Elder Cultivator

It was going to be very difficult to make friends of any temperature if Bear Hug froze to death. There were probably many other reasons to not die, but that one was at the forefront of their mind.

The lack of sun was devastating. Bear Hug had kind of assumed the upper realms was a land of eternal sunlight… even though they’d visited and it was just more planets. It was strange that so many people wanted to ascend, and for what? Spicy energy?

Bear Hug didn’t have taste buds, so spicy was an unfamiliar concept, but they were pretty sure that was the right descriptor for upper energy. Or Ascension energy. But sometimes spicy was also hot, and so it should fix the freezing, right?

The amalgamation of algae wandered around in a daze for an unknown amount of time, not really making any sense. A layer of ice froze around their bubble of water. It seemed like that trend might continue until they were just a plant based popsicle.

Except the layer of ice turned out to be good insulation. Cut off from direct access to the outside, Bear Hug started taking better stock of themself. Upper energy was new, so they’d only been using it to flop around and try to do things. However, with a bit more patience and proper intent, it wasn’t too hard to rally it to function properly. Creating warmth was the first start. Absorbing more energy came with cold, but it was offset in Bear Hug’s favor.

That was good. It would have been embarrassing to die of cold as an Integration cultivator. Belatedly, they tried to reach out to the rest of themself. Everything felt… distant. Which it was, but normally it didn’t feel that way. The intent to draw upon shared energy resulted in a strange font inside of them which wasn’t happy at all. Even though lower energy had been the only thing Bear Hug used previously, it no longer fit. Like Liberty breaking free from his boulder.

Bear Hug began moving through the surprisingly barely frozen wasteland. It was far colder than the freezing temperature for… pretty much everything. There just wasn’t much water. Bear Hug trudged along the rocky surface.

It was quite a surprise when they came across a pool of liquid. It clearly wasn’t water, since that all froze instantly. Bear Hug reached out with a tendril, energy insulating them from actually touching the surface. Even their protective energy nearly froze as they touched the strange liquid. A small portion sizzled at their touch, rapidly boiling and evaporating. What was left behind was… air.

Was air supposed to be a liquid? Bear Hug leaned into the overhang, looking down. Was air supposed to be solid? Because there were some frozen chunks in there. But it was definitely air. Oxygen and stuff. Anton had taught Bear Hug about the different kinds of air, but oxygen was the one that many plants breathed- a little bit in, and a lot out. Bear Hug did that too.

There was also carbon-and-two-oxygens. That one was the main material in the solid chunks. It didn’t melt very quickly, but when it did… well, it didn’t even melt! It just poofed into air form.

Bear Hug realized they’d been poking a very cold pool for a while. They should probably be working on survival. But it was fun. And they could get air from it, without having to make it, or capture it and reuse it. That was so good. Much easier.

It was important not to fall into what looked like cozy ponds, though. Even the ones that didn’t have frozen chunks were so cold. Not at all good for a nap. So Bear Hug had to maintain all the water they had, though it could be made from some of the frozen bits if they lost some.

Napping was going to be hard. Bear Hug didn’t really sleep, but normally it was easy to maintain safe temperatures because those were the only temperatures that existed. Maybe they could make little ice shells on purpose.

Bear Hug returned to ambling along. Their eventual goal was the very distant sunrise. It seemed like a whole planet away, but it was probably moving towards them. It was so slow it was difficult to tell which direction the sun was going, but the planet wasn’t quite still. So going in the right direction was important, because it could make a difference of several days over the course of a journey.

Friends, even potential friends, were so far nowhere to be found. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise, as it was so cold. Bear Hug was lucky that they had subconsciously protected themself, because it would have been possible to freeze through in just a few moments.

But now that there was so much cold, it was boring. So Bear Hug looked for friends. No life, in any obvious way. No plants, which was sad. No animals, which was normal with no plants.

No ice fishies. No frozen birds. Though, they would have had a lot of trouble flying with everything being heavy and not much air to push against. Bear Hug understood why the air was thing, because a lot of the air was liquid or frozen.

Bear Hug looked closer, but found no tiny little bacteria. Those were the smallest things they knew were alive. Maybe there were other names for things that were smaller, but they were pretty similar. And relevantly, not here. Even though there was a lot of energy to be had.

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The trek for sunlight was now a secondary goal. First was finding a friend. Bear Hug looked frantically, under rocks, and under rocks, and under rocks…

There sure wasn’t a lot besides rocks. And some dirt. Ooh, and a cave.

Caves were just rocks and dirt. The first one was also a pond a little bit of the way in, with more freezing pools- or just solid air.

The third cave was deeper than the others, and it didn’t get plugged up by frozen or liquid air. Bear Hug felt something as they got deeper. Energy, concentrated inside something. Something alive, maybe. Or a super cool cultivation thingy.

Bear Hug had to find out, running eagerly towards it. By the time they got close enough to pick out details, they had rounded a bend into a larger cavern. Then the thing they were looking at ran towards them.

Bear Hug’s new friend gave a very aggressive hug which Bear Hug returned. It was a big, fuzzy cat and they were going to be best friends forever. “Can you talk? Can you tell I’m controlling energy here?” Bear Hug asked.

Their new cat friend nuzzled bear hug. No wait, he was trying to bite. Those vibrations were probably not purring sounds but growling sounds. Bear Hug booped their new friend to get them to settle down.

The snow cat was pretty strong. Life Transformation, probably. But it didn’t feel like human cultivation. That didn’t mean Mister Snowcat wasn’t a person, just that they weren’t the same style of person.

“Let me know if you can talk, okay?”

Mister Snowcat didn’t respond. That was normal. You weren’t supposed to figure out how to talk in the first exchange. It took practice.

“You’re thin. I guess you can’t eat frozen air, huh?” Bear Hug more carefully observed their new friend. Mister Snowcat was probably bigger than a human. Not taller, since cats were long, but certainly heavier. They probably weren’t supposed to be thin. And despite the strength behind it, Mister Snowcat’s energy was also thin. “If you take energy from the air, you’ll be happier.”

Bear Hug demonstrated. Mister Snowcat looked confused. He had stopped trying to bite Bear Hug when he almost cracked a tooth.

“Maybe you’re tired. Here, have a little treat.” Bear Hug gathered a bit of their own energy, trying to make it enticing and nice. Not too much. When placed in front of the big cat, he gulped it down. “Digest that slowly, okay?” Bear Hug was pretty sure this was an animal. Animals were better at eating energy than absorbing it intentionally. But maybe it was just someone who didn’t know better.

Mister Snowcat’s den was sad. There wasn’t anything except a few tufts of fur left around, stuck to surfaces. No signs of friends or family, or even recent prey.

“You’re gonna come with me, okay? I know it’s cold outside, but I’ll keep you warm. Warmish.”

Bear Hug led his new friend outside. Mister Snowcat was hesitant, but when Bear Hug wrapped them both in a warm- compared to everything around them- blanket of energy, he seemed more comfortable. And he was always happy to munch on little treats of energy. Not too many, though.

Unlike Bear Hug, animals did have to sleep. It seemed that their new companion was tired already, because he only lasted a couple hours before curling up between some boulders. There wasn’t much windchill, but being sheltered from enemies was probably good. Not that they’d seen anything else.

Bear Hug built a little icy shell around them, and they took a short break as well, carefully absorbing energy and experimenting with it. Humans thought it was better. Void ants really liked it. Bear Hug thought it was okay. Much better than when they weren’t attuned to it. It didn’t seem like it was worth the effort of Ascension, though. Especially if you left behind your friends.

With so little sensory input, the ground moving immediately caught Bear Hug’s attention. A moment later, a giant badger was trying to eat Bear Hug. A much more tasty target than Mister Snowcat, for sure. Bear Hug had all the good energy.

They took a look at the area that the badger had come out of. It wasn’t a very long tunnel, instead it seemed that Mister Dig had been patiently waiting for something to pass over. It had probably taken half an hour or more to slowly reach directly beneath them.

The rest of the time, Mister Dig was probably by himself underground. “No biting,” Bear Hug said. “Or we won’t be friends.”

Mister Dig, surprisingly, responded more quickly. Not with words or anything, but he understood the chastisement to some extent. Or was just afraid of how Bear Hug wielded energy, which still showed high intelligence.

“Don’t even try to eat Mister Snowcat,” Bear Hug warned as the badger backed away, turning his head. “But if you want, we can be friends too.” It was so hard to say it that way. But friends who didn’t want to be your friends were a lot of work. Like Briar.

Bear Hug fed the badger a bit of energy too. Just like Mister Snowcat, he was thin in body and energy. It was sort of like the middle of winter, so maybe it made sense. They could probably survive by eating only whatever they could ambush every few days or weeks… maybe. Bear Hug wasn’t that familiar with winter animal stuff.

Bear Hug’s two new friends weren’t very good at getting along, at first. Mister Dig was better about not bothering the cat, but the cat was constantly wary of the badger. But both of them were happy to follow Bear Hug as they marched towards daylight.

The next day, the trio was attacked by some ice bugs. They came out of rocks, unfolding and leaping at the group. Obviously, Bear Hug stopped them. The cat ate one before Bear Hug could explain. Then the sharp bugs kept attacking and nothing Bear Hug could do would stop them.

Bear Hug was surprised when Mister Dig twisted his energy, clearly indicating the insects. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought the badger was saying something like, “Are you going to eat that?”

But of course, Bear Hug didn’t eat anything. “I don’t think these are friends,” Bear Hug commented after about an hour of scrabbling. “I guess you two can eat them.”

As soon as Mister Snowcat wasn’t held away from them, he gladly did chomp on some sharp bugs. It seemed like it should be painful with all the sharp stuff, but maybe the energy chomps helped.

The badger ate too. And everyone was happy. “I hope it was tasty,” Bear Hug said.