150. Beyond the Sky (V) (Patreon)

Core three started off smoothly. A flood of Bloodline and qi rushed in, and his body quickly set to burning it up and stuffing it in. The percentages crept up and up, to Dorian’s mind linear— to 721%… soon 735%… 754%… So far, so good!

Then he felt a unsettling sensation grip his Spirit Sea. It felt like he was pissing himself—but that he could handle. He’d pissed himself more than once and it was only morning! No. He was pissing himself, but rather than with urine it was with qi, and that was infinitely more disturbing. It was like he was trying to close up some imaginary zipper in his body but the sheer bulk of his qi reserves bulged behind it, squeezing out against him, staunchly refusing to let him firm up the seal.

It wasn’t much, mind you. A tiny leak. Barely noticeable. Yet light rains often led to great storms. Even as the numbers kept climbing—albeit ever-so-slightly slower, jumping by 5%s at a time—he was struck by a sense of foreboding. He grew jittery.

It was when he passed the 800% mark when he felt the seam start to widen. He could only watch, aghast, as his precious precious qi leaked out by the gob, smoking off his skin. Still it wasn’t much. Three-quarters of his qi was still safely shuttled into his ever-expanding Spirit Sea. But whatever natural limit his body had was quickly asserting itself, and with each new droplet of Bloodline, with each new burning, more and more leaked out before his body had a chance to patch up the gaps.

Each little stream of qi hurt him somewhere deep in his soul. The tiny goblin within screamed and clawed and wailed to get it back, but alas limits were limits! He should’ve expected this. It was hardly conceivable that an Earth Realm fighter, however strange a trick he’d found, could grow without limit—could contain in theory a universe full of qi in his body. Still, though… if not a universe, at least give me tenfold! Just tenfold and I shall be happy. More than happy!

It was looking to be a close call.

Past 850% and the qi leakage was growing truly tragic. Dorian could hardly bear to watch. Each time he saw a gob of qi leak out, lost forever to the void, he felt like a mother being forced to give up one of her children. He frowned. No, no—that comparison was a bit rich, wasn’t it? A mother could always make another child if she so wished; those little shits were a renewable resource. He, on the other hand, had exhausted the Sinkhole of Torchdragons! As tragedies went there was simply no comparison.

At least reflecting on the abjectness of his plight took his mind off the fact that his qi absorption was falling off a cliff.

By the late 800s he was leaking out nearly a third of the qi he put in! At last, thank Heavens, he managed to just squeak over 900% before the core ran out. He heaved in a breath, patting his burgeoning belly, and forced down the urge to vomit. If he let loose now he might just throw up his entire Spirit Sea.

Two cores were left.

He took a few minutes to catch his breath. To let his Sea stabilize, and to make certain he wasn’t about to blow up or throw up or pop like a balloon.

Alright… another deep breath, and he opened up the second Core. The grueling process began again.

He felt like sieve. Torrents of black qi-smoke blew out from him, melting holes in the walls, burning out windows and escaping into open air all about him. He was quickly nearing the point where he was absorbing as much qi as he leaked out! He’d put so much into himself by now that he felt like a man at the tail end of an hours-long binge at a banquet, or perhaps a buffet—except magnified tenfold. He was bloated and horribly sleepy all of a sudden. A hot muddle of fatigue was settling in over his brow.

No. No! He gritted his teeth, slapping himself, and had to keep again from throwing up. No sleeping. I just woke up, damn it! No time for another nap!

By sheer force of will he kept himself upright. He was hardly able to think; he was stranded in some hot dreamy sleepy state. He dimly registered the end of this second core’s offerings.

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[1032% -> 1035%]

He blinked. He made it! Tenfold, and then some! Huzzah! He grinned stupidly. This next core—this last core—would shove him to his limit. Probably beyond. And he was getting frighteningly close, by the looks of it.

This time he slouched into the final Torchdragon Core. As it poured into him he lay there spread out, too bloated to move. His main goal now was to simply not fall apart at the seams. There was an outpouring of heat, of swelling, of a most unusual sort of pain: a pain that seemed to come from every point in his body at once, puffing out. It was as though every atom of his body wanted to fly off in its own direction. Like his body was unwinding bit by bit. But he never really did explode—he simply hung there, feeling in each moment like he was about to—even as his Core Saturation crept up past the mid-1000s%s, then slogged up near 1100%…

An indiscriminate amount of time later…

[Level-up!]

[Core Saturation]

[1128% -> 1131%]

That was the last of the updates. The rest of the Bloodline and its qi simply poured out of him. His body, try as it might, could stomach no more.

At last it was done, and he could scarcely believe he was alive. He’d made it. And—miracle of miracles—he was still awake! Sure, he was yawning all over himself and so bogged down by drowsiness he was falling into micro-sleeps—snapping up every few seconds and blinking, trying to clear his head—but he’d made it. Eleven times normal power, in the palm of his hands.

He felt a warm tingling of joy. He would’ve felt more excited, but he couldn’t feel very much of anything at the moment. He was dissolving into a strange and endless grayness. He burped, and out poured a turgid cloud of black qi that splattered onto the rug before him. A qi with eleven times its normal potency.

The puddle of qi burned through the rug in half a second. The rug’s only remnant was a vaguely sulfuric scent. Dorian blinked. Huh.

Then the puddle melted a giant hole through the floorboards. The stone beneath it went up in a smoking hiss seconds after. Then there was a thunderous crash as the ceiling of the floor beneath gave way; then another, and another spurt of hissing, louder this time. Another dense crash as it burned through another floor somewhere far beneath. A flurry of shrieks and shouts came through the gaping hole.

Dorian blinked once more, slower. And promptly passed out.

***

He woke up still feeling sluggish and far too bloated. He looked down.

His stomach was the size of a melon. That would explain it.

At least he could think properly now! He yawned, stretching, and got to his feet. This body—this cultivation stage—had been shoved to the brink of its breaking point. He’d maxed out the Earth Realm. He patted his hefty belly, grinning. Not bad. Not bad at all.

By Not bad, he really meant that there were likely precious few creatures on this plane that could hope to touch him now. Hells—he could put up a good fight against a quasi-god, probably!

But Not bad still left him nervous when he thought of Nijo. Would eleven times power be enough to face down not only legions of Sky Realm monsters, but also an avatar of a god?

Gods played by different rules. Things got finicky when the higher Laws got involved. He could beat down some Sky Realm nuisance, sure, but Sky Realm creatures could make use of laws like toddlers could make use of katanas. Dorian had seen some godly avatars kill a mortal with but a thought! They could simply command the Laws of Life to sever the soul from the body, and the Multiverse would comply. If Nijo had that sort of power up his sleeve Dorian was screwed no matter how fat he got!

Probably not, though. That sort of thing was quite rare, even among the countless Daos. The point still remained—Dorian had no clue what Nijo and his godly sponsor were capable of. And that made him nervous. He was really damned strong. Strong enough? Who could say?

He’d harbored some insane dream of hitting twenty, maybe thirty times power by the time the Ugoc came, but Fate had other plans…

He put his hands on his hips, frowning. I suppose my massing phase is officially complete. What now?

There was that one very intriguing path he’d gotten but a tantalizing glimpse of…

His mind drifted back to the cocoon of heat and pressure he’d been thrown in by those Torchdragons. How that unique concoction—mixed with an environment dense with familiar qi—had given rise to something new in him. A condensing. The start of a fascinating conversion—a new, hitherto unknown stage of cultivation? From Earth, skipping Sky, to… perhaps Star?

He scratched his chin. But how would he recreate those conditions? They were rather unique. Stuffing himself into any old forge wouldn’t do it. He also needed that qi affinity, that resonant environment. Maybe only the Dweller could produce such an effect for him now, and Dorian got the feeling that thing wouldn’t be too keen on helping him.

Hold on. There is another way, isn’t there?

He thought back to the origins of the Torchdragons. Where they were born, and gained their first Laws, their affinities—among the molten rocks and magma flows, nestled in the places where the bowels of the Earth touched the open air. That was just the sort of environment he needed right now. He knew it deep down somehow, a Bloodline intuition. He licked his lips. 

I wonder if there are any active volcanoes near the Azcan Oasis.

It might be time to go on a little excursion.