Elder Cultivator

Chapter 996

“... and I knew I would be opening myself up to vulnerability, but I hadn’t thought environmental factors would play such a huge part,” Chidi complained to Aconite.

In response, she pressed her muzzle into him and gave growls of affirmation. Probably. His eardrums were still shot, so they could have been anything, including calling him dumb. It wouldn’t have been wrong, either.

With Aconite’s guidance, Chidi had navigated planets with toxins deadly even to powerful cultivators. The catch there was that most of those slipped passed energy defenses and built up in the body, meaning they generally weren’t damaging in short bursts. But before Chidi finished a single attack, the force of the winds had gotten to him.

After some testing, he confirmed that he hadn’t been deep enough for the actual pressure to get to him. He’d have to be hundreds of kilometers deep for that to be an issue. However, the speed at which the winds moved the atmosphere of the gas giant was problematic when in a state of Negation.

“I guess I need to work on my body further.” He’d been working on everything he needed for offense- muscle power, flexibility, and the like. He could cut however he pleased, but his undefended durability hadn’t been a factor. If he was hit, he would die. He hadn’t considered that he would have to deal with danger that wasn’t from enemy attacks or otherwise boosted by energy.

Chidi wasn’t asking for the impossible. He knew there were other cultivators that had successfully trained their bodies far beyond where he was. However, there were different factors at play. Aside from natural temperament, it was too late for him to redo his fundamentals. He was essentially an Augmentation cultivator. Sort of. Because it wasn’t his path, he was never going to be like Nthanda in the lower realms- a body focused cultivator he’d never met. He also wouldn’t match Sly or the other ex-Hardened Crown.

Or what was it they called themselves? The Harder Crown. Because obviously they were the right ones, and not the big sect in the Exalted Quadrant. Which… Chidi thought was fine. Confidence was good and all that. He just would have chosen a different name.

“I hope Chikere wasn’t expecting me to retrieve Dubet’s Heart soon. Seems like it’s gonna be a while.”

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Cutting apart the winds was actually something Chidi could do, but it didn’t solve his problems. At best it split his offensive capabilities at critical moments, when he needed to be slicing his enemies. It didn’t actually solve his problem.

So he’d been slowly dipping himself in and out of the atmosphere, negating the flow of energy and letting his body resist everything directly. He would also practice sword styles in the upper atmosphere, but not for the sake of trying to reduce the pressure on himself. Instead, it was simply a way for him to train.

He was a lot more effective in training his offense than he was defense. His actual combat style didn’t involve resisting damage. It was all about deflection and avoidance. At best, he had armor that was supposed to help as a last ditch effort. It wasn’t ineffective, considering he just needed a durable base material when energy was negated, but it wasn’t something he could endure consecutive strikes in.

After a month, Chidi was quite confident that his strength and speed had increased… and that he wouldn’t die from a second of exposure to the winds on the upper level. His eardrums had recovered as well, with the aid of some medicine of course.

“I bet my eyes would have been ruined if I had them,” Chidi said. Speaking to Aconite in a massive storm required his energy, and while the strength of his energy was lower, his control was better than before.

“Very funny,” Aconite grumbled. “How about your nose and ears?”

They’d gotten torn up as well. “Hey, I don’t have fur or anything,” Chidi pointed out. “So except for the nose, your natural defenses are better than mine, despite the sensitivity.”

Both of them had been learning how abrasive tiny particles at extreme speeds could be. Obviously they felt it on their energy, but the upper energy of even a peak Life Transformation cultivator was incomparable to the bodies of all but select few.

Chidi was glad that Aconite was training in solidarity with him, though. She would likely outpace him, because as the daughter of Spikes and Fuzz her wolf body was naturally stronger than a human’s by at least an order of magnitude. Even so, the fact that it was still unpleasant for her motivated him.

“Should we go a bit deeper?” Chidi asked.

Aconite nodded. “It’ll be denser and have higher pressure, but hopefully the windspeed will be lower.”

There was another issue they fortunately didn’t have to deal with much, since Chidi only negated the surrounding energy in short bursts- they would theoretically fall, but in a single instant it wouldn’t be much. Even if they dropped a whole kilometer they would still be in the same layer.

It was important for Chidi’s training and their own survival that he was actually negating the energy flow and not that they just dropped their defenses. Apreact was not just a plain old gas giant, but one with a high concentration of upper energy. That meant it charged all parts of itself, and it would have been completely unsurvivable with a bare body without the energy being negated.

As each negation lasted less than a second, Chidi ‘only’ had to take into account the area within a couple hundred meters of them. Or rather, he only had to negate the energy at that distance. Understanding the flow required a somewhat wider perception. It was more than just sensing everything in the area, but understanding how it would interact. And that meant predicting nearly random chaotic windflow.

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Fortunately he didn’t have to do it for a long time period. But doing it quickly such that he would be able to work in combat was still a work in progress. Fortunately as they were near the surface they weren’t really bothered. There had been the one group, but all the valuable materials were far deeper. He and Aconite could also fight normally, which for Chidi worked well enough against weaker enemies.

Chidi didn’t warn Aconite. Because he had to act when he understood the flow, she wouldn’t always have the luxury. He usually combined his negation with an attack, but this time he chose not to so that she would keep on her toes. The only thing he did was slightly shift his guard, which was part of using the formation marking inside of him to help direct the surrounding flow.

He felt the pressure and the winds scouring his skin. He tried not to stand any particular way in his training, because he wasn’t here to reduce wind angles for his own benefit. Instead, he wanted to be able to endure from all angles. Directly up the nose or into an ear was the worst. The top layer of his skin was quickly scoured off, and then energy came back, his defenses springing back into place by instinct.

Wolvish cussing followed, but that was to be expected. “You know, it’s really difficult to keep a hold on poisons when this happens,” Aconite grumbled.

“It’s a good thing our bags are quite sturdy, huh?”

“Yeah, but… look, if I poison my claws the winds just whip it right off. And am I gonna use powders here, in this mess?”

“Sure,” Chidi said. “Just use any powder and watch it turn someone’s face into mush.”

“That’s-” Aconite growled. “Maybe useful. But definitely not something I’m going to plan on.”

“I don’t know if this is useful,” Chidi said, projecting his voice between them. “But you might consider body modifications? I don’t know if keeping poison in your claws is a terrible idea. Actually, scratch that. It’s definitely terrible. But I don’t know if it’s worse than anything else.”

He moved forward to keep himself in the same windflow as Aconite, as they didn’t feel it necessary to resist the winds but let it bring them around the planet- as long as it wasn’t pushing them deeper. They could retreat from the depths as they pleased, but they didn’t want to draw the wrong sort of attention by showing up in the wrong place.

“That might work,” Aconite finally admitted. “It’s going to be painful and I have to be extra certain I’m immune, but it’s not half bad. I could have one poison in each claw prepared ahead of time. With the right combos…”

Chidi shifted, and Aconite stiffened. He had just wanted to make certain she was still alert, but he figured he should follow up with another negation in a moment. It was difficult to create long lasting effects where there was no permanence to anything. He relied more on his internal formations than any markings he could scratch in the world around him, for somewhat obvious reasons.

This time, he held his arms directly against the wind. The pressure threatened to buckle his arms, but he needed to deal with the resistance. His skin was constantly growing back and being scoured off again, so he probably either looked like a terrible tomato or a polished gemstone. He leaned towards the former most of the time based on how sensitive his skin felt.

While training, he had time to think. While Aconite was catching a gust of something she had clearly deemed to be poison so she could try to bottle it, he considered why he was here. Training, obviously. But why had Chikere suggested this place? Had she known he would run into this particular issue?

No, she would have said if that was the case. Yet he also felt like her desire for Dubet’s Heart was…odd. He knew she had wanted it before he was born, but she’d grown quite fond of her artificial arm. In fact, she used it quite often because she could expel blood from it without injuring herself- which was where all her ‘weapons’ were kept.

He had no idea why she would suddenly want it. But if it was urgent, she would have told him. She even gave an uncharacteristic warning to stay safe- usually she would tell him to annihilate his enemies which was effectively the same from a different angle.

Chidi considered sending her a message, but he figured he could just ask her in person. After he either got one or determined he was too late. He would try to obtain it because she asked, but he couldn’t exactly bring it back if he got himself killed. And that included being crushed instantly by millions of times normal planetary pressure.

“How is it?” Chidi asked Aconite about the jar she was clutching with her energy.

“One moment,” she said. “Oh, and no negation please.” She placed it in her storage bag- fortunately Chidi’s negation just suppressed the ability to access the extradimensional space instead of breaking it- then continued to explain. “I think I can make something with it. Condensed, obviously, because it’s way too diffuse in those clouds.”

“Do you want some time for that?” Chidi asked.

Aconite shook her head. “Later. When we take a break outside atmosphere. Until then, I’m going to pretend I’m not crying every time I get wind directly in my nose.”

Chidi nodded. A few movements later, and he was tumbling head over heel. That was partially on purpose- he wanted to make certain he wasn’t going to give himself a concussion or whiplash. The effects on his enemies might be great as well, since they wouldn’t be prepared, but he needed to survive both their attacks and the environment. It didn’t matter to them whether they died to just one of them or to both.

Obviously it would be them that died. It had to be. Not that he thought he would always win, but the confidence in his own strength would make that more true. Cultivators could always fall… but as long as he didn’t go past confidence into arrogance then he should be alright. That would include something like challenging a Domination cultivator to a battle. While technically if he could negate all energy he could defeat them- that was why he developed the path he was on- practically it was unlikely. Even strong Augmentation cultivators would likely take him down before he could stop them.

What would it take? Another year here, another century of training in general? Whether it was fast or slow, he was going to do it. He took another pill and concentrated on repairing his soft outer tissues- and the lining of his nose, throat, and inner ear. Developing them so they returned stronger wasn’t his area of expertise, but he figured he was going to get plenty of practice in the near future. He’d already managed a few steps forward.