The last time John had come to the Blustering Peaks seeking new connections, his vision was still limited. He’d simply wanted to make sure everywhere adjacent to Astrein was allies, he hadn’t even been thinking of the full continent.
Now he wasn’t willing to accept anything less. They weren’t really that far. Uniting the whole planet would be interesting, but John wasn’t certain that was reasonable even at his current strength. While strength wouldn’t be the only determining factor in such things, it was quite important. Even after all he’d done with the alliance, cultivators outside of it respected strength first and logic second.
The other difficulty with expanding beyond the continent was that not everyone was even properly part of the alliance. There were various layers to things, with the basic level being more of a peace pact than a defensive alliance. People would need to be convinced that following the rules would be best for them both short and long term.
Despite the surface level similarities with the Frozen Heights, the Blustering Peaks were air dominant. Any cold and ice was simply coincidental. In truth, there actually was a significant quantity of water elemental spiritual energy on the side adjacent to the Shimmering Islands. The ratio was about one third and two thirds, which just met the standard threshold for a region being traditionally multi-element. In the rest of the Blustering Peaks, the water element generally didn’t go above one tenth, which was sufficient to augment the air element but difficult to use directly. Astrein had proportionately half again as much of every element and nearly triple in total quantity, though the even proportions of elements made it difficult for those not trained to make use of the spiritual energy at all. In many ways, cultivators thrived in imbalance.
The Six Elements Crossroads expedition took a mixture of proper roads and more difficult pathways through the mountains meant to challenge some of their members. They took some time to visit various different groups to not show too much favoritism, but John did have a particular destination in mind.
He returned to the Rising Storm Palace not just because they were familiar, but because he specifically intended to train with one of their elders. Bahadur had been helpful with his previous attempts to develop air element body tempering methods, and while John hadn’t taken that as far as he had Diamond Defense, the various small improvements had still been valuable for him.
Since the sect head had been away during the first visit, John hadn’t interacted with Ronan as much. If John was just a senior disciple or elder, perhaps even head of a smaller sect, then focusing on a particular elder wouldn’t be odd, but he’d need to show sufficient face to Ronan as well. Not that John had anything against the man, it was merely that they had less history together.
-----
When John was seeking out insights to help him combat Abritt, Ronan had unfortunately fallen short of the list. He simply hadn’t been strong enough, and even now he wasn’t quite at the Ascending Soul Phase. With the ravine of nearly an entire phase between them, he wouldn’t be matching up against Abritt any time soon.
John hadn’t been planning to gain any massive insights on his journey. He understood that most people would be in a lower phase than he was, and ultimately the small insights he gained often resulted from teaching others. In time when he gained nothing of value, the exchanges of insights were hopefully at least beneficial to the disciples he brought with him.
Ronan wasn’t trying to replicate the style of the Sky Islands, but he was interested in the wind techniques that Abritt used. John had little hesitation sharing what he had learned from the conflicts he had seen and experienced. He wasn’t quite capable of producing the same results himself as he had less focus on air, but he could create a sufficient whirlwind to suppress even a late Consolidated Soul Phase cultivator for quite some time.
Ronan’s attempts to assert a small area for himself were never able to gain a foothold, as John bolstered his air element with the core cycle to boost his power. With a handful of ranks advantage to begin with, the fact that he wasn’t a pure or dual element cultivator didn’t particularly weaken the effects.
Even to move around, the sect head needed to advance his insights. While they weren’t fighting in the air on small platforms, the Blustering Peaks did have large cliffs that one could fall off of. At Ronan’s cultivation level he wouldn’t die from a fall, but it would be embarrassing to be blown away.
He managed to hold his ground, but couldn’t do much more than shuffle his feet for the first few sessions of training. Eventually he was able to carve off a small area for himself that John’s influence was weak enough, and he was able to move at a reasonable walking pace. Still slow for a cultivator battle, leaving him vulnerable to additional attacks, but promising. If he could gain a bit more insight and potentially reach the next phase, he could at least fight back against someone like Abritt. John didn’t know if Abritt herself would continue to be a problem- if she was, Ursel would have grown far more- but helping an ally improve their own abilities was worthwhile enough.
-----
John was quite glad to help Ronan train, but he was glad to get some time with Bahadur once such political obligations were fulfilled. “I’ve been partially successful with multiple methods of air element body tempering,” John declared. “They may not be so visibly striking as Diamond Defense, but they’re a worthwhile investment I think.”
“Interesting,” Bahadur said. “Did you successfully improve your speed?”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
John nodded. “My reaction time is noticeably improved. Compared to other Ascending Soul Phase cultivators, I can feel a real difference.”
It was a very slow process John was still undergoing, since he had no desire to permanently screw up his nerves somehow. It also wasn’t quite as visible as something like Diamond Defense, because he couldn’t just stab his reflexes with a sword. Nor could he expect that he would have an improvement of similar proportions. John’s skin was more than a few times sturdier than normal. To withstand any level of attacks from spiritual energy, it had to be tens or hundreds of times.
His reaction speed wasn’t twice as fast- or at half the delay. Not even close. But shaving off any fraction of time was significant. Measuring exactly how much wasn’t possible with the technology level of the world, though he could compare to others.
“Have you formalized it?” Bahadur asked.
“I’ve created elementary forms of various body tempering techniques,” John said. “It seems to be a worthwhile investment for any cultivator to find at least one area they wish to improve.”
More wasn’t always better, because the time and resource investments could allow a cultivator to simply improve their rank being generally better in all ways. However, spiritual energy did better with a stronger base, amplifying the body to greater heights. As with everything it was a balancing act.
Diamond Defense was most useful if attacks frequently got through energy defenses, and unless a cultivator was exhausted and thus in a state where they had already lost, that usually meant being able to measure the threat of an incoming attack and resist accordingly. Most people weren’t willing to take such risks. That said, it wasn’t too uncommon for part of an attack to slip through energy defenses in battle.
Some of the other techniques John had developed were also situational. He didn’t need to purge his body from toxins in the vast majority of battles- in fact, those particular adjustments had been pretty much useless so far.
But improved reactions were pretty much always useful. There might be an exception of going too far and being twitchy or overreacting to feints, but in general John had just sped up responses he was already performing. Rather than being faster, he usually felt like his body responded better.
“I don’t mind sharing the basic version with you,” John said. “And the sect. Anything beyond that simply isn’t ready for use without personal guidance, so it would be detrimental.”
“We would appreciate whatever you feel comfortable sharing,” Bahadur said. “And I’m certain that the disciples will be more confident knowing it came from someone like you, with powerful cultivation.”
“Even Ascending Soul Phase cultivators have our flaws. We might not know of them because we do our best to eradicate them, but if I hadn’t taken a personal interest in body tempering these techniques would be no better than random speculation,” John said. “Or perhaps worse, since there are fewer things to compare to if one is trying to determine if the technique is flawed. Most people would have to make the attempt and experience the flaws themselves to have any idea. At that point, it’s a bit late.”
Bahadur’s contributions hadn’t been much more than theory, but being taken seriously had been good enough at the time. Because of that, John had remembered him fondly all this time.
-----
From the Blustering Peaks they came to the Shining Coast. It was the first light element region they had been in on the entire journey, partially because the core elements were more common and partially because that was just how the route worked out. They had gone past the Sunfields and simply hadn’t been on the southern end of the continent except for their start in the Gloom Desolation.
Light was the one element John was truly weak with, and thus the one he needed to train the most. If he didn’t have any other responsibility, he thought that he would probably do best by spending as much time as possible in light element regions- within reason. He did still need to maintain his balance with other elements, after all.
The previous journey to the Shining Coast had resulted in unfortunate conflicts. This time, John knew the area better and was expected by groups that were ready to welcome him. Even if there were some bitter thoughts left over, few would be willing to act on anything.
The ultimate goal was to reach the Lunar Island on the far edge of the region, but John and the others had plenty of training they could do along the way. For those who had a cycle of core elements, balancing light and darkness in the future would be critical. Personally, John would recommend that any who started with the core elements would stick with them into the Ascending Soul Phase instead of trying to pick up one of the outer elements so late in cultivation, but he had to admit his personal bias.
After all, he had begun from darkness with a rather ambitious plan. If things had gone as most of those around him would have expected, John would have bound totems for Darkness, Earth, and Air before stagnating in the Soul Expansion Phase. His ambitions required him to go beyond the expected limits of the time even for the most basic form. However, he hadn’t wanted to make a small cycle of allied elements before trying to bridge the gap. That sort of reach felt like it would have been unbalanced.
Certainly, it had not fit him. It might be survivorship bias that made John think his way was better, but there were at least logical points and various insights to go along with his feelings. It likely would be difficult.
Now, John was near the end of the journey- but he had the most difficult step yet. In that way, Viriato might have an advantage, having overcome the light and darkness divide early on. Though personally John thought that was an insane risk if people had a choice. Ereli might agree, though her choice had never been there to begin with.
Light reflected off of the sands into his eyes. It was unpleasant, but not as much as it would have once been. John absorbed light element into his dantian, carefully setting it aside. Yet it wasn’t walled off from his darkness element, despite the potential dangers of them reacting. If John wanted to carry elements separately, he would just invest in light element objects or bring a light cultivator with him.
No, he wanted a healthy ecosystem. And if he got light placed just right, it kept a balance with darkness. It was all about letting it orbit the core without being too close- and thus drawn in- or too far and thus drifting away. John pictured it like planetary rings. Or a halo. Both were wonderful pictures, but actually achieving such a state proved difficult. Especially without a totem. But to properly bind a totem, he needed a sufficient level of control of light to begin with. And greater cultivation. Thus, everything had to be built piece by piece. John hoped he wasn’t missing some critical component.
