Depthless Hunger

Chapter 63: Three Different Tiers

Instead of following the river, Kai determined that the quickest way south was to cut through one of the last true wastelands before southern Goralia became lush. Even the wastes weren't that forbidding, with a marked lack of monsters and much healthier trees than he was used to. But after several days, he realized just how weak the ambient mana was.

He hadn't thought about it that way, before doing so much cultivation. Mana didn't permeate the air like qi barely did, but it did fundamentally flow through the world more intensely in some places than others. As they traveled deeper, he no longer saw blue mana-using shrubs or diamond-winged butterflies. Neither had any real potency, nothing that could be used for training or potions, but even they couldn't survive here.

That day, he was waiting outside a village for Zae Zin Nim to return with some food and seasonings. Since he still didn't have a way to hide his twisted nature properly and only had two Class potions left, he tried to avoid others. While he waited, he cooked some monster meat for them.

With monsters getting scarcer, all they had were a few twisted rabbits. He split them into two groups, cooking half for himself while burning all the poison from the other half. Zae Zin Nim didn't like eating monster, but she could stomach it with the proper preparation. By contrast, he only felt slightly queasy while consuming the toxicity, then it did no harm. It had continued to taste better too, and this time he couldn't blame being so hungry.

Easier not to think about that. Kai turned from his fire to examine the village.

The huddle of buildings was strange to his eyes. Just homes, no barrier walls or even defensive structures from ruins. Such a place would have been torn through in northern Goralia, but apparently they could get away with it here. Kai spotted some young men about his age roaming around the village and decided that he should brush off his spiritual sight by checking them.

Name: ???

Total Power: 0

Physique Level: Null (0)

Soul Level: Null (0)

>

He blinked in surprise, then checked the young man again along with several of the others. What he'd seen should have been impossible: they had no Physique or Soul Levels at all, which meant he saw their overall power as 0. A stout and well-built man had a Physique of G-0 and one heavily scarred woman had a Soul Level of 1, but everyone else in the village was beneath what he'd thought was the floor.

Without any real conclusions, Kai just settled down to eat. He was mostly done by the time Zae Zin Nim returned. She tossed him a sack of fruit that struck him as shockingly expensive until he remembered how much more common fruit was in the south. Meanwhile she sat down beside her monster rabbits and began using new seasonings to blunt the taste.

"They don't have much here," she said, "and they wouldn't buy monster cores. What's bothering you?"

"Oh, I just looked at some of them." Kai's gaze wandered out toward the village again. "I didn't think it was possible to have a Physique below G-0. Is this place one of those lowest points you talked about?"

"Yes, this region is on the very first step of the Heaven's Path Scale. Any less and we'd be dealing with a void where life couldn't exist. There isn't enough mana for their bodies to absorb it while exercising and they'll struggle to grow in any way."

"I didn't realize there was a foundation I was taking for granted. In Cloudspire, does the denser qi mean you start with a much higher floor?"

Zae Zin Nim paused in the middle of her work, cast him a strange look, then nodded. "You could think of it that way. People who are born in the regions with the strongest qi can automatically gain an F-rank Physique during adolescence. There are also places where what you call spiritual vision is as natural as breathing, just because the energy is so dense."

"That's... a bit depressing. How high does it go? If there was even more energy in the air, could babies pop out of their mothers with E-rank Physiques?"

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"Hmph. You might grow stronger in energy-dense areas, but don't be silly. I don't know about chakra, but the densest gatherings of qi in the entire world are on Cloudspire. So the highest floor is already known, unless the imperial court has better, or there's a mysterious fourth continent out there."

"Huh." Kai finished off a satisfying meal while thinking, then decided to risk another question. "Was it like that for you? Reaching F-rank before you were even an adult?"

She was silent for a long time, eating with tidy little bites. Eventually she swallowed, wiped her lips with a cloth, and looked up at him. "Thanks to your help, my cultivation is no longer risking deviation. Would you like to see?"

His eyes widened at the offer. It was basically nothing back in Monskon City, but offering to show someone weaknesses meant a lot more out here. When he nodded, he could feel her shroud easing, so he carefully examined her with his spiritual sight.

Name: Zae Zin Nim

Total Power: 149

Cultivation: Body Refinement 90% (100)

Blackblood Physique Level: F-5 (40)

Soul Level: 3 (9)

>

Her symbols were substantially different than those he'd seen before, but after all his qi training, he could make some sense of them. Where her Class would have been she instead had a Cultivation rating. Apparently she was 90% of the way through the Body Refinement stage, which strangely provided her with exactly 100 Power.. Her body appeared to use the same scale he knew, but it was listed as "Blackblood Physique."

He desperately wanted to ask her more about that, but he had the feeling that she had already revealed more than she was comfortable with. So Kai just tucked the numbers away in his head and stopped examining her so closely. Her shroud hid herself from his sight the next moment.

"You're already over 100," he pointed out. "I thought there was a barrier."

"There is, but it's not as important in Cloudspire. Most people break through it when they reach the Body Refinement stage, if they can reach it at all."

"I know I have a long way to go, but if I managed to break through Qi Condensation, how much of your strength would I have?"

"For cultivation? About the same." Zae Zin Nim shrugged. "Almost all of our paths have long plateaus at a given stage, then enormous leaps. That's part of what has me trapped in my current position. Your Classes rise so smoothly, they should be able to help me break through."

More teasing hints about her past he would have to ignore. Kai focused on cleaning up their camp and then cultivated a little more while she finished her meal. His own progress was a little stranger.

Name: Kai Clanless

Total Power: 62

Cultivation: Qi Condensation 5% (2)

Physique Level: F-7 (44)

Soul Level: 4 (16)

Monstrous Hunger (zeta - VI)

Direboar's Strength (gamma - III)

Aquagorgon's Health (beta - II)

Isulfr's Bite (alpha - I)

Rockspider's Claw (alpha - I)

>

All his cultivation work only put him at 5% of the Qi Condensation stage, though even that had increased his strength somewhat. With his Physique training slowing and no powerful monsters to challenge him, Physique and Soul hadn't improved.

On the other hand, he could viscerally feel that he had become stronger. "Direboar's Strength" had increased from beta to gamma and it made a substantial difference. Boulders that he would once have struggled to move he could now lift over his head. As far as he could tell, development of his monstrous characteristics left no trace on his human soul.

The fact that one had improved was encouraging to him. He still wasn't sure what Monstrous Hunger did for him, but if he could increase Aquagorgon's Health enough, he would be nearly invincible. On the other hand, the fragments of power he'd gained from the Isulfr and Rockspiders remained inert at the alpha rank. They didn't seem to develop intuitively and there was no one who could explain how they worked, so he was going to have to chart a path for himself.

As they headed out for the second half of their daily travel, Kai remembered another question. "Right, almost forgot! Did they have any apothecaries in the city or did you find anyone who would volunteer some Class mana?"

"You'd best give up on that," Zae Zin Nim said as they walked. "The people here lack the mana control to generate a bead like you needed, so of course their pill-makers lack the skill."

"That's not good. I only have two Class potions left, and one of them is Herbalist, which would just be distracting."

"Does it matter? I don't mind running the errands."

"It matters if I intend to ever enter civilization again. Such as, to list a completely random example, when we reach a bigger Goralian city and I need to negotiate your access to a mana pool."

She frowned at this, but eventually shook her head. Her hair was still uneven, but there was enough for it to shake back and forth. "If your cultivation develops far enough, you may be able to use that as cover. Until then, you still look pretty monstrous, so let me do the talking."

Another potential benefit to improving his cultivation. Kai continued walking in a pleasant mood, considering the possibilities. He didn't think that eating monsters directly strengthened him, yet he always felt better afterward. There was an animal connection there, if he could just tease it out...

As the evening stretched on, Kai was distracted by a mix of scents ahead. Not just the faint whiff of a weak village, but monsters and Classes in active use. He tried to shield his eyes against the sun and peered forward. "Do you see anything?"

"Looks like several wagons under attack." Zae Zin Nim needed to shield her eyes, but she could apparently see much further than he could. "I suppose you want us to go do something about it?"

"I think we should." As he started to run, Kai pulled his second-to-last potion out of his belt and drank it down. They wouldn't last so long after all.