Back on Earth, John had some clear limits on how hot the temperature a bath could be and still feel comfortable. He wasn’t exactly weak skinned, but he didn’t fancy boiling himself. Here, even though he was likely dealing with hotter water, he felt much more comfortable without involving spiritual energy at all.
It wasn’t something he’d considered much. His body was different, so maybe the base temperature he could tolerate was higher. Beyond that, his body would have grown at least a little bit stronger in every phase. Diamond Defense might or might not help with heat, given that the earth element was overcome by fire. John hadn’t really tested anything with temperatures that could be considered mundane.
He thought that it had to be somewhat different, since he’d been to the Green Sands early on and found it quite difficult. Maybe it had been a mental shift that allowed him to better withstand extremes, but the heat was far more pleasant. Of course, John wasn’t talking about the hot springs that were actually boiling. He thought that would be a bit much for his unprotected body to withstand.
That said, he had been thinking about how his body might be tempered with the fire element. Creating constant heat within himself would be problematic, but if it was really all about temperature regulation it could help him against multiple elements. It would certainly be more complicated, but John had gotten experience with various sorts of bodily transformations. He was at least confident that he wouldn’t do himself too much harm. His cultivation insights could guide him along the right path, instead of requiring full experimentation.
But that would have to wait for another time. Perhaps the next day or in the coming weeks. Relaxing in a hot spring was nice, but they were simply taking a rest for the night on their way to connect with a local clan.
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The Zupan Clan was nothing special. Before the recent surge in cultivation they had been lucky to have Foundation Phase cultivators. Their current sect head was a late Soul Expansion Phase cultivator. Albin Zupan was still young, but only in the relative sense. For example, John was ‘young’ because he was an Ascending Soul Phase cultivator. There wasn’t an established standard for that, but he’d probably continue to be considered as young until he was past a hundred years.
Albin was past forty and still physically young, but still a few ranks short of stepping into the Consolidated Soul Phase. Unless there had been something holding back his growth, his speed was such that he couldn’t expect to go beyond the early or mid Consolidated Soul Phase. That would have been seen as amazing, but now it was almost expected for anyone of status.
The clan still retained influence in the region despite not being the strongest, and at least they had good taste. They had chosen a coastal location for the clan, and it had an amazing view from some rocky cliffs.
And yes, they still had hot springs, somehow. Perhaps the rock held sufficient water or perhaps the balance of spiritual energy in the region spontaneously formed the necessary components. Either way, it was quite something to look out at the sea while sitting in a warm spring.
Steam rose from the sea as well, in certain places at least. John would have thought that truly hot waters were terrible for the local wildlife, but of course that assumed typical fish. The Molten Sea had its own life, so when John learned that the Zupan Clan had a profitable fishing industry he wasn’t actually that surprised.
Albin had two fire totems and one water totem. All of the clan leaned towards fire, and John wouldn’t be surprised if Albin ended up at a three to one ratio in the end. He wouldn’t personally choose that route, but balance didn’t always have to be even in numbers. John didn’t assume he could completely revolutionize the clan’s cultivation just from a quick glance.
John could tell that the younger man was curious about him, but after inviting him to sit together he hadn’t said much of anything.
“This is a good location,” John said. “I haven’t seen your techniques, but I got the sense that your clan might rely on the heat of the water to attack?”
“Yes,” Albin said. “And steam.”
Interesting. Coming at that from the angle of fire, particularly hot steam would be difficult to resist. John would have leaned more towards water if he focused on steam, but he could see an argument for either element. Sometimes, it was about perception.
“Have you considered visiting the Molten Sea?” John asked. “They share the same elemental makeup, though it is admittedly more extreme.”
John didn’t think the spiritual energy in the region was particularly weak, but it wasn’t so blatant like the Molten Sea. The two elements were intertwined here in a way that dulled their presence, but it should reach at least seventy or eighty percent of the magnitude that he’d seen at the edge of the Molten Sea.
“It is a long journey,” Albin commented. “And we have no connections in the area. It was also not long ago that there were… conflicts.”
The Boiling Springs had been out of the path of the Molten Sea by a significant margin, so they hadn’t been involved in any of those incidents. However, perhaps the shared spiritual elements had made them feel unwelcome with the rest of the continent. Combining that with it being rather difficult to reach them from the center of the continent with the Blustering Peaks blocking the most direct route provided just enough reasons.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Even John himself hadn’t been to the area just yet, though he hoped to make some long term connections to tie together as much of the continent as he could. Apparently not including some portions of the Muted Crags, but if the Zupan Clan was any indication the Boilings Springs weren’t opposed to making connections. It just took someone to actually reach out.
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Coastal hot springs were a bit odd, but over the course of the next few days John observed much greater oddities in the ocean nearby. Those oddities were most visible during low tide, when water drained away leaving behind tide pools.
John had seen tide pools before, both on Earth and most frequently in the Shimmering Islands, but he hadn’t seen hot tide pools. Despite the steam rising from portions of the sea, it wasn’t hot in general. However, a good portion of the tide pools seemed to be pretty extreme in their temperatures.
The various things that survived long term in said tide pools had to be comfortable with a long period of relatively cool temperatures when the tides were high, followed by temperatures ramping up to nearly boiling in a few locations when the tides lowered.
Close inspections revealed to John how the temperature gradient beneath the ground was much higher than normal in just a few locations. He might have expected something like magma pipes, but it appeared to be concentrations of pure fire element. They seemed consistent enough over the long term to provide a reliable home for various strange creatures as well as things that at least appeared like typical denizens of tide pools.
There were anemones which had wriggling tentacles extended. Others were curled in on themselves as the water levels grew too low for them to expect to catch any prey- and to avoid becoming prey themselves.
Crabs were frequent guests, obviously. There were always crabs, most of them quite small. Various little fishes swam in the small pools, safe from larger predators for a time but also trapped in their own way.
Various mussels and barnacles quite happily made their home in the area, which was actually the most normal thing. John had seen the ones that live on geothermal vents, and while it obviously took a wildly different variety it was reasonable in his mind to find ones that were adaptive to temperature.
John was tempted to poke and prod, but with the amount of spiritual energy he carried he might cause more disturbance than he intended. He kept his distance as he observed the various creatures, happily going from modest sea temperatures to near boiling in some cases. He tried to figure out what made them so adaptable, but of course the answer was different for each and every one.
Some of those with shells simply shut down during the times of heat, durable enough to avoid cooking but merely surviving instead of thriving. Others seemed quite content with the heat, entering periods of higher activity.
John couldn’t directly change his body to follow any adaptation measure he saw, but studying them gave him an idea how he could nudge his body in the right direction. For that sake, he subjected himself to several tidal cycles with as little spiritual energy protecting himself as he could stand. Going from hot to cold was an unpleasant shock as the tides rose, but quite temporary.
The temperature change in the other direction was quite gradual as it only really heated up after the majority of the seawater had drained away. Before then, it seemed that there was enough exchange of water to carry away most of the excess temperature. Except for the few exceptionally hot places that had constant steam rising from them even when covered by high tide, which were best avoided even with tempered skin.
Spending so much time in the water with sea creatures was something John hadn’t done for a very long time. Certainly not with any regularity. It always brought back memories of Matayal. Even when they had been trapped in the depths, uncertain if they could safely return to the surface, being with her had been great. But she had also died in the water.
It still hurt to think about it. Most likely it always would. But John felt he had come to terms with it as much as anyone reasonably could or should when it came to accepting the death of a loved one. He was able to focus on the good memories. He wanted more people to have such opportunities.
And they would. Times were quite peaceful, and something like the attack from the Molten Sea couldn’t easily happen again. People would be ready to stand against them, just like the Stormy Sea Sect.
-----
John was quite willing to train with Albin, but the Zupan Clan didn’t have any formations strong enough to resist him. Thus, they had to stick to tamer training methods instead of having a proper sparring match. At best, they exchanged attacks at angles off to the side that could never actually reach either of them.
John was currently defending a poor training dummy that was nearly being flash-boiled by steam. He could have simply coated it in an impenetrable shield of ice- at least impenetrable by any Soul Expansion Phase cultivator- but that wouldn’t provide optimal interactivity. Instead, he created only a thin layer of protective ice to absorb the incoming heat while he redirected it into the ground- over quite a wide distance, such that Albin had barely increased the temperature of the stone beneath them compared to the midday sun.
It didn’t seem particularly exciting, but the point was for Albin to create a greater intensity of heat. A sustained attack was valuable in its own right, but usually if defenses could be overwhelmed all at once that was a valuable option. It wasn’t always correct as trying to force the matter could leave an opening, but it could potentially save spiritual energy compared to a sustained match.
“You have geysers here, don’t you?” John asked.
“Some,” Albin said. “Why?”
“You need to act more like them. Build up some pressure before releasing.”
They weren’t trying to cook a meal. Sustained temperature wasn’t that great, unless there was a particular strategy. But Albin’s stamina couldn’t compare to John’s for various reasons, so he would just wear himself out even if John limited himself to a certain quantity of spiritual energy.
John didn’t know if it actually mattered if Albin grew stronger, but it was clear he wanted to. Helping people with personal growth was good, and when that strength became necessary for battle it would be too late to train. John anticipated there would be more trouble, and they had just come from a war. It wasn’t unreasonable that the north coast might end up in conflict as well- though hopefully not with their immediate neighbors. The tournament should hopefully continue to fulfil one of its purposes in that regard.
