[A.B.P.P.E.] Bk 2 - Chapter 67 - Changes and Anxiety

Meng Li sat at the peak of the mountain she had been living on for the past couple months. Her eyes closed, letting the ambience and heat of the sun beam upon her form. The wind snapped around her, but never got close enough to touch her. Breaking a few feet in front and joining together behind her.

It’s changed. Everything is different?

She couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation. How does an entire planet transform its Qi ether so thoroughly?

The difference was so great she could feel it upon her skin. 

Qi brushed against her white supple skin in quantities that had never been there before. The Greater Dao gave her greater weight and meaning to her own cultivation. Her attacks were more pronounced, more effective. 

There was more that had been made pristine, but it didn’t really matter to her now.

Not after nearly getting killed by the mere presence of the Original Calamity’s Qi washing upon their location for a distance she could not sense. A warning to remind her that he existed and that his Ancient Heritage was not to be touched. The Vault would remain unmolested or death would find her swiftly.

Meng Li believed it wholeheartedly. 

How she was still whole and alive after being crushed and sent unconscious into the mountain was a mystery to her. All she remembered was noticing the tsunami of Qi coming, preparing her own barriers to protect herself, and then waking up in a giant crater covered in hundreds of tonnes of stone and mountain boulders. She was just thankful no one had found her defeated form, especially the old bag of bones who had sacrificed her first servant.

There wasn’t a shadow of doubt within her mind that he would have tried to turn her into a cultivation cauldron. 

Demonic Cultivators were the least loyal maids and butlers she had ever had.

“Where is he now?” Meng Li said to herself. 

Her senses had caught a general direction when the Ancient Vault had first opened. A ball of Qi so tightly wound, it felt closer to the heart of a star than anything any being should have had. She couldn’t understand how she missed it at all when it suffocated the world whenever it was so much as bothered. And now she had lost it and the threads she had put out to keep track of them. 

Meng Li couldn’t understand how the Original Calamity had the power to not only carry such a ridiculous core, but to hide it from even her senses.

There was a distant possibility he was still in the Ancient Vault, but she would rather not risk going. 

Vaults tend to have as many dangers as it had advantages and treasures. Usually equal in both ways. She could only imagine what type of horrors would be in there to counteract the power that was the Original Calamity and his ancient race.

Yet, that wasn’t even the more important consideration. 

What if he takes offense? 

Would he kill her on the spot or would he allow her to reason with him? She was not ready to bake anything worthwhile for a being that strong. Meng Li needed to buy as much time as possible to make sure she had the best first impression possible. Her best clothes, best smell, best state of being, and most importantly, best cookies and treats. Everything needed to be perfect. 

Meng Li let out a long defeated sigh. 

She opened her eyes and looked directly up searching for the cracks in reality she had been prodding in hopes to find anything at all she could use to escape with–

Wait? This feeling?

Meng Li shot up to her feet and stared hard, not at the scored fabric of space she had walked through but the universal ether that surrounded entire planets. Her own had gotten closer? It was more proximal than it had been just yesterday and she made sure to reminisce and dream of returning multiple times a day in between bullying the locals, trying to find the Original Calamity, and her baking practices. 

“What does that even mean?” 

A thought crossed her mind that she had once thought impossible. Maybe, just maybe, she could reach out and get a message across back into the territory that her family and clan controlled? Her father would know what to do or how to do it. He had far more experience dealing with ancient monsters that could wipe out their planet with a wave of their hands.

Meng Li reached out with her Qi and senses, searching for the cracks she had gotten accustomed to. 

One particular one had been the closest she found to escaping, but not enough to actually take advantage of. It would allow her to get a message across though–

“W-Where are the cracks? The tears? Where did my chance to escape go?” Meng Li frantically searched every inch she could access. 

She found nothing but a pure barrier that had not a single scratch upon it. 

The tears and rips within the fabric of space had vanished. Sealed shut by the Original Calamity somehow, and would need a power far stronger than she could imagine to make it react in any way. Even un-conquered worlds would take attrition just existing. Heavenly bodies, meteors, and other natural occurrences peppering the barriers and the lands every once in a while.

Yet, this one looked like it had just been made.

“Wait,” She floated up into the sky as she noticed a gateway that had appeared. “There’s an exit now?”

Hope began to bubble within her chest, but she refused to believe it. Nothing indicated that he wanted her to leave yet. She scanned it multiple times to make sure it was what she thought it was. This was no normal gateway. No, this was an entrance only type of deal that would not open the other way. It would not allow her to exit unless the fabric of space opened up just like a normal Calamity forcing its way into a planet. 

Except going out? 

That made no sense to her. 

Was it trying to trap something in? Or was this…

Meng Li’s eyes widened as understanding dawned upon her. 

I-Is he inviting more people? Why not an exit? I want to leave… but if he’s inviting more people… does that mean he wasn’t satisfied with my baking?!

The world spun around her as she tried not to drop and cause another avalanche. Only when her feet touched solid ground did she allow herself to collapse under the weight and realization that had struck her like a bolt of Heavenly Lightning. Her heart wanted to jump out of her throat, stomach twisting into itself, and mind struggled to focus on anything other than the fact that her only chance at survival might have been crushed.

No! You can’t give up, Li! Your father would be disappointed!

Meng Li shot up to her feet, tears trailing down her face, but a new resolve had overcome her. 

She bolted back to her safety cavern and pulled out her oven and stove, a new one she had commissioned from the cultivator smiths of the area. She had worked hard to influence the entire process with her Qi and resources during the creation process to make it perfect. The need to practice on higher quality items drove her to get better, and now she had an existential reason to improve and become the greatest baker to have ever baked.

The Original Calamity wouldn’t kill her if she got good enough. She knew that from the depths of her heart. 

How? 

Meng Li had no idea.

“Lady–” the old bag of bones tried to enter her cavern but was blasted by a blast of Qi that nearly crushed his dantian. 

“I’m busy! Stop bothering me all the time!”

Shit! I’m going to need to fix him up again. I can’t keep breaking him, but he’s so flimsy!

Meng Li made a mental note to heal him some time later. For now, the only thing she could think of was getting better at baking and one day approaching the Original Calamity with the pride of her entire short, seventy thousand year life span.

There was so much room to grow her baking skills, she was a young adult after all.