Calculating Cultivation - Chapter 63: A Life Free Of Fear

“Clear for the next ten levels then a checkpoint,” I said while checking the staircase, while it was really Bones telling me.

“Your sensory abilities are quite good,” Rhiza responded. I wished they were that good.

“Let’s get to it,” I said, and she nodded. Getting any closer than 10 levels was too risky. The levels above and below checkpoints often had teams waiting according to Bones and Rhiza had mentioned the same thing. We both left the staircase, Rhiza taking the lead.

That was the main reason why Bones consented to working with her, she was a meat shield. Combined with his knowledge and sensory abilities, which were used through me, we made a fairly decent scavenger team.

“Anything?” Rhiza asked once we entered the floor of the tower. The numbers all started to blur togeather after a while. The important thing was that the battle front had moved downwards recently, which allowed us to check this floor for stuff in the immediate aftermath.

We had hours before a faction’s main scavenger teams came through this area. “Just Grunts and Eyes, off in the distance, that way,” I pointed. They were our competitors. Grunts didn’t speak, just grunted, hence the nickname I gave him. Eyes, had too many eyes and a weird body shape I wasn’t sure about. Definitely not humanoid.

They were freelance scavengers as well. The entire battlefront had some kind of order to it. First one side or the other was pushed back. The size of the push varied. The larger the push, the better it was for us. The side doing the pushing had an elite scavenger team right behind, moving away all the really high value stuff. Weapons, spatial items, potions, and bio-mods. It was quick and dirty in case the battle front swung back the other way to deny key resources to the enemy faction.

The main clearing teams were a ways back and took longer to move through an area, since they were carting out everything to be repurposed, leaving blank tower floors to also be repurposed. Checkpoints were set up along the staircase, floors with outside access, and the tunnels connecting towers. I didn’t like the term tunnels, but it was the slang that was used.

Since most beings in the Forever City weren’t able to leave the towers, it was viewed as some kind of ground, but was made of air. Normally one would think the atmosphere in this case, but the Forever City had no ground. Hence the pathways between towers were called tunnels and not bridges.

Where Rhiza, the other freelance scavengers, and myself came in was to move between the front quick scavengers and the slow comprehensive ones. It had taken a bit of work to maneuver ourselves into this position. Now that we were here, the risks were immense.

If the front swung back the other way, we would be caught in the battle and killed. If we ran into a faction scavenger group, we would be killed. If we ran into a checkpoint, we would be killed. If another freelancer didn’t like us, they might kill us. Finally, there might even be traps left behind. While not that common, it did happen.

With infinite time, the factions had seen it all. Fake retreats, decoys, fake soldiers, fake scavengers, it had all been done before. We were left alone since it wasn’t economical to go after us, and we were technically trapped between the slow scavenging faction team and the checkpoint.

Getting into and out of this position was the most gut-wrenching part of this entire job. Right now, picking up trash was the easy part. Bones was particularly helpful in this regard. Without him, I wouldn’t have known what to grab. Was dirt more valuable, or a barrel of water? Was a certain piece of equipment repairable or salvageable? If something was large, what was the key component that could be removed that had the most value to keep space open in my spatial ring?

These were the questions he answered while keeping an eye on the wider area. I also got free lessons on the various levels we scavenged from. “This was a grow vat facility, crystals from the looks of it. Cheap ones, but they have their uses in other productions areas. My guess the levels nearby.” I rushed through the hallways and rooms, looking around so Bones could look around as well. Rhiza was exploring for stuff to pick up in another direction.

“The valuable items would be crystal compressors and possibly shapers.” There were lots of bodies and blood splatter littering various areas. The corpses were desecrated and stripped clean. They were the first targets of the front-line faction scavengers.

There were also no signs. One of the things factions knew, was that labeling things would let any invading force know where the good stuff was kept. While the stairs were the main transit up and down, there were staircases that cut between floors. That was the main method to get around checkpoints and the slow scavenger group.

The factions had long ago worked out that trying to hunt down freelance scavengers wasn’t worth the cost incurred or the credits saved. It also meant there was rarely anything of value. While Bones talked about specific machines, those kind of items would have been packed away. Still there was a chance that something had been missed.

Sometimes layouts on floors changed, the fast scavenging group missed a side facility, or a worker was doing a personal project in a separate area. There were countless reasons why key items could be missed. It was incredibly rare and like the lottery, but Bones liked to talk about such things and I liked to get an understanding of the various floors as I went through them.

“Crystal fluid containers. Low grade, but high density.” I quickly moved the cannisters into my storage ring. “The liquification machine was taken. Now that would be a nice chunk of credits. You got them all, let’s keep moving,” he told me.

High density items were what I wanted. Since my spatial ring was limited by space. I would only be able to take a fraction of a floor’s materials if I started tossing it all inside my free ring. Freelance scavengers quickly learned what was valuable, but Bones’ assistance put me above the rest.

“Stop, there to the right. That box. Hit by blast fire, but only the outer casing is melted. That is a crystal etcher. Probably kept here for minor repairs on various components. This room is a repair workshop. The rest of the tools are gone,” I took the box.

The other big thing was that I could repair a lot of these items under Bones’ expert guidance and ability. It greatly increased the value of the item. I also had a deal with Rhiza to split the credits earned on the difference for any repair work for any item she brought me once we were done on our scavenging run.

I noticed a small organic eye crawl on several legs into the room. It gave me a look before moving on. That was Eyes, who sent out his eyes to scope out a floor. As long as we didn’t mess with Eyes’ eyes, the being would leave us alone.

Freelance scavengers rarely fought each other, but the rule was first come first served. Fighting would draw attention, which was bad for everyone. If you stopped to look at things, then someone else might swoop in and take the item you are looking at. Moving and covering ground was key to getting the most credits.

Bones kept track of the other freelancers’ movements and told me where to go while talking about the rooms and their purpose. Once we cleared out what he had said were the high value areas we moved to the next floor up an interior staircase, that was heavily damaged and began checking the next floor.

The process repeated again, only this time, the floor above us was involved with growing plants that would be processed for crystal fluid. There was less valuable stuff here, we only picked up a handheld tool buried under the remains of a corpse, a soil empowerment rod. About the size of my small arm, it was worth about 8 credits resold. The brand-new price would be 12 credits for a similar device.

There were bulk buyers trailing behind the slow-moving scavenger group. While factions tended to be self-contained nations, they also preferred standardization, and might not have enough recycling facilities. That is where bulk buyers came in. Stationed at an open floor past the slow-moving group of scavengers, they would purchase specific items their backers wanted, either for recycling or repurposing.

Corpses were one of the biggest items bulk buyers purchased. Or used organic material. Bones had said, that anything to sabotage others had been done in the past. That included bio-weapons and corpse weapons that had long term delayed traps implanted into them. Zombie outbreaks due to contaminating biowaste was a legitimate tactic. That was why some factions sold a lot of the low value stuff off instead of trying to handle it all themselves. These resources would be sold to friendly factions.

All of this meant that there were buyers for anything the freelance scavengers picked up. Everything had value to someone. The problem was getting enough stuff with value. One floor, and only finding an 8-credit rod was frustrating but all too common in this line of work.

That was the nature of scavenging the leftovers of a brutal and violent conflict. I had also become used to the casualties left behind. Men, women, and other creatures were ripped apart. The most common thing was burnt chunks of meat. That was why there tended to be a pork smell that lingered throughout the conflict areas. Blast weapons were the cheapest and most common weapons. Shoot concentrated blasts of super-heated fire to cut through defenses and wound opponents.

Guns, while useful were considered more elite due to their precision nature. With blast weapons, you pointed and fired. There were shields that could block such attacks, but combat tended to come down to both sides running and blasting each other. At least with a wide scale conflict like this.

Other factions had different methods of operation and might favor certain techniques instead of equipment. Elite teams contesting static lines. But this was a full-scale war, where everything possible was being used. The elites would be holding key chokepoints and fallback locations. Blast weapons were given to cannon fodder. But the only reason we were able to scavenge was because the conflict was spread out across a wide range of towers.

Bones had explained that it wasn’t rare, but it also wasn’t common either. It only happened when factions were sure their flanks were secure, and it was always a proxy battle between higher ranking factions.

“The slow team is two floors up. We need to get out of here,” Bones said. I scooped up a lot of raw materials, that would only be worth bits, but better than nothing. Once that was done, I went and found Rhiza based on Bone’s directions.

“Let’s get set up,” she said, and I nodded at this. She picked out a room next to the staircase and pulled out a tower cutter. She out a large block from the tower structure. The cutter didn’t work fast, and the damage would be noticed once we left, but by then it would be too late. It took about ten minutes of slow cutting to remove the piece of the tower so she could put it in a spatial item. We then both stepped inside the gap she had made, and she activated an illusion projector.

Each freelance scavenger had their own secret method that they used. Bones had been planning for us to try and get in through the outside and then the elevator shaft. But that would have been incredibly risky. Rhiza’s way was a hundred times better.

“Floor above us now,” I told her.

“Everything is stable. Find anything good?” she asked. The projector would block out sound as well, which Bones had confirmed. Unless one of the guards attacked the wall, they could touch it and not notice the difference.

My warnings on movements were my half the trade with Rhiza in our partnership. “Not much. With repairs at most a hundred credits. You?” I asked.

“I have a couple of devices I want you to take a look at, but nothing exciting,” she said.

“A shame we can’t get right behind the battle front,” I muttered. Getting ahead of the fast scavenger team would mean serious credits.

“This illusion wall is good, but one blast attack, and it will crumble. Also, they have sweepers at the front and the rear of their armies checking for just this tactic,” Rhiza countered. Bones had said the same thing, but it felt like we were going too slow.

While earning 100 credits in one day might sound amazing, it took a month before we were in the right position and the front moved in the correct direction for us to insert ourselves onto these floors. Split that with Bones, and I got about 2 credits per day of work.

That meant it would take about 1,400 years to earn a million credits. Bones still wasn’t sure how much he truly needed or me, but we both knew it was a lot. Those kinds of questions could only be answered once we had the credits to make the inquiries.

The basic goal was a million credits. Even if he put his body at half a million, that didn’t include all the credits we needed to get to that point to make such a purchase. I really wanted to earn more. That meant scavenging right behind the front line and the faction’s fast scavenging team.

“Just thinking about credits. I need a lot,” I said.

“We all do. But slow and steady is best. People worry about the past, the future, but focusing on the moment is key,” Rhiza said. I wish I could have her free spirit outlook.

“Perhaps. I just need to buy some upgraded equipment myself. A faster cutter, and a better illusion projector. Or I might us use a slab of the tower in front of me and fill up the cracks.” That was the best idea Bones and I had come up with. Cut out a piece of the tower like Rhiza, and then put a thin slab in front, to better hide.

Unfortunately, that would block out Bones’ ability to sense long range. There was a reason we were hiding in the portion of the tower next to the stairs and elevator. There was only the central pillar, and the outer pillar supports. Everything else was put in by a faction, including the walls.

That was why Bones could scan a floor or the staircase, but not at the same time. The tower material blocked his ability to sense. It also meant that my plan would cut off our ability to sense danger.

“The gap is too small. Here we have a hundred to twenty floors. But there are only two to five floors. With how the battlefront and surge back at any time, we risk being caught out. I don’t mind some risk, but that would also draw the wrong kind of attention,” Rhiza said.

“You just need to manage once, and you would get 100,000 credits,” I muttered.

“Can’t spend it if you are dead. One day there will be luck and you will find something really good,” Rhiza said.

“Maybe, but it is doubtful, or will take too long,” I replied.

“It is your life. But your warnings are helpful. I don’t have to prepare an escape area on each floor now or retreat down. More time for scavenging,” Rhiza said. I knew she liked our partnership. It wasn’t a big deal to warn her, and it was simple enough to make her closet space a little bigger to fit me.

At least we could look out through the illusion, since it was one way. That way we could confirm when the faction’s scavenging team had passed. We might have considered trying to bypass the checkpoint, but the front wasn’t too far from it. The tower shaking occasionally was so common by now, that I had grown used to it.

“There are old scavengers and bold scavengers, but no old and bold scavengers,” I replied with the maxim Rhiza had thrown at me in the past.

“Exactly. We all need credits, but death is permanent. You try and push, you will get crushed. I have seen it before,” she said. She didn’t say how long she had been doing this. But her experience indicated a long time.

Bones had pointed out that she lacked partners for a reason. While we could trust her to a certain extent, we had contingencies in place. She was quite good about marking out her boundaries. While she was open and friendly, I got the sense it was more from boredom rather than trying to earn a few more credits. Rhiza was a woman who lived in the moment. The one thing she absolutely disliked was the waiting around modification.

“They are on this floor now,” I replied.

“Well, let’s hope we don’t run into trouble,” she replied, and we got quiet. While we didn’t need to, there was no need to take unnecessary risks. It didn’t take long before a team of people in simple gray robes with a faction symbol on their backs swept through the area. They picked up everything moving it towards the stairs.

Organic remains were placed into cargo boxes and sealed up. Same with non-organic items, they were rounded up as well, with only some minor sorting going on. The fast scavenging team took anything that was worth sorting and us freelancers picked through the rest. The remaining stuff were items meant for recycling.

It was almost impressive how recycling focused Forever City was. Bones explained that is was more cost effective than transporting resources. Spatial items, had a limit before they interfered with transportation methods. My rings were too small, the same with any other spatial item from the continents. But something that could fit enough resources to fill a town, would interfere with the transport cylinders the Heavenly Alliance used.

There were always rumors that the Heavenly Alliance could work around those restrictions, but smugglers tended to disappear, and the Heavenly Alliance didn’t claim credit. That lent credibility to the idea that there were things out there. I was trying very hard not to think of a certain number that suddenly popped up in my head.

After the last small-scale stuff was removed, the scavenging team moved on. In time a construction team would come through. Remove the walls and replace everything on the floor if the faction decided to. Probably another crystal facility and floors related to that production line to feed the various weapons and equipment at the front.

We waited another hour after the slow scavenging team passed. Sometimes soldiers would linger behind to catch freelance scavengers. But they would get bored as well and move on. “All clear, this floor and up,” Bones told me.

“All clear, this floor and up,” I repeated. Rhiza dropped the illusion, and we stepped out. She put back the tower block out of her spatial ring. While tower materials could be sold, that would draw the wrong kind of attention. While what we were doing would get us in trouble with the constructor golems, it was the equivalent of some moss on an out of the way building in the slums. Nothing they were concerned about.

The tower would self-repair fairly quickly with the material back in place. Which was the equivalent of herbicide to our minor damage. Once we were out we made our way to the main staircase, and I gave the all clear as we began our ascent up the tower. Faction members were carrying up boxes of scavenged material. They didn’t bother us, and we didn’t bother them.

It would take an elite team to get behind enemy lines, and if freelancers ran off and did ambushes, it would get ugly. The status quo had settled onto the faction ignoring us if we didn’t interfere with their efforts and didn’t run into their soldiers. In return, we didn’t sabotage everything and become a nuisance they would have to invest funds to dig out.

This also meant free lance scavengers also tended to take out enemy teams that slipped by, to get their stuff, since no help would come, and to not draw unwanted attention. The factions paid us by leaving us alone and allowing us to conduct business with the bulk buyers. Not all factions were like this, with some being much more militant, but it was the exception. The optimal methods had been determined long ago. It was called the Forever City for a reason.

Rhiza and I made our way to the small area that the freelance scavengers were congregating. None of us trusted each other, but there was safety in numbers. No one wanted to be the troublemaker and killed off by the rest. That was why everyone could have their own little spot to sit on the floor and sort through stuff before bringing it over.

Rhiza sat next to me and began pulling out the stuff she thought I could repair. “Too damaged. The core component is missing. This one I can do,” I replied and pulled out the fabrication box. I began setting things up as Bones told me to so I could repair a small spatial disruptor. Basically, it twisted space to create a gap through an object. Often used for repairs on sealed items.

The value of the small spatial disruptor went up from 4 credits to 10 credits based on the prices Bones had I had seen. I was grateful for him remembering. I was trying to, but there was just so much random junk. I almost never saw the same thing twice, unless I grabbed them out of the same room. “Four to ten, three credits,” I said and Rhiza nodded. She paid me and took the item back.

Grunt came over as well. “Urg,” he grunted out and set down a large rod with a hook on the end.

“That’s a static plant harvester. The stasis portion is out of alignment. Put it in the box. That should move the value from two to six,” Bone said and I followed his instructions.

“Two to six, two credits,” I said as I did the repair.

“Urg,” Grunt replied. Once I was done, I handed him the item and then he paid me. No one else came up, but I could see a couple other free lance scavengers glancing over. Hopefully the repair business would grow in time. Bones was hopeful we would be offered a faction contract if we were impressive enough. Lots of pay for fixing hard to fix critical machines.

With the proper equipment we could go much faster and repair a lot more. But without backing, we could only do a little bit like now. Getting up, I made my way to a bulk trader I was familiar with. Glorp was a sentient slime stuck in what could only be called a diving suit. He could be a body cultivator focused on slime, or a slime that gained sentience. I didn’t ask and didn’t care. He was the best of the bulk traders in terms of not trying to mess with me.

“Ah, the little scion of the freelancers has come. Lots of good stuff,” his modulated voice said from his metal suit.

“Yes, table?” I asked and he gestured at a nearby table. I began unloading everything onto it. Glorp began looking it over and making notations on a higher end pad. Once I was done, he flipped it around for me to look over. I compared his list and prices to the stuff I had found.

“The soil empowerment rod is 8 credits, not 6.5.”

“Ah my mistake,” he replied. I found two more things underpriced, and left one. That way he felt he had gotten one over on me, even if it cost me a credit.

I earned 106.812 credits once the transactions were completed. It was a really nice number of credits for a very long day of work and risking my life. “Anything you are interested in. I can get anything,” Glorp said.

“An illusion projector and tower cutter, how much?” I asked.

“A thousand credits each. Custom order, very illegal. Will have to transport through the towers, not by vehicle.” That was way too much for both of them. I then listed out the components that Bones gave me and Glorp seemed to jiggle at that.

“Oh, those components are quite easy. Nothing illegal or banned. All told, 120 credits with a no questions asked discount. Will take half a cycle though. Have to spread out the order since it is legal,” he replied.

“Half now, half when you complete delivery,” I replied.

“Of course, of course,” Glorp said and I paid him the 60 credits. There went a large chunk of my earnings, but Glorp was trustworthy enough for this. While he could run off there was no point over such a small transaction. And scamming me would lead to a loss of business. He was overcharging as well, but that was just the cost of doing business. If I made the trek out of the conflict zone, I could probably purchase all the components for 80 credits myself.

He would probably spend 20 on the transport and pocket 20. But that was the price of convenience. I looked over and Rhiza was done trading with another bulk trader. We then went back to the freelancer resting area and one of the freelancers pulled out a renegade interlink tower.

Normally used to transmit and receive information over long distances, the freelancer was tapping into the public notifications about the battle front. Everyone around, including me all made the cloaked figure a credit for listening in. There wasn’t anything that interesting to listen to at the moment, since the front had frozen. But the moment it started shifting, the renegade interlink tower would light up.

“Well that was a good day,” Rhiza said as we sat togeather on the floor near the back of the small crowd of cloaked figures that had gathered. We had pulled up our hoods as well.

“It was. Want to play cards?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. I got out cards and tokens. Each token represented a different amount of bits and we began to play poker for basically pennies to pass the time. The front tended to change within a day, if it didn’t then we would be waiting around, and I would be trying to figure out other ways to earn money.

All the other freelancers kept to their own corners, content to ignore our quiet chatting and we discussed the items we had found, if the front would move, and how we hoped there would be a lot of stuff on other floors.

Rhiza had explained to me, that most freelancers didn’t like working with others, that was why they were freelancers. Team ups were incredibly rare, since there needed to be trust. While I trusted Rhiza, there was a reason I was going to prepare my own equipment. If hers ever broke down, or she left, I couldn’t afford to be dependent on her.

I didn’t plan on betraying her, since it would be too risky. Same reason everyone else stayed in line as well, and being a duo meant there was even more deterrence among this group of desperate beings. We paused our game, when there was a small commotion near the renegade interlink.

“I am in charge here. You pay a protection fee,” a large man said to the scavenger managing the interlink.

“Get out of here,” Bones said. I quickly put everything away from our game, not bothering about the bits Rhiza owed me and quickly began moving away. Rhiza was right next to me.

“Foolish…human…” the cloaked figure hissed out loudly. That was when an immense pressure came over the area.

“Ahhh!” The large man screamed and swung his fist. The hissing cloaked being seemed to engulf the man as the screams continued in a muffled manner. “Duck!” Bones said to me and I quickly dove for the ground. The large man had a blasting stick. A concentrated beam of fire shot out, through the dark robes engulfing him and striking another scavenger, who screamed as they burst into flames.

More beams were released and then the guards rushed in at the troublemakers. I quickly scrambled away with Rhiza as the fighting progressed. We retreated to the staircase. Some went up, but most went down, to hide in the empty levels and spy on the front, getting ready to move in case the battle shifted directions once again.

“Idiots,” Rhiza muttered.

“Crazy,” I agreed. It could be another scavenger unleashing a sneak mental attack, a false flag by the faction to move the freelancers away, to just a crazy person who thought they were strong enough to make trouble. Regardless, we had worn out our welcome for a little bit. That meant picking a spot down below for a while and waiting things out.

The tower shook some more. “Lots of stuff going on below, looks like the front is shifting upwards. Fairly quickly as well, a massive push, check this floor,” Bones said.

“Checking the floor,” I told Rhiza and walked out of the staircase through the double doors. She was right behind me. The entire floor was just an empty space and quite dark, except near the central pillar and the outer support pillars.

“Above as well. They took the tunnels and have multiple breaches on the outside. They are attempting to take the entire tower,” Bones said and I quickly repeated this to Rhiza. She got a worried look on her face as the tower shook a lot more than before. The bulk traders were quickly leaving as well, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.

An unstable front, or a swarm battle from above and below was the most dangerous for freelancers like us. “We need to cut into the wall and hide,” I said.

“On an empty floor? It will be spotted. They are always checked. There is no way we can hide, we need to go down,” Rhiza said and quickly turned around. I was right behind her as she didn’t hesitate to race down the staircase.

“Battles in the main staircase, above and below.” I repeated what I was told out loud. “Fighting twenty floors down. Now eighteen, quickly ascending!”

Rhiza went into another floor, which hadn’t been emptied out. She began cutting out a portion of the wall after circling around to a side room next to the central staircase. Once the portion of the wall was cut out, she put the slab away, and then started her illusion projector and frowned.

“There is a problem. The power is good, but it takes time to recharge. I can leave it off, but we might get scanned. Leave it on, and I don’t know if we can outlast this battle,” she said.

“There are multiple scans sweeping the tower right now, we need to leave it on,” I replied.

“That is not good. Very not good. We might have to exit the tower, to escape the front.” I could do it, but she didn’t like it and only did it to scavenge. The techniques Bones had taught me to not get melted in the outside atmosphere were quite useful. Rhiza had some kind of shielding device, but it wasn’t great, and if conditions were rough it could fail.

“We can wait, see how things play out. There is fighting all across the tower, and some of the outside, I think. There is too much going on, to get a clear sense of everything without revealing our position,” I replied.

“It is fine, we wait and hope. This floor has already been cleared. But once the tower is taken by one faction, they will seal off all the points, and purge their area. Since there are bound to be traps in a non-linear fight up and down,” she said.

“Were you in one before?” I asked.

“Yes, and it isn’t pleasant getting out. Sure, there is a lot of scavenge, but soldiers will be everywhere. They won’t clear an area and move on. There will be traps. The tower might become a dead tower for a while. If the conflict is going on at this height, as well as above, then the entire tower is probably in contention,” Rhiza explained.