Sky Pride

Stormborn Pine Truffle. A delicacy and a body refining treasure. They cannot be farmed, and only chanced upon by luck.

Tian was balanced on a tree trunk no wider than his leg. The drop to the river below was a hundred feet or more. The climb up was not much less daunting, and besides, there was a tiger up there. He knew the tiger was still there because the big bastard kept peeking over the edge of the cliff. It could smell the truffle too.

I bet that’s why you ran into that Tiger. This isn’t the right sort of environment for a tiger. It must have been driven out of its territory, smelled the truffle and guarded this place while it matured. It was probably just looking for a way to get down the cliff without dying in the process.

“Good thing it can’t climb.”

Oh, they can. They just don’t like climbing cliffs. If you had run up a tree you would have found out really quickly why they are called the Kings of the Jungle.

Tian shuddered. The tiger was huge. The bobcat was already a nightmare. He didn’t know what to call the tiger. It was just death. He had lost his waterskin and tools too, along with his jerky. That wasn’t good at all.

“It’s a body refining treasure?”

Oh yes. Well. “Treasure” for you, certainly. Most cultivators at the lower stages of most cultivation methods would be quite happy to find it, but they probably wouldn’t risk their life for it. The main thing is that, used properly, it’s transformative. We are really going to waste great stuff here.

“What’s the right way to use it?”

Soft scramble three eggs with salt, white pepper and finely chopped chives. Shave the truffle paper thin over the eggs and serve immediately. Accompany the eggs with toasted, buttered sourdough bread and a bright, sweet juice like orange juice or pineapple. Share the food with your nearest and dearest friend, or, better, lover. Savor the moment intensely, excluding all other thoughts except the interplay of flavors, textures and emotions. Rejoice in life.

Tian blinked “Grandpa… I don’t know what any of that is.”

It would be strange if you did, but I kind of wish you knew about scrambled eggs, at least. You’ve certainly seen plenty of eggs.

“Sure, but what’s a soft scramble?”

A conversation for another, happier, time. Look over the truffle carefully. First, give it a feel. Stormborn Pine Truffle should have a faintly rough texture to it, almost like a tree bark. The exterior color is a deep brown verging on black. When it is mature, it emits a strong fragrance that smells like… well like this. You will find out more things to compare it to when you are older. The flesh inside should be fish-belly white with faint stripes of yellow and green. Don’t crack it open, I don’t want to lose any of the potency. It’s the real thing.

Tian just nodded along, and remembered. Grandpa always did this- explaining things endlessly. He once told Tian that he wanted to teach all he could, as fast as he could, in case he had to go silent for a long time again. That was a scary thought. So Tian just nodded and listened.

No need to worry about fancy preparations- we can’t make any. So just shove it in your mouth and eat it.

“I don’t think it will all fit?”

It’s soft. Your teeth will bite through well enough. Just cram it all in there and do your best to chew. Make sure all the liquid runs down inside your throat. No drooling.

The tiger at the top of the cliff saw exactly what was happening. It kept looking over and roaring, warning Tian not to eat its treasure. He could see the tiger trying to swipe at him with its huge paw, claws extended. Tian smiled up at it. The tiger was dozens of feet above him. It could roar all it liked.

“The tiger has very big teeth, and I think it has all of them. I’ve got gaps in my teeth.”

Yes. Another reason to reforge your body.

“You don’t understand, Grandpa. The tiger is very big, it has claws and teeth and it’s strong. But I’m eating the truffle. It feels… good.”

Heh. Keep working hard so you can be strong enough to get more treasures in the future. After all, you couldn’t have found the truffle if you weren’t strong enough to kill the bobcat, outrun the tiger and survive the fall.

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Tian gave the truffle another sniff. It smelled very odd, but his mouth was watering and every scrap of him was screaming that, odd or not, it would be the tastiest thing ever to eat. Tian opened his mouth as wide as he could, stretching his jaw until the hinge ached. Then, looking the tiger dead in the eye, he crammed the truffle into his mouth, and bit down.

The flavor nearly knocked him off the tree.

Rich. Overwhelmingly rich. Savory. Meaty, but deeper and darker than the roasted cat meat. The juice and aroma rose up from his mouth, into his nostrils and filled his body. The juices trickling down his throat had a bitter tang, but even more savoriness to make up for it. There was a lingering scent of pine, and a whiff of char.

All the smells and tastes whirled around like a storm in his mouth and flooded in his senses. Dizzying and bewildering and fascinating, endlessly fascinating. And somehow, it was medicine. This delicious thing was basically the same as the paste he smeared on his wounds, except for his insides.

He chewed carefully, making sure every drop of juice went down his throat, closing his lips and teeth as soon as he could to trap every scrap of aroma inside of him.

Hold on to the tree, Grandson! Hold on to the tree whatever happens! Stay balanced and hold on!

“This is medicine. The truffle is like the herbs, and my body is the leaf. My stomach is the water. So what’s the fire boiling it all?” Tian thought.

His stomach started to cramp. Stabbing pain, like needles boring out into his stomach lining, then the muscles of his abdomen. Then into the rest of his body. Needles tore his lungs with every breath and every pump of blood drove them deeper into every muscle and fiber in his body. He shivered, then convulsed. But he didn’t let go of the tree. Grandpa said to hang on no matter what, and his own eyes told him to do the same. Tian hung on for dear life, even as his body tried to shake him off.

“I can’t let go. I can’t let go. I can’t let go.” Tian chanted in his mind. Anything or everything else could happen, but he couldn’t let go. He wouldn’t die. He could get through this. He knew how to work through the pain. Willpower. As long as he had willpower, he could get through this.

“That’s the fire,” The thought cut through the pain-fog like lightning. “Everything is just separate bits without it. Everything comes together and transforms with willpower!”

Even as he convulsed, even as his body shook with pain, he smiled. It was all down to willpower. And he had plenty of that. Growing up in the junkyard, eating trash, sleeping under more trash, fighting the rats and foxes that came to nibble on him while he slept- he had lots and lots of willpower. He could endure pain and loneliness. This? This was nothing.

When the convulsing stopped and he regathered enough strength to think clearly, Tian tried to feel what had changed. And… couldn’t.

Don’t worry about it. You aren’t seeing the difference right now, but I am. I may have underestimated the Stormborn Pine Truffle. Or overestimated your condition. Or underestimated the spitefulness of… Grandpa Jun trailed off.

Sorry, went off on a tangent there. You are much, much stronger now. It’s not potent enough to regrow anything you are missing, but once you have a meal in you and a good night’s sleep, three days at most, you will notice the change.

“Which is?”

You are about to feel like you have way more energy, you are more coordinated, and you are going to have to rewire your brain. Oh, your eyes are probably going to feel weird for a while. Maybe a few days. But it’s a good thing.

Tian noticed that his eyes really were hurting. “What’s going on with my eyes?”

It cured your myopia and your colorblindness. You really will see the difference.

“What do you mean colorblind? I see colors.”

What color was the tiger?

“Green and black.”

Boy are you in for a surprise. But actually, you will have to retrain your brain too- it wont start distinguishing the colors by itself. It’s a pain, but it’s doable.

“And the other stuff?”

Basically your hormonal system… you know when you gut an animal they have all these glands and things that I tell you not to eat and just use as bait?

“Yes?”

And I said that it was pretty complicated explaining what they all do?

“Yes?”

The truffle fixed a lot of your gland stuff. So, good news, you are most of the way to a normal puberty! Still have some trouble to take care of in the trouser department and some of the chemistry is wonky, but it will all settle out. A wonderful start!

“Are glands really that important?”

Yes. So much. So very, very much. There are entire cultivation arts, martial arts, magic arts, beast taming arts, alchemy arts- below a certain level of physical and spiritual evolution, your body is going to be some variation of Basic Human. So anything that lets you adjust or improve your Basic Human is going to be a very good thing. No wonder junior cultivators love these truffles so much- it’s a full endocrine system tune up.

Tian blinked at that. He didn’t know what a lot of those words meant, but it sounded very good and Grandpa was very happy for him, so he wouldn’t worry about it. Instead he worried about how to get down.

“Grandpa… can I climb up from here?”

No, you absolutely cannot climb up from here. Not because you aren’t strong enough, but because the tiger is waiting for you. You ate his treasure. He hates you to death and is trying to kill you.

Ah. It seems there are consequences to enjoying someone else’s treasure directly in front of them. He had to consider how to escape afterward, too.

“So I have to climb down?”

Yep.

Tian looked down at the ragged stumps of his fingers. Only his two good thumbs and index fingers were really strong. Far from enough for a climb down a cliff.

“It seems a very long way.”

It is.

“So…?”

So what? Are you going to sit up here until you die? Do you think you can sleep balanced on a tree branch? Take a minute longer to recover, then get moving. You will only get weaker without food and water. Might as well start moving now.

Tian slowly reached for the next thin rock lip, trying to get as much of a grip as his limited flesh allowed. “It’s even easier than climbing the trash piles. The rock doesn’t slip or slide around.” He kept lying to himself. It was better than acknowledging his shaking hands and trembling legs. He had never been afraid of heights before, but he was pretty sure he was now. “And going down is easier than going up. I don’t need to see where I am going, I’d just get more scared looking down.”

He got a “good” grip on it and lowered his weight. His toe found a little rounded bump sticking out of the rock face. You normally couldn’t call it a place to stand, but he was prepared to love it. He could get the ball of his foot and all his toes on there. It was a great bit of rock. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Half way down, my boy. Half way down. You have this. You are doing great! There is a beauty of a seam you can work with down and to your left. Once you get a grip there, it’s easy street for almost twenty feet! And that puts you just a little bit above safe drop distance. This is going absolutely great!

It was at this point that Tian was attacked by eagles.