After leaving the bridge bastion, Alexei had to admit the raid had been relatively straightforward. Aside from the initial piglin swarm, there hadn't been much real difficulty.
The loot was underwhelming. He had obtained one lodestone, two netherite scraps, and a collection of materials that could easily be gathered elsewhere. It was far from a legendary haul.
But the most valuable discovery wasn't treasure at all. What he really gained was confirmation that bastion remnant spacing had changed significantly compared to vanilla Minecraft.
He stood at the edge of the structure and looked out across the Crimson Forest while thinking about what that meant. In the game, bastions or fortresses generated within every 34×34 chunk area. Each chunk was sixteen meters across, meaning bastions appeared roughly every 544 meters in any given direction.
That generation pattern clearly didn't apply here. The bridge bastion he had just raided, which was the smallest and most modest of the four variants, already occupied nearly 300×300 meters of space on its own. If bastions generated according to vanilla rules in a world this large, they would practically be touching each other. The entire Nether would be one continuous megastructure.
Which meant the spacing had been scaled up dramatically.
"How far apart are they now?" he muttered, pulling out a blank map. "A kilometer? Two? Ten?"
There was only one way to find out.
He activated the map and watched it fill with the static pattern that indicated unexplored Nether terrain. Then he placed his cartography table and upgraded the map to maximum size.
"If I am going to be exploring anyway, I might as well be thorough about it."
He oriented himself, picked a direction perpendicular to his previous search route, and started walking.
The Crimson Forest stretched endlessly in every direction. Massive crimson fungi towered overhead, their caps spreading wide enough to block out the distant ceiling of bedrock far above. Weeping vines hung everywhere.
Piglins wandered in loose groups and grunted to one another as they moved through the forest. Most ignored him completely because of the gold helmet on his head, though a few watched him as he passed. He kept one hand close to his bow anyway. There were limits to how much trust he placed in piglins.
A hoglin that spotted him burst out of the fungi without warning.
Alexei raised his bow immediately. He drew the string and took aim. The hoglin charged straight toward him, about twenty meters away and accelerating quickly. He tracked its movement, adjusted slightly to lead the target, and released.
The first arrow struck the hoglin in the shoulder. The beast roared and kept coming.
He was already drawing again.
The second arrow hit just behind the eye. The impact staggered it for a moment, but the creature pushed forward.
Poison began spreading through its body while flames crawled across its bristled hide.
Alexei drew a third time and fired.
The arrow buried itself in the hoglin's skull.
The creature managed two more steps before its legs collapsed beneath it. It slammed into the netherrack and skidded through a cloud of red dust.
A moment later the body dissolved, leaving behind a pile of raw porkchops and leather.
He stepped forward and scooped up the porkchops. He had barely straightened when the crimson fungi nearby rustled.
Heavy hooves struck the netherrack.
Another hoglin burst from the undergrowth. He spun just in time to see it charging straight at him from less than ten meters away. A second hoglin followed close behind.
He dismissed the map into his inventory and threw himself sideways. His shoulder slammed into the rough stone and he rolled across the ground as the first hoglin ran past.
The second didn't slow down.
He pushed himself onto one knee and drew his bow. Before he could fire, several piglins burst from the crimson trees. One hurled a spear that struck the charging hoglin in the flank. Another spear followed immediately.
The beast bellowed and turned toward its new attackers.
Alexei didn't hesitate and released the arrow.
It struck the hoglin in the eye. Poison began spreading through its body while flames crawled across its bristled hide.
The creature staggered forward a few more steps before collapsing onto the netherrack.
The first hoglin had already turned around.
This time he was ready.
He drew, aimed, and fired. The arrow buried itself deep in the creature's shoulder. The hoglin roared and lunged again.
He loosed two more arrows in quick succession.
The last shot tore through its eye socket. The hoglin managed two staggering steps before crashing onto the stone. Both bodies began dissolving.
Alexei lowered his bow and let out a breath.
"Thanks for the help," he said to the piglins.
Three of them immediately rushed past him. They grabbed the porkchops and leather the moment the drops appeared.
He watched the neat piles vanish into piglin hands.
"...Actually, never mind."
One piglin grunted happily while chewing a raw porkchop.
Alexei continued his exploration and marked each area on the map as he passed through it. The terrain remained painfully monotonous.
After an hour of walking, he stopped to check his progress. Roughly a quarter of the map had been filled in.
"This is going to take a while."
He pulled out several cooked porkchops and began eating while he walked. The meat was surprisingly good. It tasted better than he would have expected from something that lived in literal hell. The flavor was rich and fatty with a faint smoky note, which probably came from the constant heat of the environment.
Another hour passed, and another quarter of the map was filled in. The forest around him showed no sign of change.
He had begun to suspect that the entire region might be empty. Then he reached the crest of a low rise. From that vantage point, he saw blackstone rising from the red landscape ahead.
"Finally."
As he moved closer, more details came into view. This bastion was different from the bridge variant he had raided earlier. The structure was more compact and built vertically rather than spread across a long bridge. Several levels were stacked on top of one another. Large open courtyards lay between the walls, and even from this distance he could see piglins moving about inside.
The housing unit bastion was one of the more dangerous variants because it packed a large number of piglins into a confined space. A direct assault would be suicide.
He began by circling the perimeter, staying outside their aggro range while studying the layout. There were several entrances, and each one was guarded by groups of piglins standing watch. Inside, the bastion would be a maze of corridors and chambers that favored ambushes. Entering through the front would mean fighting through dozens of enemies in tight quarters.
That was a terrible plan.
After completing a full circuit, he finally spotted what he needed. One section of the bastion wall was partially buried in a hillside of netherrack. The slope was gentle enough for him to dig through the hill, break into the structure from an unexpected angle, and bypass the heavily guarded entrances.
He started digging into the hillside, creating a tunnel that sloped upward through the netherrack at an angle that would intercept the bastion's foundation. The work went quickly with his diamond pickaxe.
After tunneling for about twenty meters, his pickaxe suddenly broke through into empty space. He stopped at once and listened carefully.
Footsteps echoed somewhere ahead. There were several sets, moving in roughly synchronized patterns. Low grunts followed.
They hadn't noticed him yet.
He widened the opening until it was just large enough to peek through.
Beyond the hole lay a corridor lit by torches. Three piglins patrolled the passage, each wearing gold armor. They moved along what appeared to be a fixed route, keeping roughly equal distance from one another.
One carried a crossbow held at the ready. The other two wore golden swords at their belts.
He waited until the patrol passed his position and their backs were turned. Then he slipped quietly into the corridor behind them.
The interior of the bastion was darker than the exterior. Only scattered torches and the occasional glow of lava shining through gaps in the walls provided light.
He followed the patrol from a distance. He stayed within the shadows and moved only when their footsteps covered the sound of his own.
When they turned the corner, he moved quickly and closed the distance. The piglin at the rear focused on keeping up with the others and never noticed him.
He drew his bow and aimed at the base of the skull where the helmet left a narrow gap. Then he released the arrow.
It struck cleanly and buried itself deep in the piglin's neck. The creature made a choking sound before collapsing. The noise was quiet enough that the other two piglins noticed nothing. They continued along their patrol route as if nothing had happened.
He nocked another arrow and waited for a clear shot. The second guard drifted slightly away from the leader, leaving just enough space. Alexei drew and released. The arrow struck the piglin in the back of the head and dropped it instantly.
The third piglin finally realized something was wrong. It spun around and raised its crossbow toward the source of the attack, but Alexei was faster. His arrow was already in the air and crossed the distance before the piglin could pull the trigger. The shot struck his left eye. The piglin staggered, tried to raise its weapon anyway, and collapsed before it could fire.
Alexei looted the bodies quickly. He collected gold nuggets, and a golden sword that went straight into his inventory. Afterward he continued deeper into the bastion.
The housing unit lived up to its name. The interior formed a maze of small chambers connected by narrow corridors. Each room contained beds carved from blackstone, along with chests and simple furnishings. Some rooms held sleeping piglins curled on their beds and snoring softly. Others were empty, though the warmth of the beds suggested they had only recently been vacated.
He moved through the complex, checking each room and eliminating isolated targets before they could raise an alarm. A sleeping piglin here received an arrow through the head. A lone guard there fell to another silent kill. Their bodies dissolved into drops that he quickly gathered before moving on.
Most of the loot was worthless. However, in a chamber on the second level that appeared to belong to someone important, he discovered a chest hidden in the corner. Inside was a book enchanted with Fire Protection III.
He pocketed the book, then continued his sweep of the second level. By now the layout had become familiar. A long central corridor ran through the structure, with rooms branching off on both sides and staircases appearing at regular intervals. The pattern was predictable, which made navigation easier.
The third level felt different the moment he approached it.
He heard more footsteps. They were heavier and far more numerous. Voices echoed through the corridors.
Alexei stopped at a junction where three corridors met and quietly assessed the situation. Fighting multiple brutes directly would be reckless.
He needed another approach.
The junction was a natural chokepoint. All three corridors funneled into this central space before branching out again. If he could draw the piglins here and create a killing zone, he could handle them regardless of numbers.
He placed a lava source block in the center of the junction and allowed it to spread, forming a molten barrier between the corridors. Then he retreated to the entrance of one hallway, drew his bow, and fired an arrow at the nearest piglin he could see.
The arrow hit the creature in the shoulder. It squealed in pain and rage, and that was all it took.
The reaction spread instantly through the entire level. Angry squeals echoed from every direction as piglins rushed toward the disturbance with weapons raised. Rage overwhelmed any hint of caution. They poured out of rooms and corridors in a flood, all converging on the junction where Alexei stood waiting.
The first ones reached the lava and realized their mistake too late. They tried to stop. Some attempted to retreat. However, the piglins behind them kept pushing forward. The crowd tightened, bodies pressing against one another until the front ranks were shoved directly into the molten stone.
Their screams filled the corridors. The smell of burning flesh spread through the air, thick and suffocating. Alexei remained at a safe distance. Occasionally he loosed another arrow at a piglin that managed to escape the crush and stumble back down a corridor. The entire battle finished in less than two minutes.
After the chaos subsided and the screaming stopped, he retrieved his lava bucket and moved through the now silent corridors. The bodies had dissolved into scattered drops such as gold, leather, and the occasional enchanted item. He collected what was useful and ignored the rest.
The top level of the housing bastion looked different from the floors below. The narrow corridors opened into a large central chamber. Gold blocks decorated the surrounding walls, and a single chest rested on a raised platform in the center. Two piglin brutes stood guard on either side of it.
They saw him the moment he entered the chamber. The brutes simply charged forward with axes raised.
Alexei placed cobblestone blocks as he retreated, raising cover between himself and the charging brutes. The first axe slammed into the barrier and shattered the block, but by then Alexei had already placed more. From behind the improvised wall, he began firing arrows.
The first arrow struck a brute in the shoulder. It roared and kept advancing. The second arrow pierced its throat. The roar turned into a wet gurgle, yet the creature continued forward. The third arrow drove straight through its eye socket and finally brought it down. The body crashed to the floor and slid to a stop against the cobblestone barrier.
The second brute had learned from its companion. Instead of charging directly, it circled the barrier. Alexei followed its movement with his bow and waited for the right moment. The brute feinted left and then lunged right, attempting to close the distance before he could react.
Alexei was already prepared. He drew his bow and released. The first arrow struck the brute's knee and forced it off balance. The second buried itself deep in the creature's chest. And the third pierced straight through its neck.
Even then, the brute tried to swing its axe. Stubbornness drove it forward as life drained from its body. The blade cut through empty air while the creature collapsed mid swing.
Silence returned to the chamber.
He remained still with his bow ready, watching for any further threats. When nothing appeared, he dismantled the cobblestone barrier and approached the chest on the raised platform.
Both brute corpses had already dissolved, leaving behind drops. He collected everything and reached for the chest.
Creak
Golden Apple ×2, Diamond ×3, Enchanted Golden Chestplate ×1.
He exited the housing bastion through the tunnel he had originally dug. After stepping outside, he sealed the entrance with cobblestone so piglins couldn't follow. Then he checked his map. There was still another quarter of the search area left to explore.
"Might as well finish what I started."
The rest of the exploration revealed nothing particularly important. He crossed more stretches of Crimson Forest and encountered several hoglins, which he killed and harvested for food.
By the time he finished, his inventory was full of Nether materials, and his experience bar had risen noticeably from all the combat.
During four square kilometers of exploration, he had discovered only two bastions. That suggested a spacing of at least two kilometers between structures, and possibly even more. The Nether was simply too vast for systematic searching to be practical.
That was enough for the day, so he returned to his safe house. He placed the lodestone beside the portal before beginning to improve the cramped obsidian shelter he had built during his first visit.
Over the next hour, he replaced the rough obsidian walls with smooth stone, which looked far better. He expanded the interior into a more comfortable space so he could move around without constantly bumping into the walls. Several chests were placed along the perimeter for storage, and he set aside one corner specifically for piglin trading. The enclosed area would allow him to barter safely without piglins wandering into dangerous areas.
When he finished, the safe room finally resembled a proper structure instead of a bunker hastily thrown together in thirty seconds.
"Much better."
With the lodestone installed and the safe room upgraded, he turned his attention to trading. Using the dozen or so gold blocks he had mined from the bastions, he deconstructed them into gold ingots and began the bartering process.
Trading with piglins was inherently chaotic. He would toss a gold ingot toward one of them. The piglin would snatch it up, inspect the metal, and then throw a random item back in exchange. There was no reliable way to predict the outcome of any single trade.
After several rounds of bartering with different piglins, his haul included a wide variety of materials:
Nether Bricks ×35, Blackstone ×133, String ×25, Obsidian ×12, Crying Obsidian ×9, Quartz ×45, Gravel ×75, Ender Pearls ×16, Enchanted Book ×1, Arrows ×27, Fire Charges ×6, Splash Potions of Fire Resistance ×2, Potions of Fire Resistance ×4, Leather ×23, Soul Sand ×31, Water Bottles ×3.
Among the results were also two pairs of enchanted iron boots. Judging from typical piglin trade results and the faint purple shimmer surrounding them, they almost certainly carried the Soul Speed enchantment.
Unfortunately, one of the piglins had immediately picked up the boots and equipped them the moment they appeared. It was now strutting around inside the safe room while wearing equipment that should have belonged to him.
"Blyat," Alexei muttered, watching the piglin parade past in his potential gear. "That is my stuff."
The piglin snorted at him dismissively and wandered off.
---
Night fell.
When the ender pearl stasis chamber teleported Alexei back to his courtyard, he found Mengyao still there, feeding wheat to the mooshrooms.
He pulled out a candy and held it near her mouth out of habit. She opened her mouth automatically and accepted it, chewing thoughtfully.
Then she paused.
She looked at the mooshrooms, who were also chewing wheat from her hand.
Her expression turned slightly odd as a disturbing realization settled over her.
Was Alexei conditioning her like livestock?
Before she could voice that concern, Alexei walked over to the sheep that had wandered closer, attracted by the wheat. He pulled out shears, gave the sheep a quick trim, and absorbed the wool block into his inventory.
The sheep stood there looking considerably more pathetic.
Mengyao stared.
"The wool grows back pretty fast," Alexei said, noticing her expression. "It's fine. That's what sheep are for."
Mengyao decided not to continue that particular argument.
Alexei had originally planned to deconstruct the shears back into iron ingots like he usually did, but considering how often he used them now, he decided to make them permanent.
He returned to his building, enchanted the shears with Mending III, crafted an item frame, and mounted the shears on the exterior wall of the animal pen.
That way, he wouldn't have to craft a new pair every day.
"Hm?" A chicken wandered past, and he noticed something. "An egg?"
Crack.
He threw it at the ground before Mengyao could say anything.
"Still no chick."
Mengyao sighed. That chicken has terrible timing.
---
Over the following month, Alexei made steady progress on several fronts.
The survival base inside the mountain was essentially complete. The automatic honey farm had been built and was running efficiently. He had already gathered enough honeycombs to craft another twenty beehives. Unfortunately, the bee population itself was growing frustratingly slowly. Despite his efforts, he had managed to raise the number to only thirty-five bees.
The villager population had reached seventeen. The number would have been higher if he hadn't spent most of his time exploring the Nether instead of hunting for zombie villagers.
Among the new arrivals were three librarians, two cartographers, and two farmers.
The librarians proved especially valuable. After trade manipulation, he finally obtained enchantment books for Unbreaking III, Mending I, and Efficiency V.
"No more dismantling iron shovels just to extract Efficiency III," he had said when the Efficiency V book appeared. "That was getting old."
Aside from those core enchantments, he had also been fortunate enough to obtain three useful ones through later librarian trades: Telekinesis, Smelting, and Channeling.
Telekinesis allowed dropped items to be pulled directly into his inventory from a distance. It could be applied to any weapon or tool, which meant he no longer had to chase scattered drops after mining.
Smelting could only be applied to pickaxes. Any ore mined with it dropped in its smelted form.
Channeling worked exclusively with tridents. When a trident struck an enemy, lightning descended from the sky and struck the target. The effect was flashy and dramatic, and it would likely be devastating in real combat.
His remaining goals were simple: find a Netherite Upgrade Template and locate a Nether fortress.
Reality, however, wasn't cooperating.
He had been exploring a different direction in the Nether every single day for the past month. Despite covering enormous distances, he had found exactly zero fortresses.
He hadn't even left the Crimson Forest biome yet. The entire region seemed to stretch on forever in every direction he tried.
However, the month wasn't entirely consumed by Nether exploration and base construction.
He had also been conducting cultivation experiments.
After that first night when he had successfully sensed qi, followed immediately by complete inability to sense anything the next morning, he had become obsessed with figuring out what had changed.
First, he tested the time of day.
He meditated in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and late at night. The results were inconsistent. Occasionally he could sense faint traces of qi, but most of the time he felt nothing.
Time of day didn't appear to be the determining factor.
Next, he tested location.
He meditated in several different places, including his bedroom, the courtyard, the survival base, and even briefly in the Nether before deciding that was a bad idea.
Location made no difference. His ability to sense qi remained unpredictable.
Then he tested duration.
He meditated for ten minutes, thirty minutes, one hour, and even two hours.
That also changed nothing. If he failed to sense qi within the first few minutes, extending the session did not help.
Finally, he tested his physical condition.
He tried meditating while tired and while fully rested. He tried after eating, while hungry, after exercising, and while completely inactive.
None of it produced any consistent result.
After two weeks of frustrating trial and error, he was ready to abandon the entire effort.
Then he noticed something strange.
One evening he checked his status screen and saw that he was level 75. He sat down to meditate, but nothing happened.
The next day he spent several hours in his mob farm collecting experience. When he checked his status again, his level had reached 80.
Out of habit more than expectation, he sat down to meditate again.
This time he immediately sensed qi.
He opened his eyes and checked his level. It was still 80.
He closed his eyes again and resumed meditating. Qi flowed around him.
"Is it the level? Does cultivation have a level requirement?"
He decided to test the theory. Using item assimilation, he spent enough experience to lower his level back to 79.
Then he tried meditating. But he couldn't sense a trace of qi.
He returned to the mob farm and gathered experience until he reached level 80 again.
When he meditated, the qi returned.
"Are you serious? There is a minimum level requirement for sensing qi?"
He needed to maintain level 80 or higher.
That was manageable. His mob farm generated enough experience that staying above level 80 was easy, as long as he didn't waste too much on enchanting or item assimilation.
From that point onward, he established a routine. Every night before bed, he spent one hour meditating.
Not because he enjoyed it. Sitting still and focusing inward was painfully boring.
However, flying on a pickaxe under his own power would be extremely useful. If one hour of tedious meditation each night was the price for eventually gaining that ability, he could tolerate it.
"This is so boring," he muttered on the fifth consecutive night of practice. "How do cultivators do this for years without going insane?"
---
Aside from his cultivation experiments, Alexei made a few new acquaintances during the past month.
They were a group of monkeys.
According to Yan, there were more than thirty of them in total, and their cultivation ranged from Body Tempering all the way to Foundation Establishment.
His first encounter with them happened one morning when he stepped outside and found an elderly monkey waiting on his doorstep.
The monkey was small and scruffy, with greying fur and eyes. In its hands it held a container that appeared to be a hollowed gourd sealed with woven grass.
The old monkey gestured insistently, offering the container with both hands.
Alexei hesitated. "Is that alcohol?"
The monkey nodded vigorously and pushed the gourd closer.
He looked at the container, then back at the monkey's earnest expression. The creature was clearly offering this as some kind of gift. Refusing would probably be rude.
"I'm not much of a drinker," he said slowly. "But... sure. Why not?"
The monkey's face lit up. It thrust the gourd into his hands and stepped back.
Alexei pulled the stopper free and took a cautious sniff. Layers of fermented fruit rose from the gourd, perfectly balanced with hints of honey and a faint floral note he couldn't quite place.
He raised the gourd to his lips and took a small sip.
The taste was extraordinary. Sweet and rich flavors spread across his tongue. He detected apples, peaches, and a trace of citrus, all blended together. It was easily the finest alcohol he had ever tasted.
"Amazing," he said as he lowered the gourd. "What is..."
The world tilted sideways.
The ground seemed to shift beneath his feet. Suddenly the sky was where the ground should have been, and everything began spinning.
Then everything went black.
---
Consciousness returned slowly.
Alexei became aware of several things one after another. He opened his eyes.
Qingxue and Yan stood over him. Several monkeys were scattered around the room, perched on furniture and looking unusually guilty. The old monkey who had offered him the drink was among them, nervously wringing its hands.
"What happened?"
"You drank monkey wine," Yan said, failing to hide her smile. "Even Foundation Establishment cultivators can get drunk from it."
"I only had a sip."
"A sip was enough. You have been unconscious for twenty-four hours."
"Twenty-four hours?" He tried to sit up. The monkey on his chest chittered in protest but hopped off. "That's insane."
He pulled up his status screen with a thought. Sure enough, a debuff icon glowed in the corner:
[Intoxicated: 33:17:42]
33 hours of drunkenness remaining?
His eyes twitched.
Noticing his expression, Yan began explaining as she settled into a chair beside his bed.
"The monkeys ferment spirit fruits together with naturally occurring spiritual herbs. The result is a wine filled with concentrated qi. For cultivators it's simply very strong alcohol. But for someone without cultivation to filter the energy..." She gestured toward his prone body. "This is the result. Even cultivators struggle to resist its effects using spiritual energy alone. The wine bypasses normal defenses. For someone without a cultivation base, even a small amount is overwhelming."
Alexei groaned and rubbed his face. "Good to know. I won't be doing that again."
The old monkey made a distressed sound and shuffled closer, looking apologetic. It reached out and patted Alexei's hand.
"It's fine," Alexei assured the creature. "You didn't know. I'm not angry."
The monkey's expression brightened immediately. It chittered happily and bounded off to join its companions.
"Although," he continued as a memory slowly surfaced through the haze, "this is not even the worst time I have been drunk."
Qingxue raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"When I was fourteen, I found my father's vodka. I thought I was very clever, drinking it while my parents were out. But I wasn't clever. My mother found me passed out in the bathroom three hours later."
"What did she do?" Yan asked.
"She waited until I woke up with the worst hangover of my life. Then she made me clean the entire apartment while she watched and gave commentary on my poor life choices. And then she called my grandmother. Babushka didn't approve of drinking. She lectured me for two hours straight while I was trying not to vomit."
The monkeys sat nearby, watching with tilted heads as if they understood the importance of the story, even if the words themselves meant nothing to them.
---
From that day forward, the monkeys became regular visitors to his courtyard.
They arrived without warning and simply lingered. Sometimes they watched him work. Sometimes they stole spirit fruits when they thought he wasn't paying attention. Occasionally they played with Bessie, who appeared to enjoy the company.
The monkeys found her fascinating.
One afternoon, about a week after the wine incident, Alexei was working on expanding his animal pen when he heard an excited commotion from the courtyard.
He looked up to find half a dozen monkeys gathered around Bessie. The old monkey, who Alexei had mentally started calling "Elder" due to his apparent leadership role, was gesturing at Bessie's rear end.
"What are you guys doing?" he called out.
The monkeys turned to him as one, then back to Bessie. Elder made an elaborate hand gesture. One of the younger monkeys approached Bessie with a wooden bowl and held it near the mooshroom's rear.
Alexei realized what they were about to discover.
Bessie, unbothered by the audience, lifted her tail. A stream of brown liquid poured from beneath it, filling the bowl with steaming mushroom stew. Chunks of mushroom floated in the thick broth.
The monkeys recoiled in horror.
Several of them gagged. One covered its eyes. Elder looked as though he were reconsidering every decision that had brought him to this moment.
The young monkey holding the bowl stared down at it, as if Bessie had personally insulted its ancestors.
"Yeah," Alexei said calmly. "That's how mooshrooms produce stew."
The monkey turned and showed the bowl to the others. They immediately recoiled from the steaming liquid.
Then disaster struck.
One of the monkeys, backing away without looking, tripped over a stone and went tumbling backward. It flailed, trying to catch itself, and ended up knocking into the monkey holding the bowl.
The bowl tipped.
Hot mushroom stew splashed across the ground. Some of it went directly into the mouth of the monkey who had fallen.
For a moment, everything went still.
The monkey slowly sat up. Stew dripped from its face while its expression hovered somewhere between disgust and confusion.
Then its eyes went wide. It licked its lips and made a small sound of surprise.
Suddenly it lunged forward and began scooping the spilled stew from the ground with both hands, stuffing it into its mouth like a starving creature that had just discovered food for the first time.
The other monkeys were confused.
"Is it... good?" one of them seemed to ask, based on the questioning tilt of its head.
The stew-covered monkey nodded vigorously, still eating from the ground.
After a moment, another monkey approached the spilled stew. It cautiously dipped a finger into the puddle and tasted it.
Its eyes immediately lit up.
Within seconds, all six monkeys crowded around the spilled stew. They jostled and squabbled over the mess, ignoring the fact that they were eating it directly off the dirt.
Elder approached Bessie directly with the recovered bowl and obtained a fresh serving. He tasted it with the air of a connoisseur sampling fine wine.
Then he made a sound of approval and drained the entire bowl in one go.
Bessie went back to grazing on grass.
The monkeys, having finished the initial spill, began forming an orderly queue for fresh servings.
From that day forward, the monkeys would regularly visit Bessie for "soup time," as Alexei had started calling it in his head. They had apparently decided that the taste was worth overlooking the production method.
He tried not to think about it too hard.
---
Later that night, after an hour of meditation, Alexei lay in bed staring at the ceiling. The practice was as boring as ever, but it remained necessary for his nightly cultivation routine.
Over the past few weeks his qi perception had grown steadily stronger. He could now feel the energy flowing around and through his body. The sensation was faint. It reminded him of learning to hear a certain frequency of sound that had always existed, yet had gone unnoticed until someone pointed it out.
He had just begun to drift toward sleep when something suddenly changed.
A wave of sensation swept through his body. It wasn't painful, but it was powerful. Every part of him seemed to come alive. The qi he had sensed for weeks suddenly settled into place. It was no longer something outside him that he merely observed. It had become something within him that he could control.
His status screen flashed.
[THRESHOLD REACHED]
[Cultivation Stage Advancement Available]
[Body Tempering - First Stage: Skin Tempering]
[New Resource Unlocked: Qi (0/10)]
[Energy Allocation Required]
[OPTION 1 - CULTIVATION PATH:
Have you ever dreamed of becoming a cultivator? Of standing atop a mountain with your hands behind your back while gazing down at the world below?
This choice offers you that path.
Your body has already reached the threshold where spiritual energy can be sensed and refined. If you choose this option, Qi will become a resource you can wield. It will flow through your meridians as a growing wellspring of power that strengthens with dedication and time.
You will gain access to cultivation techniques passed down through countless generations. These methods will allow you to temper your body, refine your spirit, and eventually surpass the limits of ordinary mortals.
The road ahead is long and demanding. Each breakthrough may require years of meditation. Reaching the heights where cultivators can shatter mountains and cross oceans in a single step may take decades. Yet the potential is limitless. One day, you may fly across the heavens on a sword, just like the cultivators you once watched with envy. One day, you may stand among the immortals.]
[OPTION 2 - MAGIC MODIFICATION:
Perhaps you have grown tired of watching others soar through the skies while you remain bound to the ground. Perhaps you desire power now rather than decades from now.
This option allows you to convert your cultivation potential into something entirely different. Instead of following the traditional path of cultivation, your spiritual energy will be transformed into a magic modification.
However, the cost is absolute.
Once you choose magic, the path of traditional cultivation will close forever. Your meridians will be permanently altered and will no longer be compatible with the techniques used by cultivators.
From that moment onward, you will walk a different road from everyone around you. Your strength will grow in ways they cannot understand, but you will never again share their methods of advancement.]
[WARNING: This choice is permanent and cannot be reversed]
[Please select your path]
Alexei stared at the notification.
This was a major decision. He sat up in bed, reading the options again carefully.
Cultivation would let him follow the traditional path. Magic modification was faster. But it cut off the cultivation path entirely.
His hand hovered over the options.
Which path should he choose?
---
In a concealed outpost far to the south, a red-haired man paced anxiously through the main hall.
"Why has there been no response from headquarters?" he muttered. "They should have sent instructions by now."
He was running out of time. The half-demon target he had been assigned to observe was showing signs of slipping beyond control. Just recalling the incident from a few days ago made his skin crawl.
He had sent a wraith to conduct reconnaissance, maintaining a safe distance of more than ten miles. The wraith had barely materialized when a frost sword aura had come screaming down from the sky, cleaving through the air.
Then the half-demon had pursued him for several hundred miles across the countryside.
If not for the extensive concealment arrays and protective treasures he had deployed around his actual body, he might not have survived the encounter.
The deaths of the Ming family's eldest grandson and the disappearance of the Seventh Elder had served as brutal warnings. This half-demon was far more dangerous than initial reports had suggested.
He needed guidance and reinforcements.
But headquarters had gone silent.
Buzz.
The jade slip at his waist vibrated.
He snatched it up immediately, channeling spiritual energy into the slip to read the message.
Each jade slip was unique, keyed to specific communication talismans. Only messages imprinted with the corresponding spiritual signature could reach him through this particular slip.
The message that appeared was short and urgent:
RETURN IMMEDIATELY. SECT IN TURMOIL.