CHAPTER 159: CHAPTER 159 - A STRANGE CULTIVATION EXPERIENCE - VII

The next day dawned gloriously beautiful.

The sky was such a pure shade of blue it almost seemed hand-painted by a bored deity. The sun shone with perfect intensity—not strong enough to be uncomfortable, but steady enough to warm the skin with celestial comfort. A cool breeze danced through the tops of exotic trees, carrying the scent of multicolored flowers and the gentle whisper of newborn leaves.

Waterfalls lazily cascaded from floating islands in the sky, forming columns of water that dispersed into fine mist before reaching the ground. Sunlight passed through these columns like a crystal lens, creating small prismatic effects that bathed the forest in a profusion of rainbows. Dozens of them stretched between trees, skimmed across rocks, and danced over serene lakes where ethereal creatures rested unbothered.

The scene felt like something out of a dream... until it was violently torn apart by a single voice.

"YOU ROTTEN OLD MANNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!"

The forest trembled.

Between the fields of dancing flowers and the singing brooks, Glenn sprinted at full speed, his feet touching the ground for only fractions of a second before launching forward again. Lightning coursed over his body like silver snakes, electrifying the air around him as he darted toward the camp, a glowing, viscous orb clenched tightly in his right hand.

"TRAITOR! SCOUNDREL! LEECH! YOU TWO-BIT WORM-EATING MOLDY RELIC!"

Behind him, a hundred giant bees buzzed in hot pursuit.

Each was the size of a full-grown ox, their wings roaring like warplane propellers. Their compound eyes reflected the sunlight in shades of emerald, and their stingers... oh, the stingers... they were living spears nearly two meters long.

One of the bees lunged.

Its stinger sliced through the air mere centimeters from Glenn’s head and struck a nearby tree.

The impact was devastating.

The tree, tall and thick as a natural tower, exploded into a shower of splinters. It didn’t even have time to fall—it was disintegrated at the point of contact, as if a magical missile had been fired with surgical precision. The blast sent a whirlwind of burning leaves into the air and a thunderclap that scared birds off even the floating islands.

Glenn screamed even louder, dodging two more attacks at the last second, one of them grazing so close that a strand of his hair sizzled.

"I’M GONNA KILL YOU, SILAS! YOU WALKING MUSEUM EXHIBIT! YOU JAR OF ANTIQUE JAM WITH LEGS! I HATE YOU!"

The viscous orb in his hand pulsed, slightly unstable. It was soft, almost elastic, like some kind of translucent cosmic jelly, and by some miracle—or curse—it hadn’t disintegrated yet. Glenn had no idea what it was. All he knew was that the simple act of grabbing it had turned his morning into a sprint for his life. Or stealing it might be a better word.

The bees weren’t backing off. On the contrary—they were accelerating.

And then things got worse.

Ahead, more bees emerged from the treetops. A dense swarm. Glenn braked mid-leap, his eyes wide.

"Aah, no, no, no!"

Trapped.

In front... too.

And then, at the last second, a thin line of purple light tore through the air before him like a rip in reality. A dimensional rift opened with a subtle sound, almost like a cosmic sigh. The wind shifted. The smell of the world beyond escaped: cold, static, strange.

Without thinking, Glenn dove in.

And vanished.

Behind him, the bees screeched to a halt, furious, circling the rift that closed with a sharp snap. The orb had vanished with him. And the dreamlike silence of the forest returned—this time, with a few less trees.

Glenn reappeared with a dry snap atop a colossal tree, more than two kilometers from where he’d just been. The trunk was so wide it could easily support a house among its branches. Massive leaves rustled in the high-altitude wind, and from there, he could see nearly the entire valley.

Panting, hair wild, and eyes still wide from the shock, he collapsed to his knees on the thick branch. The electric aura around his body slowly faded, dancing away like tiny sparks.

"This isn’t cultivation..." he muttered through his teeth, trying to catch his breath. "This is torture disguised as spiritual practice."

As the wind caressed his face, Glenn finally had a moment of calm—something rare in recent days.

It had been seven days since he and Silas entered the Valley of the Floating Waterfalls.

Seven days.

And everything he thought he knew about cultivation had been shredded, burned, spat on, and then buried by that useless old man.

In the novels he’d read, cultivation was always described as a sacred experience. Something done in silence, in lotus position, with a straight back, while the cultivator absorbed the world’s energy in a state of absolute concentration.

Reality?

Glenn was more of a mystical courier, a dimensional backpacker, or a lab rat than any sort of proper cultivator.

From the very first day, Silas had shoved him into the valley with a mischievous grin and a long list of tasks. He had to collect prismatic mist at the edges of the floating waterfalls, capture ethereal moth larvae without letting them explode, find singing moss in flooded caves, and even extract spider cocoons from creatures that had the unpleasant habit of spitting acid.

And now... bees.

Bees the size of oxen that apparently guarded this shiny, gelatinous orb still in his left hand. The object pulsed with unstable energy, as if whispering cosmic dangers Glenn would rather ignore for now.

Seven days... Seven days running from everything that moved, jumping from region to region, taking gravitational shocks every time he used gravity magic, fighting beasts and gathering glowing slime like some apprentice alchemist. That’s his idea of cultivation.

He flopped onto his back on the branch, muttering something unintelligible while the clear sky drifted slowly between the leaves.

"Cultivate, he said. It’ll strengthen your body, he said. It’ll enrich your cores with pure spatial energy, he said..."

A stronger gust swayed the treetop and brought with it the distant sound of old Silas whistling. Glenn shuddered from head to toe.

"...If I hear one more word from that old man, I’m throwing this slimy orb in his face and jumping into another rift."

But deep down, even as he grumbled, Glenn couldn’t deny it—his gravitational and electric energies were growing more stable, his body tougher, and... something within him felt like it was awakening.

Even if it felt like the worst survival training he’d ever endured, some part of him knew: this was working. That damned old man knew exactly what he was doing. And that might just be the most annoying part of all.

As the wind rocked him gently high atop the tree and his body slowly recovered from the latest chaos, Glenn let his eyes close for a moment.

There was something else bothering him deeply.

Since the first day in this cursed valley, he had never once been able to access all three of his affinities at the same time. Always, without exception, one of them was... silenced.

As if locked behind some invisible door. And while there was no visible seal, no spoken command from Silas, he knew with every fiber of his being who was responsible.

Silas was blocking one of his affinities as easily as someone flipping a switch.

During the mist larvae episode, Glenn couldn’t use electricity. When he faced the spiders, he could only rely on his spatial affinity. And just now, during the epic escape from the killer bees, his gravitational affinity had simply vanished.

The entire time he’d been inside that monstrous hive—stealing the orb, facing a rabid swarm, dodging stingers capable of pulverizing trees—he felt crippled.

It was a kind of absence that was hard to describe. But Glenn tried.

’It’s like... like having two legs your whole life. And suddenly... one of them is gone. You try to take the first step and fall. Because what was always there is just... gone.’

It was frustrating, exhausting, even humiliating. Glenn was used to solving problems with creative combinations of his three powers. Without one of them, everything felt slower, more dangerous, more wrong.

And yet, there was one small silver lining to it all.

The melody.

Almost imperceptibly, he was beginning to recognize the frequency patterns vibrating around him. The background hum of electricity, the dense pulsing of gravity, and, between them, a rarefied, dancing, subtle symphony: spatial energy.

It was as if the first two were loud instruments—drums and thunder—while spatial energy was a distant harp, hard to hear, but ever-present.

Every time Silas amputated one of his elemental senses, Glenn was forced to compensate with the other two. And in that adaptation process, he was slowly learning to listen to the fabric of space around him.

Even against his will.

Even in pain.

Even now, gasping atop that tree, with a viscous orb still pulsing in his hand.

Glenn let out a weary sigh and looked up at the shimmering blue sky, where rainbows still danced between the suspended waterfalls.

"If this is all part of that old bastard’s plan... I swear I’ll thank him and punch him in the face at the same time."

**

The seventh camp.

That’s what Silas mockingly called the new improvised refuge. Because, for some reason only the gods and maybe the killer bees understood, the creatures chasing Glenn always found the last hideout within a few hours.

If there was some kind of energy signature, scent, bad luck or karma involved, the old alchemist had long since given up trying to understand it.

Now, they were inside a cave hidden behind the tallest waterfall in the valley. The entrance was invisible beneath the unending veil of water, and the dark, damp interior was lit only by the live embers of a half-asleep campfire, casting dancing shadows on the stone walls.

Silas knelt near his makeshift "alchemical cabinet"—nothing more than an orderly collection of flasks, powders, dried flowers, roots, lichens, and a few stones that reacted to heat and time. Everything there was basic material for any decent alchemist, though many items were a little wilted or covered in moss.

He approached the inner waterfall, where a small stream trickled from a natural fissure and filled a shallow pool. He dipped his canteen into the clear water until it was full. Unhurried, he pulled a tiny vial from his inner pocket, containing a thick greenish liquid. Just one drop.

As soon as the liquid touched the water’s surface, the canteen began to bubble as if boiling from within. The contents turned greenish, almost glowing, for a few seconds... then returned to a crystal-clear appearance.

Silas gave the canteen a single shake, satisfied.

In the corner of the cave, the two Sleipnirs were lying down, their eight legs perfectly tucked under their muscular bodies, manes glistening with moisture and eyes fixed on the elder. Judging eyes, for the record. The kind that didn’t need a sound to make their thoughts very clear.

"Great, here comes the silent judgment again..." Silas muttered, closing the canteen and turning to face them. "What now? Huh? What’s with the look?"

The intelligent horses didn’t move. They just kept staring at him with that calm yet critical expression, like judges of some sacred tribunal.

"I know what you’re thinking. ’Oh, there goes the crazy old man tormenting the kid again’."

One of the Sleipnirs tilted its head ever so slightly. A subtle gesture, but incredibly expressive.

Silas pointed a finger at him, annoyed and theatrical.

"Don’t give me that all-knowing look. You _know_ this is for the boy’s own good!"

The other Sleipnir let out a low, muffled neigh, as if holding back laughter. Silas huffed, uncrossing his arms.

"I swear... not even the horses respect me anymore."

Outside the cave, the sound of branches snapping, water being trampled, and something extremely out of breath approaching made the Sleipnirs perk up their ears.

Two seconds later, Glenn stumbled through the cave entrance, completely soaked, covered in scratches, clothes torn, and breathing like a volcano on the verge of eruption. Without saying a word, he tossed the slimy orb toward Silas like he was throwing a dead toad.

"Here... your disgusting goo..." he panted.

The orb landed in the elder’s hands with a wet plop. Silas studied it for a second and smiled, pleased.

"Good work," he murmured, tossing the freshly prepared canteen toward Glenn. "Drink that."

Glenn caught the canteen mid-air with the reflex of someone used to being tested. He opened it, took a sip, and grimaced. "Why does the water here taste so good?"

"It’s the valley’s special properties. Cleans clotted blood from your spleen and stops your lungs from collapsing," Silas said casually, examining the orb as if it were some exotic fruit.

"I. Hate. You." Glenn muttered before collapsing flat on his back on the cave floor like a freshly retrieved corpse, arms spread, breath struggling to return to normal.

Silas just laughed and sat on the rocks, still holding the pulsing orb.

"Ah, youth. So much energy to run from bees, so little to thank a master."

The Sleipnirs neighed in agreement.