultivators to affect the natural laws in their surroundings.

After another 15 minutes he’d finally got the hang of it and looked over to Jessy who’d been rather quiet since he berated her for not being able to accept her inner nature. Jessy was watching him and when he looked over she looked down at the pad and pressed some buttons. After a moment a 3D depiction of the rock appeared on the screen with a whole bunch of measurements next to it from size to purity.

When she saw this she couldn’t help but gasp. “Wow ... Can’t believe it actually works.”

James strolled over and looked at the screen as a smile split his face. He too was inwardly a little surprised. Skay had told him the black-iron had an absurd level of magnetic sensitivity and even greater levels of electromagnetic activity when a current passed through it. With that in mind he designed this little box and program with James to use the magnetic fields created by the ore to determine its purity and quantity.

James was a little sceptical at first but now he was a believer. ‘Just how much is locked up in the head of that fuckin’ madman to be able to implement this kind of geological surveying with a bunch of rocks he’d never seen before.’

Once James was finished he approached the dirty great skid mark on the cliff face and placed both hands on it. With an intention, his lightning element surged out like a wrathful tidal wave into the ore and little snakes of lightning flickered about on the cliff face. After about half an hour of constantly pouring in energy, James staggered back and fell to the ground pale as a ghost. He’d poured literally every bit of lightning element he could conjure into the black-iron deposit and was now feeling the backlash as his other two spirit energies roiled and shook inside his spirit realm.

Without even worrying about the survey result he sat into a cross-legged position and began to meditate to increase his recovery rate. Once it was half way restored he finally climbed up. He began to question the nature of how his spirit energy increased. From his observations he suspected his maximum spirit energy level always increased at a set rate while meditating and spirit energy below this ever rising maximum value could be quickly regenerated after being used.

He believed this gave greater credence to the theory that your subconscious was stealing energy to reinforce the barrier. When you weren’t raising the maximum spirit energy and just recovering then the barrier took no energy and this allowed you to recover quickly. The massive deference in the speed of recovery and the growth rate of your maximum spirit energy made James think that the amount of spirit energy your subconscious used to build its barrier was inordinately higher than what it left for refinement into an element. He suspected if his barrier wasn’t being simultaneously built then his progress in the growth of his maximum spirit energy would be an order of magnitude faster than at present.

When he discussed this thought with Skay later they finally understood why the level of control over your elements was so important in breaking the barrier. It was because the barrier eventually contained a massive difference in energy from what you had at your disposal and the only way to break that overwhelming power was to be able to control your element to the level in which you could overwhelm greater power with less.

Skay’s comment basically summed up their conclusions. “In the analogy of two armies battling one another. It’s like an army of a million peasants being attacked and dispersed by a hundred thousand trained and tried cavalrymen.”

Once his moment of introspection finished they had a look at the ‘map’ generated on the pad. James could think of only one word to describe his feeling looking at all the figures next the image. ‘Mine!’

He immediately claimed this ore vein in his head. The vein was so massive, even with him pumping spirit energy into it for half an hour their makeshift device could hardly see the ends.

From the figures he was reading it looked to reach back into the cliff face and underground for tens of kilometres and beyond the box’s ability to detect. More important was what was spread out through the vein. Patches of very bright areas which had quality and quantity values through the roof. James was more concerned with what was in the centre of these patches though. It looked like a little solid dot and its purity values were greater than 100%.

“Above 100%! Is that spirit essence deposits?” James said aloud to himself. He thought back to a conversation he’d overheard between the Elder and Skay back when he first woke up. The elder made a reference to spirit ores that develop an essence. The essence was described as the true core of an ore vein and held the same properties as the rest of the ore, only magnified!

In the case of black-iron spirit essence James was assuming it was even more sensitive to magnetic fields and can create an even more dramatic magnetic field when current is passed through it.

When he considered that possibility, he began to think of some weapons he wanted to develop later. Then quickly stopped once the thought that their contraption was broken occurred to him.

After packing up the black-pad and surveying device the trio began marching back out of the forest. As they left, a man’s form materialised from the shadow of a tree behind them.

Calso had an odd expression as he watched the group moving back along the path following a compass. How long had he been combing the forest for these filthy commoners? Finally they just walked straight past him and led him to a valley with a huge black-iron deposit. He couldn’t believe his luck! Xanzu was sure to reward him.

There was one problem though. How was he supposed to announce this to the Elders? For starters he couldn’t just say he happened upon it in the forest because right now he was meant to be watching over them in their courtyard. If he came back and started shouting about this vein now, then he’d surely be punished for neglecting his duty.

Worse than that, was the fact that these filthy mortals would most likely tell someone the moment they got back. He had to stop them! Besides, he was already ordered to bring the girl and kill the boy. He’d been in the forest for 3 days and Xanzu was surely already getting impatient. This ore vein would be his saving grace when he brought back the girl.

With those thoughts in mind he raced ahead to find a place to ambush them. Once he’d found a nice dark looking area along the road he blended into the shadows to wait. The moment he saw them he prepared himself and then launched forth from the shadows towards Harvy who he knew was just a weak little tripe from a lesser family branch.

James had been leading the party back towards the mansion when he felt a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach intensify, like he was being watched. He didn’t pay much attention to it at first because he was distracted by the task of surveying the deposit. Once they left the valley the feeling only grew stronger though and finally he couldn’t ignore it as he started looking around every now and then as they travelled. Jessy didn’t seem to notice anything and Harvy was unreadable because ever since they kille ... Ahh, since his rebirth they’d never seen him make any expressions and his face just always looked dead.

Finally James couldn’t shake the feeling and just as he turned to ask if Harvy had the same sensation, a black shadow flickered past his periphery. His lightning energy slowed the world down but even with that he could only see a blur of a man’s form shooting towards Harvy. Before he could turn completely a loud ‘thwack’ sounded out and the Ghoul was sent flying off into the forest like he’d been smashed into by a truck!

James wasn’t much of a fighter in his past life because his nature once he got riled up was unpredictable. He knew if he got into a fight he may not be able to stop himself from killing someone. This world was different though and Harvy was his property! As his spirit power flooded his body, he slid the compass into his robe as he shot forward at full speed and launched a punch at the momentarily stationary Calso. Before it landed, Calso started stepping oddly and James’ punch flew through nothing as Calso dropped low and shifted his position around to James’ side.

When James saw his punch swinging into nothing he tried to pull his weight back but underestimated his speed with lightning spirit energy. Before he could control himself a massive force collided with his chest and he was launched ten meters through the air to roll along the cobblestone path until he came to a stop.

“Hahaha so you’ve got a little bit of spirit power now! This changes nothing! You’re still a pathetic weak piece of scum and know nothing of the world, like a frog trapped in a well. Your woman and your black-iron will all be Xanzu’s. Hahahaha! Unfortunately, you won’t be alive much longer and I won’t be able to savour your face when your women is claimed by someone else!” Calso was taking great delight in goading James a little. It felt good to release his pent up stress from the last few days in the forest.

James pulled his hands underneath himself and pushed himself up slowly, spitting blood from his mouth. As he crawled up to his feet he was now truly worried. He hadn’t expected to run into someone trying to take his life. He knew Xanzu would eventually be a pain in the ass but he didn’t expect him to try and have him killed.

Jessy, who had only now realised something was going on, was enraged. “Just who the fuck is his woman! I don’t fucking belong to anyone you piece of shit scumbag. You go tell your boss he can get fucked!”

Calso just grinned when he heard this. “You don’t have a choice you little tart! Power rules over the weak. If Xanzu wants you, there’s nothing you can do to change that. You’ll be his little fuck doll whether you like it or not! Hahaha!”

Calso laughed madly. He seemed to greatly enjoy crushing these pathetic weaklings.

James had been ecstatic earlier. He never imagined that this world would be so awesome. He’d only been here a short time but apart from the incident in the beginning he’d not only been basically free to do whatever he wanted, he’d even found a massive store of riches out in the forest, in the form of black-iron ore.

He quickly realised how naïve he’d been. Hao and the Elder had said many times that the strong ruled in this world. If you had something that you wanted to keep you had to be strong enough to keep it. He’d also greatly underestimated the power of their martial techniques. He should have been well and truly faster than this Gau disciple. Even Harvy who was now in the True Spirit realm couldn’t keep up with James’ speed but with his movement technique this disciple had evaded his punch and even taken the opportunity to counter attack.

All these thoughts ran through his head as he slowly stood up with a great string of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. He was truly enraged now. He’d never been so angry.

He shot forward like a bullet but before he’d even closed the distance Calso waved his hand and a gust of wind blew forward throwing James off his feet.

His chest was pounding and the sharp pain in his side and his struggles breathing properly suggested he had some broken ribs. But all his pain was drowned out by his all-encompassing rage.

All his life he’d been proud. He had pride in his knowledge and took pride in his adaptability and survival instinct. But now someone was trying to kill him and worse still, damaged his pride by shooing him away with a wave of the hand.

He stood up again and his face was deadpan. His eyes were clear without ripples and looked to be staring straight through Calso. No emotion was on his face but inside he was a cacophony of rage and a little worried that he may not survive this encounter.

As they stared at each other, Calso’s malevolent grin slowly turned to a scowl. James was only slightly confused until beside him appeared the ghoul with half his chest caved in giving off a black mist like steam. He smelt even more strongly of death than normal.

He ghoulishly shambled up and paused next to James then gave a bow and turned to stare at Calso.

“Dark Sire, I apologise for failing to protect you from this disgusting degenerate. Please allow this slave to tie him down while you escape to the mansion.” With that said Harvy’s body lowered slightly as he prepared to engage Calso.

James didn’t ask if he was okay seeing as half his chest looked caved in, but instead just continued to stare at Calso while asking. “How strong is he? More importantly, can you beat him?”

“Master this subordinate is uncertain. His spirit energy is still in the True Spirit realm but I can tell it’s much stronger than mine. He also has strong martial arts from the head family. I may not be his match.” Harvy replied.

Calso’s face had long since returned to a smile. He could see Harvy looked half dead. He was surprised Harvy had even made it to the true spirit realm. Everyone knew Harvy was one of the dregs of the clan and never had the talent or will power to force his way through the spirit barrier. He also wasn’t sure what to think of this strange element that stank to the high heavens.

He knew however that Harvy was the clan wimp and never learnt any strong martial arts. Better still, he could sense his spirit energy was greatly stronger than Harvy’s. He was assured that even if he fought with Harvy, he could kill him easily and remove this witness. In fact he was surprised his sneak attack hadn’t killed him earlier. It was one of his most powerful wind techniques.

Seeing as he was confident in killing them whenever he wanted, he made no rush and let them struggle in their death throws.

James smiled grimly realising what Calso was thinking. “Harvy his wind movement technique makes it difficult to hit him even for me. Do you thinks it’s possible for you to tie him down enough I can make contact? All I need is to touch him. Once I can do that I doubt even your family head could fight back.”

Harvy realised what his master was talking about. He’d suffered at quite a number of experiments from James and was fairly certain he knew what James was thinking. He nodded his head. “Master, this servant will try his best.”

James smile grew colder. “If you fuck’it up Harvy, even if I’m about to die, I will drag you soul into hell with me.”

He didn’t think it was physically possible but somehow Harvy’s face managed to pale even more from its disgusting greyish state.

James then looked over at Jessy and began speaking in English. “Jess try to keep some distance. If an opening appears try and get close to him and pour your spirit power into his body. If the actions too fast though just keep back.”

Jessy only nodded her head. She knew this situation was serious and no time to start a verbal battle with James.

As she backed away slightly James and Harvy both started to creep forward. Calso, seeing they would attack together just had a deranged grin and was crazily laugh in his heart. ‘Foolish bugs! I’m going to enjoy crushing you under foot.”

After a quiet moment of staring at each other, James and Harvy both suddenly shot forward. In the eyes of Calso, Harvy looked to be almost sliding across the ground his feet surrounded by dirty brown glow, like he was ice skating across the ground. James was more worrying though, even in the eyes of Calso, James just looked like a grey blur.

He made to wave his sleeve to knock James back and slow Harvy’s advance. Just as his gust of wind was agglomerating out from his body, Harvy slammed his hands down and the earth around Calso sank like quicksand.

Calso was forced to stop channelling energy into his gale force wind and made to jump up to escape the sudden sink whole of sand.

The moment he lifted off the ground the grey blur of James appeared beside him and reached out to grab.

Before his hand reached, Calso waved his arms in mid-air applying another wind technique. His body swiftly escaped backwards like a leaf on the wind.

As he shot backwards James fingers just barely brushed past Calso’s extended palm. The moment they touched Calso felt his entire arm suddenly tense up and spasm then grow numb.

James gave a “tsk!” Clicking his tongue, then shot after the retreating Calso.

Calso was now slightly worried. He was starting to feel a little pressured by these ants. The more he thought that the angrier he got. When had he, a true spirit disciple of the clan’s Sword Hall, ever been pushed back by some foreign mortal stepper? Worse still, Harvy’s spirit energy control was greatly more attuned then he thought it would be. To instantly create a sink-hole more than ten meters from where you’re standing isn’t a task just any true spirit cultivator can accomplish.

Most worrying for Calso was, whatever the hell that previously weak mortal’s element was. Whatever it was, it had just numbed his entire arm from a simple touch and even pumping in his own spirit energy to expel James’ energy only resulted in the beginnings of a distracting pins and needles.

Growing wary of the tag-team he retreated a little further trying to get a chance to get feeling back. He was now greatly apprehensive. He was already slightly wary of moving on all three of them together but the glory of discovering a spirit ore vein was too much to pass up. To make matters worse he got cocky when his sneak attack had damaged Harvy. To his consternation Harvy was acting as if he’d never even taken any damage at all.

Harvy was in quick pursuit, now covered once again in that black mist as he charged directly from the front. Meanwhile James shot around from the side of the arm he’d just touched hoping to grab at another chance from his Ghoul’s distraction.

“Pathetic scum!” Calso roared, then pulling back his good arm his spirit energy surged and a pressure spread out from him. He initiated a strange martial technique and as his punch shot forward from his hip a great wind blew towards the rapidly approaching Harvy. The moment this punch lashed out James raced forward to try and grab Calso again. The moment he reached Calso the wind wave reached Harvy and before he could react he was thrown back like a kite with its string cut.

Just as James hand was about to touch Calso’s face, he gave a great roar and his body spun in a strange fashion throwing out the stunned arm like a whip and smashing into James’ face sending him rolling along the ground.

“Hahaha. Scum! You thought you ever had a chance against me. I’ve been fighting for resources since I was a boy! You thought some ragtag team with strange elements is enough to fight someone with real experience? You truly know nothing!” Having said that, he began moving his arm around as feeling slowly returned to it.

Just as he moved forward to stomp James’ heard into the ground Jessy jumped out and crouched over James in protective way with tears streaming from her face and began to beg. “Please stop. Please ... I ... I ... I’ll do anything, I’ll go with you to Xanzu! Please just don’t kill him!”

Calso just chuckled grimly, reached out and grabbed Jessy’s arm. As he touched her, her face became stern and lost its pleading look. In that moment his mind blanked and an uncontrollable desire and pleasure simultaneously rushed through his body as if every sick depraved sexual fantasy he’d ever had was fulfilled instantly.

His eyes rolled back into his head and his knees buckled as he collapsed under the power of an overwhelming climax.

James climbed up from the ground and watched the violently twitching and hip thrust Calso on the ground.

His cold dead eyes watched for a moment longer till he reached out a hand and placed it on Calso’s forehead. He then unleashed the full unbridled power of his plasma element and a complex series of emotions spread on his face as Calso’s body violently twitched around on the ground. Jessy went forward to pull him away, but feeling all the hair on her body stand as she reached out, she wisely chose to avoid touching James. An odd smell permeated the air as smoke rose up from the red skin of the Gau disciple until after five minutes of this, his body burst into flames.

James fell backwards onto the ground and stared up at the tree canopy as his mind finally caught up with his body and pain flooded his vision until he passed out.