Elder Cultivator

Sleeping, eating, working, and cultivating became Anton’s life. It wasn’t so dissimilar from his previous life, except he had no family to share his successes with and no diversions except occasional conversations with Hoyt to comfort him. The novelty of cultivation and his need to grow stronger kept him going.

Though the thought of lessons from elders piqued his interest, none on the schedule had been interesting to him thus far. Sword and spear techniques weren’t something had a foundation with and he didn’t feel as if he needed guidance in the core Ninety-Nine Stars cultivation technique. It wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to learn from others, but he hadn’t felt the limits without guidance in that area. There didn’t seem to be any archery masters giving lessons, and learning about advanced movement techniques would be a waste of time if he didn’t even know any basic movement techniques. He wasn’t even sure how those worked, but he was busy just teaching his body to move at normal speed again.

He’d cut a third off of his travel times between his home and the dining hall and fields, perhaps half if he counted the better routes. He certainly wasn’t fast, but he felt the progress. He might be slightly swifter once he finished muscle tempering and reached the fifth star, but his speed would still be limited by age. More than that, moving around strained more than just his muscles. Anton felt aches in his joints after a hard day of labor, and while cultivation helped him recover quickly… his actions during one day were limited. Theoretically his joints would be refined along with his bones, so perhaps he would be served best to refine his bones next. That would delay some of the power he could achieve with archery, but he didn’t exactly need to be concerned with that immediately. He didn’t plan to immediately go hunt wild beasts, at least nothing more than a normal boar.

Anton stood in his courtyard at night, concentrating on the flow of his energy. The next day he was planning to visit the armory and determine if he had enough contribution points to exchange for a bow. He knew there were fancy cultivator weapons that were quite expensive, but a regular hunting bow wouldn’t be so much. Then again, a couple weeks of farming couldn’t be worth that much. Anton pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on the technique written in Spirit Arrows.

He stood with one arm outstretched and one by his ear, as if he was holding a drawn bow. He relaxed his stance as if easing the tension on the string, concentrating on the space between his hands. Energy began to take shape and he moved his arms, elongating it into the shape of an arrow. The thin shape radiated a faint golden glow, but the head of the arrow was almost nonexistent and the fletching was shabby and indistinct. Anton held its form for a few seconds before letting it dissipate, with no way to attempt to fire it. He could propel it with his own energy, but every time he tried it immediately fell apart as he lost control of the energy binding the arrow together. Flinging it with his hand was slightly better, but it didn’t have the power a bow had. It was little better than flinging a rock, maybe worse. Anton was pretty sure he could charge a rock with energy and do a pretty good bit of damage if he chucked it at someone’s head.

Anton formed a few more arrows to familiarize himself with the technique before climbing onto the outer wall of the complex. His joints especially complained at that, but he ignored the pain as he had for the last several decades. It wasn’t even as bad as simply walking around had been before he became a cultivator.

From atop the wall he focused on looking towards the other parts of the sect. To the north and a little west was the dining hall where he ate. He focused his energy on his eyes, performing the core of Hawk Eyes Archery. Where his eyes focused everything seemed to draw closer to him, until he could almost make out the features of the late diners going in and out of the dining hall. The kitchens were open from dawn until midnight though most made use of it at somewhat regular meal times… and then a crowd just before it closed.

Anton’s eyes swept east towards the fields he had been working in. The grains they had planted were growing quickly, much more quickly than he was used to anything growing even in its best season.

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The very first fields he had worked in now needed weeding. As much as the abundant natural energy allowed the grains to grow tall and strong in just a pair of weeks it also helped undesired plants to grow. Anton found himself with thick leather gloves, pulling up plants with five centimeter thorns on them. Those were much more rare, but there were little things that would take nutrients as well. Stooping down to pull them out was hard on his back, but for the little things Anton found a decent way to avoid that.

One of his boots stood next to a small weed. Anton circulated his energy through himself and down towards his foot, then through the boot and out into the soil around the tiny weed. With a little yank, he pulled it out and then carried it up alongside his leg until it was resting at his waist, where he would grab it with his hand and throw it into the basket with the rest of the weeds to be disposed of. Controlling energy that wasn’t immediately touching him was difficult. While Spirit Arrows retained form away from him, that was an application to keep them in a shape rather than actually control the energy once it was further. If he needed to reach, he could stretch his energy a few hands away from his body if he needed to, but it got several times more difficult. Moving himself closer was the best option for the moment.

Anton turned in his basket at the end of the day and headed towards the central complex, where the rewards hall and the attached armory were.

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Anton wasn’t sure how much the contribution points he’d gotten over the two weeks of work were worth, but he could compare to how much he might have earned at other jobs. Working in the fields was slightly more than other ‘unskilled’ labor, but several times less than a qualified apprentice for the pill refiners or smiths. Hunting wild beasts seemed to pay more than any of that, though it was less consistent and of course somewhat dangerous.

Anton once again found Elder Lois at the rewards hall, though he was aware she wasn’t always there. She had to spend time cultivating on her own, or she would never advance. He just hadn’t been to visit the rewards hall much. Anton inclined his head. “Elder Lois, I’ve come to check how many contribution points I might need to get a bow.”

“Very well,” she looked at a ledger in front of her, flipping its pages rapidly. “You’re Anton Krantz, correct?” she didn’t wait for a response, instead waving her hand and doing something with energy that made his token resonate. She scribbled a number on a piece of paper. “Not bad for two weeks, though it won’t get you too far in the armory. Evan can show you around.”

Anton took the piece of paper, which read ‘242’. The base rate for contribution points was a single point per hour of labor, though clearly Anton had received more than that. Skilled farming should have been one and a third, if he recalled correctly. He’d worked fairly long days, but certainly not thirteen hours per day every day. He wasn’t going to complain about any extra, though.

The armory was just adjacent to the rewards hall. Anton immediately saw a man of indeterminate age. He was having much more difficulty determining actual age with so many cultivators around. Anton smiled politely, “Elder Evan, I was hoping to receive information on the prices of weapons… bows specifically. I know it might take me some time to earn enough for one but I need to know what I’m working towards.”

“Of course,” Evan smiled. “It’s good to have aspirations. Follow me.” Evan took Anton past several doors behind which Anton could feel powerful energy radiating off of not just the room but the things inside. One of them was labeled simply, ‘100,000’. If that was how many contribution points things in that room cost… he would have to work for 10 years to have a chance to get anything in there. As they walked along to other rooms Anton saw not everything was completely sealed off but instead he was able to see what was inside some of them. There were swords and shields, suits of armor made out of both heavy metal and thin almost clothlike garments that radiated power. He even saw a few bows as they turned through twisting corridors.

Evan stopped next to a door labeled ‘5,000’. “This is the standard level of equipment,” Evan gestured Anton to follow him inside the room. “Go ahead and touch. Nothing here is so fragile as to fall apart under your fingers.”

Anton was able to control himself well enough that it wouldn’t have been a problem to restrain himself, but upon being given permission… he placed his hand on a suit of armor, feeling the energy directly with his skin. He had no idea how he would even think about breaking through it. There were swords so sharp he almost cut himself without touching one. It might have been his imagination, but his hand was five centimeters away from a blade when he felt the sharpness. He decided not to test whether it was real or imagined. There was a nearby bow, after all.

“The string is there, next to it.” Evan pointed to a strange orange string that was unlike anything Anton had seened used before. It wasn’t any sort of animal tendon or anything he recognized. It felt slightly warm to the touch. “Go ahead and give it a try.”

Anton attempted to string the bow… but he couldn’t even get it to flex. He’d been strong when he was younger, and now he was recovering much of that strength with his muscle tempering… but it was clearly insufficient. How strong were cultivators really, if he couldn’t even string a bow they would use?

“Fire snake spine and wyvern horn make up quite a powerful combination… but at the fourth star a more appropriate bow could be found more cheaply.” Evan smiled, and waved Anton onward. After a few more twists and turns they ended up at a door labeled, ‘100’. “Everything in here is made by apprentice refiners. Only when they turn out something appropriate, of course. Subpar equipment is destroyed and the materials reused, where possible. We sell off most of it, but we do like to keep around a handful. I do believe there was a bow… ah, here we go.” Evan pulled out a smooth black bow and a similarly black string. “Nightwood and black steel. Springy yet powerful. Go on.”

Anton reached for the bow and string. He was able to bend the bow, though it took all of his strength. More than that, he had to incorporate energy to get it the last centimeter to hook the metallic string onto it. Anton pulled back the string, almost subconsciously using Spirit Arrows. His bare fingers protested at the harsh material of the string, but the amount of give was just right and as he let the string go he felt the power… perhaps a bit too directly as it came to impact his forearm. It drew a line of blood, and he knew he would need some accessories if he was even going to think about using the bow. At least, until he had tempered his skin. That had seemed like the most useless on the list… but he realized everything had its place. “Is this really a hundred contribution points? I’d love to have it.” Anton paused, “Ah… but it could be quite a bit more.” It seemed unlikely everything in the room was priced exactly the same, right?

Elder Evan smiled, “Correct. That one is actually… five hundred contribution points.”

Anton sighed. That would take another two weeks- assuming he worked slightly more and even got as many extra points as he had so far. “I suppose… it’s something to keep working for.”

“Don’t have enough?” Evan asked. “I’ll tell you what… come out back to the practice field with me. You can at least try firing it for real. It will give you something to look forward to.”

Not wanting to let go of the bow, Anton began to follow him. “I appreciate it.”