We followed Rainmaker through the dense jungle, sometimes losing sight of his massive frame as he apparently grew impatient and leapt up through the trees. His more ape-like companion Borr seemed to be used to his Elder’s impulsive behaviour and hung back to keep us heading in the right direction. Inevitably when we came across his white-furred form again, he would be contentedly snacking on one fruit or another. Since my arrival, the lack of need for food had taken some getting used to, as well as seeing others so rarely stop to enjoy the food was; Rainmaker made me doubt my experience. He must have eaten dozens of fruits, all of varying sizes, shapes and colours. Most of them I did not recognise, if the look of near-bliss on his face whenever we caught him consuming the colourful flesh was anything to go by, they tasted great.

I did not, however, push my luck and ask for a taste, despite how much the sight made my mouth water. I knew he was reluctant to provide me with the Thousand Year Pineapple already, and did not think irritating him further was wise.

After a few hours of the Elder’s departing and our catching up, we arrived at the thundering ape village, if village was the right word. Hundreds of massive nests were scattered amidst the trees, shafts of light spiked down amongst them from gaps in the canopy high above. These gaps were regular and almost smooth looking from my distant vantage on the forest floor, far more so than the other gaps I had seen in the short time I had been in the Sha Forest. It took me an almost embarrassing few minutes to solve the mystery as we wandered through the gathering of nests, and it was only when I caught a handful of colossal apes springing up through it that it came to me; springing up through the same spot regularly would of course leave gaps. Mystery solved; I turned my attention back to the ground around me, gazing around at the many eyes staring back at me from where the monstrously large apes sat about grooming or playing.

As we moved closer to what seemed like the village's centre, a group of particularly small specimens, standing a mere ten feet tall barrelled across our path with a series of deep, giggles as they played some form of tag, slapping each other with hollow thumps as they dashed about.

“These are babies. Do not try anything.”

Rainmaker looked back at us over his shoulder as he skipped between the youngsters, his eyes lingering for a second longer on Darina, who blushed furiously in the dim light. It was obviously a somewhat playful rebuke; I did not think the Elder considered for a moment that any of us would try to attack their children, but even so, I shuddered. Until that point, the Apex-level ape had seemed almost childlike in his attitude, but as he stared back at us, his gaze was sharp and his tone firm with warning. He had said that his kind grew more intelligent as they aged, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I had dismissed that fact when it came to him. In that moment, I revised my opinion and considered that perhaps his manner thus far had been nothing more than a mask.

I internally scolded myself for judging a book by its cover, I danced between the relatively small children quickly, knowing that while they may be babies, the thundering apes were born stronger than I was. Still, I had to smile as I watched them play; there is something precious about the guileless joy of the young, and even on another world, among another species and missing an arm, the sight filled me with joy.

Having passed the boisterous kids, I turned back to see them trying to tug Reff and Riffa into their game; the siblings were the closest to their size and physical strength. I laughed as the two extricated themselves with wide smiles, and I even spotted the diminutive apprentice hiding laughter behind her hand. The young apes seemed disappointed that my friends did not want to play, but quickly recovered when one canny primate took the opportunity to tag another before making a mad dash in to the trees. With roars and shrieks of surprise, the group took off after them, leaving my friends and I standing, grinning after them.

Turning, but still smiling, we hurried after Rainmaker and Borr, who had stopped in front of one of the biggest nests. The storm-eyed Elder was rooting about in the nest, moving furs and chests about before pulling out a pineapple roughly the size of a watermelon. The skin was truly golden, and the leaves a deep, almost glowing emerald. A rich scent emanated from it, like the pineapple I remembered from Earth, but somehow more, richer and fuller, like a resonating smell, if you can imagine such a thing. For the first time in months, I felt my stomach growl as I licked my lips and gazed at this apparently treasured fruit.

"This is a Thousand Year Pineapple – my last Thousand Year Pineapple. It should push you to complete your whatsit. Middle.” Rainmaker made a motion like his was rubbing his belly, which I assumed meant he was referring to my Core.

“Or kill him, Boss.”

“That goes without saying, Borr.”

“I don’t think it does, Boss. Look at the puny one’s face, looks like he’s chewing wasps.”

“Borr’s right, it probably should be said... Elder. What about death now?”

“Stupid ignorant, puny humans...” The Elder muttered like a rockslide. “The Pineapple will fill you with Experience, and will even convert it to Praxis, but it may not be able to convert it to Praxis fast enough not to burst you like a rotten guava... Borr, do we have any True Guava?” Borr nodded his head with a roll of his eyes, and the Elder continued with a grin. “You need to refine the Experience as fast as you can, to make up the difference. Hopefully you won’t die.”

“Right, one second, please.” I held up a finger and turned to my friends and whispered, even though I knew the Elder could know exactly what I said.

“Right, so apparently this fruit could kill me. That’s not ideal, but I don’t think I can really back out. If... if I do die, the egg is in one of the rings on my feet. Make sure it gets back to the phoenix for me?”

“On your feet? I was wondering how you were storing things without a storage item, but I just thought you had developed a soul space early.”

“Yeah, no. The rings are on my feet so passing assholes don’t rip my arms off to get them. It’s worked great, until recently!” I waved my stump at Darina and grinned to let her know I did not mean anything by it. Knowing I had a decent chance of getting my arm back had taken most of the bite out of the injury, and laughing at it made what it easier to bear.

“With firm assurance, I believe you will be fine, Hunter. You seem to survive much that others may not.”

“In certain agreement, I think you will manage. But if not, we will deliver the egg.”

“Thanks, guys. Borr – the big guy who’s been with us – said the Pineapple comes from a tree in the phoenix's territory. Maybe we can get some for you, while we’re over there? Would they help?”

“In gratitude, thank you for the thought, Hunter. Completing the Path is not a matter of volume, so much as it is understanding. It may help a being whose understanding of their Exemplar outstripped their Cultivation, but I believe that such a being is rare.”

I nodded at Reff, glad to know that the next stage of my advancement at least may not be quite the slog this one had been, at least from my perspective; I knew that as far as the general populace was concerned, my rise had been meteoric, thus far.

I was about to turn back to the thundering apes when I felt a tug on the ragged end of my armless sleeve; turning I saw Darina had stepped in closer, and now stood with a finger wrapped around the jagged fabric.

“Hunter, can I have a private moment?” I frowned and nodded, before the two us walked a short distance away.

“Hunter... I wanted to apologise for my behaviour. When we first met, I thought you lazy – somebody taking an Apex’s generosity for granted. When I learned for how little time you had been cultivating, and how far you had progressed in that time... I-I became jealous. Since my parents died, all I had for many years was ability to fight, and to progress. I came close to completing my Core before I was fifteen, broke my Focus and set foot upon the Path before twenty. But you have done so in months, and it made me bitter. I am sorry.” Darina’s voice was low, and she refused to meet my eyes, but I could tell her words were in earnest, and I did not find them particularly surprising. My own predictions had been somewhere along those lines, and I was just glad that she seemed to have come to terms with it. I sometimes forgot how young some of the people around me were, with all the talk of living for thousands of years.

“Darina, it’s fine. You’ve been through a lot and it would be kind of weird if you didn’t have some issues. I meant what I said though, I want to be friends, so here I am. If you need to talk, and I you know, survive the whole, ‘Trial by Fruiting’, I’ll be there. I’m older than I look, and I’ve been through some shit of my own. Anyway, bottom line, we’re cool, you and me.”

“... Thank you.” Her voice was still low, but she looked up and met my gaze with a smile, before her lips quirked into a wry grin and she spoke again: “Though you do still say some stupid things, on occasion.”

“Yeah well, so does your face.” I grinned back at the very look on her face; maturity was great and all, but damned was the man who could not be a child, once in a while. Turning on my heel before she could formulate a reply, I walked back over to Rainmaker where he stood impatiently, clearly eyeing the Thousand Year Pineapple with a considering look.

“Elder Rainmaker, let’s do this. Just being near this thing is making me hungry.” The Elder looked like he was going to refuse for a moment, but a wordless rumble from Borr seemed to prompt him back towards the plan. He handed me the large fruit and I was surprised at the weight; by that time, I was easily many, many times stronger than a normal human, and while many things felt very light to me, the Pineapple was something of a strain to support.

Sitting on the sparse grass in front of the nest, I looked around aimlessly as I tried to figure out how to eat the thing; without a doubt, the Elder would simply bite into it, as he did with all the other fruit I had seen him consume, but I was not sure my teeth were up to it, having felt the dense flesh.

Eventually, I shrugged and pulled out a knife from a storage ring and began to cut into the golden flesh.

“Wish me luck!”

I carved into the fruit, huge curved chunks the size of my hand before stuffing them into my mouth and biting off when my lips found skin. If you’ve ever had a pineapple, you know the base flavour of the fruit I ate, but this was so much more; the taste of the Thousand Year Pineapple was like tasting tart light, a pervading, deep sweetness accompanied by an explosion of effervescing juice. But it was when I swallowed that the real experience began; I have spoken before about how it feels to cultivate, about the liquid joy coursing through your body in waves of ecstasy. This was that, but more. The feeling built within me, stacking up in layers of rapture as I turned my gaze inwards, towards my soul sea.

Inside my centre, a storm was raging; golden Experience crashed against its limits as is level rushed ever upwards. I could feel it rushing through my Focus, and as I pushed deeper into my soul sea, I saw the dense layer of Praxis growing visibly as the blue-white energy flowed down in thick streams. This was far faster than I had ever seen it grow, but even so, I could sense my Experience closing in on the highest point of my centre, and then filling it completely, stretching me taut. I could feel the pressure build and sweat break out on my skin as I began to refine for all I was worth, hoping that I had not left it too long.

Normally, I would refine while cultivating for efficiency’s sake, and I had had a lot of practice doing do in the last month, but with the Thousand Year Pineapple thundering through me, I had no need to seek Experience – Experience was coming whether I wanted it or not, flooding into me in a torrent, even as I kept eating, my body on autopilot as I focused my whole being down on my Focus, rushing Experience through it with all the speed I could muster.

My mind strained under the effort of refining Praxis as I tried to keep from exploding, knowing that while it was apparently possible to live without Experience, having it go boom where my soul met my body was likely to be damaging.

I have no idea how long I spent refining – in my internal world, it seemed like forever, but the sun still seemed to in the sky as I came out the semi- meditative state I had been immersed in. I was wet through and through, lying on my back, eyes staring up at the distant green and blue above. I felt languid and latently powerful as I stretched with a groan of pleasure. I saw the faces of my friends appear around me, and I smiled lazily up at them.

“Hi guys – you should try one of these things, even if it doesn’t help. It’s pretty great, if you don’t die. You guys shouldn’t die, right? Worth it.”

“Hunter, you’re energy drunk. Snap out of it.”

“Darina! You should try one of these. We’ll get you one. Or two. How many can we get? I want, like, five.”

“Here, have him drink this.”

I grinned up at my friends, and the awesome Elder as he handed a gourd to the diminutive apprentice, who knelt down to press it to my lips.

“Dawiwwa, yow whys wur ho wed-” I was forced to stop talking as I felt a cool liquid pouring into my mouth, and I reflexively swallowed. The excess joy washed out of me in an instant and I was left clearheaded, blinking at the sudden loss.

I sat up as Darina withdrew the gourd and looked down at myself; I still felt great, but the feeling was purely physical after having swallowed whatever had been in the fleshy container.

“Wow, that was great. We should sell that stuff – hear me, out: Thousand Year Pina Coladas. We’ll be rich beyond... really rich.”

“Hah! The Puny One has good taste, though I’ve never heard of the Pina Coladas fruit.”

“It’s a drink, made from alcohol, coconut and pineapple.”

“Oh. If they’re made with Thousand Year Pineapples, there probably aren’t enough to sell a lot, there’s only the one tree... and there’s barely enough for me.”

I shrugged off my disappointment and stood, springing up on my tip-toes, and springing much higher than I would have previously. I turned my gaze inwards at my now complete Core – a solid ball of Praxis filling my entire centre, with my Focus at its heart, like a fly in amber. Having completed my core, I was now somewhere in the region of fifty times more powerful than a normal human, leaving aside my particular physicality, and extended energy circuits. I felt like I could take on the world, and I wondered if this is how everyone felt all the time.

“Right! Do we do the next bit right away? Do I need to wait?”

“In shared gladness, it is rare for an Exemplar to be on hand when a Core is completed, but I know of no reason that you must wait.”

“Reff is right; I absorbed my own Exemplar immediately upon finishing my Core. The combined occurrences took some getting used to afterwards, but it did not hurt my cultivation.”

“Good! Now all you need to do is beat Url in a fight, and you can absorb her as your Exemplar. What a day, I solved two problems, kept a promise and ate so much fruit!”

“I’m sorry... did you say I had to fight her?”