Treasures Of Heaven And Earth

The Tiger Prince made his farewells and left Chún's home soon after; now that he had his weapon and had met the 'Emperor' - he had grinned widely at the teen's eye rolling in response - he had to go and pay his respects to the Dragon of the East and return to his family's court to announce his position as a Guardian Beast of a new planet - among other things; Chún caught a few mumbles about trying to find various friends and partners he had made in the past, but the young prince just seemed uncertain and pre-occupied when Chún asked for details, though he did swear that anyone he brought would be visiting of their own volition - not entirely an unfounded concern, given the old legends about White Tigers - and would be the Tiger Prince's responsibility.

Chún was not particularly bothered, Tai would deal with any serious trouble - and he recognised that the Prince was entitled to some privacy as long as it did not place the Planet in danger - as a Guardian, the Prince would be actively bound to avoid harming Tai.

The last he saw of Bái was a hill-sized White Tiger and a large silver snake as large around as a water bucket disappearing into the forest together, on their way to see Shé Yin's father

Looking at the flight of the Golden Crow, Chún decided it was mid morning somewhere after Sìshì, not that the precise time really meant anything, since Tai had admitted that time ran differently here then it did back on the Golden Crow Planet. He wondered idly if Tai would get its own star at some point.

Well, that meant that he had time to take care of his own tasks - including checking the 'shrine' back on Golden Crow at the base of the original mountain. Fortunately, despite winding up dealing with martial arts and the weapons forging first, despite Tai's warning, he should have enough time.

"Do we have enough harvested to make a trading trip worthwhile, Tai?" he asked into the link.

"There are quite a few excess Essence plants in the garden plot, especially since you stopped eating as much," suggested Tai, "I can also point you at a few overgrowing wild herbs. There are the materials leftover from your hunt with the Tiger Prince yesterday as well."

"Should I bring anything else?" asked Chún and raised an eyebrow as Tai hesitated.

"I need you to make some basic medicine suitable for Essence Beasts," his locus admitted, "a few of the Essence Beasts who have been acting as my patrols need more healing faster than they would achieve naturally."

The young True Cultivator blinked, "Did you not say that it did not matter…"

"The few that were killed are regrettable," interrupted Tai, "and I took measures to make sure they would not develop into Essence wraiths - as I am not a corrupted Essence Source I cannot control those. But it is wise to heal the Essence Beasts who are wounded so that they can advance - higher leveled Essence Beasts are more useful and intelligent than a number of lower levels."

Chún nodded, "makes sense. I take it the Essence Healing that I have practiced on Essence Beasts previously will not be sufficient?""

Tai somehow managed to send the impression of shrugging down their link, "for the more minor wounds perhaps, but the larger injuries will need more concentrated assistance."

"Well, I assume you have appropriate recipes - and I will have to ask the Cauldron for help?" listed out the young teen, "we better get started then," he sighed as his locus sent a feeling of agreement, "point out the ingredients we need on the Essence illusion map, please - and if you can let the Cauldron know I need its help…"

With a thought the Cloak and Staff flew out of the cavern entrance and blurred into his body, covering him in a cloud of billowing mist. Singing to himself as he leapt into the trees with the Monkey Movement Dao, following the waypoints that Tai placed in his vision, the young teen's voice drifted behind him with the mist he left in his trail as he disappeared into the forest.

"Clean air and

Crow's fire

Bird song and

Earth's breath…"

---

Chún sighed tiredly, sitting cross-legged on the riverbank as he fed straight Fire Essence into the open beak of the Phoenix sculpted vent, with the last remaining ingredients arranged around him, thanking his fortune that he had earlier began the creation of Essence seeds within his body previously - including a Fire Seed - otherwise maintaining such an even output of Fire Essence would have been much more difficult.

He had spent the last two shi collecting herbs and materials in the surrounding thousand li around his Immortal's cave. Most of it was Essence herbs and materials along with some rare if 'ordinary' items.

He had made the mix for more Healing Pills - distillation of pure water, Wound Heal, Blood Ginseng and five element honey - as he had begun to think of them, although that had prompted a disgusted snort from the Mountain and left the medicine to boil down over the the coals of the fire in his workshop clearing, while he went to the river to work with the Cauldron for the higher ranked medicines Tai wanted him to concoct.

Ironically, some of the ingredients required for the higher level medicines meant that Chún had to hunt, kill and harvest materials from several high ranked Mortal level Essence Beasts for concentration into pills that would be for the higher ranked Earth Level beasts that were wounded.

"I am surprised that ingredients from lower level beasts are useful to higher level beasts," remarked Chún as he followed his locus' instructions, carefully feeding herbs and harvested ingredients into the open mouth of the floating Cauldron in front of him, even as he kept sending Fire Essence into the Phoenix sculpted vent.

"We are making healing medicine, not pills to assist advancement," explained Tai, "So we are not trying to provide an overabundance of Essence to force or support an advancement; in an injured patient that might cause greater damage - thus components of lower level Beasts properly prepared with the correct herbs and other substances will be refined into an appropriate medicine."

There was a pause and his link emanated a sense of satisfaction, "The last refinement was a success," announced Tai, just as a momentary glow from the top of the Cauldron announced the emergence of several sparkling pills being ejected from the mouth of the Quilin sculpture that snarled from near the top of the Cauldron - although Chún had noticed that the heads seemed to shift around the body of the Cauldron at seemingly random intervals. Doubtless the movements were meaningful - possibly of great import to an Alchemist or some other more knowledgeable Cultivator - but it just meant he had stopped being surprised when the Cauldron looked different each time he worked with it.

"Thank you Cauldron," Chún bowed gratefully to the Artifact, which bobbed happily in place.

"You followed my instructions precisely," pointed out Tai as the young teen got to his feet after slipping the new pills into his Cloak for safekeeping, "but I do not know enough alchemy to create pills myself," replied Chún matter-of-factly, "the Cauldron definitely did the hard part of the refinement - I just kept an even supply of Fire Essence and added the ingredients in at the times you told me to."

"Eventually you will learn how to do it all yourself," admitted the planet, "but we are in a hurry now, so we do not have time for you to put in several decades of practicing before creating these medicines."

The Cauldron bobbed in front of Chún then began floating off back into the forest, "The Cauldron was happy to help - refining pills helps it advance, but it needs your help to create higher level ones - providing Essence and the ingredients at the right time. As it advances it will develop the recipes for higher level medicine - and it can teach you how to refine pills."

Chún blinked as he walked back to the Heaven and Earth Vine clearing, "Wait, how does it learn recipes?"

Tai laughed, "it is instinctive to it - just as a sword legendary artifact knows how to cut and can create stronger techniques as it advances, an alchemical cauldron legendary artifact knows how to create pills and mixes appropriate for its level. There is a reason I said it was a legendary artifact."

Chún considered for a moment, then shrugged, "Useful. I am guessing most cauldrons are not like that?"

Tai snorted with amus.e.m.e.nt in the link, "Most Cauldrons are not created from Essence soaked materials in perfect balance, survive a planetary tribulation or are exposed to Celestial Essence after a chain of Heaven is shattered, no."

"So it is like you then?" Chún realised, "Really alive - more than what it looks like.. I mean, Cultivating on its own?"

"And your Staff, your Cloak, the Heaven and Earth Vine, the World Tree, the Tiger Prince, The Flood Dragon…" Tai started listing off other examples.

"Right," replied Chún distractedly as he realised how many rare treasures that Tai's world contained - and that was just in the small area he had explored, "how are your defenses?"

"That is part of why I had you make those medicines," answered Tai, "Something changed last night - the Essence Beasts and Defensive Formations I am directing have had to deal with increasing numbers of those cultists moving outward into our general area in a steady stream. I cannot afford to have so many wounded defenders and it does not seem that they will get the chance to heal naturally."

"You did not say anything," admonished the young true Cultivator as he broke into a trot, "you should have warned me earlier. Do you think the Consumers have discovered us? Should I skip visiting the shrine?"

"No, you need to go and visit, to keep up the illusion of the Mountain Spirit protecting the village," Tai replied firmly, "I do not believe we have been discovered, the movement seems more of an attempt to blanket the immediate area with their forces - their attention is directed outward towards the nearest city - that appears to be the general direction they are orienting against."

"Attacking them will not alert them to us?" questioned Tai as he reached his workshop clearing and went to check the Healing pill mix cooling over the remaining ashes, quickly applying Essence to the completed jelly in the decocting pot to form it into pills.

"No, I have been careful, I am only keeping the area around the original mountain site clear for a hundred li - they appear to think it is random Essence Beast attacks," his locus reassured him, "They seem mostly preoccupied with what they seem to think is coming in this direction and have not been focused on their losses."

Tai paused and Chún braced himself even as he speed up his encasing of the Healing pills - he had begun to recognise when his friend was about to drop unwelcome news on him, " I have also been answering some of their messages - it is reasonably trivial to mimic human speech patterns and the patterns of their communication 'Formations' crude as they are, to match the Consumers that have been killed. They are largely expecting this immediate area to have been covered by the group that was originally based in the village - as far as they know, those Consumers are still alive and responding as ordered."

"Ah, smart," approved Chún with some relief, "but wait - why would you need to kill anyone if they think all is well?"

"Unfortunately, they are not fools and they did send quite a number of lower leveled consumers as reinforcements and, I presume, to verify the situation," Chún rubbed his forehead at this as his locus continued, "They of course could not be allowed to discover that we have already disposed of their base in this area - or indeed, we can not allow that many Consumers that close to us."

"Let me guess," interrupted Chún, fighting to keep frustration bleeding into the link, "the same problem as usual."

"Correct," replied Tai without any sign of annoyance, "The local area is already showing signs of higher levels of Essence due to its proximity to the rift to our planet and the general upswing in local Essence that occurs naturally once enough Essence plants and animals gather in an area."

A sensation of satisfaction permeated the link for a moment, "This is good as it has lead to an increase in the local Essence Beast population which I am using as defenders - mostly young males and matriarchs of packs which have negotiated with me for their families to come and live on me in return for their service, but it does mean that it runs the risk of attracting the wrong sort of attention."

"I thought we dealt with this?" grumbled Chún, "with the Essence Crystals to soak up the extra Essence and keeping the connecting rift stable and so on?" The pot of jelly had been all converted into pills, so Chún pulled out an empty Fǔ pot from the Cloak and the pills poured into it. Closing the small lid and placing the pot back in his Cloak, he resumed his walk back to the Heaven and Earth Vine clearing.

"My advancement is proceeding smoothly and with the great leaps of the past few months, but the more we improve the planet and you build treasures both inside and outside this… planet…" Tai's hesitation was noticeable, "the Essence levels around the original site will inevitably rise past its previous sparse levels - especially since that mountain is still me and reflects in a small fashion my growth. I have been using the increase in defense and offence Dao patterns and gathering forces among the Essence Beast populations as I have stated, it would be untatural to completely contain and hide it - the original site is still part of Golden Crow, and must be part of its natural flow - else much more damage could occur."

"Then I should go straight to your forces," replied the young teen as he walked into the clearing, bemused as he was immediately set upon by a swarm of Essence Sprites carrying various trade goods - cloth, Essence herbs, vegetables and fruits harvested from the garden and the Heaven and Earth vine as well as bone, hides and leather.

"No, check in the Shrine, to see the requests the villagers have left, then go to the village and trade and listen for information. There has been an increase in travellers over the past few days as well as those cultists - most from the same direction. Something is happening in Hujian."

"Oh, I never knew the name of the city," replied Chún, as he accepted the various items carried by the sprites and started stashing them in his Cloak, then paused, "wait, this will not work if I have to go into the village - I need the gliding horse - or people will start asking questions about the Cloak being made of mist."

"We are playing the role of the Relic Hunter who the villagers 'know' is the Mountain Spirit though," pointed out Tai with a hint of mischief, "so some mist will be ok as long as the Cloak looks mostly solid. The Cloak should be able to keep enough space that way. You are not bringing a full load."

"I do not have any empty Dao pots, either," complained Chún, but he kept stowing various items away "there has not been enough time to cast any more."

"None of these herbs are worth Dao pots, anyway," replied Tai, "as for Hujian, the city has been there a few hundred years and it was a large town before that - there has been some sort of human village or town there for almost a thousand years - which is long enough for the land to have some idea about it - but not enough to have any useful information about recent events."

"Ok… I suppose, I can ask around," shrugged Chún, deciding to just leave it as another one of those weird things about his locus, more focused on what he needed to do, than asking about another one of those weird mountain things that did not make any sense to him.

---

Arriving at the shrine at the base of the mountain on Golden Crow, Chún checked with his Essence Sense before stepping into sight on the trail; the shrine was empty, so he went inside.

Looking around, he could see various strings with little wooden figures, talismans and strips of paper hanging from the sculpturing that he had put into the ceilings and walls. There were incense sticks stuck in crevices and in small dishes on the 'stone altar' that he had shaped in front of the sculpture of the World Tree.

There were plates with small offerings of fruit and rice - in front of the sculpture of three stone incense sticks with the Essence glowing from the tips that he had sculptured - on top of the stone altar.

Chún blinked, surprised at how quickly the villagers had added to the shrine and laid out so much incense and offerings in such a short time.

Checking quickly at the strips of paper, Chún could see that they were prayers and requests for the 'Mountain Spirit'. Most of them were for good fortune, thanks for chasing away the gang, or requests for better harvests.

There were a couple of more serious requests relating to healing, protection and curing of illness. He took note of the protection and harvest requests, "Tai, you see these?"

"Yes - I will add defensive dao patterns to the people asking for protection - perhaps we should think about discussing organising a village guard force with the Headman - we can offer some help - weapons and techniques for Cultivation as we have talked about before?"

"I still think, given what we have discussed previously, that is risky," replied Chún frowning, "we could create our own threats if someone decides to get greedy - we would have to be very careful."

"True," admitted Tai, "we can discuss it later. Regarding the better harvests, I can direct the Essence Beasts to leave their spoor in the fields that are having fertility issues - the farmers can spread it over the fields. But the farmers would have to avoid attacking the beasts."

"We can discuss that with the Headman - he can let the farmers know to avoid the Beasts instead of attacking them going forward," replied Chún, "although you would have to find some way to prevent wild beasts from taking advantage of the farmers not driving them off."

"More Dao patterns to warn the village…" mused Tai, "maybe I should just start including the village as part of my main structure, so that offensive forces cannot come in without alerting me - or activating defense. I only have monitoring patterns near the village - I do not want the locals, merchants or officials from the Lotus Empire to notice active, complex, battle dao patterns around the village."

Chún blinked as he walked around the shrine checking the strips of paper, "You said you used defence patterns to fight the Cultists that came…"

"Closer to the Mountain site, away from the village," clarified his locus, "and I did put temporary defense patterns down near the village as they came closer, just in case, but they were not taking the main road, they were moving through the wilderness - presumably to avoid detection, so they actually walked into to my permanent defense Dao patterns, ironically."

"So how would you add the village to the Mountain," questioned Chún, slowly pushing his Essence into the faux-consumer cultivation pattern of three dantians and meridians that Yijing and Tai had taught him to conceal his true nature from Consumers as he walked out of the shrine and down the trail towards the village, "if you do not want the outside world to notice?"

"I could add a secondary shift extending out from the original mountain site to cover the lands around the village - just enough to offset it from the rest of Golden Crow that more extensive protections would be obscured, but not enough for any Consumers below World Level to notice anything other than the area is 'mysterious' - easily explained by the increase in Essence."

"Sounds like asking for someone to discover us," Chún rejected bluntly, "I am sure that sort of change would be noticeable - not to mention how the villagers would respond to becoming part of a secret land."

"It is already happening very slowly," admitted his locus, "it would take a couple hundred years but if I keep adding Dao patterns, protecting Essence Beasts and plants in the area and as my original site keeps raising the local Essence levels as a bleed over from my existence, this whole area will gradually become a place out of legend that is difficult to attack. I was just thinking of speeding it up…"

"So many of those old stories make more sense now," mused Chún as the light of the Golden Crow beat down on his head, "but over hundreds of years is different - no one would notice the difference, because of the 'as far as anyone can remember it has always been this way', sort of stories, unless the high level Consumers keep close watch on that sort of thing and can bother remembering when it was not like that. A bit different, if a village vanishes between one week and the next…" Chún pointed out.

"True, but then, there are the stories of Beast Waves overcoming areas near the wilderness and reclaiming them…" argued Tai, "maybe we can make people think the village being hard to find is normal somehow."

"Sounds like yet another long term project," answered the young true Cultivator in the link as he drew close to the gates of the village, "but try to improve the defensive patterns around the village as much as possible without alerting Consumers, for now."

Chún felt a wave of assent in the link as he eyed the villagers who were excitedly pointing, whispering and running to spread the news of his arrival as he stepped into the village, "let us see if I can help a few people while looking for information - point me in the direction of the people who asked for healing, please."

---

Chún spent a shi or so talking to villagers, handing out medicine, helping a few people with broken bones, sprains, muscle damage or other illness with Essence healing and the Healing pills, gathering information about recent visitors to the village and any news they had brought. He also - much to the local merchants delight - traded all the various Essence plants, fruits, herbs, Essence cloth woven by the Essence Sprites and harvested materials he had brought with them.

Apparently word had gotten out about the increase in locally available tradable goods and more small travelling merchants were taking the risk to come out this far even when it was not a scheduled market day, nearly depleting the village's stock of goods that he had traded last time - although local village hunters and harvesters were showing a marked increase in success during their own hunts for Essence Beasts and herbs in the area which had offset the issue of diminishing goods somewhat.

Chún had smiled and waved off the hunters cheerful thanks for his help in their hunts, wondering what they would do if they knew that Tai was the reason behind the increase of Essence Levels that were helping Beasts and plants grow faster and stronger.

"Because having a True Cultivator pumping excess Essence into the land around the village everytime you travel outside the mountain has nothing to do with it of course," Tai poked at his thoughts and Chún rolled his eyes at his locus' pedantry.

Chún also had a chance to speak with Headman - or mayor as he insisted on titling himself - about news and the issues some villagers were having with security; the Headman agreed that with the recent improvements in the village's fortunes, he could afford to start organising a town guard.

Casually inquiring from the villagers about the latest news had been surprisingly easy; the village was practically abuzz with the latest happening from Hujian which was something of a surprise - since news from there rarely registered in the sleepy little village.

The general gist of the information from the most recent travellers from Hujian was that there had been some sort of upheaval in the last few days among the noble clans of the city; one clan had been completely wiped out, apparently, with rumors that survivors had fled away from the city in various directions, despite the imperial policies frowning on that sort of thing.

This sort of chaos had prompted a few other groups to leave as an unstable city was not the best place to stay - especially if you were not wealthy but had enough resources to move - hence the increase in travelers that Tai had noticed. Most people were traveling to the next city over, rather than out into the wilderness, so there had not been a large increase in traffic in this direction compared to other areas, but it was like ripples in a pond.

The other big news was a persistent rumor of a war between Consumer sects that had apparently broken out around the same time, but the rumors related to that seem to consist of a couple of merchants swearing that a few Cultivators they had hired for various tasks had suddenly returned their payments and vanished, citing Sect responsibilities.

One person swore they had seen running battles around the city between rival groups, but did not know who they were; Chún wondered if people had just not added extra 'facts' to the already sensational news of a previously prominent Clan's fall in an unusually public manner to make themselves seem more knowledgeable.

Still, Chún thought, as he sat a couple of shi later in the forest a few tens of li outside the town, with the lengthening shadows falling over him as the Golden Crow fled for its nest, while he ran his hands over the broken ribs of an Earth Level Essence Beast that Tai had directed him to for healing, watching the Dao Patterns of the animal straighten out under his Essence Sense, the Grass Cult - had - been building up towards something - and they were acting like they were expecting someone to try and come this way.

"I find myself not wanting the Grass to succeed in whatever they are trying to do, friend," he mused as the last Essence Beast left and he pulled himself out of his seat on the forest floor, "try to keep the roads and the area around here clear of any Grass Cult if you can, stretch it out as far as you can safely without being obvious, keep an ear to the ground for any refugees being pursued by Grass - let me know - maybe I may be able to mess up whatever they are planning."

"Healing all my forces will make a big difference," answered his locus with satisfaction, "I can push much further out."

"Do not overdo it," cautioned Chún as he rose into the air and started flying back towards the Mountain, "We have to take care of our own safety first. But I am of the opinion…"

"...that the less Grass that are around…" chimed in Tai gleefully.

"...the safer we will be," the both of them finished together.