Calculating Cultivation-Chapter 128: High Risk, High Reward

Drifting through the darkness of swirling dark gas was incredibly stressful. If the other vessel changed locations while I was moving, or there was some kind of spatial event that moved through this area I would be screwed.

I also couldn’t move that fast otherwise I would be located. I really needed to study up on the technical side of things much more once I had some spare time. I had been focused on arrays and formations for the longest time and Yang Zi had been too competent. I had put off this issue, which was a bad idea.

My thoughts drifted and I only had a split second of warning from my danger sense before I lightly impacted the enemy vessel and bounced off. I quickly adjusted the settings in the stealth suit and began to hover a very short distance above their hull.

I made sure that my orientation to the vessel remained the same and it wasn’t rotating beneath me. I did get to look at the hull paneling, which had a layer of gas over top. It was honestly quite an ingenious way to hide a vessel in the Firmament. But it was also incredibly expensive.

Pulling out the micro spatial cutter I carefully got to work. The worst part was that I couldn’t see the hull plating I was carefully cutting into in order to make an array. I also had to guess at the material composition and how that would impact the array. The reason why we were going with just a build up of energy and not anything threatening, was that threats were much easier to detect. A build up of energy would just expose their vessel and cause panic. If there was a threat, we would be the first target. It was a subtle nuance, but it was the only hope we had in this situation.

After all my recent work on the energy pumps and some practice beforehand with the micro spatial cutter, I knew exactly what I was doing. Like a chef knowing how to prepare food with their eyes closed after cutting up various vegetables for so long. The vegetable and the knife I was using this time was a bit different, but not enough to cause me any issues.

I finally finished and put the tool away. Now came the most dangerous part in my opinion. I carefully put my suited hand on top of the array and focused my mind. I released the smallest bit of energy that I could to activate the array. I felt it activate and immediately pushed off the hull with my hand. The energy pump was hidden, but there were intermittent readings I picked up, so I could make my way back.

I got back to the energy pump, put on the larger power armor and then made my way back to my vessel. The airlock opened and I had no problems entering. After taking everything off, I made my way to the bridge.

“Any issues?”

“Any problems?”

Both Yang Zi and I chuckled since we were both on edge and asked each other similar questions. I waved my hand at him and sat down, indicating he could go first. “Any problems?” he asked again.

“No. The array is working. No idea how long it will take or the material in question. I know you had some documentation, but without a test or staying around to observe, it is hard to say. But it will be fairly slow, but even the worst case would be less than a cycle, based on background energy,” I explained.

“That is good to hear. Nothing has changed here and I have been working out our next steps. We are going to alter the order of the energy pumps we are going to set up. I don’t want to give up some really good spots. Make it look like we are going for a spread out deployment. But we will have to set up another one within a quarter of a cycle, otherwise it will raise suspicions.”

“So, we will be losing a couple more?” I asked heavily.

“Yes. Until we lose our tail, any energy pump will have to be considered lost,” Yang Zi said. Better a couple energy pumps rather than our lives. We had started with 55 energy pumps, and now we were looking at going down to 50. The more we lost the longer it would take to get the amount of energy I needed before I died.

“We are setting off,” Yang Zi finally said, and I just nodded morosely, thinking about how much we had just lost. Millions upon millions of units, lost just like that.

“Frustrating,” I muttered.

“Cost of doing business. It would be far too easy for whomever is following us to wait at one of the energy pumps they know about hoping to get back on our trail.”

“We also can’t go back anytime soon either and look at incrementally upgrading,” I replied.

“Well, we can compress energy to a certain degree once we set up our on-board storage. The technical specifications aren’t that tricky. We just need energy binding liquid and then purification. Also, the more we store, the easier it will be to locate us,” Yang Zi said.

That was the complicated thing about a lot of technology and energy. Not everything worked in a nice three-dimensional manner. It was far too easy for things to be picked up even if they were hidden inside our vessel. There were too many esoteric detection techniques out there.

Looking at the display in front of me, we were traveling. Even with my ability to better sense changes in force I could barely pick up on anything being different. But that was a good thing. Rapid changes were easier to detect, and we wanted to remain hidden.

I was also surprised that things had gone smoothly, but my presence would have been hard to detect and could have been picked up as a minor variation. Active scanning would let people pick up your location, even if you had a much better chance of picking up everything nearby. That was how we knew it wasn’t a nearby super organization that was shadowing us. If they did patrols or anything else, they would make it obvious to scare other people away.

Again, this was the Firmament and there were always exceptions, but certain trends held true a much greater percentage of the time. Trying to think over every possibility and not making any assumptions would be impossible. You would never have perfect information. You would only get confirmation once you were caught and killed. Even then you might not know who even killed you.

That was why we had to operate off of assumptions and our best guesswork. I disliked it, but there are no other viable option. Even the best equipped super organizations would struggle in knowing everything. The Soaring Star Society was the perfect example of a super organization thinking they knew everything and then being wiped out.

I was just glad everything had gone off without a hitch when I inscribed the array into their hull. Now, the only thing we could do was wait. I kept a close eye on the readings that showed the vessel was there when I was on watch duty. They kept shadowing us as we made our way through the Firmament.

A quarter of a cycle later, we picked up the array on our passive sensors. It was a minor but persistent blip when tracking nearby energy, almost indistinguishable from the background energy. But it was there, and it had finally appeared.

“You think we can lure them anywhere or they notice?” I asked.

“They definitely don’t notice. If we weren’t looking, we wouldn’t even notice either. They occasionally shift positions around us, which helps them blend into the background better,” Yang Zi stated.

“A shame we don’t have any kind of weapons to disable them and capture their vessel, or at least scrap it,” I replied.

“Something that expensive, it probably has multiple redundant security lockouts. Taking an active vessel is incredibly hard, without it exploding in some way.” I nodded at Yang Zi’s explanation. We had talked a lot about this already, but it would be nice to get a much nicer vessel and all their equipment.

The problem was all the security systems in place. Even boarding an abandoned vessel was incredibly risky. Yang Zi had talked about this at length, how many crews that were somehow marooned in the Firmament chose to booby trap their vessels to take out whomever found them.

For some it was a matter of keeping technology and energy away from other super organizations. In most cases though it was spite. No one wanted to die and most beings traveling about the Firmament had a lot of spite. So, they would booby trap their vessels to make a huge mess if a salvage attempt was made.

It was also seen as a way to weed out the weak and incompetent. The idea of booby trapping vessels was encouraged. Incredibly elaborate and fiendish mechanisms were built. Yang Zi had talked about how one salvage operation had limited energy and stasis units. Rather than saving a single crew member, the crew decided to fill the stasis unit with reprogrammed, weaponized nanites. Once anything turned on in the ship, the stasis unit would deactivate and the nanites would swarm over everything, creating a disaster. They weren’t able to consume the gas mix in the Firmament where the vessel had been found, so the disaster was contained, but the entire vessel had been lost and Yang Zi had almost lost his life as well.

The skirmishes across the Firmament were legendary in this regard. Setting an impressive booby trap was seen as leaving a legacy behind. Not a great legacy, but a legacy that would kill others as well and make them suffer. Dying with grace was not the motto of almost all beings in the Firmament.

A third of a cycle after I had put the array on the enemy vessel I noted something interesting coming up in front of us. Lots of high energy readings and waves of Firmament gas. I quickly got Yang Zi who had been resting. He looked over the readings as well.

“What do you think it is?” he asked me.

“Possibly a battle, since it isn’t one big wave, but multiple smaller ones we are detecting between the boarder of two super organizations,” I answered and he nodded at this.

“Yep. Good job rerouting around such an area avoiding the super organizations entirely.”

“Well, you mentioned how they would be watching every direction, so better not get them excited. They might pick up on our tail,” I suggested.

“And get us along with them. We need them to break off and not get caught up in anything since they are better equipped than us.” I let out a sigh at this. I really wanted to attack or capture the enemy vessel if possible. I didn’t like being passive like this, preferring action instead. But there really was nothing we could do but travel and wait.

Being an energy pirate was all about immense amounts of stress, hiding, and not doing anything. I felt like I was just wasting time, while I knew I wasn’t. While other people would think I had a lot of time, cultivators would understand that if you weren’t hurrying constantly, then you were asking for death.

It was just that simple. If one wasn’t trying to reach immortality as quickly as possible they would fall behind for sure, since other people were hurrying just as much. Since this was the Firmament, I had no doubt there were other beings, or people out there that were just like me. Perhaps even in the same circumstance, no matter how hard that was to believe. The Firmament was infinite and anything that could happen would eventually happen.

Watching the readings come over the display did not do any justice to whatever major battle was happening out there, that we were taking a wide berth from. I knew Yang Zi was adjusting the route so we would stay near the places where he had planned for us to set up energy pumps.

My mind drifted to whatever battle was out there. I had seen some recordings in the Free Port of battles in the Firmament and the vast majority of them were over incredibly quickly. One side would have an advantage in one area of technology or energy and the losing side would quickly retreat if possible. If they couldn’t retreat, mutual self-destruction was often the end result.

That was why entrenched super organizations like the Heavenly Alliance used small craft instead of larger vessels when exploring, patrolling, or fighting off other super organizations. If the small craft wasn’t good enough, the cultivator would have to fight themselves. The overall cost was cheaper than manufacturing complex vessels for combat.

The cost of our vessel was massive. All that energy could be used to raise more cultivators. And the Heavenly Alliance had all the factions under them to do the menial tasks. I had no doubt that the rare individuals recruited from the lower ranks would be used as cannon fodder. That was a big reason why I didn’t want to go back and ask for help. I had fought this long for freedom and to make my own choices, I wasn’t about to give that up.

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The next time it was Yang Zi waking me up. I didn’t sleep that often, but when I was on the bridge I needed to focus. I mean really focus looking at all the displays and wiggling little lines, trying to see if there was anything unusual. It was mentally exhausting. While I did go on mental tangents occasionally and there were automated systems, looking over the displays was important. That was how we found our companions, who were still following us half a cycle after I had put the array on their vessel.

“We are here, time to set up another energy pump. We can’t put it off anymore,” Yang Zi said. I nodded at this. If we didn’t set up another one soon, that would raise suspicion. Half a cycle was really pushing it, but we didn’t want to waste energy pumps.

That meant I had to get it out of our vessel and set up. Yang Zi had made modifications, which would cause it to explode once anyone so much as blinked at it and it was operational, similar to what he had done for the first one. Once we lost our companion, the booby traps wouldn’t be as extreme. Right now there was no way to disarm them once set up. These energy pumps were purposely being set up and lost.

The first energy pump was still active. We would only know once every tenth of a cycle once the resonance beacon weakly activated on the pump connecting to one on our vessel. Still, it was a sign that we had only one vessel shadowing us, not multiple and they hadn’t culled their friends.

While super organizations could afford the best from the Free Port, they didn’t have endless pockets. Each super organization wanted to get more energy and not spend it all. That was why fighting super organizations was rarely done. The amount of energy they could have in reserve was immense and for most of them, their production went to whatever beings were in charge rather than defenses.

In terms of spending, most super organizations only spent between 20 to 40 percent on defense and infrastructure. With so many and most of them being secretive, it was only an estimate that had been cobbled togeather and often used as a discussion point for how rich super organizations actually were. They wanted to keep this number down while their top members got more and more energy themselves.

I remembered the folk of the Great Tree warning me about too much energy, but Yang Zi had called that superstitious nonsense. There were diminishing returns, the stronger one became, because it became harder to increase energy density, but there was no limit. Energy itself had no limit, so it stood to reason there was no actual limit.

It was frustrating to learn that the things I had been told might not have been true, but that was the nature of the Firmament. Everyone had their own ideas and had picked up conflicting sources of information. My personal guess was that the truth was somewhere in the middle.

At a certain point, increasing energy density would lead to beings using riskier and riskier sources. Eventually they would have enough energy that some sort of Chaos thing would happen like the Soaring Star Society. Getting incredibly dense sources of clean energy was basically impossible. The Infinite Ring Complex and what I had seen of the Soaring Star Society didn’t make me question their competence too much.

Once a being reaches a certain level of power, they aren’t going to make stupid mistakes. The stupid ones were killed off long ago. It was similar to how cultivation self-selected for driven and focused individuals. You would never make it to immortality if you didn’t have a certain level of drive to go all the way. Even the scions and young masters of powerful super organizations wouldn’t be given a free ride either. Competence and drive were highly valued.

The higher levels had their own risks. Eventually the risks would compound and the individual in question would be wiped out along with almost all traces of their existence. I could easily imagine old masters trying to fix their energy or purify it for ages upon ages in order to increase the density safely.

Then the entire issue became one of cost. How much energy was a super organization willing to spend on one individual. For super organizations that focused on a singular individual that was one way you got ancients. Powerful unique beings just hanging out in the Astral Plane or the Firmament doing whatever they wanted. It was nice to work out the life cycle of reality itself.

Once the second energy pump was set up, we waited around for a while, but not as long as with the first energy pump before departing.

“They have to see that spike of energy on their hull,” I said while looking at my display.

“Depends on how finely tuned and focused their passive sensors are. Since it is on their hull, they might not be able to detect it until it gets much worse. But their stealth is definitely compromised,” Yang Zi muttered while looking at the same display.

“That just creates more problems for us. We need them to detect the spike in energy and panic, so they break off their pursuit of us. Hmm, look at this. A large region of the Firmament is showing up empty.” Yang Zi quickly brought up the display showing the announced boarders between super organizations.

“Dammit!” Our spatial drive quickly slowed us down.

“What?” I asked.

“A replicator wave, a massive one. You can’t see any deformation or curvature, just a wall. The fact it has held togeather so long is a bad sign.”

“It isn’t expanding though, since all the boundary beacons are still working,” I pointed out. If it was expanding in a wave, then the super organizations boundaries would be going dark and there would be conflict.

“Don’t underestimate replicators. Anything bigger than the standard territory of a super organization is beyond powerful. My personal guess is that the intelligence behind the replicators stopped expansion or is focused on another threat. I knew most of these nearby super organizations weren’t on top of their game the last time I was out here, but they fled.”

“They just ran away? Really?”

“They might be waiting, but they clearly aren’t going to make any moves even against energy pirates. They knew this was coming, so they were probably trying to get benefits.”

“Well, the space is just blank, how do you know it is replicators, couldn’t it be chaos, or something else? A super calculator?” I asked.

“Unlikely, but possible. But a large region of the Firmament with no super organizations claiming anything out there. I don’t like it. Also, this space wasn’t here before, the last time I came through,” Yang Zi said. I nodded along. “If it was just unclaimed, or there wasn’t something out there then the nearby super organizations would be making a move. And Chaos while dangerous, wouldn’t survive that long in the Firmament without a lot of condensed energy.”

Those were good points. It was just that when I heard the word replicators, I imagined a wave of self-replicating robots spreading out from a singular point consuming everything in their path to make more robots. That did happen occasionally, but there was a lot more nuance involved in each of those events.

“Could we contact a nearby super organization? I aren’t going to set up an energy pump nearby, and there might be one that knows what is going on.” I suggested.

“And make us a target. Having this much stealth is just asking for super organizations to attack. Once we reach out, we might pick up some more tails or be attacked. Our nearby companion will also draw attention, which will make things complicated. Better to go to another area of the Firmament that has potential.”

We set off once again, Yang Zi inputting an entirely new route. “What about getting close? Might create problems for our companion?” I suggested.

“That could work, but it would be dangerous. But they might be locked onto at a distance, with whatever is at that boarder and we should be able to escape. That is the real problem, getting away if we get closer. There won’t be time to react.”

That was true, spatial drives could allow a vessel to move very quickly with very little warning. “Best not then,” I replied and Yang Zi nodded. I knew he wasn’t annoyed with my questions. He did the same thing for the energy parts of our operations. It was just a good way to check each other’s assumptions.

“You didn’t pick up anything with your danger sense?” Yang Zi asked.

“Nothing. Not a twinge, nothing,” I replied.

“That is a bad sign. High level of energy suppression or extraction in that area. Better not risk the unknown. We can hide from super organizations well enough, but whatever is out there is sweeping across a massive portion of the Firmament.” I had to repress a chuckle at that statement.

The Firmament was infinite and a large portion was just in comparison to the size of territories most super organizations claimed. Seeing something like a wall was large in comparison, but compared to the Firmament itself, it was nothing.

“That reminds me of the time we got macro-parasites. These things were as big as your finger. Infected an entire super organization, resulting in its demise. They would eat and eat, eventually they would explode eat so much they would divide into two pieces and keep eating. They were also a hive mind, so they would only attack one super organization at a time, while pretending the one they had consumed was still active.”

“That actually worked?” I asked in surprise. You would think someone would realize something was wrong.

“The level of crazy out here is not to be underestimated. You don’t live as long as I have by taking stupid risks. They did taste delicious though and had a high energy concentration. So many super organizations would buy the macro-parasites, called the All Eaters. Not an inventive name, but it translates well.”

“So, people would trade them or release them against their neighbors and harvest them afterwards,” I replied.

“One of the few things on the extreme banned list. It got bad enough that the remaining super organizations agreed to wipe the All Eaters out. No exceptions. Same with Chaos weapons. Everyone agrees stuff like that is just a bad idea that will backfire. Eventually there will be something new, but best to avoid that stuff.” I nodded in agreement.

Again, it came back to the point that you couldn’t have a stupid super organization. It just wasn’t possible. It would self-destruct incredibly quickly.

“Aren’t there communication issues across such a distance and keeping such a space togeather?” I asked Yang Zi.

“Yep. Eventually super organizations and that large space will drift togeather, or they probably already are. Could be a large buffer as well from an extremely territorial super organization that managed to defeat all its neighbors. Again, anything that can happen, will eventually happen. But I think a smart replicator is most likely if I had to bet.”

The possibilities were truly mind boggling. That was the most dangerous part about the entire Firmament, the unknown. It wasn’t the threat we could see, it was the threat we never saw coming that was the most dangerous.

Clearing away the nearby super organizations would be no small task either. Such a large scale battle would invite other super organizations to pounce on both sides, which in turn would draw more nearby super organizations. That was why conflicts were fairly rare for the most part.

Even the battle we detected wasn’t a huge battle. At most it was a minor one or a very big skirmish. Once a super organization deployed all its reserves into a war, it would be obvious at a very long distance. That much energy being used would easily be detected. There was no hiding a large scale conflict in the Firmament.

That unknown was what kept most super organizations at bay, not testing each other. Who knows what kind of crazy last resort weapon they had and were willing to use if they got desperate. It wasn’t a complete mutually assured destruction scenario, but it was close enough that no one would easily take that risk in most cases.

“And gone, look,” Yang Zi said as he brought up the nearby energy readings. Our companion had decided to leave us alone.

“They just left,” I said with some shock. I had hoped that would be the case, but I didn’t think it would actually happen.

“Probably assume it is damaged hull plating. Now to get out of here as quickly as possible. Then we can find a place to lay low a bit and inspect if they have anything attached to our vessel to track us. We will have to go over the entire hull,” Yang Zi said.

It was unlikely, but possible. We didn’t know what kind of esoteric technology or abilities they might have used, but a hidden resonance beacon would be the best option. It was also better to be safe than sorry.

“Couldn’t they catch up with us quickly? Isn’t it better to check for a tracker now?” I asked.

“We can hide inside a refraction rock. Since I will check things over as well.” I nodded at this. Someone had to be on the bridge here at all times if we were traveling about or just floating freely in the Firmament. A refraction rock would help hide the vessel and protect us from any spatial shifts. Again, it was unlikely that something bad would happen, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Also, Yang Zi was pushing our spatial drive quite hard and traveling in a straight line to get as much distance as possible. This greatly increased our risk of being discovered by a nearby super organization, but the risk was small enough to be worth it so our companion couldn’t undo the array I put on their hole and then start pursuing us again.

Once we did find a refraction rock, there was no tracking devices, energy or technology based, that were located. We each did two full passes over the entire vessel inside and out just to be sure.

“I can’t believe we got away,” Yang Zi said while we shared a drink in celebration.

“Really? You seemed awfully confident,” I replied.

“It was a very close thing. I would say that if this happened in a hundred other cases, ninety nine of them would end up with the beings in our place either being killed or captured. Getting away from a superior opponent is not a simple thing to do in the Firmament.”

“Well, we did do it. To the two best energy pirates out there,” I raised my glass, and he knocked his glass against mine before we drank. It was flavored water for me and something a bit strong for Yang Zi.

“To the best,” he replied. “I know I wouldn’t have had the courage to go out there myself, and you have my thanks for that.”

“Well, I trusted you not to run away,” I replied.

“That is a given. I meant the risk of being captured. If anything the horror stories are downplayed from how bad it really is.”

“Eternal torture in a torture pod isn’t bad enough?” I asked.

“Don’t underestimate the cruelty of beings that think you are stealing energy from them. If there is one thing that gets all the super organizations excited, that is it.”

“Well we leave to see another day, or whatever heck time keeping system there is. I still prefer year over cycle,” I muttered. freeweɓnovel-cøm

“At least the Administrator in the Free Port sorts that mess out. Some beings have really weird time keeping systems. Like the Gloop Gloop.”

“Now you are just making stuff up. There is no being called the Gloop Gloop.”

“Swear to the Administrator, it is no lie. Basically, large balls of liquid with floating organs. Completely disgusting if you ever see one. Very hard to properly communicate with, since their perception of everything is completely different than what we are used to. They keep track of time by the individual oscillations in their bodies.”

“How would that even work, they would each have a separate sense of time?” I asked.

“Exactly. They count time from the moment of their conception. And these oscillations can speed up and slow down. No objective sense of time or much else. Very dangerous of course, especially with how they manage energy. But just be grateful our species doesn’t use individual body oscillations to keep track of time.” I chuckled at that.

Yang Zi always had some really good stories to share to lighten up the mood. Most of mine were either individual improvement, or depressing. I did share stuff of course, but there was only so much to talk about from traveling through the Great World of the Forever City. Yang Zi liked stories about the Forever City, more than the rest of them.

My guess was that it made him feel superior to all the braindead people waiting for death in the Forever City, skipping vast amounts of time until someone interacted with them. Just the thought of that made me shiver. It was a life, but not a real life. The pod people grown to serve in the Forever City.

Well, we had just escaped one large disaster by getting rid of our companion and there was nothing tracking us. That was a good reason to be happy and celebrate. I had no doubt there would be even more complications coming up that would need to be dealt with.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢