“The only thing cultivators truly traded in was death.”

“The only thing cultivators truly valued was power.”

“The only thing cultivators truly did was consume.”

I recited the three fundamental truths I had come to realize while meditating on my mindset. The first line was the fact that to become stronger one had to push down others as a cultivator. There were limited resources out there, specifically energy. Each portion of energy came at the expense of others. While excuses could be made, this was the truth of cultivation.

A cultivator traded in death, with energy representing the deaths of others. Those deaths could be natural, through battle, or through consumption. But they were deaths regardless, traded for power.

That led to the second truth I came to realize. As a cultivator the only thing that mattered was power. Not the joy of consumption, not the satisfaction domination, only power mattered. This power was expressed by the energy one could control and manipulate.

While a cultivator could feel for others, cultivation was ultimately a quest for more power. Immortality was an important milestone but not the end of my journey. It was the end of the beginning. Accumulating more and more power to see the truth of reality and stand at the very top was the journey of cultivation.

This formed the basis of the third truth I internalized and repeated in my mantra to center my mentality. A cultivator on the path of cultivation did not contribute anything. It was a complex realization, but it was a fundamental truth. A place like the Heavenly Alliance might look like they gave to others, but ultimately it was all a scheme to empower the cultivators at the top. Consuming more than others, to gather more power, and send those lesser than them to their deaths.

My mind and feelings felt much more stable compared to before I had started focused meditation. I was glad I was able to pull myself from the brink of succumbing to the energy of the demonic cultivator. My goal was to process the intruding feelings and ideas into something manageable, something that I could accept.

While these truths might struggle under specific circumstances, they were enough to handle the side effects of demonic consumption. I felt a surge of energy and looked upwards. A massive amount of dark gas had broken through the barrier when it was breached. Even the movement of a large object would break the barrier and alert that something or someone had arrived.

I activated an array in the plaza I was sitting in the middle of. Chicken was hidden underground and this entire place was heavily trapped. Looking upwards, I could feel the palpable blood lust emanating from the cloaked figure. They were stronger than me, but not yet an immortal. They flew through the air with its wings and landed in the plaza a distance away from me.

“Welcome,” I greeted the bipedal lizard that was licking its pointy teeth with its forked tongue. It was wearing some basic clothing, but nothing that looked impressive.

“A cultivator,” the lizard said with a slight hiss and pulled a spear off a harness off its back. It began spinning the spear about. No spatial storage, a shame. It would be nice to have more spatial storage to accumulate useful items.

The lizard began striding forward. It would have been smarter to directly attack me from above, instead of landing, but it clearly wasn’t confident in an aerial battle. Still, just approaching me was the trap. If I fought every battle like an idiot, I would probably get wounded and ground down over time. Nothing I had meditated on or throughout my life implied there had to be any honor to a fight.

I only confronted Cheng directly since I wasn’t in the right mindset to lay a trap. I wasn’t thinking properly, most likely due to the demonic energy. The true strength of someone who could think was the ability to plan ahead and defeat superior opponents. This lizard was much stronger than Cheng.

If we fought, it move more quickly and react far quicker than I could hope to. It would stab its spear into me and then consume me. The lizard had fallen for the madness of the Gu Container. It wasn’t even worth the effort to sneer at such a failure of a being that was soon going to be a corpse.

I channeled a bit of energy into the formation I had created. There were multiple arrays connected to the formation, using the ambient energy when necessary, hidden beneath the stones of the plaza. It had taken several days to make, but it was simple and elegant.

There were two spheres. A smaller one to protect me and an outer one that affected everything up to the inner sphere. The effects were a crushing downwards force, multiplying gravity around thousand times for a single second, the removal of all air for three seconds, and finally an outwards blast of electricity going through the newly formed vacuum to shock and push everything back the moment the formation was activated.

The trap could only be activated once a day, but with the only beings most likely to show being demonic cultivators, I wasn’t worried about a large group. The lizard’s leg’s broke as it slammed into the ground. The air from its lungs were driven out and disappeared with the rest of the air. A vacuum was only an inconvenience. The same with the blast of lightning that moved outwards.

I rushed forward with my sword the moment the effect of gravity ended out of my safe inner sphere. The lizard wasn’t able to react in the second after the trap activated and the blinding flash of lightning, combined with the vacuum, and intense gravity disoriented my meal. The sword skewered the lizard through its head as I drove it forward as deep as possible and then channeled my energy into the lizard’s body through my sword, disrupting any technique it might be planning.

Yanking my blade free, I moved to the side of the lizard and swung, decapitating the lizard partially, since its scales were incredibly tough. The lizard still tried to stand up as its head leaned off to the side with blood gushing out of its neck. But just as it brought one leg up and started to raise its spear, it collapsed back on the ground dead.

I let out a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure if the lizard was a cultivator, but it had a lot of energy inside of it. I began quickly returned to my meditation spot and grabbed an array plate. I then returned to the lizard and took its spear and checked for any other items. It had nothing else unfortunately. I turned it into a meatball and ate the meatball.

Energy surged through me. But I was used to the feeling consumption and didn’t let it affect me. My mentality held strong in the face of influence of the demonic cultivator.

After a few minutes of focused breathing to make sure there were no lingering side effects that would impact me, I washed the plaza stones of all blood. Looking up the breach in the barrier had fixed itself and the dark gases had dispersed. I kept on my mask, so I wasn’t concerned about the place becoming unbreathable.

The breathing mask was simple enough, so I wasn’t worried about it breaking down any time soon. The simpler array, the longer it would last without problems. Also, I would be able to replace the array if absolutely necessary. While I might get away with breathing the toxic air, I wanted to not be distracted by such things for now. There might also be some hidden effect. Breathing and consumption were different and the contamination of the energy in the Gu Container by the demonic cultivator was incredibly complex.

I pulled the spear back out of my spatial storage. It was around the same level as my sword. It was hard to find more powerful weapons, at least that was my experience so far. Craftsmanship was not a focus of cultivators. An external tool could be taken away, only something that was part of oneself would remain and enhance the abilities of a cultivator.

Or there might be some secret trade between immortals, but I couldn’t see how such things would be easily traded or crafted. It would always be a better choice to increase one’s own strength than making something. The only thing a cultivator valued was power, and personal power was the easiest to accumulate.

“I was hoping for a conversation. What a brute,” I muttered as I walked over to another plaza. Why set up one trap when I could set up two identical traps? While it was unlikely multiple beings would slow up in quick succession, there was no need to take pointless risks when I had time to prepare.

That was the power of traps. I would ensure my victory or escape in most cases. If anything at the level of an immortal showed up, then it would be much trickier. But I had a special one-use trap prepared separately if I got such a visitor. The challenge would be getting into position to activate the trap before I was killed and consumed.

Sitting back down on my second meditation platform, I got comfortable and stretched a bit. My body was becoming stronger. It was slight, but the improvement was there. It almost made me want to go back and slap my younger self and tell him to pursue demonic cultivation since it was so much more efficient.

But that would have been foolish. Unless one was in a place like this, no one would like a demonic cultivator and my mindset would have become completely toxic like this Gu Container. Perhaps I would come up with another fundamental truth of cultivation. Something involving oneself and the path of cultivation. I would have to contemplate on such a thing to pass the time.

It wasn’t like there was anyone to talk to or anything to do on this dark and dead world. Only the bioluminescent moss and small plants were left. “Maybe I will get an immortal next. They would provide a much greater boost in power,” I quietly said. I checked the device Luo Lingtai left me and there were nearby disruptions in energy or material that could be picked up around this world.

I wasn’t sure about the specifics and how precise it was, but I checked it once a day and I hadn’t gotten warning about the lizard. At least the shrinking of the Gu Container matched my expectations. I probably had anywhere from half to a full century before things became concerning. It was hard to say if the shrinking of the Gu Container would speed up or if there were other large changes. However based on the current size and its changes, I felt confident in saying I had half a century at the very least.

It would be a long time meditating, but I didn’t mind. I had reconfigured one the devices to send out a burst of energy once a day instead of trying to conceal this world. I wanted beings to show up to become my next meal. While it would be clear it was an obvious trap, unless one had experience in formations they wouldn’t easily sense anything.

Nothing would be active until I activated the formations. One would have to sense the hidden formations under the plaza stones. Since I could control the activation and they weren’t life threatening on their own, it would be hard for danger sense to pick out the precise danger. Only the trap I had prepared for an immortal had a high chance of being picked up by danger sense, but the trap was big enough that once in position it would difficult to escape.

I hadn’t found the weapon system or traps that Cheng might have used. The only way would be to dig up everything. While I didn’t mind spending time to set up traps, it wasn’t worth the time or headache to be out of position for that long looking for hidden weapons. They weren’t recorded in the database, but if I was the Crystal Conclave I wouldn’t include information about such things easier.

There was probably a control item somewhere. I had looked through Cheng’s residence and the underground chamber, but hadn’t found anything. It was annoying but it was not unexpected. I would not reveal my trump card to anyone and keep the method of using it well hidden.

I kept thinking about various things and focusing back on trying to work out another truth of cultivation and cultivators that involved oneself. There were only a handful of daily checks that distracted me, otherwise I just kept sitting on my meditation platform, acting as the lure for my trap. A nice delicious target for demonic cultivators.

There was a loud boom and massive injection of dark gas as a vessel flew through the barrier around this world. It slowed down slightly but still crashed with a loud bang a short distance away from the settlement. I chose not to move from my trap, but I did reorient my seating position in that direction.

At least a day went by, before I sensed a group of seven individuals approaching. No one of strength was among them, but they would get the same treatment as the lizard. They were destined to become meatballs. Even with their low energy, a cultivator consumed to gain power and trade the acceptance of that power with death.

The group of humans stopped at the edge of the plaza and looked at me. “Welcome. This world is a bit dead, and my hospitality is a bit lacking. I am cultivator Yuan Zhou of the Heavenly Alliance,” I politely greeted the group of future meatballs.

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“I am Xal For Ton, commander of the yellow expedition from the Eyes of Exploration,” the largest man said. I noted his eyes had quite a lot more energy than the rest of his body. I also noted a lot of technical equipment on these people. A shame it would probably get wrecked in my trap, but I wasn’t about to take my chances against unknown weapons.

I waved my hand, and seven chairs appeared quite a bit in front of me, inside the trap and away from my safe zone. We would talk first before I consumed them. It was quite dull meditating on the true nature of cultivation and cultivators. Perhaps they would give me a unique insight into gaining power more quickly. “You must be new to this place. Feel free to sit and talk or leave this world. I don’t really care,” I replied with a shrug. If they didn’t enter the trap, I would let them leave. But if they tried to stay here, then I would threaten them, forcing them to retreat or enter my trap.

“Give us a moment,” Xal For Ton said and I nodded slightly. The group continued to talk quietly between each other and used some sort of sound scrambler to conceal their conversation. After a minute Xal For Ton spoke up again. “Why are you just sitting there? If I may ask,” he asked.

“I can’t be bothered to get up for every little thing. If you want to fight, then I am happy to fight, but otherwise it isn’t worth the hassle while I focus on my cultivation. If you don’t wish to speak, then leave this world,” I replied.

“My apologies Cultivator Yuan Zhou, but this place has on edge,” he said and advanced with his group into my trap. There would be no escape, but they could live a bit longer by entertaining me.

“I completely understand. It is impressive that your vessel made it this far,” I said.

“Unfortunately, the ambient energy broke down our various systems, do you know this might be the case?” Xal For Ton asked while he took a seat with the rest of his group on the chairs I had provided. I had a total of ten ready to go, to get people to enter my trap.

“You are inside a Gu Container. A sealed space with contaminated energy by a demonic cultivator. If you have any ideas or suggestions how to leave this space, it would be appreciated,” I said with a small smile. It was highly doubtful they would have a solution if they were here.

“Gu Container, have any of heard of such a thing?” Xal For Ton asked his companions and they all gave a negative response. “We got pulled into this space when our spatial field collapsed. Once we were inside, the energy began breaking down our systems. We detected a pulse of energy, was that you?”

I nodded at this. “Yes. Do have anything useful? Like sensors or other devices that still work?”

“Nothing we would be willing to trade,” he replied, and I nodded at this. “Well, this demonic cultivator can’t keep up this space for that long. The energy expenditure has to be immense. Even if it is a specialized technique and this demonic cultivator is an extreme high-grade combatant,” Xal For Ton said.

“Then you will have to pay to remain on this world under my careful watch. Do you have anything useful to trade?” I asked. Xal For Ton face grew stern at this.

“While we might be stranded, we are capable of defending-“ There was no point in listening to anymore of this pointless conversation. They had no information and nothing to trade.

Glowing green shields formed around each of them when gravity massively increased. The shields also kept in the air and stopped the blast of lightning. Unfortunately, they weren’t strong enough to withstand a follow up sword slash. All seven took various degrees of damage as their shields broke.

They let out shouts of pain as I rushed about swinging my blade, cutting down one person each second. I aimed for their heads. Their emergency defenses had been worn out. While they might have powerful technology, they weren’t prepared to truly fight a cultivator in a sudden bout of aggression. They didn’t get to say anything or even make a plea before they were all cut down.

I stripped them of equipment and tossed them togeather. They weren’t cultivators and their overall energy in their bodies was fairly low. I consumed the newly formed meatball and got out a cart. I then put their equipment on the cart and pulled the cart to the other trapped plaza before going through it. I didn’t put their equipment into my spatial storage until I carefully checked each item.

Any super organization that could make personal shields like that, would make sure to protect such items and include traps if they were stolen or used by another. Everything they had with them had such protections. While I might not be that good with technology, I was able to work out various components and what they did.

Something that formed a protective shield would have to have a danger sensing array. There was a very tiny array carved by some high precision machine, but that array was linked into other portions of the device. When I slowly moved to put on a shield device, I felt a sense of danger. All of the equipment was effectively junk.

The devices was too finely machined and various parts integrated with each other I couldn’t work to disassemble or alter them. I tossed the junk back into the cart and pushed it all into a nearby building and dumped it there. I wouldn’t destroy the stuff, but it had no value in my opinion. After that I checked the vessel, but everything valuable except the hull had turned into hot melted slag.

The melting was from a self-destruct device. Probably some life sensing device integrated into the vessel to prevent it from being stolen if the crew was killed. That was a shame, but the metal of the hull remained and was incredibly high quality. I began breaking it apart into sections and packing it away into my spatial storage.

It was a shame that the journey of this group of people ended here. I had nothing against them, but once they had entered into the Gu Container their fate was sealed like everyone else here, including mine. The end would either be a horrible death or claiming the Gu at the end for oneself. It was unfortunate, and I hated this, but my feelings didn’t matter. One couldn’t cultivate their feelings to become stronger. If it was that simple to become powerful, then power would not be a commodity to be valued and protected.

Once I finished dismantling everything useful from the vessel that I wanted, I returned to one of my trapped plazas to wait for the next group. I was quite pleased that my traps were working so well. They were meant to disorient and prevent the people or beings in the traps from responding in time to my direct attack.

I was strong enough that I felt confident in killing anything below the strength of an immortal. One would eventually arrive, but everything was already prepared. I thought about preparing more traps, but there was no good way to prepare more or reason to. Once I took out an immortal, this place would begin falling apart.

Anything less than my very best would just be laughed off before my head was removed. The breach in the barrier finally repaired itself, blocking out the dark gas, but it was on the verge of collapsing completely. I considered increasing its strength and got up. I made my way to the underground chamber. It only took a couple of minutes to make the necessary changes before heading back to the surface.

It wasn’t the environment getting worse, but everything slowly breaking apart. The arrays and formations that were part of the devices that protected this place were deforming slowly. That deformation would cause them to slowly fail. That was the nice thing about well made arrays and formations, they wouldn’t fail immediately if damaged slightly. What I had created was trash compared to the knowledge and ability of a super organization. I looked at Chicken waiting for my eventual departure before heading back to the surface.

Settling back into my seat, I took a deep breath through my mask and began contemplating the nature of cultivation once more. I could understand why Cheng kept people around. I might have said for the company before I knew him, but in reality, he was cultivating other cultivators for when he would harvest them. He was trading them a brief existence in exchange for their death in order to increase his power through consumption.

The occasional burst of rain over the empty settlement increased in acidity, forcing me do minor repairs on my traps as the buildings began to slowly melt. I also had a rain cover ready for my meditation platforms, so I didn’t get wet. I guessed the increased acidity was due to the dark gasses entering into the atmosphere.

They weren’t acidic on their own. There was probably some kind of reaction happening in the environment of this dead world. Or it could be some array or formation failing that I didn’t know about. While I could minor repairs to the equipment used for this place, I was no expert and supplies were running low.

What should have lasted millennia at the very least was being used up in years instead due to the nature of the energy in the Gu Container. No defenses would hold against the demonic cultivator.

Another visitor showed up, flying on their own power. As they approached, I noticed they were mostly cybernetic and mechanical, but had some organic parts. A cyborg, interesting. Demonic cultivation was truly equal opportunity with this Gu Container pulling in everything and everyone.

“State your identity,” the large humanoid cyborg said while keeping a massive gun at the ready. It stayed at the edge of the plaza while scanning the area.

“Cultivator Yuan Zhou of the Heavenly Alliance, and yourself?” I asked.

“DX Dash 78121 of the Mechanical Polity. Let us trade information,” it replied. I brought a chair out of my spatial ring and gestured at it.

“No problem. We are trapped inside a Gu Container created by a demonic cultivator,” I said. The cyborg advanced and approached the chair, but didn’t sit down. It had fallen for my trap, but I couldn’t tell how difficult it would be to defeat.

“Before you activate your trap, I have a hyper compressed refraction core. If I am disabled or destroyed it will detonate. You would most likely die and become injured regardless,” DX stated.

“Oh, but that means you are weak if you are making threats,” I stated.

“I want to avoid pointless fighting to preserve my combat capacity,” DX replied. I considered its statement and let out a small sigh.

“It is not by choice. This place is collapsing. Eventually everyone and everything will be forced into the Gu for the demonic cultivator to make part of his cultivation. Unless you have an idea of how to escape or anything about this place?” I asked.

“I am currently exploring options. I have detected that this spatial dimension is becoming smaller over time. Do you know the location of the demonic cultivator?” DX asked.

“He will probably be at the center of this space. But he will have the strength of a top immortal at the very least. Far more powerful than me,” I replied.

“I am DX Dash 78121, extreme firepower and combat is my specialty.” I considered the cyborg in front of me.

“Do you have anything to share or trade for some critical information?” I asked it. “I do have equipment in that building. If you can remove the lock outs and traps I would consider it a fair trade.”

“Give me one moment to assess the items in question,” DX said and made its way to the equipment in question. It soon pulled the cart with the equipment piled up on it out of the building and back into the plaza.

“I can remove the lock outs and traps,” it said.

“Half first, then the other half after I reveal the information. I have already shared quite a bit,” I stated.

“That is acceptable. I will begin now,” DX said and began picking up items with its left hand and its right hand unfolded slightly to have a small tool, which emitted a beam to adjust the arrays and components inside the shield devices and other stuff I had taken from the group. I checked DX’s work as he completed them. The cyborg did good work.

I would be able to have seven shields. I could wear all of them at once, but they would activate from a single attack. Quite powerful, capable of blocking almost anything. Or I could turn off several of them and use them in smaller increments. I would have to give this some thought. I would also have to test out the weapons later. Having multiple ranged weapons would be nice.

“Half have been adjusted,” DX said. The fact it could work on such equipment implied the equipment it had was superior. I would put it at least my level probably higher with that kind of knowledge. It would have been a though fight with little benefit. Consuming inorganic components, even with the ambient energy didn’t provide any benefits through consumption.

“The ambient energy has been corrupted by the demonic cultivator. If it builds up too much, it will disrupt any arrays or formations. It also has mental influencing properties,” I said.

“I noticed several odd properties of the ambient energy.”

“The energy is designed to make consumption easier. Most likely for the demonic cultivator to consume the Gu once this Gu Container gets small enough, ascending to a new level of power,” I said. DX slowly nodded with its half organic and half mechanical face. It then went back to work on the rest of the equipment. Once it was done it flew off away from this world.

“How amusing, I hope you succeed, but you probably won’t. Unless you are far more powerful than I imagine.” While I couldn’t pick up that much about DX, its reaction speed was similar to fine and its movements weren’t perfect enough to match the level of an immortal. Little things like this showed that the cyborg might be powerful, it wasn’t powerful enough to have a chance against the demonic cultivator.

My heart also relaxed, I could still deal with others without going crazy about consuming them. While it might seem like a small matter, it was something that I was concerned about. While I felt stable, assessing my mental state was something I was never completely sure about.

When I use my mind to assess my mind, that is a good way to get back a bad result. DX showed up at a good time to put me at ease. It would have been nice if I could get its power core and shunt all that energy into me. I would have thought of that even if I hadn’t started practicing demonic cultivation. It probably only had so long left before it had to start taking in the ambient energy to keep itself powered.

Fighting would probably use up the energy supply of the cyborg more quickly. Whatever was powering it was probably heavily sealed from any and influences. Hyper compressed energy was incredibly valuable and dense. Also, refraction implied that energy was being pushed togeather or away.

Or it could deal with compressing people into small chunks to turn them into batteries. While the energy a single cultivator created was quite small compared to other methods of getting energy and it would be contaminated, there were ways around such issues. My thoughts had taken a darker turn after starting demonic cultivation.

Even with my attempts to keep my mindset steady, I kept thinking of everything in terms of value in regards to my cultivation. But this battery method was inefficient. The energy inside a cultivator or strong being was much higher than energy that could be collected from them.

I also noticed DX hadn’t disrupted the barrier around this world, arriving or leaving. I had only noticed it flying through the air. Perhaps the cyborg had some stealth capabilities as well. It clearly had some kind of sensor system. I brought up its chance against the demonic cultivator from zero percent to a tenth of a percent.

It had a chance, however slight. I hoped it would succeed, but I wasn’t going to count on DX’s success. Once I had stepped on the path of demonic cultivation I was admitting to myself that there was no hope depending on others or an outside force. I needed to try and chart my own path, like I had done my entire life. I didn’t conform to expectations. If one wanted to become powerful and not become a resource grown and harvest by others one needed to have an independent streak.

Shaking my head, I went back to looking at the devices that DX had unlocked for me. There were several with utility, like a small nutrition goo machine and water machine along with spatial measuring equipment. I got replacements for stuff I already had.

Testing out the weapons showed that they were slightly inferior to the Combat Cylinder. The Xyon Front stilled remained at the top of ranged weapon creation. DX’s weapon was probably connected to its energy core. Using it would likely shorten its operational time. It had expressed it was skilled in combat. With its expressed confidence I would say that it would be able to get off a single shot. Combined with its stealth abilities and not using the ambient energy, it might have a chance of killing the demonic cultivator. A small chance, but that chance existed.