Elder Cultivator-Chapter 1243

Insight came from places that were least expected. Anton said that, Bear Hug was pretty sure. Or something like it, anyway. The goal was to encourage taking breaks from cultivation to live life. Technically, Bear Hug didn’t do that. But also, Bear Hug was technically taking breaks all the time.

It was probably a reasonable lifestyle. They felt fine. Not too much stress. Except this one in the upper realms, which had to take breaks because there wasn’t enough else to share with. Maybe soon there would be more separate bits in the upper realms, but for the moment Bear Hug was floating around in the system with Xankeshan.

They had been practicing flying through space, and there were a number of interesting places to go. Most interesting, perhaps, was the ‘solar platform’ by the star. Specifically, the one that was the anchor of Timothy and Catarina. There were other ones too, but that one was special.

It didn’t really feel like Anton’s stars or other Assimilation targets. Energy didn’t begin there, it just went through it. Maybe it wasn’t the same sort of energy before, so it became big and strong in the anchor, but it still existed before. Probably. Bear Hug wasn’t really sure about all this ‘devotion’ stuff. They were pretty far from actually needing it, and barely knew any people.

The solar platform wasn’t empty. Even though it was an anchor, it was also still the thing it was made to be. This one was for ‘teleportation’ which was basically the same as ‘going really fast for a short time’. Bear Hug had done that on planets a few times in the lower realms, but the upper realms was better at doing it between systems. Something about the kind of energy and the density of their population… or maybe they just tried it first and started getting better earlier.

Some people were being teleported, and some people were running things. And some others were just… standing around? Studying things? Bear Hug themself probably fell into that category.

One of the people came up and started talking to Bear Hug. A brave one, maybe, or just one that knew that everyone who could get here was a friend. Usually, that meant they could talk.

There were a bunch of sounds. “... solar powered…”

“I’m solar powered too!” Bear Hug commented. Sounds were hard. They might not have said all the words right. Sometimes the ‘pitch’ was wrong, apparently. Beyond human hearing, depending on the human. There was a pretty wide range of things. And of course, there were the non-humans. Like the wolves, and everyone from Akrys. And void ants, but there probably weren’t any on the platform. Hopefully Bear Hug hadn’t stepped on any.

Bear Hug paid real close attention to the vibrations that were sound. It was difficult, because there were so many from other people and objects, and even the person who was talking made sounds that weren’t supposed to be part of the words. Bear Hug held perfectly still so that they didn’t make extra noises.

“... plant?” Bear Hug was pretty sure that was a question from this person talking. But he didn’t wait for an answer. He seemed to go back to talking about the platform. “Barriers” something, something, something, “Teleportation… lasers.”

Bear Hug didn’t understand that word. They hadn’t ‘heard’ most of the other words, but when they got the sounds down and didn’t understand, it was frustrating. “What is laser?”

Fortunately, the current talking partner was willing to implement a high quantity of words per minute for practice, and didn’t seem to care if Bear Hug understood or responded. Some people were too patient and Bear Hug never got to practice real-world vibration-capturing skills.

Something about… “stored sunlight” and “concentrated power” and “released light”. Bear Hug lost track of the words because they began thinking about something else.

Why did they have to take anything from the sunlight? If they were cultivating, it was only normal to convert it into the forms most usable for their growth. But if they just wanted sunlight… couldn’t they capture it as it was?

Fortunately, there was a star right there. Most of its power was being absorbed by the platform itself- humans got those ‘sunburn’ things very easily when they were this close to a star. Bear Hug would probably get some other sort of burn, if careless.

The talking guy didn’t notice Bear Hug wasn’t listening. Nor did he particularly care when Bear Hug left with barely a ‘goodbye’. It probably didn’t even sound right.

Bear Hug pushed themself up, away from the artificial gravity that held them down to the platform. Soon enough, they were floating past the barrier. And then… sunlight was directly affecting them. Natural instincts said to dismantle it into useful components for body and cultivation. Bear Hug fought against that, just trying to… hold it.

It was harder than holding water. Or rather, the techniques for holding water didn’t work. It didn’t respond to physical force. It could be deflected by energy, but it took more intention. And light moved so fast that any slight gap meant it all bounced around and slipped out in an instant if there was any escape at all. Yet holding it contained was like wrestling against part of the star itself- after gathering for just a few moments, Bear Hug felt overwhelmed.

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That wasn’t right at all. How did the platform store sunlight? The answer was, very unhelpfully, in complicated machines. And it might not even have been in sunlight form, but most likely in ‘electricity’ which was like lightning but not lightning and also stored as upper energy in various forms.

It wasn’t actually storing sunlight. Probably. But maybe Bear Hug could. That was one of the benefits of being able to think, is doing things. Bear Hug didn’t have anything to store it in, but maybe they could make something. Not a rock or a crystal, but… more of them? Some part of them. A battery.

And then they’d let out the sunlight when they needed it. So all they had to do was figure out how to do… both those things.

From the outside, it seemed just like they were back to the beginning of things, but that wasn’t the case. Bear Hug was quite pleased to have a line of thought that made sense to them- even if it might not to anyone else. All they had to do was develop it.

Probably in the lower realms, because they had more of them there to work with and lower energy was more familiar.

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In between stretches of time where he tried to coordinate a unique trip outside the galactic plane, Alin Kato continued with his normal studies. And some studies on abnormal versions of normal topics- in short, the distortion beasts that were imbued with insights. There were many of them, and going over them in detail might provide some understanding of how it was accomplished. Though most likely, the final secret would be connected to their ultimate destination.

Containing this particular specimen had been quite some work. Devon’s delivery hadn’t done the thing justice, as it was quite restricted. However, upon being placed in a multi-dimensional energy draining cage, the beast had immediately begun bashing it apart. Quite directly, based only on the insights it carried.

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Alin Kato had to admit that bashing things with blunt force was an inelegant way to combat them, but it was certainly one of the most effective. Literally just get anything going fast enough and you didn’t even need to hit the right place. He’d seen how effective weapons like guns- projectile and otherwise- as well as older martial weapons could be in the hands of the right cultivator.

The weapon this distortion beast carried was merely itself. It had no sharp spines or angles. It was difficult to tell if it was entirely made out of flat surfaces or a particularly large sphere that merely appeared flat. The practical differences were nearly irrelevant for most purposes, but scanning its subspace bulk was proving to be tricky.

Of course, the idea of a sphere was already incorrect as it was based on three dimensions. But it was a useful approximation for some purposes, at least.

Alin Kato had reacted quickly when the creature began to strike its prison. He reinforced the structure, focusing on smaller things that might be rattled out of place. Rather than trying to win on strength, he reinforced the concept of the bindings as an immutable whole. Distortion beasts weren’t known to easily get fatigued, but their need to consume wasn’t merely for development, but also to sustain themselves. Without incoming energy, the beast would wear out eventually.

Alin did make sure the emergency alarm was going off. No need to call back Devon, but Alin himself couldn’t keep the thing contained indefinitely. It made him wonder what sort of structure might be good against this beast. Perhaps something that held it tight, unable to build momentum in any dimension. Though with certain blunt force insights, it might not need to build momentum. It could just have it. There were concepts along those lines that humans had, so if they had been imbued there was no reason this beast couldn’t also have them.

The security force helped Alin suppress the beast by administering a combination of toxins that had been found to be effective on a majority of distortion beasts. They had wildly varied anatomy, of course, so most of the time the concoction only had partial effectiveness- which was the general idea. After filling the thing with a small lake’s worth of toxins, it settled down slightly.

“What do you think, assistant?”

“Well, the blunt force didn’t seem able to propagate beyond the structure. So it’s not a piercing type.”

“Good observation,” Alin nodded. “Oh, and what do you think of the containment? I was considering a tight binding.”

“It’s a bit difficult to restructure it, but as an addition it might do. Some sort of Nth dimensional mesh, resistant to pressure. Though it might just bite it open. Every material has its weaknesses.”

“I was hoping it has no teeth. Or mouth.”

The assistant nodded. “A fatal flaw for most organic beings. I must say that most distortion beasts have a mouth, but some skip over that and directly encompass their meals with their stomach. As long as that can’t reach the outside…”

“Perhaps it won’t matter,” Alin commented. “With these insights, it might be locked into a combat pattern that it believes, with its focused intellect, to be optimal. So even if it can, it might not. Which is a perfectly good reason to try it.”

“Time to order some rope, then,” the assistant commented.

It would take more than simple rope to restrain the beast, obviously. And the dimensional enchantments would have to be added by their own hands. Combining that with the vast quantities required to restrain something the size of a distortion beast- considering that they had to cover many layers of dimensions- Alin thought they would be busy for quite some time.

He wondered if they chose this particular insight on purpose or not. Were they trying to get it to destroy planets? They could do that anyway, if strong enough. And this might actually be safer… for the planet, if not any of the living beings its the surface. A planet could be crushed, but it wouldn’t stop existing because of it. It would just be rearranged in a potentially inconvenient manner.

Perhaps these insights came from specific individuals, and they were limited in their choices. That was sensible, of course. Whether they were copied or transferred- the difference being the retention of said insights- it was unlikely that the creators had unlimited access to insights. If they did, that insight generation would be a far more monumental achievement than imparting them unto a distortion beast- and Alin’s area of specialty was distortion beasts. He already thought it was astounding what they had done. He’d love to have a chat with whoever did it.

Then probably have someone toss them into a star. Clearly they couldn’t be trusted to responsibly use their knowledge.