Calculating Cultivation
Chapter 65: The Pit Stop Of Hell

It had been fifty years since I had first arrived in the Forever City and I was 256 years old and had 12,982 credits to my name and change. My equipment was upgraded quite heavily, so that upgrading further wasn’t worthwhile. I had been learning how the stuff worked as well to a minor degree. Lots of energy runes and imprinting in conjunction with different materials.

Anything better would require backing from a faction and attention I couldn’t afford. While I had multiple observation blockers attached to my body, it was never a good idea to press things. I wouldn’t call myself an expert on the Forever City, but I would call myself experienced after living in this place for so long.

Running along the outside wall of a tower, I spiraled my way up the outside. I came to the open floor. I peeked over the edge, and pulled out a passive scanner hooked up to my navigation pad and a renegade interlink. No spike in the local chatter. I had scanned in other directions while circling up. Chatter in the directions of the regional conflict. This one was looking to be a big one based on the public information I could tap into.

It was less internet, and more sophisticated radio. Some factions like to broadcast in the open to block other communications, send hidden messages, and to be annoying to their neighbors. Their efforts were my gain, as information propagated out through the Forever City if one was willing to listen. I had a small device attached to my waste, which broadcast the three strongest signals into closed compartments that Bones could listen to.

I stepped onto the open floor, which was the gathering point of freelancers who had established a mobile community of a sort. This was my first time running into them. They didn’t broadcast their location, but some beings talked, and word spread about the mobile community.

There was a large vehicle sitting on the open floor, with one side completely open with a bar and eatery. There was also a visual holographic display of the nearby towers and the projected movements of various forces. The place was named the Pit Stop of Hell. A horrible name, but it was the meeting point of serious scavengers and scavenger teams.

I walked into the area where they had set up several tables past their bar. I took a seat at an empty table. In moments, a young beautiful looking woman came over. “Welcome, seating or placing an order?” she asked.

“Energy infused into plain water, two drops worth,” I said.

“That is ten credits,” which was completely overpriced. But I wasn’t just paying for the energy infused water. I was paying for the seat. I pulled out my credit card and casually paid. I got some glances from the other robe clad figures, but no one said anything about my presence.

“The bar tender is quite strong. Above the level of a tower owner,” Bones said.

“And he has the mark of the Heavenly Alliance on his vehicle,” I added quietly.

“Only way he could be so brazen moving about and having a place for freelancers. It is a naked ploy by the Heavenly Alliance to keep an eye on things, while being able to get a feeling on the undercurrents of the Forever City. Probably a freelancer who moved up, and somehow got a sweetheart deal,” Bones replied.

The young lady came over with my drink. “Energy infused into plain water, two drops,” she said as she set the large mug on the table.

“Thank you,” I replied. She moved off. Tipping wasn’t a thing unless I wanted her company or to buy information. I picked up the mug and pulled out a filter straw. A small but useful piece of equipment to filter out any poisons or toxins from liquids that I consumed. Unfortunately, it was designed to only handle a single type of liquid, energy infused into plain water. I sipped the water as my channels drew in the energy along with my core from my physical body.

After sipping my drink, I continued to watch everyone else and the display. I counted 17 other scavengers. A massive gathering for our line of work. That was when I saw an old face walk into the area the bar was set up, making the number 18. Rhiza glanced over at me, and I brought up a hand to wave at her, and lowered my hood.

She smiled when she saw me and came over. “Yuan, it has been a while. Glad to see you are still alive after going off on your own,” she said.

“Thank you Rhiza. You never told me about this place,” I said.

“It moves about. And isn’t a place for new scavengers. You clearly upgraded, your work?” she asked.

“Some. Nice sword. I didn’t expect you to change it,” I replied.

“Lost my last one about ten cycles ago. Used it to block an attack while escaping a tower.” The server lady then came over. “Courage, a double,” Rhiza said before the server could speak.

“Twenty credits,” the server said and Rhiza paid.

“Courage?” I asked her.

“A specialty of this place. Contains traces of the Dao of Courage. Good for reinforcing one’s mental determination,” she explained. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the NʘvᴇlFirᴇ.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

“You had something like that, it would rip right through you. Your body might not explode with how tough it is, but there would be serious damage,” Bones told me.

“Maybe in the future. I prefer something a bit more plain,” I replied.

“Your choice. You been waiting here long?” she asked.

“I showed up just before you. It is a pain traveling,” I said.

“Well, you go outside. I just got a vehicle to this staging point,” Rhiza replied. I could have gotten a vehicle as well, but Bones insisted that I keep up my practice at moving outside the towers to keep my techniques fresh in my mind. Most other people just paid credits for a vehicle for long distance travel.

Bones also mentioned that while rare, some vehicles were used as traps. I couldn’t afford to fight anything with how weak I was. “Keeps my skills fresh. I hope things kick off soon, I don’t want to have to make a tenth of a loop to the other major conflict going on right now,” I replied.

“That is a ways away. Not going for the smaller stuff?” Rhiza asked.

“Less pay. You know how it is. Also, you were a good teacher. Thank you for that,” I told her. She smiled slightly at the compliment.

“It was a pleasure. It’s not like there is a lot of competition,” she said, and I nodded at that. Scavenging was a high-risk job. Beings disappeared all the time and you might never see them again.

“A double order of Courage,” the young lady brought back a tall green glass that was releasing some smoke. Rhiza began to sip it.

“I wouldn’t get excited. More abstract cultivation methods are much harder to progress due to their unique circumstances. Specifically Daos that operate on a less than physical level,” Bones told me. It didn’t matter that much, but it was nice of him to mention. I wasn’t going to make my cultivation more complicated. It already had enough issues I needed to sort out.

“You work out your cultivation plan you are going with?” I asked Rhiza.

“Not any time soon. I need to save up a lot first. At least a hundred thousand to get something half decent. Anything custom, well it will take longer to save up and I have the time,” she answered. I nodded at that. She probably wanted something decent, which meant expensive. “You make any progress?”

“Better equipment, but still need a lot of credits. If you are interested in buying some martial robes with better protection or a mask, I could sell them to you,” I offered.

“How much?” Rhiza asked.

“A thousand credits for each, and that is with a discount. Take a look,” I pulled out a spare mask and handed it over. She carefully looked it over. If I could make a sale, that would help me out raising more money. While a thousand credits were only 0.1% of the million-credit target, it was still progress. Finished products were always more valuable than raw resources and there was a lot of downtime.

“Double filters, and an integrated mask. Linked into data crystal shards to highlight information, but they are empty,” she said.

“It is customizable. While it is mostly low-end, it has a lot of features working togeather. Sound protection. Visual protection. I use the same thing,” I replied. Another reason why I was making a sales pitch was that this type of item was too good. Sure, the bulk buyers and other traders might buy low credit and repaired goods, but this mask and helmet combination was custom.

Most freelancers were highly skeptical of any kind of new equipment. Since their equipment was their life, they were very careful with it for the most part and developed a certain familiarity with different brands. What I made would easily be worth 5,000 credits from a more well-known source.

It looked more like a hodgepodge of different components, which it was, than one unified item. Still the functionality and everything else was the same besides the aesthetics and ease of repair. Hence the large discount on the price.

Rhiza was carefully looking it over, pulling open some panels to check the inside components. “It is well made. As good as an elite soldier would get. But I already have something similar,” she replied and set the piece of equipment on the table. I picked it up and put it away.

“A shame,” I replied.

“No luck looking for other buyers?” she asked.

“No. I can offer a ten percent finder’s fee if you locate anyone wanting stuff like this,” I replied.

“Most people use what they scavenge, but customizations are always useful.” I noticed a cloaked figure at a nearby table with two other beings sitting at get up. They came over slowly.

“You can alter and fix stuff?” they asked me.

“Some stuff. Also depends on what kind of modification. But yes,” I replied. They pulled out a large piece of equipment and set it on the table. I couldn’t make out what it was, even with everything I had done with Bones.

“That’s an implosion bomb, turned into an implosion weapon. Or at least that was the attempt. You could really damage a tower if this thing explodes. I would class it as a mid-tier piece of equipment, not trash tier. Do they want it working, or disassembled?” Bones said.

“You want it working or disassembled?” I asked.

“I was hoping you recognize what it is. Not on any of the databases and the traders only offer scrap value,” they said.

“I do. Just information, ten credits,” I replied. They nodded at this and paid me. “It is an implosion bomb turned into an implosion projector. This large rear portion with several rods facing inwards creates a field and a void. This tube unleashes the attack. The problem is it is unstable. The rods at the rear are misaligned, which causes the void to fizzle out. Base components, about 200 credits. If it was working, closer to 5,000 credits. That is for the bomb part. The weapon part is useless, since this is so fragile. Maybe it was a tool,” I explained, easily giving them their credits worth.

“Can you repair?” they asked.

“You need specialized equipment, or cultivation that aligns with this. Right now, it doesn’t work, but it would be a lot worse if it worked, then failed. And the value comes from properly aligning the rods. I could get it to work for at least one shot, but after that it would have to be realigned again. This is the kind of weapon, you constantly have to fiddle with. If you use it, better to figure it out yourself,” I replied.

“I am satisfied.” They put the piece of equipment and walked back to their table, starting up a hushed conversation with their two companions.

“I didn’t even recognize that. You really know quite a bit,” Rhiza told me.

“I have just picked up things along the way.” We sat there after that chatting about various topics as time passed. I occasionally checked my pocket watch to keep track of time as we waited.

After a week, the conflict exploded with violence with both factions attacking each other. That meant it was time for me to begin earning real money in this place. It had taken a long time to build up and run into the right circumstance.

I left the open floor on the tower and began making my way outside once the conflict started. Rhiza would find her own way, but it had been nice running into her again. I would even consider her a work friend. Everyone else was very anti-social for the most part. Free spirits like Rhiza were the exception, not the rule of the Forever City, at least outside factions at our level of strength.

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One would think that in society with infinite time, people would become more social, but it was just the opposite. There was more scheming, betrayal, and self-interest. I could only guess that it was the fundamental nature of cultivation society coming through. Regardless, I had my own path, a path to a lot of credits.

I crossed into the conflict area, occasional blasts of energy zipped through the yellow atmosphere and off into the distance, eventually hitting a tower. The gaps between towers while large, were less than the towers themselves for the most part. If it wasn’t for the yellow haze blocking seeing into the distance, the image of hundreds of towers going on forever would be like some kind of fractal image.

Checking the display in my goggles, I confirmed I was at the right location. “This should be it,” I said quietly to Bones.

“We need to get the level right, and it should be. Just need to work out the orientation of the floor, circle around to your right,” Bones said, and I began to circle. The tower shook a couple of times as we walked around.

“Stop. Right here. Begin cutting in,” he told me and I got to work cutting into the tower. The first step was to remove a shallow slab to cover up the outside. Then a deeper portion to hide in while replacing the outside. Then finally breaking into the floor.

Once the first two slabs were cut out, I entered into the outer wall of the tower and replaced the outer portion. I pulled out a tower quick patch, with a canister of solidifying fluid. This had cost 4,000 credits for the device components and other 50 credits for the cannister. But it was necessary to avoid drawing attention. Anything to mitigate risk we had prepared over the decades.

That was why we had held off on heists until this point. The outside was sealed back up. I was glad I was small, since that meant a lot less cutting. I then used a specialized tower cutter, to make a tiny hole in the interior wall. “This is the room,” I said quietly.

“Yes. Drive thruster components for vehicles, finished and waiting to be sold or moved.” The hardest part had been picking something valuable enough, that could be easily sold, and wouldn’t be moved at the first sign of fighting. Drive thrusters for vehicles were unique in a way that made them perfect for stealing. These were the things that allowed vehicles to go at insane speeds to cross the Forever City very quickly.

The first and most important aspect was that certain key components couldn’t be stored into spatial rings. Taking these components out and putting them back in, would normally be impossible to do so without destroying the drive thrusters themselves. Different spatial manipulations didn’t work well togeather.

But Bones knew how to quickly pull out the components in a way that they could be put back in later on. It would be an entire process and incredibly difficult, but it was possible. He had worked on more complex versions in the past and said he knew ways around the safeguards put into place.

The nice thing was that the drive thrusters themselves were their high value and the spatial components were small enough, I could carry them in a pack, once I pulled them all out. There were two workers loading up the large drive thrusters onto pallets to be carried out of the tower. The stockpile looked low, but they had clearly been working on production until the last moment.

The manufacturing equipment, which was far more valuable had already been moved out without question. But these items had to be carried out, which meant even with their value they were considered a low priority due to the difficulty in transport. Which was good for us.

I attached a gas cannister onto the hole I made into the large storage room and began pumping in gas. The gas cannister was 500 credits. If the people were killed that would alert the immortal watching the tower that there was an issue in this area.

What I had thought would have been the hardest part of the planning, getting information as the easiest part. What each level was generally used for wasn’t hidden knowledge. And once Bones knew the layout of a more common floor, he had worked out the layout for the transportation drive assembly floor. There were specific layouts used for maximum productivity.

There were a lot of standardized designs, but they flowed from one to another. So, with the layout of the open floor known where goods were received and shipped out on, it was possible to reverse engineer the layout of the adjacent floors based on their purpose. Bones had been working on this while we had been scavenging, which showed the impressive mental power a higher level cultivator had. And he was focused on Body cultivation, not Mind.

The knockout gas spread out, and I quickly began cutting into the room. Once I was in, I went to the large doorway leading to an internal lift between floors. Vehicle assembly was one floor down. Normally this kind of production would be in a faction’s key area, but this faction kept their food and raw material processing in their core areas, even if it was less valuable, in order to be less vulnerable to their core economy.

Bones said it was a sub-optimal strategy, but it wasn’t a bad one. Just more of a preference in order to reduce one kind of vulnerability, while increasing the chance of another. In fact, finding the right faction to go after had been the biggest problem out of all of this since it needed to be timed right at the start of the conflict when distractions were at a peak.

I pulled out another specialized cutter and began cutting the spatial components out of the drive systems. They went into my pack, while the rest of the device went into one of my spatial rings. I got four of them packed away, and was about to start on my fifth, when Bones gave me a heads up.

“Small group moving towards this area. Not cultivators, but there are six people. Most likely going to move the pallets out.” That meant it was time to go. I quickly went to my hole in the wall and brought out the slab of tower wall once more. I then sealed it up and stayed in the space I had made between the interior of the tower and the exterior.

I carefully pulled out two long term observation obscurers and set the rods up on either side of me. They would work for quite a while but couldn’t be moved. Once the theft was discovered, this area would be checked, and the key thing was to not leave any kind of trace while an investigation was done. Now the only thing that was left, was to wait for a long time. At least twenty days.

Bones said that was twice the time needed to be sure no one was watching just to be on the safe side. The heist we had just pulled off was massive. Once fixed, each of the drive systems would be worth 15,000 credits at resale. That was a total of 60,000 credits. More than I had earned in the last 50 years of running around this city and scavenging.

The hope had been to get more, but we couldn’t be greedy. Once I had to get out, it was time to get out. Fighting of any kind would draw attention. That was the advantage someone as weak as me had, no alarms were set off. Passive sensors wouldn’t pick me up along with passive scanning from immortals. Just the equipment present on various floors was stronger than me.

It was incredibly boring locked in the dark, but I didn’t mind. Bones was more than willing to explain the intricacies of drive systems, how they manipulated acceleration and worked in conjunction with inertial dampeners to remove the force imparted into the interior of the vehicles.

“Why aren’t they used more? They don’t seem that expensive?” I asked.

“Transportation vehicles for passengers aren’t that bad. Since most factions have signed onto a free movement agreement. The factions that don’t have a much rougher time. They are also very expensive to make. A full low tier vehicle costs about 100,000 credits. Operational costs are quite low.”

“But I would think they would pile up over time?” I asked.

“A lot of them are lost, especially in conflicts like this. They are used to move in troops and supplies and are often targets. Large caravans that are intercepted by other large caravans. Thousands of vehicles at once. The individual transport vehicles are often ignored, too much risk of offending the wrong person. Which works for us,” Bones explained. It made sense, but sometimes the logic of the Forever City seemed to take a weird turn.

The best example of weird logic was food and water. While both were luxuries, troops were often paid in food and water, instead of credits. The vat grown humans rarely had credit cards. Someone like Rhiza had to pay a lot of goods to get one to start off. By coming into the Forever City on a cylinder ship I was entitled to basic goods.

This meant that shock troops, even less valuable than outside cultivators, were paid in small portions of food and water that were worth bits. They didn’t need the stuff, but it was for morale purposes more than anything else. Anything and everything would find a use to squeeze out a couple more percentage points of value or to gain a slight edge. The factions that didn’t were slowly replaced over time by factions that did. This created the hyper competitive environment of the Forever City.

Time passed and after waiting inside a cramped cut out nook for twenty days, I cut a small hole to the outside and checked. While the tower had shaken and had been attacked several times during this time period, I hadn’t been in trouble. Nothing concerning outside. I then cut my way out and took my observation obscurers before I left. It wasn’t worth going back inside. The area would be watched more closely and marked down as compromised.

Once outside the tower, I set off towards the next location, while Bones listened to the local chatter. Bad thing about being stuck inside a tower wall was being isolated. The tower material was also good thing for remaining hidden. I made my way to the next target.

High density liquid crystals. Another item that couldn’t be easily put into storage rings, very hard to move, and quite explosive. I reached the tower and then made my way to the level the storage tanks were located on.

Again, being so weak was a huge asset. Bones let me know that anyone strongest than myself would set off all sorts of alarms. Thankfully the high density liquid crystals and the supporting equipment would hide my presence. Even with all my equipment, it just blocked casual scans.

If an immortal in charge of a tower focused on my position, they would spot something was off. Only by hiding inside the tower walls with observation obscurers designed to mimic the tower walls themselves would I be able to hide. The towers with their thousands upon thousands of floors, countless beings, and now a war meant my security was obtained through obscurity.

Cutting into the floor, the tanks weren’t near the outer edge of the tower. I cut a small hole so Bones could observe the movements of the people on the floor. The fighting was less intense, and they were attempting to distribute the high density crystals out to smaller containers for easier transport. Crystals were used in various components and liquid crystals were highly versatile in their applications.

Once Bones said the coast was clear, I cut my way out of the tower wall and made my way into the interior of the tower. I then hooked up a crystal compressor we had made. It basically turned the high density liquid crystal into solid crystal bars.

This normally wasn’t done since turning the bars back into crystals, would cause about a 25% loss in density, which directly related to value. Since the energy compressing the liquid down was consumed. But the crystal bars could be stored in a spatial ring. They were also a useful form of currency outside of credits with other super-organizations.

Once I partially drained one tank and someone was coming along, I would move to another one, Bones plotting out my entire path with ease. We looped around the entire floor and pocketed 223 crystal bars, which had a value of around 111,500 credits, each crystal bar having a resale value of 500 credits. We then quickly hid in the tower wall again for another long stretch of time.

“That kind of value is pocket change for factions. We didn’t empty any of the tanks or steal the manufacturing equipment for a reason. If that happened then the tower master would have to report it to the faction, which would draw specialized investigators.”

“Which would be bad,” I replied.

“They would have techniques to backtrace the movement of items and valuables. But the tower master will fudge some numbers most likely to cover this up to not look bag. While he will investigate, the people running the towers aren’t investigators, more administrators. Even if they wanted to look into this, the ongoing war would cause issues.”

“And they can’t hire out or something else?”

“This is less than a drop in the bucket for the Heavenly Alliance. Now if we stole the manufacturing equipment or more than ten percent of the high-density liquid crystal, then maybe. But we stole such a small amount, the cost of follow up isn’t worthwhile.”

“And the faction won’t report things internally?”

“Nope. Running a tower is a prestigious position. It also allows the person in charge to skim off the top. If there was a full audit, their actions would be discovered. And I will find you an upright tower master when you find a cultivator cultivating the Dao of Kindness.” That basically meant it would never happen. Bones had proven himself countless times with his knowledge.

This knowledge, while not rare, wasn’t spread about or known in the lower classes. Even information brokers wouldn’t have the sheer scope that Bones did. Knowing all this tiny minutiae about factions and the Forever City. It was like having cheat codes to everything. While I made sure to pay attention, ask questions, and learn, there was just a tremendous amount of little things one wouldn’t even realize until they asked the right questions.

With the theft of the crystal bars, I made my way around the conflict zone towards the other faction. There was only one theft target there, more high density liquid crystal. Their manufacturing facilities were too secure.

I used the same procedures as last time and made off with 178 crystal bars, or another 89,000 credits. All that preparation had managed to net me goods worth 260,500 credits worth of goods. Selling all of them and getting those credits was a concern.

Bones and I had discussed the issue, and even he wasn’t sure how to sell everything without me being killed on the spot and everything stolen. Any transaction we did over 10,000 credits was too high of a risk, which meant we needed backing of some kind, which meant we needed to pay a lot. The other issue was space. All these items took up space in my spatial rings, and in my pack for the spatial components of the drive systems.

The gap in wealth was immense, and clawing my way up from scavenger, to actual member of society wasn’t simple. “Anyone backing you will want to know your history and abilities. The big issue is that you are weak, incredibly weak. So any faction will think you are a plant or an easy mark. They will probably use someone more disposable to kill you and see what happens.”

“There aren’t rouge factions or something that are more open?” I asked.

“It comes down to strength. You fall into the category below the modded workers. While you can get away being a scavenger since no one looks that closely at another, we aren’t going through the front door on any faction. Or the back door. We need someone with connections, but willing to deal with us without questions on high value goods,” Bones explained as we tried to think about how to sell our stolen goods.

“And an open market doesn’t have the credits,” I replied.

“Exactly. These goods are faction level or traded between much more powerful people. I don’t know where to start. The best option might be going to a member of another super-organization and cutting a deal, with the hope they don’t realize how outclassed you are. We would also lose value, like thirty percent converting to credits, but it is the only way.”

“That much, why that much?”

“Credits are used internally by the Heavenly Alliance. That means someone has to work outside of them to do the trade. That means illegal transactions. Which means risks. At least we have crystal bars which are solidified raw energy to some extent, and drive systems which are useful in a wide range of things.”

“So where do we go?” I asked.

“No idea. That is the problem. Everything else I could work out. But this, I have no idea.”

“And we can’t go to the Pit Stop of Hell and ask around because that is run by the Heavenly Alliance.”

“That is exactly why that kind of place is set up. It is the bottom of the barrel kind of thing, but the one thing that gets the Heavenly Alliance excited would be another super-organization doing anything. Getting involved with the Heavenly Alliance is a bad idea. My usual method would be to beat some beings up and get information from them, work up the power chain. Or pay a high end information broker. But we can’t with how weak you are.”

“I can’t disguise that?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“What if someone killed us, and stole what we had. How would they deal with the items?”

“Resale on the cheap. They would get ten percent of the actual resale value. Closer to 26,000 credits. That is unacceptable.”

“There has to be a freelancer faction? One that would back us without too many questions for people who don’t want questions, but charge a higher fee?”

“That might be a possibility. Good idea. We can ask around,” Bones replied and I felt proud of myself for coming up with an idea. Now I was hoping it would work out.

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