There were no major insights John gained from his battles with Tirto and Verusha, but the training was doubtless valuable for both sides regardless. Incremental increases were the very basis of progress in cultivation, after all. Sudden improvements were few and far between, and they became less and less regular the further along the path of cultivation one went. One had to endure extreme circumstances for a significant time to even have a hope of a leap forward.

  Currently, John was in no rush… but he still felt a drive pushing him forward eternally. Power was enticing, whether it was to protect allies, defeat foes, or simply for his own edification. Mastery over the elements was its own reward.

  Though their next ultimate destination after the Shimmering Islands were the Soulrot Bogs, they continued directly east to Pearl Landing. There, further Six Elements Crossroads disciples waited for them- and others who had different engagements were able to depart and return to the sect, or wherever else they wished to go.

  Notably, they picked up the most prominent disciple to come from the Soulrot Bogs, Taurai. The Soulrot Bogs produced very few people, cultivators or not, so there weren’t many others.

  Unlike most previous interactions with the Soulrot Bog, this time John actually was going to the region instead of merely passing through. That meant spending more time there, though it wouldn’t be one of their longer stays. Among other things, there were very few resident sects, and even fewer things resembling cities.

  With little diplomacy to accomplish, the main goal was training the disciples. What they were expected to learn was not combat prowess, but how to efficiently handle smaller threats. After all, the greatest threats in the Soulrot Bog were not usually the larger predators, but the smaller insects. More powerful creatures could be avoided, but mosquitoes were constant. And some of them bore plagues that even cultivators found difficult to cure.

  Of course, dumping disciples into such a place without protection would be an unnecessary risk. John wasn’t interested in culling the weak, he’d simply prefer to make them strong. Just like in the other danger zones, each disciple was part of a group, with more experienced cultivators taking on the task of keeping everyone ultimately safe. But safe didn’t mean comfortable.

  It was enough for the disciples to want to handle things themselves when insects were constantly buzzing around. Furthermore, identifying the ones carrying more troublesome diseases was part of John’s duties. Taurai was extremely useful in that regard as well, since she had survived living in the Soulrot Bog growing up.

  Disciples with some amount of defensive body tempering were the safest. The Six Elements Crossroads had access to a number of minor techniques, though John thought the field was still underdeveloped. Regardless, the main dangers were small insects that could pierce through defensive energy, at least any raised casually. It was possible for a cultivator to simply raise the intensity of their energy to resist them, but that wasn’t viable as an all day measure. Furthermore, unimportant insects impacting a cultivator’s defenses might strain their attention over the course of time.

  Previously, John had learned some minor insect control techniques. Insects had simple brains that were easy enough to influence with darkness energy, and the local insects were no exception. In fact, as one of the local elements they seemed fairly comfortable with it.

  John created a thin haze to try to drive away the worst offenders, but he also experimented with different techniques.

  The first thing he thought of was bug zappers. The principle was sound. Active defenses would be more difficult to slip past than passive ones, and a flow of current would only drain a cultivator when it encountered something. At least, if done properly. John created a small electrical field around himself, though he had to constantly modify it to not interact with the ground and plants beneath him.

  It certainly zapped bugs, though. And disciples who accidentally got too close when they weren’t paying attention to the air element in front of them. It wasn’t strong, so they got nothing more than expected of a static shock- and that a deserved one, since it was a standout element in the surroundings.

  The problem John found was that the plants and ground were excessively watery, drawing away some of his power. In this case, the word ‘ground’ was doing a lot of heavy lifting, since, it was rarely if ever completely solid. Either way, he maintained his darkness element dissuasion field to keep things around him to a minimum intensity while trying different methods.

  Simple blocking everything was draining. He could create an impermeable barrier that only air passed- which wasn’t quite as perfect as it sounded- but it wasn’t the sort of thing Foundation Phase cultivators could maintain, and it might have been too much even for some Soul Expansion Phase cultivators.

  A fire barrier was his least favorite, as the main thing worse than being swarmed by insects was being swarmed by flaming insects. Obviously it still killed them, but there was too much potential for chaos. The electrical method made some of the insects pop, though, so perhaps it wasn’t that different.

  If John was being conservative with his usage, he had one more possibility. It would even be good training. It took a while for him to properly form a barrier of light, since he had to keep the natural darkness element away. It didn’t have to be powerful, as he wasn’t planning to block a proper attack. Just deal with insects. And the vast majority of them, it absolutely dealt with.

  Most of the local insects carried darkness element inside of them. Combining that with light resulted in much more energetic explosions than the other sort. Individually the insects were tiny, and light-darkness annihilation wasn’t particularly draining on John, but it was still uncomfortable to be around constant events of that sort. It was like visiting the Annihilation Strip- which was the only area not actually part of the plans to visit. Very few disciples would learn anything of merit there.

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  John didn’t just practice his own abilities, of course. He spent most of his efforts watching over the other disciples. He was also responsible for one of the nightwatch shifts, because it was impractical to have a sufficient number of enchanted tents to keep out insects- and they weren’t perfect anyway. Active protection was better, but obviously nobody could just forgo sleep forever. Thus, they had shifts among the more qualified individuals.

  -----

  “How is it, being back for the first time in… a while?” John asked Taurai.

  “I have not returned since my early cultivation, sect head,” Taurai admitted. “Actually, I was afraid to return. It was not such an easy place to escape. One might think that simply walking out would be enough… but that is only partially true.”

  “Not much love for the people?”

  “They think we bring plague. At least, those who live close by. Not everyone in the Darklands feels that way, but that is the only practical direction to go unless one wishes to traverse the entirety of the Deadfields. Acquiring sufficient supplies to pass through there isn’t a simple task.”

  “Which way did you go?” John asked. “I don’t think I ever heard anything about before you arrived at the Crossroads.”

  “The Darklands. I hid my water element and poorly pretended to be a native,” she explained. “There wasn’t much else to it. I spent some time doing menial work for the Calamitous Swarm. That’s where I heard about the Crossroads, actually.”

  “Ah. I somehow expected us to be more famous,” John admitted.

  “There was practically no contact with the outside.”

  “I see. Do you… are there any places in particular you wish to try to contact?”

  She shook her head. “I took everything I could with me. But perhaps we could provide some opportunities for the few individuals unfortunate enough to survive here.”

  “Survival is unfortunate?”

  “You have to live with this every day. It doesn’t get better. You’re trapped in a small zone you understand well enough not to die right away.”

  -----

  In his new life, John didn’t particularly perform a lot of charity. However, when pitiful individuals were in front of him, he couldn’t help but show something. Most of those who lived in the Soulrot Bog were descendents of those with poor decision making. It had a powerful enough spiritual energy for sects to set up, but nobody had yet developed any sort of infrastructure. The only hope for some was to remain in their sects.

  Ironically, John was certain some groups would be upset if he took away those who wanted to leave- but none of them would be relevantly powerful. Otherwise, they could have raised their disciples to be strong enough to leave the Bog on their own. Then again, John knew that not every sect shared even the most basic cultivation information to those without a certain status.

  John let Taurai pick out those who should come with them. They were going to have to take the long way through the Deadfields, but the Six Elements Crossroads had storage bags. The Soulrot Bog wouldn’t notice a few beasts if they were hunted for food. They might not be tasty, but that was something people would just have to live with.

  As for water, it was easy enough to purify it. John didn’t fully trust it until water had been drawn up, frozen, boiled, and then carefully separated once more, but for a group with a large amount of high phase water cultivators, it was easy. If they needed to, they could also condense water from the atmosphere.

  Ultimately, they invited a few sects to the tournament. They found one ‘village’ of a few people struggling to survive, and none of the others anyone remembered still existed. Those few people, plus some outer members of the other sects, came with them. John didn’t expect them to swear undying loyalty to the Six Elements Crossroads or anything. Keeping people alive was the most basic thing cultivators could do. Anyone who required great return for minimal survival resources was a terrible person.

  -----

  The Deadfields were sad. Devoid of spiritual energy, except small amounts of light element that funneled up from the Prism Underfields. Not even the normal background amounts that one would expect of various mixed elements. The lack of plantlife was likely related to said issues, though whether it was the cause, effect, or both was unclear. Being next to the teeming bog indicated there were some more factors at play.

  The Combining Luster Sect had a good relationship with the Six Elements Crossroads, due to previous interactions. Nik still kept his own connections to former sect mates, and John was obviously well acquainted with his son-in-law. Many but not all connections from the Tenebach Clan had come with John to the Six Elements Crossroads.

  There was nothing new about their techniques for John to see, but a reminder of the way they functioned was still good for his future plans. It wasn’t even as unpleasant for him to be in an area suffused by the light element as it had once been.

  John was inspired to search for potential totems, surrounded as he was by the spiritual element. He easily slipped deep into the sea of spiritual totems. The sixth layer was the deepest, as far as anyone was aware. John had the necessary ability to sustain his presence in those depths since before he reached the Ascending Soul Phase, with some caveats. Searching out light element totems was more difficult, as he was as-yet incompatible. The totems would make him compatible, unless he picked something wrong, but he still needed to nudge his affinity more in the right direction to make his search efficient.

  He spent a lot of time looking at shining crystals, inspired by his surroundings. None of them were right. Light and darkness, or light and some other combination of elements. Some of them almost fit. One was a perfect prism that separated light into a rainbow- no doubt similar to the sort of totems found- or created- on earlier layers. It wasn’t bad, but John didn’t need a totem that was acceptable. He needed perfection, not because he was picky but because he wouldn’t count on his chances of survival without.