Depthless Hunger

Chapter 208: Steady Steps Toward the Inevitable

Kai returned to Slaerta with new enthusiasm for his training. He might not be able to control the many variables involved in the revolution, but he would put everything he had into the one thing that relied entirely on him.

There was no more time for any celebrations or any of the workers trying to flirt with him. His reserves had been thoroughly restored and it was time to push himself to the limits again. When he needed a break he just returned to Yurwa or Nirka and it was honestly easier to stay with familiar faces.

Because cultivation led to incremental gains and he was unlikely to increase his Soul Level soon, Kai focused the majority of his work on his Physique and his monstrous abilities. He'd eaten Krysal out of all its strongest monsters, apparently, but he could strengthen the powers already inside him. Training Physique felt like running head-first into a cliff, but he kept pushing himself, because he couldn't wait decades to break through.

One day he returned to Yurwa's house, sore and exhausted from his training, and was surprised to find Zae Zin Nim there. She was helping Gundle juggle several different spheres of acid, which made him laugh. He didn't laugh often, so it was good to see. Yurwa sat nearby, quietly cultivating acid between her hands and she gave him a welcoming smile.

"When did you get back?" Kai asked.

"Yesterday," Zae Zin Nim told him. "Krainuun thinks something is wrong, but won't talk about it. Probably going to talk to you."

"Do you think I need to go over there?"

"Probably not. He'll insist later."

With Yurwa busy training and Zae Zin Nim present, clearly nothing was going to happen, but Kai stayed with them anyway. As he did, he found himself laughing along with Gundle - how long had it been since he'd laughed? Just spending time with them did a lot for his weariness, even if his body was still sore.

As they worked, he saw the difference between himself and Zae Zin Nim. He could cultivate qi, reinforce his body, and even use a minor technique or two. It was like he beat enemies over the head with a big metal stick, while she had trained her entire life with a sword. Her control of qi was so precise and fluid that she could easily adapt her knowledge to the acid cultivation, which he didn't even take on. Even if the two of them reached the same stage of cultivation at some point, they wouldn't truly be the same.

Eventually Kai left them, seeking Nirka. Most likely she would be at the training yards, with Maggle and the others formerly from the N District Mines. As the revolution grew bloodier and they lost allies, more and more of them avoided the celebrations and focused on training. Now that they'd fought more crystalliers, even though they'd often won, they understood what they faced against real experts.

Before he could find her, Kai was surprised to run across Omilaena. She sat in a corner, apparently extracting her own blood with a syringe. After examining it and tapping the side a few times, her eyes abruptly flickered over to him.

"What now?"

"Nothing, I was here for someone else." Kai glanced at her soul briefly and was reminded of a fact he hadn't considered in a while. "We should talk about Physique. I see you work on a lot of things, but not really physically training. Did you get to D rank because the chakra on Rosemount is just that strong, or are you doing squats when nobody is looking?"

"Well, I'm glad you think my ass looks like I do squats, but no." Omilaena arched her hand and the syringe disappeared into thin air. "There are certain techniques I can use as a Lethal Artisan - you could think of them as superior versions of your Physique-enhancing potions. Those got me to D-0, but I'm actually stuck there. To progress, I'll probably need to do a lot of remedial training, and not on Deadwaste due to the low energy levels."

"I've barely done any of that sort of thing. Any chance those same techniques could help me break through?"

Omilaena's eyes swept up and down his body. "Maybe. They're most effective on myself, but... maybe. But if you want to do it without harming your growth, you need to be at the absolute peak of E rank first. Keep training and I'll extract some blood from you later."

Kai ended up staying with her, discussing potential options for advancement, and forgot all about relaxing. It seemed like Omilaena would need to draw blood from him when he was pushing himself to his absolute limit, something about the mana saturating his body. He wasn't sure he was ready yet, and she agreed, so he resolved to keep pushing himself. At least now he had a plausible goal instead of ramming directly into the blockage with willpower alone.

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As he trained, he watched the gold to crystal ratio increase and wobble around the critical point. Frustratingly, it seemed like there would be no single break. In some cities it had passed beyond one hundred Eagles, while others varied in the nineties. There was nothing they could do but press on, defend the workers they could, and wait for the merchants to break. The damage to the economy meant the common people in the cities were no longer living in luxury, and their new restlessness threatened them from another angle.

Finding new ways to train his Physique proved difficult, as he'd already spent time in the crystal mines and acid pits. Most of the others were making progress by exchanging techniques with other groups, but he'd already trained with all of them.

The solution came, surprisingly, from Yurwa. She had been trying a different form of acid cultivation and Zae Zin Nim said that she could create acid that was fundamentally more dangerous, not just loaded with qi. Once he heard about it and convinced her, Kai and Yurwa went to one of the abandoned courtyards to test it out.

"Okay... try this..." Yurwa raised her hands and sent out a sphere of acid.

It splattered off his shirt. "Is that the best you can do?" Kai asked, before realizing that might sound offensive. But Yurwa just looked a little flustered.

"It's hard to tell what will hurt someone and what won't... the miners are weak to crystal weapons, and... but you know this." Her eyes hardened and the acid forming between her hands began to glisten strangely. "I won't hold back this time."

The sphere struck his chest and instantly ate through the cheap shirt, then sizzled into his chest. Kai winced and rubbed at the evaporating liquid. "Ow."

"Are... are you just humoring me? That didn't burn you at all!"

"But it hurt." Kai rubbed at the skin, which looked a little discolored. "I haven't been really hurt by acid in a long time, and I think my skin is weakened. Keep going."

Yurwa dutifully summoned another sphere and launched it at him. Kai grimaced as it struck his chest and burned worse than before. Behemoth's Heart could probably regenerate him faster than the acid could burn, but he held it back and focused on pure Physique. At last, he had a sustained threat that could continue while exercising.

He'd come to think of Yurwa as fragile and easily exhausted, but she kept lobbing acid spheres at him without slowing. Her aim started to get a little worse as she wavered, some of the spheres hitting his stomach and dripping down. Then he noticed a slight smile on her face.

"Wait, are you missing on purpose?" he asked.

"Why would I do that?" Her eyes went wide with innocence at the same moment she threw an acid sphere directly at his crotch.

Laughing, Kai kicked it with his bare foot. The acid splattered backward, and though it burned a few holes in her robe, it couldn't harm her skin anymore. Yurwa laughed and skipped to the side, spraying him with more acid, which he tried to ward off and back toward her.

Before their clothes were too tattered, Krainuun appeared in the yard. Judging from his expression, the fun was over.

"Is everything alright?" Kai asked. The former servant shook his head and his adam's apple trembled.

"I didn't think... I misjudged the merchants"

"What are you talking about?"

"The merchants in Yulthens." Krainuun straightened and adopted a serious expression, but Kai could tell that it was an extremely thin mask. "They were truly fighting one another in the past, but they kept it up as a front after they started working together. They've been recruiting other city states to work as a unified front, and now... look at this."

He revealed a sheet of paper, the sort that would be posted in a town square. Kai quickly read it over and saw that it called on everyone in Krysal to crush the uprisings. It wouldn't have been so worrying except that Krainuun looked shaken. If he thought Yulthens had made enough preparations to threaten them, he was probably right.

"They've sent this everywhere," Krainuun told them, "and they'll soon build a coalition. But there's something more. Something they only sent here." He pulled a small object out of his pocket and his control trembled briefly, sending something shining toward the floor.

Kai snapped down to catch the message crystal and held it up to his eye. He glanced at Krainuun, who only shook his head sadly. There was nothing else to do, so Kai activated it and let his gaze fall into the expanding vision. It was an ornate chamber, one of the highest offices in Yulthens. Suortril sat at a desk with his fingers steepled in front of him.

"This is a message to the rebels who think they can undermine Krysal," the merchant said calmly, "and especially to the one called Kai Clanless. I'm astonished you survived, but I can piece the story together. However you did the impossible, you decided to throw your lot in with the workers. No doubt you thought this was your path to revenge against me."

Suortril reached down behind the desk and pulled up a severed head. Orillia's face had sagged and bloated, but it was still unmistakable. All the old woman's vitality was gone, leaving nothing but a wrinkled object.

"Everyone who supported this rebellion will suffer the consequences. You think you can defeat Krysal by fighting a few crystalliers, but you're about to find out how much you've miscalculated. Krysal is going to war, and it won't stop until there is no trace of you." Suortril leaned forward, no emotion visible except in his hand tensing against the desk. "Then you'll be nothing but an inconvenient line on a ledger and everything will go on just the way it always has. Think about that while we come for you."

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