Chapter 16: CH17: Past And Present

Formations had almost no limit to their utility, including gathering spiritual energy in a spirit-energy-parched land. Once he learned the fundamentals, Silas had been put to work in the cultivation world, troubleshooting for wealthy young masters, miracle talents, and a few old monsters. He wouldn’t call himself a prodigy at all; there were many far more talented, but Silas knew the fundamentals even if he wasn’t a talent rarer than phoenix feathers. Knowing how to create formation arrays and adapt them to make new applications to solve problems, interface better with cultivators, and eyeball what he needed came in handy. Silas learned under the disastrous attention of his clients and lived for quite some time as a formations specialist. Before he branched into alchemy, he had made quite a little nest egg and gathered plenty of contacts in the White Dragon Sect.

 

When he showed some interest in alchemy, Elder Meng Chao, a true master of all things alchemy, had taken him as an off-and-on student subordinate to the man’s talented apprentice. Ji Mei was a talented, happy girl who took time away from her studies and cultivation to teach him the basics. So when he heard she had an arranged marriage with the young master and Elder Meng Chao’s grandson Meng Genghis, he didn’t think anything of it. He expected her to rise high in the sect and join one of the pillar families. Silas had worked for Meng Genghis; that’s the connection he needed to become Meng Chao’s student.

 

Silas believed himself to be the careful type then and kept his head down until one night, he found Ji Mei crying. He heard her mention Meng Genghis and saw that her clothes were torn. A bruise covered her cheek, and Silas had become good at adapting his formations to various situations. Silas used a sample Meng Genghis left behind to direct his formation, but before he could finish it, Ji Mei told the Elder. The Elder’s men found him minutes before he could activate his formation; he spent his entire nest egg to get materials to build. They made sure to tell him she was the one who betrayed him and that hurt.

 

His death had been slow and agonizing by the Elder’s decree. No one stuck their neck out for Silas, not the old monsters or miraculous talents. To them, he was little more than the IT guy who got busted.

 

In the late 1600s and in a clearing with possessed animals so thick they blotted out the sky, Silas adapted twelve posts into a similar formation. Blood often corresponded with identification allowing him to direct his formations in a way he couldn’t do with mere hog’s blood. Suddenly a world of possible targets narrowed down saving power.

 

“Don’t kill him; we art here to redeem him,” John said.

 

Silas grunted and moved quickly, calculating the spirit calculus needed to bind millions of birds to his formation and get a handle on the problem. If he was in the first stage, everything would be easier, but Silas was limited, so he played within those limits. For example, he couldn’t create a viral formation that would travel from infected to infected, freeing them from control. Instead, he could tax the hollow’s resources and bolster his own by purifying hollow energy and spreading it through the land.

 

That’s what he did with twelve posts; he built an array around what was most likely the greatest concentration of the hollow’s power and turned it into a spirit energy generator. While it would weaken the hollow’s position and strengthen their own, it would also eliminate the static blocking his spirit sense. Instead, the pure spirit energy suddenly forced into the air would make the hollow and its possessed animals stick out like pox on a whore.

 

Memories of when he built the prototype of the power transition array haunted him while he worked. He regretted not turning it on. Changing Meng Genghis’s yang to yin would have been an entertaining experience. But, really, it wasn’t harmful, only mean-spirited and probably permanent.

 

He finished the posts in record time while the animals and savages attacked. Guards were incredibly useful, especially when they were wizards. A barrier appeared overhead as a flood of possessed passenger pigeons rained down in their hundreds of thousands splattering against the shield John erected like flies on a windshield.

 

“Mayhap thou can hurry up,” John yelled.

 

Silas forced the posts into the ground and twisted them the way he wanted before grabbing the possessed Red Indian.

 

“No matter what thou tries, I will soon surpass thee. While thou travels on the road, I built my fortress and devoured my enemies. Not even the dreaded soul reapers can stand against me.” Oscar said.

 

Silas ran the calculations through his head several times, bug-hunting before he activated it. Once satisfied, he cut a river up the possessed man’s arm. Blood gushed quickly, caught by Silas’s aura. He couldn’t afford to spill any; he needed every last drop; he should have enough to take home. Silas fed the blood to his formation array and watched one of the posts flash green before settling down.

 

The hollow’s spiritual body was in the hole below them. With the posts, the monster couldn’t escape. Several more flashes told him how many millions of animals the hollow possessed. After he linked with it at home, he could track them. These formations were a bit more sophisticated than he would normally use below the first stage. He had to use a few tricks of the trade to cut corners to make the formation array function. After it was done, Silas was proud, especially when pure spiritual energy dripped down from the spires as the malignant energy noticeably decreased. The formation reabsorbed the spirit energy increasing the reach of the formation. Then, a brown flash told him something he didn’t like, and needed to plan for it.

 

The malignant energy didn’t all belong to the hollow anymore. Like how Dotty had become a burgeoning spirit beast, some animals were mutating into demon beasts. If they hadn’t diverged from the hollow’s own malignant energy, Silas’s formation would drain them for 5 cubic miles.

 

Birds that hadn’t fallen to John’s shield fell out of the sky, drained of spirit energy. Screams echoed through the woods from the possessed animals as their spirit energy was pulled out like a star nearing a singularity.

 

One of the posts cracked under the strain of too much malignant energy at once, dropping the range of the formation.

 

It was the type of energy and the trash materials on hand. Silas wasn’t in a cultivation world and couldn’t build formations like he was used to. He needed to dial back his power usage until he could grow or modify better materials.

 

Most of the energy didn’t come from the animals. From within the hole in the ground, vast amounts of hollow energy had filled his formation. Even as the machine hit its zenith, the amount of spirit energy drained hadn’t slowed down. The enemy had truly massive reserves developed from its adaptations.

 

“Can hollows fully possess people?” Silas asked.

You are reading story Bleach Cultivation Journey at novel35.com

 

“I am out of my depth; thy friend, the Shinigami, would have been the one to ask. A shame she decided to be stubborn; we could have used her.” John said.

Silas wanted to hit John but couldn’t afford to make him an enemy. His position in puritan society and as a member of a noble wizard clan from Reverse London made him a dangerous but powerful ally.

 

With the majority of the malignant energy gone, Silas could feel the maelstrom within the hole in the ground. An abyss fit for a demon housed a powerful hollow with a penchant for possessing living flesh. Its power kept organs living even outside the body for an unknown amount of time.

 

Silas glared down at the grey corpse of the Red Indian he had drained of blood for the formation. He wanted to feel bad, uncertain, or anything. When Silas stared at the corpse, all Silas could think about was ideas to use it and improve his mastery over malignant energies. That was his first instinct upon seeing it; how can he use the resource to better position himself?

 

The situation brought up memories that were better left buried. Silas wanted to be a good man, but the mindset of the cultivator was hard to shake off. While the corpse was empty of both soul and blood, it could be used as a conduit to absorb and process malignant energies if he applied some alchemic and formation techniques.

 

Before he left, he would collect it because any advantage he could take would be horrible to leave on the battlefield. It reminded him of watching porn for the first time and feeling he did something wrong in his gut. Only the feeling in his gut was for not making a formation to preserve the corpse. While he lacked the resources making impromptu field formations was his bread and butter.

 

He hated feeling like he had done something improper.

 

“Methinks William Penn’s open sermons for the people have tainted thee. That look of worry on thy face for a savage is unbecoming of my son.” John said.

 

“Mayhap it would please thou if I said what I regret is not the savage’s death but the potential loss of a resource; methinks it would make thou second guess offering me thy daughter,” Silas said.

 

For the formation, he needed to preserve the corpse; not much was needed. He picked up a bird’s corpse and drew some fractals around the corpse. He was wrong to let something like the savage’s body rot without further use. It could prove a better storage device for malignant energy than wooden posts. While alive, it had been used to store quite a lot of malignant energy under its possession. In death, it would be able to store even more energy if preserved and treated with some alchemic baths. Corpse puppeteering was something he studied off and on as a hobby since he began cultivation, mainly from reading dispatches written by the sect’s heroes.

 

With the existence of hollows, there was an easy solution to his energy problems. Corpse puppets naturally produced some malignant energy, and Silas could turn that into pure spiritual energy with his converter. Using undead as free labor had to be better than actual slaves. With his converter, it wouldn’t poison the land with malignant energy.

 

Silas completed the formation, and the body was quickly cooled like a hunk of meat in a deep freezer. “A corpse possessed by a hollow tis too valuable to let rot. My fields need tending, and living slaves art too expensive to feed.” Silas said.

 

No one would care if he had a Red Indian slave for at least a century and a half. Silas could get a whole plantation of them, and no one would bat an eye. They didn’t get very intelligent unless someone stuffed a soul into them. The owner of the body already had their soul eaten when they were possessed. Really the body was more farm machinery than anything else. The meager malignant energy it would produce wasn’t much, but it would boost the spirit energy in his land.

 

“Thou art a cruel, vain self-serving white devil with no respect with what tis sacred.” The hollow roared as it began emerging from its refuge. 

 

“Deer lover, art thou ready to be redeemed by the divine olive branch of thy blood cousin?” Silas said.

 

While it was a dick move to put John on the spot, Silas had flashbacks of his old life, which messed with his perspective. Then he saw the hand stick out of the pit.

 

It was long bear claws grown together with human ligaments until a misshapen ball glove of a hand gripped the icy ground. Bear fur covered the arm of the emerging hollow like someone had stapled carpet up someone’s arm. Muscle seemed to be packed atop muscle leading up the arm more like a gorilla at the shoulders than a man. A boy's mishappened rotten human head, clearly dead for a long time, emerged, sitting on the shoulders of the monster.

 

“Don’t ask me how I know, but that is his original head,” John said. “I see the wound that reportedly killed him.”

 

Patches of new flesh covered the head mixed with the old dead flesh. The eyes were gone, but Silas could see the spiritual eyes of the hollow within the sockets. Silas rested his staff on his shoulder, ready to bash the monster when it charged.

 

You can find story with these keywords: Bleach Cultivation Journey, Read Bleach Cultivation Journey, Bleach Cultivation Journey novel, Bleach Cultivation Journey book, Bleach Cultivation Journey story, Bleach Cultivation Journey full, Bleach Cultivation Journey Latest Chapter