The Jester of Apocalypse

Once Neave remembered the obsidian plants, he was convinced that would be the perfect solution and that terraforming the nightmare realm would continue smoothly.

It appeared it wasn’t going to be so simple after all.

The first thing he did was attempt to feed the plant or nurture it somehow. That seemed to be doing, as Neave would say, jack shit.

Perhaps it would be comparable to watering a cactus, except it didn’t even deign to die. Neave threw right about everything he could think at one of the plants.

He poured his blood into the soil, blew ethereal spirit in its direction, imbued life force into the plant, tried injecting qi, failed even with his potential of experimentation, and did several other things that gave no results.

After racking his brain, he decided to observe the plant. Initially, he couldn’t even say it was alive. It didn’t appear to be growing or changing in any way. No matter how much Neave focused, he couldn’t sense any life force or spirit within the obsidian structure.

Eventually, Neave lost track of time. He could hear faint chimes occasionally, but it was hard to say precisely what was causing those. They were so quiet that, at first, he thought he imagined it. After hearing them several hundred, if not several thousand times, he was convinced they were real.

Just as he was about to give up, he finally spotted what was causing the noise. Deep within the obsidian, occasionally, there would be movement. A tiny, minuscule particle would shift just a little to the side. Seeing the process happen several times, Neave concluded that this was, in fact, the plant growing.

“Holy shit, that’s slow.”

It was slow, indeed.

It was so excruciatingly sluggish that Neave had to wonder whether these things were even alive. What if they were merely some form of natural phenomena that happened exclusively within this realm?

That would Neave back to square one. He had a lot of time to think about importing plants from the outside. It would be a tremendous undertaking. The main issue was the cost of time. With every failure, Neave would have to return and get another plant. This wouldn’t be as simple as plucking some grass off the floor. He would have to locate an appropriate specimen, which could take days of work for each failure.

If it came between giving up on this idea and wasting precious time, Neave would instead just give up. That, or try something else.

Neave kept going with the observation of the plants, looking for any other details that may be important.

He tried pulling the plants out of the ground to see their roots, which was much more challenging than anticipated. The plants weren’t brittle per se but were solidly rooted in the soil, meaning he had to pull hard enough to break the plant off and leave the roots underground.

Neave took his time and slowly brushed the dirt and stone around the plant to reach the roots.

The roots were also obsidian but were considerably thinner and more branched out. He applied the same death stare to the roots until he finally noticed something.

It was the faintest hint of life force Neave felt in his life. He heaved a sigh of relief. It didn’t take long for confusion to set in.

If it was alive, why wasn’t Neave capable of helping it grow?

It shouldn’t be that complicated… But Neave didn’t know anything about it either.

None of the alchemy books Neave had read went into detail about plant cultivation. Mainly because Neave was avoiding those, primarily focusing on other stuff.

“Fuck my stupid fucking heavens damn it, why am I so…?” Neave repeatedly lambasted himself.

Why did he always make this same mistake?

Neave had a terrible habit of overfocusing on one aspect of progress and neglecting others. It was an approach that served him well most of the time, but when that small occasion came along, his ignorance bit him in the ass, and it could bite hard sometimes.

Neave sat and slowly combed through everything he had learned in the library. He found several mentions of specialized qi techniques he could use to cultivate plants. After scouring through everything, he groaned.

Given that Neave focused on the alchemy processes, he thoroughly ignored the entire discipline of herbology.

Neave put another spirit tube in his veins and created a small lake of blood in a section of the cavern. He threw all the slimes he could find in there and then ejected all his life force.

Neave awoke in reality and immediately sprinted toward the capital, heading to the library. He was paranoid, constantly scouting the wilderness around him. It felt as if, at any moment, he could get assaulted by a power far above him and kidnapped to the higher realms.

His paranoia pushed him to travel at the maximum speed he could manage. Neave activated ignite using the method Astrador provided him with and chained together several costly movement techniques to maximize his speed.

The result was absurd. The speed at which he could travel now was far above what he should be capable of. It was so fast that he genuinely had to wonder whether the heavenly messenger would stand a chance of catching him.

Rather than run toward the capital's center, Neave ran to a nearby teleportation platform and paid the fee. Soon enough, he found himself in front of the library and walked inside.

Once inside, he rushed toward the section that covered subjects relating to growing plants.

“Hey, it’s you, you damned bastard!” Someone called for him.

Neave turned around. He spotted a silver-haired boy with a star-themed robe calling for him. Rather than acknowledge his existence in any way, Neave rushed along and continued to the section that covered plant cultivation.

“Don’t ignore me, you rat!”

The boy ran to Neave and grabbed his shoulder. Neave gripped his hand, squeezing it hard enough to crack several bones in his fist, and glared at the boy’s eyes. The boy wanted to scream, but he found himself frozen in fear.

Once Neave released him, the boy groaned a few times. Several spectators gasped in shock.

“B-Brother! I-I found him!”

Neave paused. He turned around, spotting a platinum-rank cultivator wearing the same robes as the weeping boy on the ground and angrily marching toward Neave. Neave felt a strong impulse to kill them, but he restrained himself.

This was the Emperor’s library. Committing acts of extreme violence here, not to mention against someone on the platinum path, was likely to end in severe consequences, even for Neave.

He clicked his tongue and rapidly ran through his options.

The more he thought about it, the worse the situation became. The world slowed down to a crawl before Neave’s eyes. No matter what he thought of, this situation could only end in conflict, a ban from the library, or a massive waste of time.

He couldn’t think of any acceptable options.

So he would have to settle for an unacceptable one.

“What is happening here?”

Neave turned around. Dukean stood behind him, and he could see the platinum path cultivator visibly tense at his appearance. The star-robed man coughed a bit and spoke up.

“Young master Dukean. I apologize for the disturbance. I will naturally maintain civil behavior befitting the grand library. However, I can not disengage here. The young man that stands before you had spat on our sect’s honor. It is imperative I teach him and his sect a lesson in cordial conduct.”

Dukean glanced at Neave. Neave turned around, stared Dukean in the eye, and mouthed:

Make them go away.

Dukean softly nodded and spoke to the man.

“This young master here is under my protection, so if you have any complaints, I will gladly hear them out.”

The man immediately backpedaled, replacing his peeved expression with a pleasant smile. He joyfully laughed and casually waved in front of him.

“No worries, young master, I was just joking, naturally. Had I known he was under your wing, I wouldn’t have dared jest as such. Please, excuse me. I have other business to attend to.” The man turned around, grabbed the squirming boy by his ear, and dragged him off deeper into the library.

Neave was almost impressed by how fast that man changed his attitude.

Dukean waved the man off and turned to Neave.

“It is still early, but I believe it would be wise to have our meeting now. Several new developments have transpired, and we have to talk.”

“No time. Follow me.” Neave spoke curtly and marched off.

Dukean stood dazed for a second but shook his head and followed Neave. Dukean watched Neave blaze through book after book for several minutes, raising countless eyebrows with his outrageous behavior.

After a while, rather than say anything, Neave simply turned to Dukean and raised his hand, offering him a handshake. Dukean accepted the handshake out of reflex.

Suddenly, a powerful force invaded Dukean’s body, and he had to do his best to pretend everything was fine.

Neave wrapped Dukeans spirit and blacked himself out.

Dukean and Neave both appeared inside the nightmare realm. Dukean looked distraught.

“What in the name of the Emperor is this!? Neave, where have you taken me!?” He swore and spun around, anxiously scouting the thick obsidian bushes while apprehensively glancing at the immense destruction around him.

“I will explain everything. We have to get away first.”

“Get away from what!?”

Before Dukean could get an answer, Neave wrapped his arms around his waist and sprinted away, running toward the cave he was conducting his experiments in. Dukean nearly got a heart attack upon hearing the distant wails of the corrupt demons.

Once they ran into one, his heart came pretty damn close to stopping.

Neave obliterated the demon with a casual kick and continued running.

Once they reached the cave, Neave looked for a different one. There were many slimes in that one which looked like blood slime variants.

Those nasty creatures were best left alone.

Neave noted that it didn’t seem like too much time had passed since he left the realm. Perhaps a few days at most.

Dukean tried his hardest to keep his composure as Neave dragged him around like a ragdoll.

Eventually, Neave put him down in a small cave. Dukean got up, searching for his sword and dimension ring. As Neave was about to speak, Dukean screamed at him and threatened him.

“Have you already changed your plans!? What do you intend to do to me here!?”

“Uh…” Neave, rather than looking for a way to explain himself, simply said, “I offer you a spirit oath. I am not here to harm you in any way. You are safe. This statement is true.”

Dukean carefully approached Neave, accepted the oath, and calmed down a little after he noticed Neave was fine.

Neave wasn’t completely fine, actually. He was just good at hiding it. He couldn’t confidently say Dukean was safe inside the nightmare realm. Luckily the backlash was small enough that Neave could hide it.

“So… Can you please explain yourself?”

Neave didn’t know where to begin. So he started back when he encountered the hell tome.