Elder Cultivator-Chapter 1246

Second Gift was better than it had been before. At first, people had filled it out with a balanced ecosystem, planning to let it grow naturally. But ‘natural’ wasn’t how people got all the neat things the lower realms had. Bear Hug had seen it, how cultivators made things more. They were doing it too, now, a few dozen things at a time.

Giving up natural energy to make something else strong was the sort of thing some people didn’t understand, but Bear Hug got it. Both the first part which was doing it just so that something or someone else could benefit and the second which was doing it for future gain. It was still good to support someone or something even if you would benefit later.

Some people thought that watching plants grow was boring. Bear Hug didn’t agree. Moment by moment, day by day, watching a tree grow big and tall was an amazing thing. Grass grew even faster, sometimes fast enough you could see it.

When they grew big, everything had a way to make more of itself. Fruits with seeds, or directly available seeds for various grains. Bear Hug didn’t eat any of those things, but it was possible to absorb the energy in them to get back more than what was spent- and still have enough left to create a new generation that was stronger than before.

Animals weren’t always as cooperative, but creating strong plants made healthy herbivores which in turn created strong carnivores. As long as it happened a little at a time, it maintained a balance. And there were so many places to work that it was easy enough to not get overly focused on a single spot.

Bear Hug was scattered all over the planet, but barely even ran into a single other individual. Yet there were many of them helping every day, for years and years. They were all working to make Second Gift the best it could be. Then, when it was ready, it would be moved. That was the hard part. Or rather, moving it was easy enough, but keeping the planet alive afterwards was tough.

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The day Paradise arrived, Bear Hug knew that the time had come. Someone probably could have told them. People seemed pretty good about keeping track of those things. But Bear Hug hadn’t been using their communicator much because they were focused on being tiny little stars. As it turned out, a few more Bear Hugs was not even close to enough to cover the entire surface of Second Gift with sunlight. Good thing they had many, many other friends who could help. And Bear Hug had some other ideas besides just making sunlight as well.

Lots of people had shown up. And many ships as well. On them were people Bear Hug knew, and some they didn’t. That was the way of things. Actually knowing everyone seemed pretty impossible. There had to be at least a hundred hundreds of people. Maybe more than that. Bear Hug still wasn’t good at numbers, because it didn’t really matter. They could only do what they could do, and knowing the numbers just made humans unwilling to try. Thus, there was no point in putting in more effort to learn numbers.

For some reason, Bear Hug had thought Anton might not show up. But there he was, speaking to everyone. And at the same time, Bear Hug specifically. “Hello there. How are you doing?”

“I thought you couldn’t be Second Gift’s star? Aren’t you busy?”

Anton’s response was simple. “I can’t do it all the time, or even most of the time. But I can be here at the start to cheer you and everyone else on. Plus, to give the planet a little push.”

Bear Hug nodded. “I think it needs a big push.”

“Well, that’s what Paradise is going to do.”

There was a lot of sound as Anton and various other people spoke. A few mentioned Bear Hug, and some big project that people were working on. But eventually, people got back to focusing on Second Gift.

And then Paradise pushed it. Bear Hug wondered if their water control could ever get that good, to move all of the planet’s oceans. They rarely did much more than a lake themself, though if they combined all their parts maybe they could do a small ocean. But Bear Hug had it on good authority that planets were heavy. Heavier than mountains, because they had mountains on them and also other things.

It was actually quite a long time before Second Gift was too far from its star to receive sunlight. During that time, many things were done to prepare. First, Bear Hug set approximately half of themself up around various stars in the lower realms. They were already there, but now they were focused. These selves would absorb sunlight to be released elsewhere.

Bear Hug called upon a bunch of ice cultivators next. They were quite excited to be part of a big project. At first, it seemed silly to bring ice cultivators when they didn’t want to freeze the planet. That was the entire thing they were trying to avoid, after all! And yet, they were going to do it anyway. On purpose.

Humans talked about some ‘cryogenics’ things. Bear Hug didn’t understand that, but it was okay because everyone agreed it wouldn’t work. Maybe not for the right reasons, because obviously freezing all the life would kill it. But humans just thought there would be problems warming them up, as if the actual problem wouldn’t be everything being dead.

Humans were so weird.

Anyway, they were only going to freeze the outside of the planet. Just beyond the atmosphere. A big shell of ice. That would hold all the heat in. Hopefully. Nobody had gotten to try it, but Bear Hug had it on good authority from ‘scientists’ that it would work.

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They would still lose some heat, and sunlight would still be necessary to stimulate plant life. But there could be a little less heat involved. Something about tens. And if ten less people had to work, that would be great.

Freezing a shell of ice around the planet was really cool. It was funny how human words worked, where some of them meant the same thing and other words meant multiple different things.

Bear Hug didn’t like the cold, so they hadn’t been good at making ice. But some nice cultivator lady had told them that if they didn’t like cold, then it made sense to be able to control it. And to put it somewhere else. That all made sense, so Bear Hug was much better at it now.

While the shell was being put up, people had to hold it in place. As it turned out, water was heavy and ice was also heavy. But once it was in place, it should be held up by the air. Partly. And also various cultivators.

They made some ice pillars connected to various oceans too. Bear Hug wouldn’t have thought of that. There were also a few trees tall enough that some of the ice could rest on them. Some cultivators had made very tall trees in the time they had. Bear Hug liked them.

Bear Hug knew how long decades was, because they had worked on making Second Gift as good as it could be during that time. But even so, they had slightly underestimated how much time it was that they would have to make sunlight. It turned out that you had to do it all day.

Bear Hug floated low, because that way the sunlight wasn’t wasted on things it didn’t need to be. The higher air would be colder, but birds would still be alright if they kept the rest of the planet warm enough. Then Bear Hug released light into the various sheets of water they kept with them, letting it spread out neatly. But Bear Hug was only part of the people involved. There were many other cultivators… and ships!

Bear Hug hadn’t expected so many ships. Obviously there were cultivators on the ships, but the ships were doing most of the work where they were involved. The ships also carried sunlight… and when they ran out, they rushed back to the nearest star. The ice sheet had a few holes, but they were on purpose so it was okay. It was worth it to have more sunlight.

One year passed. Second Gift was about a tenth of the way to the next star, and it had to pass by several before reaching the border where things would get hard.

Bear Hug finally understood why everyone thought this was so hard. People were always coming and going, but there was never enough. Yet at the same time, there was always enough. They gave to the planet, and Second Gift gave back.

Bear Hug got tired of being a sun, and at the same time became very good at it. Some of them had to rest in shifts, but what remained was enough better that they more or less kept up with their share of things. That wasn’t enough, though. They had to be better. It was only going to get harder, further from stars. And then between realms, replenishing energy would be even worse.

If they even made it there, they would have done something humans thought impossible. And yet it would get even harder, because the number of Bear Hugs in the upper realm could be counted on two mutated human hands with some extra fingers. But not a lot of extra fingers.

It was also going to get harder when Anton stopped helping. He did some of the days all on his own. Bear Hug just wasn’t that good yet.

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“So what’s your plan?” Erin asked. She was more or less resigned to her position. Frankly, the Island Tenders had it good- Paradise’s little self contained biome was already set up to flourish without constant presence of a star.

Anton looked down on the planet. “I’m just here to make sure everyone is connected to a support network. Then I’ll tell them that they don’t need me.”

“They don’t?” Erin asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Anton shook his head. “But maybe if I tell them, it will become true.”

“So you’ll lie to them.”

Anton nodded. “That’s about half of parenting. Telling children that things will be alright when they really won’t. But you do mean it, just not in the time frame they think you do.”

“You could stay, you know. Bear Hug will be devastated if this fails.”

“Indeed,” Anton said. “But I can’t go to the upper realms. If they need me here in the lower realms… they won’t draw enough support there. Besides, Bear Hug has already pulled off a miracle. Maybe multiple. Did you hear Ratna’s complaint about security protocols? That was hilarious. On that note, she had some comments that have had a lot of people thinking hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bear Hug implied that they could share a conversation. And they did.”

“Well, they’re linked, right? That’s not weird.”

“It happened in real time. Which also makes sense, but is also astounding. We have some manner of teleportation, but that is limited in range and destination. As fast as it can get, none of our communication is truly instant. It already breaks a lot of physical laws,” Anton shrugged. “But that’s just energy at work. The point is, Bear Hug has subconsciously solved some form of entanglement. Probably by not even knowing it was an issue in the first place. Normally, that doesn’t work. It takes a special sort of talent to bypass laws through ignorance.”

“So… Bear Hug is a unique form of communication.”

“Probably… not,” Anton grimaced. “Since whatever Everheart has seems to be instant or near instant. We’ve recorded mobilization in responses to incidents that happen afar. Whether it’s linked projections or true clones or merely a special technique, Everheart has something equivalent.”

“So you’re saying…”

“A bunch of people want to study Bear Hug. And I’m not going to let them until they’re done with this. Hopefully successfully.”

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