Hao crawled out backward, his robe climbed his legs and chest. He kicked out the lid behind him with a blunt thud. Free of the claustrophobic place, he crouched down and adjusted his clothing and hair while turning. A smile grew on one side of his face. He didn’t look at anything else in the series of spaces and tunnels. He stared at an odd wall with a perfectly smooth, gray surface. Only one imperfection: a round cap like the one he just kicked out.

  It led to a small hollow deep within the mountain, where no one could reach. It was his cultivation Chamber, which made him shiver with excitement. Not for the first time.

  There were a lot of finds in the cave, if you were a person of a certain mind and skillset. Of course, Day-Night Amethysts and ores. The place beyond the boulder had been looted for weeks or months before the boulder collapsed, meaning there were no Amethysts larger than the ones he had taken off those he punished in Mo Bangcai’s group. Still, there were things to take, which made complaining hard, not that Hao would have if the place had long emptied of resources. He was here for another reason as well.

  Behind the boulder lay another cave within the tunnel. A man-made room of Hao’s devising. It was sealed airtight with a stone lid, much heavier and more obvious than the one that had brought him to the section of the mine.

  It was his cultivation room. The ideal place for secluded cultivation, a place to trap most of the World Energy that he made inside the Spirit-Holding bag.

  Hao had only used the room once before. He made it a while ago, but wanted to save as much of his material as possible. His attempt at being efficient.

  The day he carved the hollow out, it was crude and compact, but usable. He used it then, lightly. He let out only enough of the World Energy inside his bag to remove some of the weight. To make his movements fast and clean.

  The bag added weight for everything, but a stone was lighter than the lightest beast, and World Energy alone and pure was heavier than anything. Its physical weight seemed to matter less than its ‘spiritual weight,’ Hao called it.

  Hao’s short cultivation session back then helped him stabilize his Seventh Layer. It was the first time he had to do such a thing.

  Every breakthrough beforehand was an explosive leap up a set of stairs. Those all had auxiliary assistance. His breakthrough to the Seventh Layer was done all by himself, which, if every layer was a step on a set of stairs, left the step he crawled onto shaky. It made him further realize what talent and aptitude meant, and what lack it left him, if he didn’t have the Drinking-Stone and the Spirit-Holding bag to utilize it efficiently.

  The stabilization was not done purely by himself. The bag obviously—World Energy, so dense it felt more like the Spirit Qi of a Senior than the thin energy he was used to dealing with. He couldn’t help but try a few Amethyst during that session. One little taste left him nearly drunk with excitement for today.

  After that, when he was in the mine, he would spend a few minutes touching up the Cultivation room. He made it comfortable.

  The walls were smoothed until soft to the touch, with slots in all four corners that perfectly fit small Spirit Stones for light.

  Impressing himself with his control over earth and water, all five elements, for that matter. It was the carving of stone that further grew his complex view of nature, not quite fearful, but something close.

  Hao never forgot the lesson he got his first week inside the Secret Realm. Learned from the tiny creatures that insisted on taking up some of the space in his first shelter to wait out the summer storms. They wet their claws before digging. They dug well, precisely, quickly, leaving only dust behind. Hao had known and practiced it for a while, now he could vibrate water on his hand, making the surface of his palm. His hand became a thousand tiny raindrops that eroded the stone.

  It didn’t have use beyond that. Still, it was a neat trick, if nothing else, and helped him understand the relationship of the Five Mortal Elements.

  Hao looked left and right. For no reason other than he could and should, practiced caution always paid forward. Even if there were no people, what would stop a lizard that could crawl between cracks in the stone and take its leg back to its nest?

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  There was nothing, of course. Not even any amethysts. Anything that was left behind had already been taken by him, and today, he planned to use some of them.

  Hao made his way into his Cultivation chamber.

  The lid came off easily. Leaving a maw in the wall that swallowed the light of the Spirit Stone in his hand. He threw the Spirit Stone in first. It helped more than he thought. He didn’t have to go inside this one backward; it wasn’t that long of an entrance, just long enough.

  “Okay, let’s get this right…” Hao muttered to himself, pulling the lid and sealing himself inside.

  Spirit Stones first for light. The white ones with their pure bright glow that made it hard to miss tiny details. Day-Night Amethysts, he placed down around him. The moment he took out the first, the hollow began to glow.

  The golden light grew faster than the purple. It swirled like storm clouds, purple quickly catching up and overtaking the gold. Inside the stone, they were like a mist. Outside the stone, it swirled like normal World Energy, except for the rich colors. Outside, they were just pretty patterns that danced on the walls, getting brighter with each Amethyst he took out — For now.

  Hao checked the integrity of the room before taking out any more. He let out a small cloud of World Energy. The amount wasn’t great, but once he would have considered it more than previously, it was important to keep.

  It blocked his vision, lingering for a few seconds. Then it vanished as he pulled it in, swirling through his Qi channels attached to his core. It was a good sign. The room could hold World Energy. He planned to push the limits of the World Energy in the bag today; if he couldn’t touch the Eight Layer, he would delve deeper into the secrets of the Spirit-Holding bag.

  More amethysts were placed in a formation around him, four Fist-sized gemstones close to him in the four cardinal directions. Then, three circles around him are going out wide. He didn’t have any stones that left him dumbfounded, not the ones he had taken from the men in Mo Bangcai’s group. Hao used only the ones he mined. He didn’t want the scent of blood to distract him. That ending battle would be any day now, and conflicts had already started and were fresh in rumors.

  Hao let his thoughts turn to mud in his mind as he sank the part of him he thought was his soul into the Spirit-Holding Bag. He wondered if it smelled good inside for just a second. Flowers and fruit, rare herbs, but the dozen beast corpses, one or two of the human variety, floated around unfettered. Food, even meat, didn’t rot, still…

  Hao opened up the bodies, all of them except one, the Demonic Feline Beast he killed after he attacked Mo Bangcai’s camp. He wanted to keep that one whole until he was in the Sect’s Food Hall. He had plans for it.

  It wasn’t easy to kill and capture beasts without spilling a drop of blood. The result was certainly worth it. At the first sign of the blood, the Drinking-Stone turned any liquid near it into a beautiful rainbow mist. The orb did as the name Hao gave it suggested. It crackled with joy. The rainbow mist vanished into the Ocean like a ball of light and spat out mists of other colors. Gold, white, the blood had not stagnated or rotted, so there was no dark red mist like he was expecting.

  Hao felt the weight multiply on him. The Bag on his chest became an anvil, trying to drag him down as a white mist permeated the Space inside. Strangely, it went beyond physically pulling on him.

  Outside the bag, Hao was gripping his head; the sensation of a hammer striking his brain nearly made him forget what he was doing. Droll ran freely down his chin as he focused.

  Vital Crystals in their golden color floated inside the bag. Hao forced them down, multitasking inside the space as he opened up another beast. He repeated until breathing itself was hard, and thinking became nearly impossible. The hammer hitting his head was replaced by the anvil, striking his organs.

  Hao knew he was rushing a bit, pushing the limits perhaps a little too far. But he needed one or the other. The breakthrough, or the Secrets of the Spirit-Holding bag. He needed something more to win inside the Secret Realm and survive longer when he got outside of this cage of a realm.

  A little more! He shouted to himself, perhaps it came from his mouth, he couldn’t tell at that point. With the push, he opened one of the jars of beast's blood, unable to cut the tough hides or leathery, scaled bodies of the beasts.

  Hao wanted to try; he had to. The walls of the bag expanded, the weight decreased, and increased in turn. The sensation was much worse than a steady increase.

  Hao saw a twinkle of light from the bottom of the bag, a reflection of something shiny, and he stopped there. Snot, maybe blood, ran over his lips, falling from his nose. He didn’t lose focus, just swapped what he was doing.

  He lifted one hand, with a tap to the ruby on his chest, and the Cultivation room became a cloud, and it was hard to breathe in.

  Hao caught just for a second as he took his first breath in, the gold and purple swirled into the white, and together the energy started to penetrate his pores. That was just the start of his Cultivation session.