Calculating Cultivation

Chapter 100: Tribulation

Sect Leader Flame was the first to use the breakthrough box as it was being called. It was a small metal box, that a cultivator could sit in upon a cushion, while surrounded by arrays to keep the energy contained inside the box.

It had built up a large amount of energy over the last year. By keeping it as small as possible, it was possible to exceed the background energy of the Mechanical Layer. After it had built up to about a quarter of what would be background energy on the continent and the Firmament, Sect Leader Flame entered in order to break through.

There were always three other elders keeping vigil outside the box as the time the Sect Leader was inside continued to increase. First one day, then two days, now he had been inside for five days. The entire Flame Sect had a nervous level of energy. If the Sect Leader broke through, their own paths would be that much easier in the future. It was always easier when someone you knew managed to get past a cultivation barrier. Knowing it was possible was a huge mental block.

It was something I struggled with my cultivation for long periods of time. But I had managed in the end. With Yang Heng’s advice, it was just a matter of getting enough energy and possibly some other resources to assist me. Cultivation was an apt name, since one had to cultivate sources of energy in order to grow.

I didn’t bother keeping watch, since I was more focused on putting the final touches on my counter cube. It was almost done and had taken far too much work. The ground shook slightly, and I brought my hand up before I made a mistake on the plate I was working on.

“What? How can there be an earthquake?” I muttered and left my workshop that the Flame Sect had reserved for me and went outside as another tremor shook the ground beneath me. I noted dark clouds gathering overhead from all directions. That was definitely not natural. I quickly rushed towards the nexus chamber as another tremor shook the land.

I made my way underground as small amounts of dust and debris rained down from the ceiling. “Senior Yuan Zhou, what is going on? Sect Leader Flame is about to break through! He cannot be disturbed,” Vice Leader Tan said. The other elders looked at me.

A glance at the breakthrough box showed a high density of energy. The ground shook again and it was much more violent than before. The nexus chamber developed several cracks in pillars and the walls.

“Elders, there is a storm growing above this point. Dark clouds, but no rain!” A disciple rushed into the Nexus Chamber. These people had never experienced an earthquake. While they build in a solid manner, their construction wasn’t designed to handle earthquakes. There was no rebar in any of the buildings.

“Evacuate the buildings to the fields. There is a chance they will collapse. I will write an array to protect this chamber from collapsing.” I pulled out a metal plate from my spatial bag. “If the situation becomes untenable, I will rescue Sect Leader Flame, get out of here!” The Elder rushed out as another much larger tremor shook everything and didn’t stop.

I quickly began dragging my finger through the metal plate to make a quick and dirty array as the chamber began to rain debris. The chamber was moments away from collapsing as the tremors continued.

“Stabilize!” I pushed my own energy into the plate to quickly activate. I knew force quite well. It was the basis of a large part of my cultivation. The entire chamber was isolated from the tremors.

There was a loud explosion that shook everything even more.

I felt the hair across my body rise up as the very air shook from a massive explosion above me. The metal plate I had was smoking, but it should hold for the next couple of minutes at the very least. I rushed out of the nexus chamber, into a shattered Sect Building. Racing passed the debris, I saw several cultivators scattered about moaning in pain.

“Vice Leader Tan, what happened?” I asked.

“Lighting strike,” he groaned out in main as the tremors continued to shake the rest of the Flame Sect. Several buildings collapsed and there was screaming in the distance. Looking up the dark clouds were swirling about. I pulled out another plate, and did an array that would make anyone who knew the skill think I had lost all respect for the art. I pushed energy into the plate and tossed it up into the sky.

The bolt of lighting struck the plate, instantly destroying it and a chunk of the Flame Sect’s main building. I felt a tremendous sense of danger as the storm clouds paused in their swirling and began to reorient over me.

This was definitely not natural. The Sect Leader breaking through had triggered a massive response from the Great World. That did not make any sense? Why would him breaking through trigger a response? I was here without a response.

I quickly turned and rushed back past the debris into the nexus chamber. There was debris and rubble in the way, but I moved over and around it. There was another deadly burst of lightning striking the ground above me. My eyes widened in alarm, as I saw part of the ceiling to the nexus chamber turn molten. The plate I had left to stop the tremors was also on the verge of failing.

“Sect Leader Flame, sorry, but we have to move, now!” I called out and drove my hand into the breakthrough box, parting the metal and destroying the arrays that had been carved into it. The Sect Leader was unconscious, and I quickly pried open a hole big enough to drag him out. Another massive bolt of lightning struck, and a portion of it went through the ceiling of the chamber, striking the ground.

My ears hurt from the noise, and my teeth hurt because of the vibration from the massive strike. There was energy in those lightning strikes. If one of them hit me, I would take serious damage or die. No matter what, I couldn’t afford to be struck.

The Sect Leader had something happening with his body, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on as I moved him to the side of the chamber near the stairway. I began inspecting his body. It was odd. Normally the energy in a person’s body was stagnant and structured or flowed like water. In his body the energy was everywhere and vibrating.

I gave the Sect Leader a light slap on the face, but he didn’t wake up. I slapped him again harder, then a third and fourth time. “Whaaa…..what is happening?” he was clearly groggy and out of it. Another lightning bolt struck down.

For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely terrified. The lightning bolt came down through the melted hole the previous ones had made and then turned towards me. Thankfully it wasn’t able to turn enough. It struck the floor before it could reach me in a blinding flash of light. Arcs of lightning raced across the molten floor towards me, barely coming to a stop before they ran out of power and disappeared. Lightning was not supposed to leap across the ground like that, or turn, or spontaneously start trying to kill people. Shards of molten rock struck me and the surrounding walls. Thankfully I was able to brush off such an attack. It was just hot rocks, the lightning had not left any energy behind to empower the area attack.

“Sect Leader, you need to stop whatever it is you are doing, or we are going to die,” I said while lifting him up and paused when the tremors started hitting again. My array had failed. Going further underground would protect from the lightning, but then the earthquakes would shatter everything and crush me. Going above ground would see the lightning strike me and vaporize my body.

I would head above ground. At least I had a chance of dodging the lighting. Better than being trapped in a cave and buried alive. I could probably dig myself out, but I was more afraid of being buried than being vaporized. Even if the chance of death was greatly different.

“I have stopped,” the Sect Leader said and I noted, the energy in his body had calmed down. It was fuller than before. “I broke through.”

Just as I entered the ruined Sect Building, another lighting bolt came down, I dodged behind a pillar and kept moving. The lightning shattered the intricately carved pillar and the next one. “What is happening?” the Sect Leader asked as I carried him over my shoulder and raced out of the building.

“Targeted lighting and the ground is shaking. If you know anything, speak up,” I said and raced towards the wall of the sect. Most of the buildings had already collapsed, but the stupidly large and thick wall was still standing strong. The entire mountain itself would have to break apart before the wall broke. With only the one gate, and how it was built deep underground as well, its foundation was beyond solid.

These people also knew about materials expanding with temperature changes, so there were a couple finger wide gaps in the wall that had been filled with a kind of rubber sap, to allow for movement. That way the entire structure wouldn’t shatter when struck, only a section.

Above my head there were a lot of black clouds swirling about, getting ready to strike again. I noticed the center of the vortex was shifting in order to follow me or the Sect Leader. I reached the gate of the Flame Sect and it was thankfully thrown open. I tossed the Sect Leader Flame into the gate that ran under the wall like a sack of potatoes. He tumbled across the sloped ground a bit, before stopping himself.

I ran next to the wall. The lightning struck down once more. It was coming for me, not the Sect Leader. I was moving fast enough to outpace the lighting, but it still struck awfully close behind me, pelting my back with flaming chunks of molten rock. I quickly began climbing up the wall to the other side. The lightning quickly gathered again. The wall was about four stories tall on the inside of the Sect.

Just as I reached the top the storm clouds belched out another bolt of lightning. I spun and unsheathed my sword in a single motion. “One Swing To Sperate Heaven And Earth.” The words helped me focus my energy. I had regained quite a bit while staying in the Flame Sect and the nexus chamber.

The wave of cutting force, struck the lighting bolt head on. For a moment they were balanced. The lightning then split. I felt a sense of relief, but it was quickly crushed as both the lightning bolts curved and struck the ground on either side of me.

“Ahhh!” I dropped to my knees as the energy empowered electricity coursed through my body. I kept my sword next to my body so I didn’t stab myself and quickly rolled. I went over the wall to the other side. I fell ten stories and impacted the ground below with a thud, outside the Flame Sect.

Another lightning bolt flew down, but it struck the corner of the wall, and began arcing down the wall to reach me. I couldn’t move my body as molten chunks of wall rained down on me. Thankfully the lightning didn’t reach me.

I was barely on my feet by the time the next strike came down. I swung my sword again while moving. A good chunk of the lightning impacted the Flame Sect’s wall and I avoided the rest. I kept racing around the perimeter of the wall, thinking about how to get this lightning to just stop. “Why are you targeting me, go bother someone else!” I shouted. There was no response.

Another bolt of lightning came down, and I swung my sword once again while chanting the mantra to help me focus. The lightning bolt was split and I avoided the rest of it. The lightning was getting stronger. “Fine, you want to fight then let’s fight,” I muttered. I couldn’t run forever. The lightning would melt through any kind of cover. I made my way back to the top of the wall.

The lightning didn’t try to strike me as I got closer. It was clearly building up its power. I could sense energy in the dark clouds swirling above me. “One Swing To Sperate Heaven And Earth!” I roared out and thrust out with my sword while twisting it. Another lightning bolt struck directly down at me. The bolt split into countless portions as my sword attack went directly upwards.

It struck the clouds and the gathering energy, punching through them as lightning struck the top of the wall all around me. I felt some minor static, but wasn’t impacted heavily. I brought my sword back and committed most of my energy to the next attack and thrust up a second time before another lightning bolt could strike. I shifted my energy, so as my projected strike hit the clouds, it dispersed with great force.

The storm clouds dispersed. I waited with trepidation to see if they would return. I was exhausted, physically, and from the lack of energy in my body. I had been hoping that the storm was focused on the energy in my body, which was why it had started to target me. Either I had dispersed it, or my guess was correct, perhaps both.

The tremors had stopped, and I looked out over the Flame Sect. Most of the buildings had completely collapsed. There were cracks in portions of the wall. The entire place was a disaster zone. My body jerked as some of the electricity raced through my body again. I frowned and focused. It would take time, but eventually I would be able to force it out of my body.

I slowly put my sword away and began walking along the wall. I didn’t know what to think about what just happened. My first thought was that there was some higher authority watching this place, but then I realized it might just be golems and an automated formation. Cultivators hated doing maintenance or watching things long term themselves.

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My second thought was the amount of energy in those lightning strikes. There was a lot of energy in those lightning strikes. It was far more than I had seen for a long time in the Great World. If I could train myself to handle the electricity, I would have a source of energy. The electricity, didn’t matter, but the energy in the lightning strikes would be quite useful.

If I could tap into that power, I might be able to advance my cultivation. I would need to prepare, and force a breakthrough to start up the process again. But if I could harness that much energy, I would be able to finally make advancements going forward. I had been stagnant for so long, I had almost lost hope. Not completely, but I had never considered that I might seriously be able to advance my cultivation in the Mechanical Layer.

Looking out over the Flame Sect, its members and mortal servants were already hard at work clearing everything up. It would take a long time to repair the damage, but it would be a matter of months, not years. They were rich and physically capable. There would be no hinderance for them to rebuild. Also the Sect Leader would have survived, which would reduce any backlash against me.

“Senior Yuan Zhou, are you okay?” Vice Leader Tan came over to ask me.

“Just tired. Do you have any idea what that was?” I asked.

“It is a rumor that is sometimes talked about but never taken seriously. It was a tribulation. When something goes against the natural order, the Great World would correct it. But those are the kind of tales that have been separated by generations,” he replied.

“Interesting. Everyone okay?” I asked.

“Only minor injuries. Thank you for assisting the Sect Leader,” Vice Leader Tan said. I had done that, since I was the strongest present. One of the unspoken rules of cultivator culture was that the strongest had the prerogative to act in the absence of any other kind of authority in the midst of a crisis. Cultivators revered the strong and the old, two things which often went hand in hand. I was the oldest and strongest with the Sect Leader disabled, I was expected to handle the crisis.

I nodded at the thanks. “What a mess,” I muttered turning to look at the Flame Sect. Vice Leader Tan paused to look as well.

“We will rebuild. The Sect is based on the nexus crystal and its cultivators, both of which are intact.” I turned and we both made our way to the Sect Leader who was near the main building looking at the smoldering rubble.

“Senior Yuan Zhou, I am grateful for your assistance,” Sect Leader Flame told me and bowed.

“I am glad I could help. You have records of this tribulation?” I asked.

“An ancient myth normally used as a scary story for children of cultivators.”

“Any idea how it happened or why it occurred?” I asked.

“I let my energy spread out and it became more in tune with the Great World. My mind began to see more and more. It is an experience I will never forget.” I listened to the answer and thought about it.

“Perhaps some form of resonance. You interfaced with the formations managing the Great World to an extent, tapping into their monitoring function. That might be what triggered the tribulation,” I speculated. There could be countless other reasons, but I wanted to harness this tribulation next time. If I was prepared, I would suck out all the energy of the Great World, until the lightning gave up.

What if it didn’t give up? Would it constantly follow me around forever, attempting to constantly strike me down. That would get difficult very quickly. I would need to give some thought to having a building made that could take such lightning strikes over and over again, while sucking up all the energy for myself.

The tribulation was probably a defense mechanism of the Great World. If I got to the Great Desert and discovered something there, but wasn’t able to handle the lightning, then I would have a lot of trouble investigating anything of note. The lightning was clearly a defensive mechanism of some kind. Finding the right mindset, and aligning with the energy used to keep this place running, was probably a rare occurrence. But it might happen again, if I helped some of the Elders break through.

“Well, I have broken through into the Soul Enlightenment Realm,” Sect Leader Flame said with a smile. Which was the starting point for me and a confusing name. I couldn’t tell if it was a convergence of terminology or just cultivator sensibilities to have similar names. These cultivators had a Nascent Soul stage and there was a Nascent Soul stage in the cultivation system of the Heavenly Alliance. That was the stage I was technically at.

It was funny to think that we were all at the same stage based on the name alone, when in reality it was far different. My soul was new and needed to be built up. These people actually needed a soul to begin with. Both could be qualified as Nascent Soul, which made things confusing.

I had no idea what Sect Leader Flame would do now. There were no motes of Qi or other resources to help him progress his cultivation further. While he had a strong control over his physical body, it would be a challenge to hold off death. I didn’t bring any of this up, since these cultivators knew and I didn’t want to spoil the celebratory mood.

Having a Sect Leader who had progressed so far was a point of pride and hope for all the cultivators of the Flame Sect. It was like having an immortal be in charge of a sect back on the continent. It conferred a tremendous amount of prestige.

I turned to my apartment to go rest, but the building had collapsed. Thankfully, I was given a room in one of the buildings still standing. It was nowhere as comfortable and luxurious as my former apartment, but it would do. Many of the cultivators would have to sleep on the ground for the next couple of days while the rubble was cleared, and buildings rebuilt.

The people of the Great World were great at building quickly. They would put down wooden forms coated with oil on the inside, then fill up the space with concrete. They would repeat this over and over to build up their walls and foundations. The floors used wood with a layer of concrete on top to block sounds from traveling between floors.

After I woke up, the rubble was already half cleared and new buildings were being rebuilt. The main sect building had already been rebuilt, but without the artwork. That would come later. The nexus chamber was in the process of being reconstructed to be much more durable as well.

I was glad I put the metal machine away in my spatial storage along with everything else in the nexus chamber before the Sect Leader attempted to break through. The plate I had been working on was damaged beyond repair, but the rest of the counter cube was tucked away in my spatial storage. Since I had access to the nexus chamber, I was comfortable using my personal storage.

While I didn’t think anything would get stolen, or the crazy tribulation would happen, I liked to keep my personal items with me for the most part. An ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure. I looked over the work being done on the nexus chamber.

“You are adding metal reinforcement?” I said in surprise to Sect Leader Flame who was overlooking the rapid construction.

“Indeed. I remembered your comments about including a metal structure inside the concrete in order to help negate the sheering force of the ground shaking and to build higher, tougher. We could use a lot more metal to strengthen the nexus chamber,” he said as a pointed question.

“How much are we talking about exactly?” I asked.

“Ten thousand bars,” he said, and I frowned at that amount. It was a huge contribution I would have to make to the Flame Sect.

“I will need a building constructed to my specifications as well, in exchange for the metal,” I said.

“Oh, what kind of building?” he asked.

“One that can bleed off the electricity from the lighting bolts and draw in the energy from the tribulation. If it happens again, I would like to take advantage of the event to progress my own cultivation,” I replied.

“That is interesting. It can be arranged. Perhaps on top of the main building itself right here,” he said.

“That would be useful. A shame about the artwork,” I replied.

“Bah, that stuff can be remade, but progressing one’s cultivation is far more important. Already the rest of the Elders are salivating about breaking through.” I could easily believe that. Old cultivators wanted to keep progressing. Now that a path had opened, they were all salivating like rapid dogs in order to be the next person to advance their cultivation.

While the art was nice, it wasn’t important to a cultivator. Material goods would come and go, but cultivation was forever. There were certain aspects of a cultivation society that were ironclad, since if they changed it would no longer be a society of cultivators. The pursuit of immortality was a big one.

“What about your personal cultivation? What has changed?” I asked.

“I can sense my body and no longer need to hold everything just right in my mind. It is a much more natural and relaxed state of being,” Sect Leader Flame described.

“May I inspect your body?” I asked. He held out a hand and I took it. I then sent a pulse of energy into his body. I had checked before his breakthrough and now I was checking after. I saw several changes that had occurred. The most notable change was that the definition between his body and the outside world was much more defined and natural. Natural from my perspective of having grown up on a continent.

His physical body was much more structured, I noted. The changes were small, but imperfections that existed before had been corrected. Where a blood vessel was partially blocked was open. Where there was misalignment of the structure of a bone, that had been fixed. Very small almost unnoticeable defects.

In my body these defects had been removed by the natural accumulation of energy long ago. That was why there was almost nothing left for me to fix. The subconscious use of energy had made me more of me than before.

“Your opinion?” Sect Leader Flame asked me.

“Your body has definitely improved and the boarder between your soul and the outside world has improved as well. Both things that were expected to happen when you broke through. Your body is at a much higher starting point than others I have seen at this stage of cultivation,” I replied.

“I have been giving thought about future steps and what you have described as the Heavenly Alliance system of cultivation. It won’t work for me or anyone else here in the Great World,” he said and I nodded.

“You plan to do something different?” I asked.

“Refining my body to an even greater degree. You talked about how the body is composed of cells, and we knew such things. But there are smaller structures as well. Already a massive microscope will be built in the sect to observe such processes in greater detail to hone the refinement of my body.”

That was a bold step to take, but it made sense. The cultivators of the Great World focused on controlling their body for ages as their path of cultivation. It wasn’t the body cultivation that I knew, where energy was still the fundamental component for improvement. Instead he wanted to keep going the path that he knew. To refine his control and use of energy to an even greater extent. To reverse cell death and aging.

I had no idea how such an attempt would go. Already, cultivators of the Great World could live for a long time. He was hoping to do manually, what naturally occurred for myself and other cultivators using the system developed by the Heavenly Alliance. But this place had nowhere near enough energy to support my kind of cultivation.

There was also no Qi in the air. He would have to manually construct motes, which would be a slow process, if it even was possible. I didn’t know, but I suspected it would be with the minute control over energy these cultivators had shown they were capable of, even with their weak cultivation.

He was taking an entirely different path. It made me wonder if the later bottlenecks would be different. I didn’t really know how other super-organizations advanced with their energy usage. That was the nice thing about cultivation, there were other people to share your frustrations with, even if it was a solitary endeavor.

Sect Leader Flame would be paving the way for future cultivators of his sect. I considered how his cultivation would go. Yang Heng did not understand the physics behind energy. What was energy? Why was it so adaptable?

Those were questions that would need to be answered the more focused one became with their energy usage. To focus on the micro, instead of the holistic. It made sense with the limited amount of energy. I would guess that the bottlenecks would come about due to something in relation to microbiology. It would get more and more complicated, eventually reaching a bottleneck. Where the person might infuse energy into their DNA or other cellular structures.

I strongly suspected, with no proof whatsoever, that energy was a particle that was smaller than an electron, or other atomic particle. I suspected it was a quantum particle, or even one step further. Something so small, it would be impossible to observe using technology.

It was much easier to deal with energy at a holistic level in my opinion. These people would struggle from the lack of technology. While the Sect Leader planned to build a massive microscope, they would only be able to observe things that were so small. Eventually the magnification would no longer work and one would have to use electron microscopy to observe things in greater detail.

The problem was the technological base for the Great World wasn’t there for that kind of research. While the Flame Sect would get a lot of metal off of me, it would only go so far. The amount of metal they needed wasn’t going to be produced by my machine. They needed a far greater amount. They needed the collective resources of large groups of people.

But perhaps, they would be inspired. To make a plant that would refine other elements into metallic ones. It would be hard to create something, but if the Flame Sect improved their control and research into biology they might be able to succeed with energy.

Their path was not cut off anymore. I had opened things up for them. Perhaps that was why the tribulation had occurred. Since it didn’t want people advancing. Which made no sense in the larger context of this place as an experiment. Why would you kill off the people trying to advance?

There just didn’t seem to be any logical reason for the Great World with tribulations present and their might not be any.

It suddenly hit me. My second bottleneck had a high chance of being the same issue these cultivators were facing. The Heavenly Alliance system of cultivation would build up more and more energy along with understanding of the energy within themselves. This would lead to a breakthrough to immortality.

Energy naturally improved one’s body through their subconscious. What if the natural improvement granted by energy crossed some sort of threshold at a microscopic or atomic level? What if both cultivation systems were parallel paths instead of branching? It was possible, while another guess that I had no proof for. It would be a massive leap in understanding of the cultivation process.

It would be a way to immortality that wasn’t dependent on vast quantities of energy. While it would be, I could increase that efficiency. I could begin to investigate biology and make even more targeted improvements to my body at a cellular level and then at an even greater depth. In fact, if I observed the improvements in my body and Yang Heng’s body at a cellular level, and could work out the difference, that would give a shortcut in regards to cultivation.

I felt my heart begin to beat faster at the very idea. It was an insane idea, but it also might work, which meant it would be genius. The Heavenly Alliance distained technology and had abundant energy. The founders would have already charted the path of cultivation and made it fairly routine. They might know about things on a cellular level, but wouldn’t consider it as effective since they had so much energy and resources.

It was like a massive company, there were inefficiencies in their process. But a small start up like the Flame Sect with limited resources had to be smarter and more adaptable. I might be able to breakthrough here in the Great World without having to leave. If I could advance my understanding of biology and energy enough, then there would be nothing to stop me.

Unlike the cultivators here, I had gone through my first breakthrough, they were at their zeroth breakthrough. They would never be able to connect to the Astral Plane. The distance was too far. One did not skip an entire layer. The senior cultivators of the Heavenly Alliance had taken a more holistic approach and then built upon that. Iterating improvements upon their system of cultivation.

No cultivator would dare step off the path of the system they were on. That was insanity, it was insanity even for me. The Heavenly Alliance did not like coming to the Mechanical Layer, and their senior cultivators would be disabled if their energy intake was reduced. This place was cultivator hell. But in the most hellish of circumstances, there is always hope. Hope these cultivators of the Great World clung to.

It would be stepping off my current path and testing the waters of a parallel path. A path that might not require as much energy. Just knowledge, focus, and dedication. All three things I had in spades.