An unrestrained voice sang out cheerfully from within the Immortal's Cave beneath the Heaven and Earth Vine, accompanied by the soft slap and churn of water.
"Scrub, scrub the blood,
Scrub, scrub the dirt;
Skin like jade, fair and white,
Only this makes the girls eyes bright…"
The singing tapered off, dissolving into a long, contemplative yawn that echoed faintly against stone. "Yaawa… Hey Mountain — can you still talk?"
The walls of the cave vibrated, a basso profundo rolling through stone and water alike. "YES. WHY?"
In the bathing pool of the cave, Chún dropped the used soapgrass into the hot water, wincing. "Trying out new voices? Speak a little softer with that one, please?" He looked upward through the steam rising from the water and leaned back against a convenient rock ledge, closing his eyes.
A rustle of moving air followed, a sonorous, horn-like hum that took a moment to separate itself into words. "Is… this an… improovement?"
Chún laughed quietly. "A little, but you sound like someone speaking through a bamboo pipe."
"I doo noot have a throoat oor moouth too speak with," the Mountain Spirit replied, the sound bending oddly as it passed through the cave. "I have too use oother ways of making soound."
Chún raised an eyebrow. "So, what — you really are blowing air through a pipe?"
"The vent at the toop oof the cave that alloows the air too circulate; the air makes different soounds depending oon hoow the wind bloows throough. Befoore — I vibrated the walls oof the cave," the Mountain explained.
"Huh. Well, you can just use our connection," reminded Chún, "unless you wanted the Silver Snake to hear you?"
A somehow derisive hiss sounded from the ledge above the pool where the Silver Sapling grew, lighting the cave.
"He does not seem impressed — let us just communicate like this unless we need someone else to hear," Chún thought down the link to his locus.
"Yes, Chún. Is that all?" floated back down the link along with a sensation of disinterest.
"No. I wanted to ask…" There was an embarrassed pause.
"Yes?"
"I just noticed… what has happened to my skin?"
"You will need to be more specific."
Chún's face flushed and he blurted, "Why does my skin look like it belongs to some Consumer hero from one of the Storyteller's tales — all jade white? I am an orphan peasant! Not to mention, jade-white skin is for girls…"
"Channelling and manipulating Essence — Cultivation — destroys the impurities in the body, bringing it closer to perfection. You have advanced a great deal in the past few weeks. Your body has been completely rebuilt multiple times by Essence waves, each time brought closer to the perfect form according to your Dao.
You have channelled a planet's worth of Essence — more than any average Consumer would encounter in their lifetimes. You look nothing like that orphan boy who used to hunt on my hills."
Chún's eyes flew open. "I look like a Cultivator?"
A distinct sensation of rolling eyes travelled down the link. "You ARE a True Cultivator."
Chún raised a palm before his face, studying it intently as he turned it this way and that.
Fine, crystal-clear skin met his gaze — no visible pores, no hair, as if the surface had been polished smooth. Muscle lay clearly defined beneath it, fingers long and evenly shaped.
Chún asked softly, "Can you show me what I look like?"
An Essence image formed above him: a man leaning back in the clear waters of the pool, looking down at himself.
He looked sixteen or seventeen summers old to Chún's eyes — older than he felt, older than he remembered ever being treated — a face of smooth angles: high forehead, striking dark eyes upswept at the corners beneath thin, platinum-coloured, sword-like eyebrows; high cheekbones; a sharp, proud nose, slightly upturned at the end.
Chún raised a hand. The image mirrored him — a sparkling white arm lifting, sharply defined muscles rippling smoothly beneath porcelain-like skin. He drew his hand back and ran his fingers through the thick, platinum hair hanging to his shoulders.
He pulled a strand before his eyes. It gleamed in the Silver Tree's light, heavy and cool against his fingers — like a fortune of silver drawn out into hair.
The Mountain hummed. "The hair is a new change, but given the amount of Essence you were the conduit for last night, understandable. Creatures exposed to a great deal of Essence in a short period lose pigment — the more Essence, the paler their hair and skin become. Incidentally, when the Essence rebuilds you, it also makes you tougher. I doubt your skin would take damage from anything short of the most intense Essence attacks from Sky-level Essence Beasts or Consumers at this point."
It paused. "I would not recommend anyone but a True Cultivator attempt this method of Cultivation. A True Body is designed to channel Essence. Ordinary humans and beasts would simply vaporise — even after Cultivating."
Chún let the hair fall and sank his hand back into the water. "I thought Teacher told me True Cultivators follow their own Dao — seek to draw closer to the perfection of their Dao. Not change who they are. Is that not what Consumers do?" he asked, confusion threading his voice.
A sense of reassurance flowed down the link. "This is who you are, Chún. You have never been more 'you' in your life."
Chún shook his head, yawning. "Then why do I look like… a prince, or a demi-god… or something? Why do I not look like me anymore?"
The Mountain was silent for a moment. "This is hard to explain," it answered through the link, carrying hesitation with it.
"Try. I feel like I have been replaced with someone else."
A sigh stirred the cave — a gust from above rippling the pool and setting Essence motes dancing.
"All creatures in the multiverse once started out as perfect — what you would call Dao. Over a very long time, even as I measure it, things went wrong, and some Dao became… less."
The pause carried a sense of incomprehensible stretches of eternity.
"At some point, someone decided things needed to change. That life needed to build up instead of falling down. So Essence was placed into every living thing.
Essence halts corruption. If there is enough, it raises the life-form higher — closer to the original perfect form: its Dao. We call this Cultivation."
"If your parents, and theirs before them, and theirs again — had never started to become less, had never known damage, pain, or misfortune, and never passed such harm onward — then this is how you would have been born. This is how the universe is meant to be — perfect. Perfect does not mean identical."
The Mountain sighed again at Chún's confusion. "Watch."
Another Essence image appeared — one Chún recognised faintly from reflections in water: thin and stunted, skin yellowed from malnutrition, dark and blotchy from exposure; black, straw-like hair; a heavy forehead and thick eyebrows; sunken eyes, a flat nose, thick cheekbones.
"That is me!" Chún exclaimed. "Not that other… whatever…"
"That WAS you," his locus corrected patiently. "Now watch — this is what happened after each time you absorbed a great deal of Essence, linked to me… or were tempered by an ignition wave…"
The figure straightened and grew taller. Skin paled as strong muscle formed beneath it, veins glowing with health. Hair thickened and shone; cheekbones lifted; the nose reshaped. Lips thinned, teeth straightened, eyebrows refined, eyes deepened and sparkled with Essence.
Chún could still recognise himself — even though he had never looked so good in his life. It was him, only corrected.
"OK. I can see myself there — even if I look like the handsomest man in the village. But…"
"That is how you looked when you went to the village three days ago," his locus interrupted.
"Oh!" Chún said, understanding dawning. "That explains a few things — like the tailor's reaction." Then his face fell. "Damn! That means I wasted time learning that Unimportance Manifestation — no one would have recognised me anyway!"
"You could still recognise yourself," his locus replied. "What would have happened if someone else had recognised you?"
Chún's eyes widened. "Ah… trouble. They would be sure I had found something special. Especially with the herbs and furs…"
"And your staff."
"Yea… hang on, what?"
"You think a staff that looks like it was forged by a Master Smith from unknown metal into the likeness of a living tree would be considered ordinary?"
Chún winced. "Ai. I did not add the Manifestation to the fur, the herbs, or the staff… I made a mistake. Maybe a bad one."
The Mountain hummed. "Maybe. As long as you were holding them, no one would consider any of it important — or worth remembering — unless they possessed exceptional will or protection against mind-affecting Manifestations. Such Formations lie beyond ordinary Consumers."
Chún exhaled, yawning immediately after. "All right. I will worry later. I am still exhausted," he said, the weight of it settling fully into his limbs.
"Not surprising. You slept outside beside the fire-pit last night. Your body is still recovering."
"Hey — I didn not want to dirty my bed," Chún protested. "I ate and jumped straight in here once I woke…"
"Halfway through the next day," the Mountain noted dryly, "but the point remains. The Manifestation is now more important than ever, unless you want the Lotus Empire taking an interest the next time you visit the village."
"Because I look like some demi-god descended — and you still haven not explained why…"
The image flared white. Chún watched as scars, hair, pores, every trace of ordinariness burned away, leaving perfect symmetry: sharpened cheekbones, widened phoenix eyes, chiselled features, brows heavy with quiet authority.
Yet he could still see himself there — corrected, not replaced.
"I am still me," he murmured. "That was after repairing the battle and closing the rift yesterday...?"
"Yes." A pause. "You came extremely close to dying. No other True Cultivator would have survived."
"Nothing else could be done."
"True."
"Then I am stronger now, right?"
"Yes. It is extremely unlikely you could be exposed to enough Essence to be harmed again."
Chún lifted a finger, then lowered it. "I am going to pretend you did not just say that. The Heavens love testing such statements. How is it I am smarter than an ages-old Mountain?"
A long silence followed, then an abashed sensation. "You have a point. Apologies."
"Have mercy, Heavens — my locus did not mean it," Chún muttered as he stepped from the pool. His foot brushed a puddle of coolness: Essence mist, smoke, and motes — his cloak — lying beside the slash of night sky that was his staff.
He squatted. "Well, you two are definitely not coming into the village looking like this."
A shiver passed through both items. Between one miǎo and the next, an ordinary leather cloak and black wooden staff lay on the stone.
Chún lifted them. Weight unchanged. Texture familiar. Even his Essence Sense found nothing at all.
"Good. Dispose of any evil types who touch you. Guess I can wear you anywhere." He yawned and hung the cloak beside his sleeping nest, resting the staff against the wall.
"I am exhausted. Keep watch, everyone? Silver Tree… could you pretend it is night?"
The light dimmed agreeably.
"Thank you — good night."
As he drifted off, a soft whisper passed his ear.
"Sleep well, friend."