The rain poured in one never-ending wave. Down it fell, blanketing the ground, dragging trees out by their roots, and flooding down the mountain. It wasn't just rain that flowed down the mountain; there is plenty of mud, rock, and wood. But, it seemed, the higher up the mountain, the harsher the rain. To that end, he found a cave.
While the thunderstorm was in its infancy, Lex prepared himself. It took time to build a fire. Before the rain grew too harsh, he killed a boar and dragged it into the cave. Long before the flood uprooted the trees, he skinned the bore and prepared it. He made a makeshift rack and hung his clothes over the fire to dry. While the storm raged, he ate pork, dried his clothes, and slept for 15 minutes.
For once, it wasn't his cultivation technique that woke him. Instead, a lack of burning worried him. He felt something a heat but not from his body. At the cave entrance, someone had entered his cave. Lex struggled to his feet while three figures approached him.
"Don't be alarmed; my name is Robert. I'm a deacon serving Bishop Frederick of Easterling Parish. These are my companions; John Lewin squired to Constable Matthew. My lovely companion here is Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Mathers of Easterling, the land we occupy. We ask only to share your fire." Robert said.
Robert was a man of 18 and the type of man to wear a medallion of Epsilon. He was shorter than Lex with a broader chest. On his belt was a solidly built silver mace. The heavy rain had soaked his white robes to the bone, and while he appeared dreary, there is a fiery warmth in his eyes that no rain could extinguish. Lex didn't know his cultivation stage; if Morgan were here, she'd have to tell him later. By the heat he produced, Lex would put him around the fifth stage of qi condensation. Of his group, he wasn't the strongest, but that mace on his hip looked fierce.
Squire John, like us to companions, was soaked to the bone. He wasn't dressed in the full plate as Lex expected; his armor was boiled leather studded with iron. Tiny interwoven runes appeared almost randomly throughout the piece; there is heat from him and his armor. For the boy himself, his eyes seemed dull, tired, and worn down. The exhaustion radiating from that boy made Lex feel for him. He was the same height as Robert. As for his cultivation, with that armor and the sword at that teen's side, Lex will put the boy at stage six.
Finally, Elizabeth the Lord's daughter. She was beautiful, even soaked to the bone. He was sure she was at a similar age to the other two, possibly 17 or 18. She worked fine clothes of velvet entirely ruined by the rain and mud. Makeup that once covered her face ran down into horrid black streaks. She was the shortest of the group with the highest standing. Elizabeth's cultivation was the highest, at the peak of the fifth stage. She held a few interesting, enchanted artifacts. Around her neck, she wore a ring of runed black pearls. Held by a strap on her head was a tiny red jewel. Massive amounts of heat flowed from it, angry and powerful; it felt familiar. All three had fine shoes ruined like everything else they wore.
Lex thought about bowing but held off; he might need to defend his place. Revealing that he was at a lower status than them would be a horrible mistake. Oh, it was probably evident to them. If you want to put on an air of superiority, he'd already missed the opportunity. So that left them both in limbo. He wouldn't show himself as subservient to them, nor had he revealed himself as their superior.
"What brings you here on such an interesting morning?" Robert asked. "Is that boar I smell? How long have you been roasting it? John, do you hear that fat crackle." Robert said.
"All I hear is the rain and the water squishing in my boots, but I would love a hot meal. Of course, I'd pay a coin for the pleasure." John said.
Elizabeth sauntered over to the fire and thrust her bottom against it. Droplets of rain sizzled as they fell into the flames. Both men looked like they were about to stop her; their fear of the fire going out was greater than their companionship then. When the fire merely danced and kept roaring under the dripping fat of the boar, they relaxed.
She turned to look at him; her eyes roamed up and down his body before settling at his crotch. Her cheeks blushed scarlet before she remembered herself. "I'm a lady cover yourself in my presence." She said the words haughtily with a bit of a nasal inflection.
"You don't have to look. Nor do you have to stay here. I can just put out my fire, take the hog, and leave." Lex turned the lever supporting the hog to fit more of the animal on the fire. More fat dripped down, exciting the flames; Elizabeth gasped and to stepped away from the fire before her damp velvet dress to catch fire. "Robert, wasn't it?" The burly deacon nodded. "I'm sure you saw it didn't you when the trees gave way. Traveling right now is dangerous. It doesn't matter how strong your cultivation is; if you're buried, you won't be able to breathe. No breathing means no cultivation. Unless there has been a discovery." Lex said.
"You're knowledgeable about cultivation, especially for someone of the second stage. Did you see the thing that's causing this storm?" Elizabeth asked. She stripped parts of her gown, revealing only her long undergarments. She sat her shoes next to the fire to let them dry.
Lex stared at the mouth of the cave. Streams of mud, broken, shattered trees and huge tumbling boulders continue to bombard the valley below. Climbing the mountain now would be very difficult and also give the greatest chance of success. He didn't know the whole story of why the Dragon fell upon this mountain. And he didn't care; he needed a familiar, and Dragons were the strongest.
"Would I be here if I didn't? What is an Eastern Dragon doing here in the Duchy of Goth? Is there another war going on, or is this just a one-in-a-million opportunity? There is also another possibility; you could all be a trap." Lex said.
None of his guests seemed convinced; their greed had already set them on this path. Lex was the same. He prepared well for his climb. Lex had found a cave halfway up the mountain and had already gotten most of his strength back. The rain sapped his strength while he climbed. He was sure it was the same for others. Neither John, Robert, nor Elizabeth seemed ready to fight him whether cultivation bases were strong they were exhausted.
"Could I convince you to take a different familiar? While I'm sure you're a mighty individual, a Dragon is only worthy of the nobility. Even if you convinced it to bond with you, another noble found out they take it from you. If you can't defend such a powerful familiar, then you're just waiting for someone to take it." Robert said.
"Not a chance. Taking the Dragon from a may be more difficult than you think. How many meridians do you have open?" Lex said.
Robert smiled. "40 just as many as bishop Frederick," Robert said.
Elizabeth laughed politely, in a very condescending way. "Only 40, you must not tolerate pain very well or is a lack of ambition. They say the Pope has over 49; I have 50." Elizabeth said.
John snorted. "The clergy rely on Epsilon and his sentinels for their power. Meridians hardly accurately describe their potential. But since replaying who has the bigger Dick, I have 53." John said.
Lex shook his head. "And that is the problem with the aristocracy. None of you can handle pain." Lex knew there were other reasons. Breathing techniques didn't give the constant power needed to open all meridians. Or at least the ones outside of Cathay didn't. "I stopped counting after 300." He let those words sink in.
"That's impossible," Robert said.
"I might have believed 54, but not even the crown prince has over 100. And if it was a matter of pain, well, you seem to underestimate us. We've tolerated you, but this surpasses our patience." Elizabeth said.
Lex wondered if it would become a fight. The atmosphere changed. John and Robert clutched their weapons, and suddenly the pressure increased. Only, it wasn't anything the three of them did, nor was its tension for the fight to come. Lex wasn't afraid of fighting them; they'd been out in the rain and had barely recovered. The storm was a force from on high, the peak of Mount Methuselah.
"This is gravity. I thought it was too weak to use it; it must be healing quickly." Robert said.
Lex felt the pressure and didn't mind it. The pressure made his muscles twitch pleasantly. He reached out and pulled a large chunk from the hog's belly. Even that was heavier than expected. He consumed the pork ravenously each by filled him with renewed vigor. Despite the increased gravity, the sticks holding the boar up hadn't collapse yet.
"Well, we have keys draining grain, lightning bolts that can rip apart mountain ranges, and now the manipulation of a fundamental force," Lex said.
He only knew about gravity and fundamental forces from Morgan's necromancy text. Undead dragons were a thing. They had all the powers of normal dragons but could rarely fly and were nearly immune to magic. Although some consider them the ultimate undead, they were evenly matched with arch liches.
John quickly ripped off a piece of the hog and bit into it vigorously. "I owe you for your hospitality; if we meet each other at the peak, I will offer you surrender and compensation," John said.
Elizabeth took a piece daintily and bit into the salty pork. She chewed as politely as a noblewoman could in a rush to swallow the meat down. "If we meet again, I'll have you flogged for disrespecting me," Elizabeth said.
When Robert took his peace, he looked at it contemplatively. "I'm not going to offer you surrender or scorn. As a representative of Epsilon, I'll offer you advice. Don't climb for the peak; descend the mountain and leave this place. We aren't the only ones after the Dragon. There are others far more powerful than us. Don't expect quarter at the peak." Robert said.
Lex tore a leg off and began devouring it. Grease flowed down his face and chest as he ate more and more. With each bite, he felt his strength returning.
He felt the changing flow through him, a rumbling port through his Danton. Then, suddenly, he felt himself rise to the next stage. New denser qi flowed through his hundreds of meridians; for a moment, he glowed brighter than the fire and filled the cave with blue light.
From that point on, they all went their separate ways. The nobles took their route up the mountain. Lex traveled his way up sheer cliffs, across flowing rivers of mud, and over rolling boulders. He chased after the prize even as the pressure increased. With every step of the mountain, the pressure increased. The rain fell harder, and each bolt of lightning structures a little closer.
When he came upon the summit dressed in steel plate and building a long sword, John stood in his way. "I told you, this is your chance to surrender. If you want a familiar, I can give you one. All you have to do is say yes, I surrender. Do the smart thing." John said.
Lex couldn't hear a word John said. Lightning constantly flashed around them. The rain pelted them practically a wave. And this close to the peak, the gravity was agonizingly powerful, enough to make it difficult to concentrate on words. Worse of all, he heard a familiar breathing pattern. He knew this one all too well. It was the same breathing technique that Artus used, and it came from the peak. No one and nothing could convince Lex to stop now.