Chapter 567 - Making friends with unorthodox cultivators to learn all their juicy secrets!

“Ho the rig! Friendly flyer requesting access!”

Eric grinned when he caught sight of a dozen or so cultivators flaring the hot Qi of definite Spiritual Energy gathering-stage cultivators, all of them staring his way with looks of absolute stupefaction, outrage, and in just a few case, wild laughter.

“Who the hell is that?”

“He flew fifty miles across seas this wild?”

“Inform Master Liang at once!”

Eric winced internally when initial stares of surprised shock became looks of aloof caution if not outright hostility. Certainly not the smirks of recognition he had hoped for.

“State your name and purpose for interfering with out duties, outsider!” Snapped none other than an almost officious looking Master Liang, wearing a spotless black silk hanfu robe, though his feet were still naked and the wild locks of his hair blowing freely in the wind.

Eric blinked in surprise. “Wait… outsider? Seriously? You don’t recognize me, esteemed cultivator Liang?”

Liang lurched back in surprise. “I’ve never seen you before in my life, boy. How the hell do you know my name?”

That of course was the moment that Osirian popped his head free of the stairwell leading to the quarters below the massive platform, who’s furious glare turned to a look of dismay, smacking his face with his palms.

A surprised-looking Liang turned Osirian’s way. “This flying boy knows my name. How the hell does he know my name?”

“That’s a very good question, Liang. How about you have the men get our one surviving boat ready, and I’ll find that out myself.”

Liang furrowed his brow. “You sure about that, brother? He flew over fifty miles. That speaks of power, and I can’t sense any Qi flow keeping him aloft at all.”

Osirian smirked. “You really think that boy can break through my wards? Ha. Good one, brother. No, you prepare for the hunt, I’ll handle things here.”

Liang held the wujen’s gaze for a long moment before abruptly dipping his head. “So be it. To the ship, men! Should fortune favor us, we’ll be savoring Qi sweet enough to make highlanders jealous!”

His words elicited a ragged cheer as the men loped off to prepare for their hunt, with final guarded looks an increasingly discomfited Eric’s way.

For a heartbeat, he felt genuine relief to see the glimmer of recognition in Osirian’s gaze. Then he saw the man’s brooding expression as sea-foam laden winds wildly whipped the man’s curly hair to reveal not two but three horns.

Eric winced, really not liking the man’s glare.

“Why are you here?”

Cold, curt, and to the point. And why the hell had Eric expected anything else?

Eric gazed at the cool-eyed wujen, the subtle power of his sigil covered flesh glowing so clearly to Eric’s Qi Perception, no matter the man’s attempts to hide it.

Eric gave the man a solemn bow while still in midair. “I know this might sound like an odd question…”

Osirian snorted. “Odd from a flying faerie who decided come say hi, fifty miles past shoreline with no boat in sight?”

Eric winced. “Yeah. I was um… I don’t suppose you’d be interested in taking on an apprentice?”

The wujen gazed at a hopeful-looking Eric for long moments, before the air filled with his booming laughter. “Oh that’s rich, boy! Complete unknown with no proper background, sect affiliation, or allegiance to my clan, asking for my family’s most intimate secrets. Wonderful jest. Absolutely wonderful!”

The man actually slapped his knee, so filled with jubilation that he actually seemed to glow with ebullience and mirth.

Eric’s smile became a grimace. “I guess that was a really stupid question we’re calling a joke, so I don’t lose all face?”

“More absurd than you could possibly fathom, Contender!” Osirian’s smile was all teeth. “But don’t worry. You caused me no mortal offense, boy. You’re a netherrealm child who has absolutely no idea what he asks. So what could your words be, save the absurdest of jests?”

Eric swallowed the bile in his throat, not needing Social Perception, which didn’t work anyway here, to know that even bringing up his actions yesterday, twisting the man’s arm with what had been hailed a hero’s actions… especially when it was his own party that was arguably entirely to blame… would be a very bad idea.

Osirian’s eyes glittered coolly before he gave the tiniest of nods. “Good.”

Eric suppressed a wince. Was he really that readable?

His heart began to pound, only now recalling that which had screamed with significance, just the night before.

The nature of at least a few of the protective wards that had protected his friends from the most brutal of psionic assaults from the deluded kraken that actually thought it was a four-dimensional beast.

The shout hadn’t just been loud.

It had been a psionic wail. Which mean that at least a few of the sigils warding both wild cultivators and elite young body cultivating children in way over their heads… had been psionic in nature.

An elf’s ultimate vulnerability. Yet thanks to Dense Neurons, no psionic attack was penetrating his thick skull.

And he still couldn’t guard his thoughts for shit.

He very carefully began thinking about quadratic equations. Never mind the fact that he barely understood quadratic equations, even with 46 Scholarship. An absurdly high mental attribute that in his case, just equated to two shots of espresso and a clear memory. Clearly, all attributes didn’t treat all classers or Contenders the same.

He knew damn well that his beloved Bunz was pretty much a tech cybermancing genius with her Scholarship, and she neither had nor needed a class for it.

As for him? He was able to show off with his telpad only when he was riding upon probability waves of endless potential collapsing in whatever way he could imagine while claiming new territories and bringing them into his sister’s fold. Where for a few precious seconds, he could shape reality like a living dream.

Before waking up as clueless Eric again, who needed Bunbun even to figure out how to do online transactions with his rune-enhanced device. And that was with all his caffeinated memory enhancements in play.

Sure as shit, he would have been in a much, much weaker negotiating position with Andaar Imperium’s queen if he had been the one trying to figure out how to use the right apps to affect the half-trillion credit transfer.

Yet if there was one thing he was very, very good at, it was figuring out creative ways of fitting together the building blocks of magic, such as the very few runes and spells he had the opportunity to study or master.

Arcane savvy and tech stupid. Like the elf he so obviously was.

Even if he hated stereotypes, had thought himself completely human until less than two years ago, and was clever enough to at least fake not being a complete idiot. He had grown up with computers, for fucks sake! And what about Caliban and all the Blue Corp elves? With their Vulcanesque flare and electromana mastery, why was it so difficult for him?

Never mind that his mother was somehow both an angel, a teenage mom, and a 4-Dimensional fiery bird... and his dad wasn’t even worth mentioning.

Yet as much as trying to figure out apps made him want to cry, even the runes he had seen Osirian use just in passing had rung like a symphony in his skull. Spiritual Energy, Blood Magic, and Psionic swirls of reality in the shape of sigils all working harmoniously together, the entire formation filled with a deep thrumming power. Like a slow moving river stretching across half a valley, as opposed to the racing rapids of a narrow stream that were fast-cast spells and the like.

Osirian gave him the strangest look.

“What?”

The wujen snorted. “Are you actually having an existential crises in the middle of our negotiation? Because you definitely look like you’re having an existential crisis.”

Eric blinked, before lifting his chin and going for an imperious glare. “I’m trying to distract your squid-like psionic brain tendrils with quadratic equations.”

Osirian smirked, crossing his arms, standing like a king in the central pentagram upon the reinforced rig platform. “Well, you’re doing a poor job of it, kid. Because I got no tendrils of any sort, and all I’m seeing is teenage angst.” He gave Eric a pointed look. “Do you even know what quadratic equations are?”

Eric nodded solemnly. “Something very mathy that all the heroes in all the isekai novels fill their heads with, whenever encountering squid brains or mindlords. It involves lots of X’s and Y’s and squared numbers and shit like that.”

Osirian slapped his knee, roaring with laughter. “Oh, you’re a riot, kid! Far better than the entertainment that normally comes by in the middle of the oceans between madness and death.”

Eric blinked at this. “You get a lot of entertainment out here?”

“None whatsoever.”

Eric sighed as the wujen continued chuckling at his expense. “Can you actually read minds?”

Osirian’s chuckles abated. He gave Eric an odd look. “Had we not actually bonded in battle, I would count your accusation a grievous offense.” He smirked at Eric’s raised hand. “But since you’re just a silly little faerie child who has no idea how the real world works…” He shrugged. “Nah. I just see your emotional state. It glows. And it glows pretty damn bright on you. Almost as bright as the ridiculously absurd amount of power you have trapped in a body that looks so damned close to human, I’ll bet no one realizes what a monster you truly are.”

Eric winced. “That obvious, huh?”

“Not obvious at all, idiot. I just said no else will spot it! Not unless they’re as gifted as me. But to my eyes kid? You glow pretty damn bright, on all sorts of levels.”

“I’m guessing your pretty gifted, then.”

“Hah! I’m the best. And I’m not just saying that because any wujen worth his salt believes it. I’m saying it because it’s true.”

Eric nodded in solemn agreement. “Is that why none of the crew recognize me?”

Osirian smirked. “No one recognizes you because they took an oath to forget. But since a wujen never forgets, and you need someone who knows what’s going on, in case you’re actually foolish enough to come back… Well, here we are.”

Eric solemnly nodded. “Yup! Here we are. A presently unaffiliated student no one yet realizes the potential of, save for you… and the most powerful wujen anyone will find in the lowlands. What are the odds?”

Osirion’s look grew pointed. “Flattery won’t get you an apprenticeship kid.” He smirked. “Not that I don’t admit that it would be interesting taking on a student who actually has a smidgen of potential. But you need to have more talent than just swinging a magical flaming sword around. Even if we do owe you big for—”

“Roboro ventus! Iram congelo! Plures attentio!”

Eric roared the words, fist clenched, pointed straight down at the sea as a massive torrent of freezing winds slammed into the crashing waves that immediately froze into a growing disk of ice, now riding on top of the crashing waves. Eric’s lips curled in a fierce grin, savoring for just a moment how wonderfully intense it was, even without infusing it with the essences of Wrath or freezing cold. His affinity with those two elements allowed him to chant the runic magic near effortlessly, finding it so deliciously easy to freeze the water solid.

Osirion’s bemused smile turned to a whistle, then a low chuckle as he fearlessly leaned over the edge of the central platform and gazed down at the massive island of ice at the base of the rig.

“Impressive. And you’re using odd notes that defy reality in ways I’ve never witnessed before. Damn impressive. Is that faerie magic?”

Eric cut off the howling winds that could freeze powerful White-tier beasts to blocks of ice in seconds, grateful that his Qi Pool, now back to a respectable 1310 with a 109 Spiritual Energy, meant that he wasn’t aching with pain after draining 20%, trying to make a good impression.

Best of all, in a world this potent in Spiritual Energy, even if he was technically at the most barren spot to be found, at the border where the remaining spiritual energy pressure from the highlands was, he suspected, somehow pushing back the alien Black Sea, his Spiritual Energy was ticking up nearly as fast as his Mana. Though that was also because he wasn’t using Battletime much at all, thinking and processing at no more than the pace Osirian chose to interact with him, only a few times faster than human norms.

“I guess you could call it that? I use Mana as well as Spiritual Energy with my arts.”

“And blood magic,” Osirian said with a hard smile.

Eric didn’t deny it. “Sometimes, yes. But only sometimes.”

Osirion rubbed his chin, before seeming to come a decision. “Tell you what, kid. You join our boys on a hunt. If you add value, I’ll make sure you’re included in the ritual that will follow. Then, we’ll see if maybe there’s a place for you here.”

In a short handful of minutes, Eric found himself in the midst of the dozen or so powerfully built cultivators who had gazed at him so suspiciously before, all of them now staring his way with looks ranging from disbelief to derision to outright chuckles of amusement as they rode the wild waves upon what Eric would have thought an ancient junk, complete with bamboo spars for the square-rigged sails and multicolored pennants that of course showcased sea serpents. He would have thought the flat bottomed design and unexpected double rudder would have been a disadvantage, but since he didn’t know shit about boats, he kept that concern to himself.

What he wasn’t prepared for was the overwhelming degree of Spiritual Energy radiating from every last rib, plank, mast, slat, and sail of the ship.

“Well who the hell would have thought a netherworld elf would have been smart enough to want to join our crew?” Opined one cheerful-looking monster of a body cultivator. Dark violet-hued irises nearly black twinkled with obvious mirth as he smirked Eric’s way, before holding out a powerful paw of a hand.

“Name’s Tang,” he said, giving Eric’s hand an unexpectedly gentle squeeze.

“Eric,” Eric said, smiling and carefully modulating his grip to match the gruff, yet friendly body cultivator, not scowling at him nearly as much as the others, which was a nice contrast. “A pleasure to join you on your hunt.”

His words earned a number of snorts and cold looks, but Tang just nodded. “Liang okayed it, since Osirian thinks you might actually have what it takes, and your grip is strong enough. I think you might not be the pile of flimsy twigs the last fool wanting to join our crew turned out to be.”

Eric chuckled. “Happy not to disappoint. So, what happened to the other candidate?”

The air rang with cold laughter as the wind picked up and they crested a massive wave.

“What the fuck do you think happened? He got eaten, and his harpoon spear didn’t do him a lick of good!” Declared one smirking cold-eyed man, gazing pointedly at the contraption Osirian had gifted him with a carefully neutral expression. Yet Eric wasn’t blind to the fact that the weapons fastened under the seats of the others were the farthest thing from harpoons, being either glaives or guandao, and not a one was of any alloy he recognized.

Eric would have smirked off the response, had not a half dozen given grudging nods at that.

Even Tang smirked and dipped his head. “That’s right! Last top-side exile who thought he actually had what it takes to embrace a fresh life on the wild-side soon found that he didn’t. But it wasn’t all bad.”

“No?”

Tang slowly shook his head, his smile now just as wicked as his companions. “Boy was shining so bright with pristine Spiritual Energy that we had a fucking feast of spirit beasts trying to clamor onto our junk! The slaughter and resulting beast cores were sufficient for three of us to break through and ascend! Infusing our bodies with sweet power those elitist fools above will never understand.”

The entire crew roared with laughter and Eric laughed right along with them, meeting their wild smiles with one of his own.

“Here’s to hoping that we have a hunt equally exciting as the one before!” He said just as earthly winds and rain were replaced by shrieking howls, sulfuric winds and waves that flowed so differently from the earthly sea they had just left behind.

At that moment a dozen pairs of eyes began to glow with eerie eldritch light, chests expanding, drinking deep of the tainted air.

And all of them, peering at Eric with their predatory gazes. Yet he sensed no malice, merely the predatory nature of cats or perhaps sharks, staring at the weakest member of their pack. Should he sicken, wheeze and crumple…

The air filled with manic laughter as euclidian geometry began to twist and scream, and Eric cared not at all. Not even when half the crew of wildly powerful body cultivators who had clearly been holding back before, now drinking deep of the alien energies that were perhaps the true nature of this world, all flinched before the dark chuckles of their newest member.

Peering at them all with eyes of frozen flame, lips stretched wide enough to swallow them all… with what was just a pristine smile upon fair Sylvan features as the howling winds met their equal.

Eric’s heart began to pound. The awful chains of sober temperance, careful prudence, and scrupulous self-control snapped free at last, as he savored the company of men just as wild as he.

“FINALLY! I can take a break from all that BULLSHIT!”

He peered down at the joke of a harpoon and made it disappear in the blink of an eye. “I was going to go for the easygoing chipper newbie who does his best to fit in and not make too many waves. But I mean, FUCK IT! We’re surrounded by nothing but alien Jupiterean currents, inhaling toxic fumes that would choke the life out of any mortal within seconds. And none of you wildblooded bastards give a fuck, do you? Because sure as hell, neither do I!”

For a painful moment, all his fierce declaration earned were surprised looks of disbelief, before Tang roared with approval. “Ah, finally someone who gets it! Not some pussy-ass topside weak-blood, but a netherworld faerie! A Contender! Am I right, newblood?”

By way of answer Eric drew the mithril blade secured to his hip, all his other attire already put away, save for his bluejeans now glowing with crimson runes in the eldritch light, the only article of clothing that would survive the deadly caustic fumes lethal to any mortal. Or any foolish cultivator who had taken only his first steps along immortality’s path.

The air blazed with a massive bar of flame Eric allowed to blaze forth, crackling with crimson fire and Dominion’s reign, just for the hell of it.

“Your damn right. Now let’s go kill things!”

He happily stood on the prow as they sailed upon eldritch seas as Master Liang unflinchingly steered them towards a distant storm of howling sulfur winds and crimson lightning, the mercurial spray coating them all with caustic compounds that didn’t make a single one of them flinch.

Bloodfire Strike critically injures Eldritch Serpent!

You have successfully decapitated Lesser Abomination!

You have contributed to the slaughter of fifteen additional Lesser and Greater Abominations!

You have successfully retrieved 17 cores before they could be lost to competing spirit beasts or mercurial waters!

You have gained 0 Cultivation Levels.

Swimming is now Rank 11!

Core Saturation is now 86.7%!

You have successfully rescued Cultivator Zim.

You now share a karmic bond with Cultivator Zim!

Eric laughed with the joyous madness of it all, weaving and darting past lashing tendrils, snapping teeth, and bone-shattering otherworldly screeches.

All was a churning frosh of eviscerated flesh, crimson seas, and chaos as a dozen hot-blooded cultivators tore into an equal number of eldritch sea serpents and worse that had been lured by either the junk, the cultivators within, or the newest addition to their crew.

Either way, Eric felt absolutely no shame in answering each ravenous snapping of jaw or lashing of tentacle with an equally vicious rebuttal. The slime-covered scales of countless abominations that deflected too many of his shipmate’s Qi-enhanced punches or blue-flame coated spears and guandao, proved no defense at all to an attack made to blaze right through the toughest Utahraptor’s scales when he had still been taking his first steps as a Contender.

Now, though, with a strength now over 4000 and Bloodfire Strike a hair’s breadth away from 30th level and infused with Dominion’s Reign, he would deny his foes any opportunity to hide between twisted dimensional concepts, phasing, shadows, or endless leagues of sea that the cleverest of the abominations swimming ever closer thought would shield it from foolish human cultivator’s blows.

Eric gleefully showed them all just how wrong they were.

“Zim!”

Eric’s blade was crimson fire, cleaving free a massive kraken’s limbs, the beast shrieking at decibels that would have shattered a mortal’s skull, when it realized that it couldn’t slip any fresh limbs from any imaginary 3-D slices of reality. For this was its only reality. And yes, it was going to die here, as the laughing elf’s blade grew twice as long, a heartbeat from cleaving the abomination in twain before the massive flaming sword abruptly pivoted and blasted through three megaladons. An act that bought the desperately floundering cultivator below Eric a precious moment to collect himself before his already mangled form was torn into by a fresh school of sharks. Then he was abruptly pulled out of the water and the kraken paid no more mind as it slipped for deeper waters, still screaming with the horror of finding that its sense of vastness had been crushed, its cultivation forever stifled, and that it was doomed to wander these seas alone for the rest of its painfully short life.

“Zim, you’re lucky to be alive, you damned fool!” A glaring Cultivator Liang declared as Eric gently placed the sobbing bleeding man, suffering from multiple shark bites with chunks of his flesh torn right off his body. Yet he still stubbornly hung onto life as Tang immediately slammed not one but three healing talismans onto his bleeding flesh, all of them covered in silver-gold sigils Eric tried desperately to imprint upon his mind’s eye as the man’s sobs eased, the bleeding stopped, and his ugly wounds began to scab over.

“Chew and swallow, Zim.” Tang gently patted the man’s trembling body, tears streaming down Zim’s cheeks as he chewed a black glob of something radiating a disturbing amount of crude waste and even more shockingly potent healing magics.

Eric repressed a smirk. Clearly these boys, so comfortable in alien seas, bathing in strange waters and inhaling toxic fumes, didn’t give a rat’s as for pristine purity or anything like orthodox cultivation.

“Get back onboard, fools! We’re heading back,” Liang declared, turning the ship around as a dozen furiously fighting cultivators leaped out of the water as effortlessly a dolphins, only one managing to cleave off the head of his prey before a powerful arm radiating odd Qi cracked open its skull and tore free an impressive-sized core.

“Ha!” The man’s crow of triumph became a snarl as two aggressive serpents took the opportunity to spring free of alien sea and latch onto both greedy cultivator and core… before being sliced in twain with a single flash of a brilliant fiery blade that was now almost normal sized, both decapitated beasts then seeming to disappear as a coolly smiling Eric claimed his prizes, earning a surprised if grateful grunt from the man in question.

“Thanks, newblood,” he said to Eric, who was casually walking on the air as the man sprung from the water back onto the prow of the boat. “Not quite so useless as we feared you’d be.” He then spared a still groaning Zim a pitiable glance. “Brother’s lucky to be alive.”

“That’s because we never had a full hoard attacking our ship before!” Tang declared with a chuckle, also nodding up at Eric. “Well done, kid. I think you’re now our good luck charm!”

Liang glowered. “It’s not the boy.”

This earned more than a few curious looks as Master Liang wasted no more time on words, the junk now racing over the waves as fast as any motorized ship ever had on Earth. Then faster. Eric stepped from air back to his seat, enjoying the ride while letting the wind caress his features and blow the hair from his face.

“Fucking epic!” Eric laughed his approval. “You guys do this on the regular? You must have the time of your lives!”

Tang snorted. “We do!” He said, before looking at the pitiable Zim. “At least, when we’re not nearly bitten in half, we do.”

“And none of us have been swarmed like that in years!” Glowered one man, now staring at Eric. “Never happened before he joined us.”

“That might be true,” Tang conceded. “But when have we had such a successful hunt before?”

“Core count,” Liang snapped.

The men scowled, looking at one another, slowly producing a good half dozen cores.

Tang raised a single cool brow. “That’s all? A hunt that ferocious, one of you boys should have been on core duty. How many did we lose to the sea this time?”

“Not a one,” A smiling Eric declared, solemnly revealing one core after another to the awed looks and appreciative whistles of the crew.

By the time he revealed his fifth core, the good-natured jests had stopped.

By the time he revealed his tenth core, the men were whispering furiously amongst themselves, their eyes filled with disbelief.

By the time he revealed the final one, he received nothing but looks of awe.

“Just who the hell are you, kid?” An awed Tang asked.

Eric grinned, happy to shoot straight with his new friends. All save for the one core he had claimed at great cost, that no one had any claim to, save himself.

“Like you said. Netherworld Contender. Happy to make new friends.” He turned to meet Master Liang’s impressed gaze. “And unlock all sorts of cool new paths to ascension.”

The leader of their band gave an abrupt chuckle. “You want in on our secrets?” He smirked, giving a hard nod. “With that haul, you’ve more than earned them. Hell, we could use a hunter like you.”

“Damn right we could, boss,” Tang gamely declared. “With this boy beside us, there’s no limit to how far we can ascend as masters of our own frames and fates! If future hunts are this bountiful, I’ll bet half of us will be half-step Silver before the decade’s out!”

Eric couldn’t help but note the looks of awe upon the entire crews’ faces.

“I take it that’s something significant.”

Tang chortled, his hand clapping his thigh. “Significant indeed, boy! Do you know how rare it is for anyone not from the most prestigious highland families to hit even hit the cups of Silver? Equivalent in power to a half-step core cultivator, without roadblocks slowing them down for decades, or longer? Ha! And that’s with plenty of resources, all the purification treasures you need for pristine meridians, and access to the best techniques.” He shared hard looks with his boat-mates. “And we, of course, have none of that. All of us with Dragon Gates that are the farthest thing from pristine. Most of us having hit roadblocks that no spiritual treasure will cure. At least, none that we were able to afford. And you know what, boy?”

Eric, chin resting in his hands, couldn’t help grinning at the man’s effortless patter. “What?”

“None of that matters!”

“No kidding.”

“Not a damn bit!” Tang assured with a wink. “And I’ll bet you want to know our secrets, too.”

Eric grinned. “Damn right, I do.”

“Well, you’ll get to experience it soon enough.”