As Kyros rushed towards John, he tried to keep his sword pressing into the shoulder as the somewhat larger man jumped on him. His sword sliced along the bone, but it didn’t deter the man, unable to cut through them. If John had been willing to potentially kill he might have been able to cut deep enough into his neck to bring him down, but he couldn’t give up his old world morals just yet. It didn’t help that Fortkran had been in the wrong, though he wasn’t sure the actions deserved such brutality.

Kyros’ axe came down right next to John’s head. It would have been through his head, but he found himself to be extra flexible when he needed to be. Even so, he was now pinned underneath the man, and the axe in the ground prevented him from dodging in that direction. A fist the size of a shotput slammed down into his face. His nose shattered and the back of his head felt like it cracked. Darkness spiritual energy kept his head from being crushed, but he was seeing stars… and he was fairly certain it wasn’t night yet.

His eyes didn’t do much good at the moment, but he felt the other hand grab him by the neck and then the same fist come crashing down towards him again. Somehow, he wasn’t worried about dying- though it was a possibility. Instead, he was using it as a learning opportunity. He couldn’t move, and darkness wasn’t right to resist a direct attack. He needed something else… and the only other element he had access to was earth. Quite a lot of it, directly above him.

He pulled as much energy out of Kyros as he could, solidifying it all around his head. Having a single target to focus all his defenses on was extremely useful. The telegraphed attacks helped, and when the fist contacted his head he heard a snapping sound. Was it his head, or the fist? Ah, right, the Stone Bones totem. He could replicate the energy, but not that. At least his nose hadn’t been shoved back into his head, and his skull remained three dimensional for the most part.

Kyros gathered more energy on his fist, and as it began to come down towards him John changed tactics. He didn’t have time to surrender or anything, and he really didn’t want to. If he died after a month or two of this new life… so what? He was barely invested in it so far. He’d tried, but so far… he just wanted to be strong. And that meant trying to win, not survive. His leg came up between the legs of the man on top of him. He wasn’t sure if it was an honorable move, but he doubted that pummeling a man on his back was honorable… or any fighting.

The area he hit distinctly didn’t have any bones, and the disruption slowed Kyros for a moment due to the pain. His fist merely scraped by John’s face, scraping skin with the speed it possessed and leaving a trail of blood. He could have probably crippled Kyros, but he was burdened with a bit of sympathy for him.

He pushed himself away as Kyros’ weight lifted slightly, rolling to his feet. He couldn’t reach his sword, but the axe was there. He pulled on the handle facing away from himself, but found it stuck. He grunted with frustration, and channeled more of the earth elemental spiritual energy he had stolen, forcing the ground to push it out.

Kyros was just getting to his feet when John gathered all of his remaining energy in a wide swing, chopping directly into the man’s ribs. To his credit, Stone Bones prevented him from being chopped in half. John was counting on it. With the direct hit he still had a huge gash on his side, and the axe cut halfway through several ribs.

John pulled back, barely able to see, wondering if the match would be called against him. He was out of energy, after all… and he needed more of his own to steal anything from Kyros.

A moment later there was an announcement. He could hear it happening, but he wasn’t sure what it was. His ears were ringing, blood was streaming from his nose, he saw stars… and he could barely stand. A few moments later he felt a hand on his arm. His father, maybe? Then he was taken away.

Somehow he remained semi-conscious until he arrived at the medic, who put him out with a faint push of water elemental spiritual energy, a nice refreshing splash of cool and then nothingness.

-----

Two weeks later, John looked at himself in the mirror. It was obvious his nose had been broken, but it had healed up very well. Cultivator medicines and all that. He’d also stopped bleeding from his nose, which was good because it was hard to be dignified with blood streaming all over you. His family hadn’t said anything about the duel, except that he had won… somehow. Kyros was alive- and would probably recover on his own. John was glad about that, because he hadn’t really deserved anything. Fortkran was the one who deserved it… but he was dead. He just hoped the additional problems from his past were few and far between.

The biggest effect from the match was actually inside John. Down inside his dantian where the Seed of Darkness lived… he found it to be quite a bit more than a seed. It wasn’t a massive tree or anything… but there were clearly discernible ‘leaves’ and ‘roots’. Still much before a real sapling, but something special indeed. The roots sucked up any spiritual energy that entered his dantian, before a refined version was squeezed out like sap. It was still darkness, but there were traces of earth in it. That just further solidified his choice for his next totem. He still had to get there, though.

Fighting so seriously against an eighth level Spiritual Collection Phase cultivator had propelled his own cultivation forward, but he still had some way to go before reaching eighth level himself. That would take time and dedicated cultivation, but he felt confident in the process. Where he was less confident was the other things he was responsible for now.

The Tenebach family had some spirit stone mines, though they weren’t particularly dense. The spirit stones were quite valuable as gems, or usable as a source of spiritual energy for cultivation. There was a certain amount they could speed up cultivation by drawing upon their energy, and so both cultivators and non-cultivators liked them for different reasons. After the duel, John was placed in charge of one of them.

It wasn’t as if he had to work as a miner. In fact, the job could have been entirely ornamental. There was already a manager there, and the mine was doing fine. However, he felt it was his job to make sure it produced as much as it could. He’d done a small tour of the mine, but hadn’t really seen anything that could be improved. He was planning to visit again, now that he had healed up more. Maybe he’d notice something that his fatigued self hadn’t. Or maybe he’d just profit off of not doing anything at all, but he felt like his parents didn’t want that.

-----

Edgar was a large man who managed several of the mines in the Tenebach family. He had once been a miner himself before he worked his way up to being properly the foreman. For the moment, Fortkran- and that was who he had to be at the moment, working for his family- was trying to assure him. “Don’t worry. The production has been going fine. We just thought that a different perspective might give us some enlightenment about the mines. This one is new, after all.”

Edgar nodded. He was a gruff man, but he wouldn’t dare be impolite to the young master of the Tenebach family… and Fortkran didn’t intend to give him a reason to. “Very well. Feel free to tour the outside. If you want to go in, don’t go past the first branch without me.”

Fortkran nodded. The spirit stone mine was probably stable, but nothing was perfect. Free spiritual energy could mess with even seemingly stable mines. The workers were all cultivators, and they could survive a minor collapse, but it was still dangerous even for those who knew what they were doing. That said, the conditions at the Tenebach mines were apparently better than elsewhere. Some places just wanted to dig things out as quickly as possible without concern for the workers. The pay was high enough some people would still do it.

Fortkran looked over the ore coming out of the mine. While in some places the spirit stones were peeking out, there was a small refinery nearby that would chip away at the rock, occasionally melting it off as necessary. Spirit stones were tougher than normal rock, so there was little chance of damaging it in either case. Still, it was more efficient to refine somewhat locally and not carry extra tons of rock far away. There was still nothing Fortkran had noticed could be improved after a day, but that would be far too quick. Maybe there wouldn’t be anything at all, except some financial documents he had to look over. Did he need to try to improve the supply chain? Humberto had managed that stuff for Brad’s Burgers, picking the suppliers even when John ran the first store.

He could take his time. For the moment he planned to cultivate. He found himself gravitating towards the castoff pieces of ore and the remnant spiritual energy there. The mines themselves had more, but cultivating inside destabilized things more. As for the tailings, they were much less active than the spirit stones and not in danger of collapsing a cave. It wasn’t that much more than the ambient energy… but perhaps… there was something to make of it. It was too heavy to transport, but he might be able to do more than just personally cultivate with it.