"Son of a Rabbit! Useless..." The young boy fumed as he glared at his latest attempt to weave a Dao of Unimportance into an Essence plant.
After the success with the little silver willow, Chún had been sure he understood the process. At his locus' urging, he had waited until the next day to avoid overloading on Essence after taking in so much during the Treasure's ignition — much of it a new kind entirely: Metal Essence. Despite wanting to try again immediately, he had spent the rest of that day on chores.
He gathered more deadwood for the fire-pit and fresh grasses for his sleeping spot. He ate the wild plums he had found for lunch and planted the pits in his vegetable and fruit patch, adding any edible vegetables and tubers collected on his hunt. The rest of the wild food went into the now-full stew pot along with the skinned and boned rabbits, making the dinner that night rich and full of fragrance.
If only the rest of his ideas had gone as well as the stew. With proper clothing still a distant hope, Chún had fashioned a makeshift loincloth from large leaves — not from the Vine — and some handwoven creepers. It at least kept him from wearing out his threadbare clothing, but the workmanship was clumsy. Weaving was considered a skilled craft in the village — and therefore not unpleasant enough work for the villagers to teach an orphaned outsider like him, leaving him only the low and thankless tasks.
He could patch clothing with needles made from rabbit bone — the bones were drying in the fire-pit for that purpose — but he had no cloth, and if there was a Dao of cloth, it had yet to reveal itself.
A kiln seemed more promising. With the Mountain's guidance to shape it well, he might manage it. Digging clay and mud and carrying water for the village potter had been part of his chores. The potter, however, had never let him take part in the skilled stages of kiln building or pottery casting — only the heavy labour — though Chún had watched several being made.
A kiln would mean - pots and bowls - being able to carry water properly, and perhaps finding some way to keep plants alive long enough for trade.
But none of that mattered if the villagers could still recognise him.
He glared down at the latest patch of grass in the clearing. His attempt at an unobtrusive Manifestation had failed. He tapped the clear stalks sourly and winced as they made a crackling sound — like ice breaking on a stream — before shivering back into regular grass.
Clear grass was like becoming a figure carved from glass, he thought — eye-catching rather than forgettable. He shuddered at the thought of villagers seeing a transparent person walk into town. Worse, any contact made the grass crackle back into visibility — and then fade clear again, just to advertise the change.
It was not his only failure that day. He had started with care, eating a Vine fruit to ensure he was not low on Essence, then practising on ordinary items around the clearing.
That had been the only wise choice. He cringed at the thought of Thousand Year Grass turning into cracking ice grass. Or if the rock that now reeked of rot had been an Essence stone. There was also a piece of dead wood now covered in moving fur — like a living caterpillar. If he had tried it on one of the Vine's branches, would it have created an evil Essence creature?
Sighing, he bent down and picked up a yellowing leaf blown in from the forest. "More practice, more practice," he said hollowly, walking over to his washing boulder and hopping on top. The warmth of the Golden Crow's light upon his skin was comforting.
In Essence Sense, the dying leaf showed only faint flickers — unimportance, completion, silence, ending. Slowly, he pushed Essence into the leaf. He began weaving unimportance, silence, and completion into new shapes of un-remarkability and un-noticeability. Completion flared as it slid into place. He could see each original Dao contributing to the new one, and hope rose in him.
Then the ending shape swelled, wrapping around the unnoticed rune. The shapes spun together and vanished with a silent flash.
The leaf crumbled to dust that rose into the breeze and disappeared.
His skin went cold. If that had been him... The Mountain pushed an image of his own disintegration into his mind, and he choked.
"To tread the Dao is to invite death," the village storyteller's voice echoed in his memory.
"No more practice," he muttered, still shaking. He grabbed his staff and sack and strode into the forest, hoping movement would chase away the chills.
---
The Mountain's impressions, rich with mock grandeur, spilled across their link — silent bursts of imagery and sensation rather than spoken words. They were image‑driven, wordless glimpses, never truly heard aloud.
They were vivid as any tale told at a winter hearth, and as clear in his mind as if painted on silk. They were not sounds, but visions and feelings pressed directly into his thoughts:
A portion of the forest on the Mountain's far side rings with roars and grunts of exertion. A sudden crash shakes a dozen birds skyward with screams of alarm, and an enormous forest giant sways like a reed.
A blurred form races through the forest. The wind of its passage tears loose leaves from branches, pulling them along in its wake. Lesser trunks sway as it leaps like a spirit-fox between the giants.
The reason for its haste is revealed a moment later, when a massive bear thrashes through the forest in a straight line behind, obviously enraged.
"Must... you... narrate like the... Village Storyteller," Chún sent silently up the link to his locus as he squatted breathlessly on a sturdy tree limb, watching warily for his pursuer. The Mountain seemed to be deriving great amusement from painting elaborate, image‑laden impressions of the situation — each one perfectly timed to match his own desperate bounds from tree to tree.
A strong pulse of assent and amusement followed; an image of him throwing a stone at the bear, then fleeing in panic.
"Yes, well, he was going to eat... that monkey! And the whole... troop was about to get themselves killed... trying to save it! I was just trying to... distract the bear so they could get away! I did not... think the son of a... boar would... come after me instead!" He paused in thought as he leapt for the next tree. His feet thumped against the trunk as he ran up its length in defiance of the natural order. Then he added with a mental glare, And your running commentary is not helping.
Somewhere during the mad chase, Chún had mastered the art of communicating to the Mountain purely through thought. Noise — like speaking aloud — tended to draw the bear's attention. The third near‑fatal claw swipe had convinced him to keep as quiet as possible.
If not for frantically mimicking the monkey troop's movements as they first raced through the canopy, he would have been caught by now. Instinct had taken over in the first few shùn as Essence surged through his body. Without thinking, he had followed the monkeys into the trees, copying their Essence flows and behaviour.
The Monkey Movement Dao, as he now thought of it, let him launch from the sides of tree trunks, rebound off surfaces at angles to absorb impacts safely, and use that momentum to leap even higher. With his staff reinforced in desperation by Essence, he could spring from unlikely launch points, gaining distance and speed beyond his limbs' natural limits.
After the first few leaps, the Mountain had begun marking angles and landing spots. Even after the troop abandoned him to the bear, he had managed to keep moving — "like a spirit-fox," as his locus had so helpfully 'described'.
Between Essence-fuelled leaps and controlled falls, he had gained such speed that he closed his eyes and relied on Essence Sense to navigate. If not for the crazed death‑beast on his tail, he might have enjoyed the sensation — like an Immortal flying through the clouds, as the songs about Cultivators always spoke of.
Grabbing a sturdy vine here and there to swing across open spaces also kept him out of reach. This time, it had bought him a brief pause. The bear was hesitating at the edge of a small clearing, with Chún now perched on a tree at the opposite side, as if it were reluctant to cross the open ground between them.
Chún slowed his breathing, thinking hard. The bear stood directly opposite him, still outside the clearing. It was only the trees that had allowed him to keep ahead. Why hesitate now?
Perhaps it was wary of the open ground — which would also give him a clear strike if it charged. His heartbeat quickened at the thought. He was running out of options; Essence or not, he was only eleven seasons old. He could not outlast, outrun, or overpower a bear — even one that was not an Essence Beast.
He would have to end it in one blow, or at least injure it badly enough to convince it the fight was not worth the risk.
Balancing on the branch, Chún closed his eyes and channelled Essence hard, flooding his body. Remembering the shock of the little silver tree's ignition wave the day before, he pushed as much of the newly learned Metal Essence as he could into his staff.
When he opened his eyes, the weapon gleamed silver‑gold and thrummed faintly.
"Friend, give me the highest and fastest leap‑drop that will strike the bear with the greatest force," he thought at the Mountain, shifting his Essence flow into the pattern of the Monkey Dao and adjusting it to his own form.
A roar shattered the stillness. His body reacted before thought, flinging him upward across the clearing. The Mountain's guidance shaped his path into a perfect arc as a heroic battle cry from one of his favourite stories burst from his lips:
"Monkey Staff calls down Heaven's judgement!"
A streak of gold and silver spins like a firework, plummeting from the sky;
A mighty beast rears to meet it with thunderous paws.
Mortal enemies collide, shaking the Heavens, as if jade dragons clashed above;
White light explodes from the point of contact, like the roar of thunder spirits over storm‑crowned peaks;
The celestial court holds its breath; the world itself trembles.
"By the Nine Springs…" Chún staggered under the aftermath, tumbling with the blast front and carving a furrow across the clearing as he slid to a halt. Clearly, he had been wrong — the bear was an Essence Beast.
"By all the ancestors' scrolls, must you truly recite an epic right now?" he growled aloud to his locus, keeping a wary eye on the other side of the clearing.
The Mountain's sense of a broad grin was unmistakable.
"Great, my locus is as smug as a spirit-fox," Chún muttered, panting as he raised his staff in guard. The dust thinned to reveal the bear doing the same.
"Neither of us wants this to go further. Let us call it a draw, out of respect." He bowed his head in a formal warrior's salute, deep enough to honour an equal. "I apologise for the loss of your meal, but I could not watch both sides spill precious Essence for no true gain."
A considering light flickered in the bear's eyes. It tilted its head, made a soft whuff, then slowly blinked before turning to lumber back the way it had come.
Chún released his held breath and collapsed. "By the ancestors, that worked."
The Mountain prodded him into Essence Sense. He gasped at the roiling mass of unattached wild Essence in the clearing. "All that from a single clash? What happens when Consumers fight?"
An impatient jab from his locus came with the image of him channelling the Essence into the ground. He clenched his fists, then obeyed — opening his senses and drawing in the Essence.
It felt like being in the centre of a violent storm of bells and chimes. The Essence pounced towards him, flooding through him in a massive swirl of power that seemed to set him alight from within. It flash‑burned impurities as they were forced out of his meridians, marrow, bones, tendons, ligaments, muscles, organs, nerves, and skin.
The power filtered through him and entered the ground almost gently in comparison, setting off a chain of Essence fountains, ignitions, and ripples throughout the clearing. Grass, plants, herbs, and small trees sprouted and flung themselves upward in less than a shùn, covering the clearing in a massive cloud of Essence motes and swirling Essence mist, rich with the scents of earth and life. A faint humming seemed to rise from the earth itself, carrying a warmth that brushed against his skin and a shimmer in the air like heat over stone.
Then it was over. Chún sat in the middle of a clearing filled with precious plants and Essence herbs of incalculable age and strength — potentially thousands of years of Cultivation in a single place. Consumers would kill each other in hordes for any one of the plants here.
"I feel… remade," he breathed, then looked down in resignation. "Naked again… this is becoming a habit. Just like last time — at least there is no black mess this time."
"Well, that is enough exertion for one day… back to the clearing—"
He froze. A long, sinuous hum rose from every side in his Essence Sense, followed by the rustle of countless scales. Hundreds of snakes — each an Essence Beast — poured into the clearing from the shadows.
The Mountain's intent was sudden and sharp: do not move a muscle.*