Book 13: Chapter 43: Hunger

Path of Dragons

The abyss was not a monolithic force. At times, it could attack like a hammer, powerful but ultimately crude. At other times, it sliced like a dagger, precise and well-aimed. But the most insidious of its methods was far more subtle.

Hunger, potent and all-consuming, roared through the leaves of Elijah’s mind. It devoured everything in its rampage, forcing him to feel nothing but the ever-burning desire – no, the imperative – to consume. Elijah tried to resist, but his willpower was nothing compared to its treachery. That hunger wrapped around his every thought, and for a while – too long for him to fully track, especially without a body to which he could anchor the concept of time – he surrendered to it.

Then, something blossomed in his core. A dragon, fierce and emerald-scaled, emerged from that pulsing heart of cultivation, and let out a roar. The corruption retreated, but only slightly. That was enough for Elijah’s will to break free of the abyss’s devious attempts to convert him.

When he tore away, he cast his awareness downward, only to see a half-formed body of tentacles wrapping around the imagery of his cultivation system. With a formless growl of tenacity, he attacked that malformed mockery of life. It melted before his ire, dissipating into nothing under the power of his very identity.

If he’d had a body, he would have taken a deep breath. As it was, his spirit shuddered in relief as he returned his attention to his task. He’d barely made any progress before the hunger’s attack. It shouldn’t have worked. It wouldn’t have, had he possessed a silver-tier body to combat the corruption.

But without it, he was laid entirely bare.

The leaves of his mind, suspended in a halo around the trunk representing his body, shivered with the effort of keeping it at bay. At the same time, Elijah focused on rebuilding his soul.

He knew the pattern.

He had a plan.

But the second he began, he knew it wouldn’t work. Not entirely. Not with the efficiency he desired. It wasn’t enough to simply expand on his previous soul. He needed more. He needed something that would change the game while maintaining the overall theme.

His mind whirled.

And then he latched onto something that should have been obvious. In addition to the normal systems on which he’d modeled his previous soul, he’d intended to expand the scope. That was the crux of his entire plan. But now, he saw something he’d missed. Something that could simultaneously change everything while building off of his previous plans.

Mycorrhizal fusion.

It was the process by which plants and fungi formed a symbiotic relationship where they exchanged resources – sugars and lipids for the fungi and nutrients and water for the plant. Elijah had never been a mycologist. Nor was he a botanist. However, by virtue of his education as a biologist, combined with firsthand experience as well as his Druidic instincts, he had become an expert in both fields.

At least by Earth standards.

What’s more, he had Nature’s Design on his side, which gave him further insight into natural growth.

Elijah used the spell, though it was difficult to activate it without a body. That opened a host of possibilities, but it didn’t take him long to sift between them and find an option he could incorporate into the intended design of his soul.

In a lot of ways, the first phase of soul cultivation mimicked his quest for a silver-tier body. But now, those paths deviated. Body cultivation was like building a brick wall, while soul cultivation reminded Elijah of weaving a tapestry.

If that tapestry used three different mediums and mimicked some of the most complex concepts found in nature.

Enveloped in Nature’s Design, Elijah went to work.

His mind hummed as he simultaneously fought off the corruptive power of the abyss and began to weave his soul into place. First came the limbs, which would form a foundation for his adjusted plan. They were thick and sturdy conduits of power meant to carry vast quantities of ethera.

From those extended much narrower off-shoots, much like the smaller branches of a tree. And those soon became even thinner conduits, spreading out into shapes that resembled connected neurons. Eighty-one limbs. Nine branches from each limb. And nine off-shoots that extended into nine more. Counting the original limbs, that gave his soul more than sixty-six thousand branches.

And each one required meticulous effort to carve.

Elijah had long since lost track of time. The entirety of his focus remained on three tasks. The first was to rebuild his soul. Second was fighting off the influence of the ambient corruption. And third was holding his spirit in place so he didn’t drift off into nothingness.

In a lot of ways, it was meditative. Peaceful, even. The torment of the abyss was ever-present, but by this point, pain had become his constant companion. Always present. Always tempting him with the end. All it would take was one moment of relaxation, and everything would just fade away.

No more pain.

No more taxing effort.

No more life.

And yet, Elijah was never truly tempted by that. He was too dedicated to achieving his goal. Or perhaps he was just too stubborn to give in.

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Either way, he meticulously wove his soul into branches, correcting the mistakes of the previous iteration. He could have stopped there and completed the process. Certainly, most people would have and been happy with the result.

But Elijah wanted more.

He needed it in a way he couldn’t really explain. Good enough would not suffice. He intended to get as close to perfection as he could manage.

That was when he shifted his focus to fungi, extending tiny threads of tightly constrained ethera between each of the sixty-thousand-plus branches. Each one was perfectly shaped, and together, they formed a web that extended the surface area of his soul by a significant margin.

Days – or perhaps weeks – later, he’d completed the task. When he allowed himself to look at the entire structure, it looked almost like a swarm of spiders had woven gossamer webs connecting each branch. But instead of simple strands of silk, they were glowing hyphae – the filaments comprising mycelium.

Elijah didn’t stop there, though. Instead, he used that same strategy on the roots of his ephemeral cultivation tree. That took much, much longer, but he could feel the difference with every passing minute.

Finally, Elijah connected it all to the trunk, which he coated in a symbiotic mycelial mat.

With that, the structure was complete. But it was nothing more than a barely connected framework. To truly solidify it, he needed ethera. Lots and lots of ethera.

Girding himself against the impending torment, Elijah opened his mind – all eighty-one apertures – as wide as he could. Dense ethera came rushing in, filling his soul. In seconds, the agony of it pushed Elijah to the limit of what he could endure.

If he’d had a mouth, he would have screamed.

Had he a body, it would have seized.

He possessed neither, so there was no outlet for the pain. No coping mechanism. Just sheer, unadulterated pain. He sank into the very concept of it, letting it envelop him. At first, his plummet into the depths was unimpeded, but after a few moments, he began to float. Then, he swam against the current, only to surface into full awareness.

That was when he saw a thousand tiny mistakes. Ethera spewed from each one like a leaky hose. It wasn’t an unexpected turn of events, but it was disappointing nonetheless. Still, Elijah wasted no time before forging ahead in an effort to repair and rebuild.

For an already exhausted mind, the process was torturously difficult.

However, Elijah was also the culmination of everything that had come before. His endurance was indomitable. His mind, unwavering. His willpower, uncorruptible. He would not stop until he nonexistence finally claimed him.

And gradually, he crept closer to that final state. That unavoidable end that loomed over him like a black mountain of sundered potential. Even as he worked, he knew he was on borrowed time. Though he could exist as a spirit – likely due to his advanced cultivation – he could not do so indefinitely. Without the anchor of a physical body, he had very little weight to counter the pull of death.

Still, he resisted.

And he poured every ounce of his every effort into the task at hand. Leaks sealed. Branches reformed. Mycelial hyphae grew stronger. Gradually, he drew ever closer to his current concept of perfection.

Finally, as his awareness became diffuse and he felt bits of his spirit drifting away into nothingness, Elijah finally felt it all come together.

Then, something happened that he did not expect.

The image of his branches had always appeared as those of a normal tree. Like an ancient oak, perhaps. But when they solidified, they looked more like crystal. It only took Elijah a moment to recognize the similarities between his soul and a Branch of the World Tree, though there were some key – and obvious – differences.

The first was that, instead of clear crystal, they were made of emerald shot through with white filaments he recognized as mycelial growth. Second, his branches were much wider. Less dense, but they covered a far larger area. And third, despite his power, they lacked the overwhelming spirituality of even a nascent Branch.

He was no World Tree, after all.

Finally, there were the mycelial hyphae stretched between the limbs. They formed a crystalline web of pure white that pulsed with cleansing energy.

Elijah continued to drag ethera from the environment. Corruption surged all around him, though it was entirely incapable of infecting his soul.

Ever had that been the case, but now, it seemed even less effective than before.

Gradually, the dense flow of ethera forced his soul to futher solidify. Elijah felt the budding notification, but he kept it at bay as he pushed himself harder and harder. The crystalline branches verged on cracking, but he held them together. The longer he held off, the stronger the final result would be.

But at last, he found his limit.

Not of his soul, but in the endurability of his spirit.

Even one more second, and he might have succumbed to the pull of death.

Yet, he did not, and when he allowed himself to progress, the draw temporarily ceased.

Congratulations! Your Soul has reached the Master Stage.

If Elijah had possessed a body, he would have screamed in exultation. He could feel the power of his new soul. He could see its representation, looming large and keeping death at bay.

But that would not last.

So, without further ado, he finally cast Shape of Spores and used Mycelial Regrowth. Under the massive influx of regeneration, his body reformed. Cell by cell, it built upon itself until, as the spell ran its course, he found himself mostly whole. To finish it off, he cast his trio of healing spells.

And then, at last, he allowed himself to truly appreciate his accomplishment.

The branches of his soul spread far and wide, his Mantle of Authority expanding to nearly half a mile in every direction. Maintaining that diameter was no easy feat, and it drained ethera at a significantly increased rate. Alone, the apertures of his mind would have been entirely incapable of keeping up with his mantle’s demands.

But they weren’t alone.

Instead, they were augmented by the mycelial hyphae stretched between his branches. They absorbed ethera as well. Altogether, the volume was like adding another twenty or so apertures, though with the added benefit of being fed straight into his soul.

What’s more, they automatically cleansed the ethera, subtly enhancing it to the point where the overall effect was much greater than he could easily calculate.

However, something soon became apparent.

He was out of balance. His body and soul were both powerful enough that they could stand side by side, but his mind lagged far behind. His core was much closer, probably due to the extraordinary circumstances of his last tier-up, but it still couldn’t really compete.

He sighed, knowing that he wouldn’t soon restore the balance. Cultivating his soul was the result of nearly a year of constant preparation. And before that, the clash with the abyss had subjected it to persistent sharpening. His mind had no such tool. What’s more, he had no idea how to take the next step.

Meaning, it would have to wait.

Something similar could be said for his core. He’d continued to do his exercises throughout his time in the abyss, but that was obviously not enough to prepare him for what was coming. And besides, despite the power contained within the nearby Cyst, it fell far short of his requirements.

No – he wouldn’t take the next steps anytime soon.

Instead, he needed to turn his attention to the next plan.

His shoulders sagged in exhaustion as he realized that all of that would need to wait. Before he could do anything else, he needed rest and recovery. With that in mind, he began his trek back to his campsite, where he could deploy his tent and finally rest.