After weeks of what could only be described as hellish exploration in the Nether, Alexei had temporarily given up on finding Netherite upgrade templates.
The Nether could wait. He had other priorities. Specifically, finishing the spirit field expansion project that had been eating up his mornings for the past two weeks.
The plan was simple in theory. He would replace all the walls surrounding the villager housing area and the future spirit fields with proper Minecraft materials. Stone bricks were the obvious choice, since they were far easier to mass-produce than any of the more decorative options.
The execution was far less simple.
Every morning he'd spend hours at his cobblestone generator, mining stone until his inventory was full. Every afternoon he'd carve out new space in the mountain, expanding the villager residential area upward to create more room for future growth.
The walls themselves were the tedious part. Each section had to be replaced, block by block, with MC-ified stone bricks.
It took two full weeks to finish.
But now, standing in the expanded courtyard and looking at the smooth stone brick walls surrounding the space, he felt satisfaction. The place looked like a proper base.
Mengyao looked up from where she'd been feeding wheat to the mooshrooms. "Are you heading out?"
He'd asked her to help with his Minecraft mechanics today.
"Yeah. I need to test something down at the base of the mountain." He walked over to the ender pearl stasis chamber. He pulled an ender pearl from his inventory and tossed it into the bubbling water.
"After I go down, wait about fifteen minutes, then pull that lever."
He pointed to the mechanism connected to the water flow.
Mengyao nodded seriously. "I understand."
"Thanks." He grabbed another ender pearl from his hotbar and walked to the edge of the courtyard, where the mountain dropped away into clouds below. "If this goes wrong and I don't come back, tell Qingxue she was right about everything. She'll enjoy that."
"Don't say such unlucky things!"
He grinned at her expression. "See you in fifteen minutes."
Then he hurled the pearl straight down toward the forest floor far below.
The pearl arced through the air, tumbling end over end as it fell. Compared to the speed of a trident, the ender pearl's flight was painfully slow. It would take almost a full minute to reach the ground.
---
The teleport hit him like it always did. A sudden lurch, a moment of disorientation, and then he was there instead of here.
Except "there" turned out to be thirty meters up in a tree.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me"
Alexei's feet appeared on a branch about as thick as his arm. The wood creaked under his weight.
I'm wearing full diamond armor. Diamond armor is heavy. This branch isn't rated for...
CRACK.
The branch snapped.
"Yep. There we go."
He dropped like a stone, crashing through several more branches on the way down. The ground was rushing up fast. His hand shot to his hotbar, cycling through items. He pulled a water bucket out mid-fall.
BOOM.
He hit the ground like a meteor.
Dust exploded outward. The impact carved a crater into the forest floor, spiderweb cracks spreading through the packed earth.
Then, belatedly, he dumped the water bucket.
SPLASH.
Water poured across the crater, pooling around him.
He checked his health. It was still full.
"What?"
He climbed out of the crater. That fall should have killed him or at least left him badly injured. He had dropped more than thirty meters and struck the ground hard enough to leave a crater.
Yet his health bar hadn't moved at all.
"Since when do I not take fall damage?"
He thought back to his trip to the Nether. He had definitely taken fall damage there. More than once, usually after misjudging a jump or getting knocked off a ledge by a hoglin.
So why not here?
Maybe it was because he had landed on natural ground instead of Minecraft blocks. That seemed plausible. The game always had strange rules about what counted as terrain and what counted as a block.
Or maybe it was something else.
He paused.
He was technically a cultivator now. His physical body was stronger than before, even if the improvement was minor.
"Did I just tank a thirty meter fall because of cultivation?"
That seemed ridiculous. He was literally the weakest cultivator possible. There was no way Body Tempering made him immune to fall damage.
Unless cultivation world physics were just bullshit. He had seen Foundation Establishment cultivators jump off cliffs for dramatic effect. Maybe fall damage simply didn't work the same way here. Or perhaps his Minecraft body was interacting with cultivation physics in strange ways.
He filed the thought away as something to test later and turned to more immediate concerns. For example, the fact that he had just made a very loud entrance.
He stepped back into the crater and scooped up the water source with his bucket. The pool vanished instantly. After returning the bucket to his inventory, he pulled out his Efficiency V diamond shovel. He might as well make use of the time before the teleport triggered.
He started digging.
The shovel tore through the dirt. Blocks compressed and shot into his inventory at an absurd speed.
Within a minute, he had gathered a stack and a half of dirt.
"Not bad," he said, already planning where to use it in his next construction project.
He was so focused that he completely failed to notice the five figures watching him from behind a massive tree about fifty meters away.
---
The disciples of the Mountain Tide Sect had been walking along the forest path when one of them happened to glance up at the sky.
"What's that?"
The others followed his gaze.
A dark green pearl, roughly the size of a human head, fell from high above, perhaps two hundred meters in the air, arcing toward the forest below.
"A treasure!" The youngest disciple's eyes lit up. "It has to be! Treasures fall from the sky in all the stories!"
"Don't be stupid," another scoffed. "Those are just stories. This is probably some bird dropping something."
"Birds don't drop round glowing pearls, idiot."
For a moment, they all just stared. Then excitement flickered in their eyes.
"It could be valuable," the leader said as he moved forward. "Let's check it out."
Boom.
At the sound, they broke into a run, following the pearl's trajectory. By the time they reached the landing site, a young man in ugly armor was already there, calmly digging into the ground with a shovel. And he was digging fast.
One swing and an entire cubic meter of earth simply vanished, compressed into nothing and stored somewhere unseen. Another swing produced the same result.
The Mountain Tide disciples stopped behind a tree and watched.
"Spatial storage artifact," one of them whispered. "It has to be. Look how much he's pulling up."
"It's a high grade too," another added. "That's way more capacity than a normal storage pouch."
The leader held up a hand for silence.
The young man clearly possessed several unusual items, including the ugly armor, the spatial artifact, and the mysterious pearl that had fallen from the sky, which he had almost certainly picked up already.
And beneath the tree where the boy stood, the ground showed clear signs of impact. Meaning he'd survived a fall from a considerable height without any visible injury. Either he was a body cultivator with powerful defensive techniques, or the armor he wore was an extremely high-quality protective treasure.
Under normal circumstances, Mountain Tide Sect disciples wouldn't immediately resort to robbery and murder. They had standards. Even principles, at least when those principles cost them nothing.
But that spatial artifact alone would let all five of them live comfortably for years. And the armor? It was ugly, but its function was unknown and clearly powerful. It was probably worth a fortune.
Not to mention, if that man possessed such a treasure, it wouldn't be strange if his spatial storage contained vast amounts of heavenly materials and earthly treasures, divine weapons, and magical artifacts.
The target was alone. And while he'd survived the fall, that didn't necessarily mean he was a skilled fighter.
The leader made his decision.
"Probe first," he said quietly to his companions. "And find out who he is, where he's from."
One of the younger disciples looked uncomfortable. "If he's just some wandering cultivator, wouldn't it be—"
"We're not killing anyone yet," the leader cut him off. "Just gathering information. If he's connected to any major sect, we back off. If not..."
He didn't need to finish the sentence.
The uncomfortable disciple swallowed but nodded.
The leader's meaning was clear. Possessing items like that suggested the man might be a favored disciple of a major sect. But suspicion was not certainty. And greed had a way of drowning out caution, especially when the possible rewards were this great.
They adjusted their robes, smoothed their expressions, and stepped out from behind the tree.
The leader made some noise as they approached.
The young man's head turned immediately, his eyes locking onto them.
Up close, he looked completely ordinary, with an average height and build.
Only his armor set him apart. The armor was anything but ordinary
The leader put on his warmest smile. "Greetings, young friend. We were passing through and happened to lose a valuable treasure. It's a dark green pearl, about this size." He gestured with his hands. "You wouldn't happen to have seen it, would you?"
---
Alexei looked at the five cultivators who had just stepped out from the trees and immediately felt a warning stir in the back of his mind.
They were dressed in similar sect robes in shades of blue and grey, with swords hanging at their waists.
The one speaking wore a friendly expression.
"A pearl? No, I haven't seen one. I only arrived a few minutes ago."
"Ah, unfortunate." The leader's smile didn't waver. "Well, no matter. But may I ask, why are you out here alone?"
The question sounded casual. But Alexei's bullshit detector was screaming. These guys wanted to know if someone would come looking for him if he disappeared.
"I came down the mountain by myself. I didn't need anyone watching over me."
"Impressive confidence." The leader chuckled. "May we ask which sect you're from? It's always good to know who shares these forests with us."
One of the other disciples perked up. "Yes, we're always eager to meet fellow cultivators!"
Qingxue had warned him that the cultivation world was full of people who'd kill you for your storage pouch and think nothing of it. He'd assumed that was exaggeration. Looking at these five, though, he was starting to think she'd been understating the problem.
"Aureate Summit Sect."
The five disciples exchanged glances. For a brief moment, the friendliness on their faces slipped.
"Aureate Summit Sect," the leader repeated slowly. "The one on Whitepeak Mountain that recruited three new disciples this year?"
"Yeah, that one."
"I see." The leader's smile shifted slightly, becoming almost pitying. "And you came down the mountain alone. How... bold of you."
"Is there a problem with that?"
"Oh, no problem at all." The leader's tone remained pleasant, but his companions were already spreading out, moving to flank positions.
"It's just that we're still looking for that pearl we lost. I could've sworn I saw it fall in this direction. You're certain you didn't pick up anything unusual?"
By now, the other disciples had finished spreading out. Alexei stood at the center while the five Mountain Tide cultivators positioned themselves at even distances around him.
They were still smiling and pretending this was nothing more than a friendly conversation
"I'm pretty sure. But feel free to keep looking."
"You know," the leader said, "for a disciple of the 'renowned' Aureate Summit Sect, you seem remarkably well-equipped. That armor of yours... I've never seen anything like it. And that spatial artifact you're using must be extraordinary."
"Thanks. I like my gear too."
The leader took a slow step forward.
"I wonder where a disciple from such a sect would acquire treasures of that quality."
"Guess I'm just lucky."
"Lucky." The leader's smile widened. "Very lucky indeed. Some might even say suspiciously lucky."
He glanced at his companions, who all nodded slightly, before looking back at Alexei.
"So let me ask you again. Are you absolutely certain you didn't see the treasure we lost?"
"I already told you, I didn't see any pearl. Trust me on this one."
The leader's smile turned unpleasant.
"Here's what's going to happen. You're going to hand that over. If you behave yourself, we might let you walk away."
The others had stopped pretending to be friendly. Their hands shifted closer to their weapons, and the smiles from earlier were gone.
Alexei looked from the leader to the disciples behind him.
"And if I don't?"
One of the younger disciples let out a laugh. "Then we take everything you have and leave your corpse for the scavengers."
Alexei stared at the group, trying to decide whether he had heard that correctly.
"So this is a robbery."
The Mountain Tide disciples exchanged glances. One of them looked uncomfortable for about half a second before greed won out over whatever conscience he had left.
The leader shrugged. "Robbery is such an ugly word. We're simply reclaiming property that was clearly meant for us. That pearl fell from the sky in our direction. You picked it up. That makes you a thief."
"And thieves deserve punishment," another added, hand drifting toward his sword. "It's only natural."
"Of course," Alexei said. "And if I happen to die while you're 'reclaiming' your property, well, that's just an unfortunate accident."
"Now you're getting it."
"And after I'm dead, all my possessions become ownerless. Which means you can take them with a clear conscience."
The leader looked pleased. "I'm glad we understand each other. This doesn't have to be difficult."
Alexei sighed. "You know what? Let's cut the bullshit. How about we both stop pretending this is anything other than what it is?"
The leader raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"I know you want to fuck me."
Silence.
All five cultivators froze, expressions ranging from confusion to shock.
"I... what?" The leader's face had gone slightly red.
One of the younger disciples made a strangled sound. "We're not... I mean, you're a man, we're..."
"That's not..." Another one looked flustered. "We have no interest in... Senior Brother, we don't, right?"
"I'm not into men!" the youngest protested. "I have a fiancée!"
Alexei stared at them, confused by their confusion. Then it clicked.
"Oh for... Not like that. I mean you want to fuck me over. Is this a language barrier thing again? Do you not have that expression here?"
The leader coughed, recovering his composure. "Perhaps we should return to the matter at hand."
"You were threatening to murder me."
"And you seem remarkably calm about it."
Alexei switched his shovel for a shield and a trident. Both items materialized in his hands in a shimmer of purple light.
"Here is the thing. Where I come from, there is an old story. Maybe you want to hear it."
"We don't have time for stories," one of them growled.
Alexei ignored him.
"It's about a man. He wasn't the strongest or the fastest. He didn't rely on overwhelming power or flashy techniques. But he had something far more dangerous. He was relentless."
"What does that have to do with anything?" another disciple snapped.
"People who crossed him tended to die in very specific ways," Alexei continued calmly.
The leader's smile had faded.
"Is this supposed to be a threat?"
"It's context," Alexei replied with a smile. "The important thing about this man was that he never warned people. He simply acted."
One of the disciples suddenly noticed the weapon.
"He is channeling qi into his artifact! I can see it glowing!"
"When someone was foolish enough to threaten him," Alexei said, drawing his arm back as the trident vibrated, "he reminded them why that was a mistake."
"SCATTER!" the leader shouted.
But it was too late.
Alexei smiled faintly.
"Back home, they called him Baba Yaga."
He threw.
The trident left his hand like a ballistic missile.
CRACK.
BOOM.
The leader managed to raise his sword.
It didn't matter.
The trident's enchanted edge struck the blade, shattering it like fragile glass before continuing straight through the man's skull
For a brief moment, the leader remained standing. Then the top half of his head came apart.
Blood, bone, and fragments of brain sprayed across the trees behind him. The force of the impact hurled his body backward nearly twenty meters before it slammed into a tree trunk.
The corpse slid slowly down the bark, leaving a thick red streak behind. What remained of the neck pumped blood in fading pulses, each weaker than the last.
[Level 123 → Level 124]
Silence fell over the clearing.
The four remaining Mountain Tide disciples stood frozen as they tried to understand what they had just witnessed.
Their senior brother was simply gone.
One of them made a sound that might have been a word, but it came out as a weak whimper.
"He's dead... He's dead..."
"You killed him! You killed our senior brother! Do you have any idea what you've done?" the disciple who had been speaking earlier shouted. There was no grief in his voice. If their senior brother had lived, he would have taken the biggest share of the treasures. Now that he was dead, each of them would receive a larger portion.
"Do you even know who he was? He was the Second Elder's direct—"
"Stop," Alexei interrupted flatly. "Please, just stop. How the hell should I know who he was? He didn't tell me his name, his title, his favorite food, or his childhood dreams. And now he can't, because his brain is splattered across that tree over there."
He gestured at the gore-streaked trunk.
"Besides, you were planning to kill me thirty seconds ago. What exactly did you expect to happen?"
"That's different!" The cultivator's face flushed red. "We're from a legitimate sect. You're just some nobody from a joke of a—"
With a flash of light, the trident appeared back in Alexei's hand.
"Uh… The trident came back to him," one of the others said suddenly, staring at the weapon in Alexei's hand.
"What? That doesn't matter. We can still take him!" The first one pointed his sword at Alexei. "The artifact's been thrown! It needs time to recharge! Rush him before..."
The cultivator's voice trailed off.
The trident hummed softly in Alexei's hand. Light began building along its length again, growing brighter with each passing second.
"That's not fair," he said weakly. "It can't be ready again already..."
"Life isn't fair," Alexei replied calmly. "Also, you're about to die. So choose. Do you want the trident or the shield?"
"What?"
"The trident," Alexei held up the glowing weapon, "or the shield." He raised the shield in his other hand. "I'm offering you a choice in how you die. That's more courtesy than you were planning to give me."
For a moment, they just stared at him.
Then one of them screamed, "KILL HIM! Rush him together! He can't fight all of us!"
Chaos erupted.
Three of them charged forward. The fourth, who possessed slightly more survival instinct than the others, turned and ran for the forest.
"Oh no you don't," Alexei muttered. "Not after all that tough talk."
He swapped his shield for a cobblestone block from his inventory, turned, and hurled it at the fleeing cultivator.
The block spun through the air. Halfway to its target, it expanded into a full cubic meter of compressed cobblestone and slammed into the man's back.
CRACK.
The cultivator's spine shattered. He collapsed and tumbled across the forest floor before slamming into a tree, where he finally lay still.
Alexei switched the cobblestone back into his shield just as the three remaining attackers reached him.
They spread out as they closed, trying to surround him.
"Seriously? That's your plan? Surround the guy in full armor and stab him?"
The man in the center thrust his sword toward Alexei's throat.
Alexei caught the blade on the rim of his shield and shoved forward.
The cultivator stumbled back, but Alexei didn't slow down. When an eighteen-ton teenager decided to move, physics took care of the rest.
Alexei slammed into him like a runaway truck. The man's eyes widened as the shield struck his chest. Ribs cracked, and the air burst from his lungs in a ragged gasp.
He kept moving and drove him backward until his body smashed against a tree.
CRUNCH.
The man's back hit the trunk. His sword fell from his fingers. He slid down the bark, leaving a dark smear, and didn't get back up.
By then the two flanking cultivators had reached Alexei. The one on the left swung his sword toward Alexei's side.
Steel struck enchanted diamond armour.
CLANG.
The blade bounced off without leaving a mark.
The cultivator's eyes went wide. "What kind of armour—"
He never finished the question.
The Thorns enchantment triggered the moment his sword struck. An invisible force surged back through the blade and into his body.
Blood erupted from his mouth as he dropped where he stood.
The second attacker came from Alexei's right and aimed for his neck, where the armor left a narrow gap.
The blade struck several times in rapid succession.
CRACK.
The Thorns enchantment didn't care whether the attacker hit armor or exposed skin. Any hostile contact triggered the counterattack.
The cultivator's neck snapped like a dry branch. The reflected force traveled up his sword arm, shattering his elbow and grinding the bones of his shoulder to dust. He made a gurgling sound as his head hung at a strange angle. Then he collapsed face-first into the dirt and went still.
Alexei walked toward where the fleeing man had fallen.
The cultivator was conscious.
"Wait," the man gasped, blood flecking his lips. "Please. I surrender. I surrender, I didn't want to do this, they made me..."
"Be honest, would you believe that bullshit if you were in my place? You already had your chance. That was before you tried to rob and murder me."
"I'll tell you anything!" the cultivator blurted. "I know our sect's secrets. I can..."
"I don't want your sect's secrets. I just want you to stop existing. Preferably without making more noise about it."
He raised the trident.
"My senior brother will avenge me! The Second Elder will—"
"Did you hit your head or something? Your senior brother is dead. His head is in about forty pieces. Your Second Elder is going to be very upset when he finds out his disciple died trying to rob a random traveler. That's not exactly a heroic death, is it?"
The man's mouth opened and closed, searching for words that wouldn't come.
Alexei paused as a thought occurred to him.
He needed to verify whether the Nether portal was safe. Having a few disposable cultivators who'd just tried to murder him seemed like a perfect opportunity. Killing this one right now would be wasteful.
He lowered the trident.
The man stared at him, clearly unsure whether relief or terror was the appropriate response.
"You know what? Change of plans." Alexei crouched and pulled the sword from the man's grip.
[Standard Iron-Core Sword:
Sharpness I
+2.25 (1+1.25) Attack Damage]
Deconstruct.
The sword dissolved in his hands, breaking down into component materials that flowed into his inventory.
[Iron-Core Pellet ×1]
[Iron Pellet ×1]
The cultivator stared at his empty hand in shock. "Where... where did my sword go? What did you do to it?"
Alexei was already pulling stone bricks from his inventory, placing them around the man in a neat square. "Hold still."
"What are you doing?" the cultivator demanded, watching the walls rise around him.
"Keeping you safe."
The man blinked. "What?"
"I can't have you crawling off and hurting yourself."
"I can't move my legs!"
"See? It's very dangerous out here for someone who can't move their legs. There are wild animals around. It's much safer if you stay put." Alexei placed another brick. "Think of it as a favor."
The cultivator stared at him for a moment. Then he decided that switching tactics would be more useful than trying to understand the situation. "Do you know what sect we're from? When Mountain Tide investigates this matter, you will regret it."
"Mountain Tide." Alexei nodded thoughtfully. "That's a good name. Does the tide part mean anything, or is it just for atmosphere?"
"We are one of the..."
"So atmosphere, then."
The cultivator's jaw tightened. "When our elders come looking..."
"They'll find out that five of their disciples jumped a lone traveler for his belongings, and three of them died for it. Which, honestly, isn't the part I would lead with if I were writing that report."
"You attacked us!"
"Are you sure you didn't hit your head when you fell? Do you really think I would just stand there and let you kill me after you surrounded me and demanded everything I owned?"
Alexei set the last brick in place and studied his work.
"By the way, how does the robbery thing usually go? Does it work more often than not, or is today a fairly typical outcome?"
The cultivator opened his mouth, then slowly closed it.
"I'm genuinely asking. I want to understand the business model."
"It's not like that. We're cultivators. The strong take from the weak. That's the way of..."
"The way of the world. Yes, I know," Alexei said as he crouched to peer through the gap between the bricks. "You know what's funny? I have read about people like you. The strong prey on the weak. The heavens are indifferent. Power is the only truth. It's a very popular philosophy." He tilted his head. "But it doesn't seem to be working out great for you right now, though."
"You just got lucky," the cultivator said, though the words sounded less confident than he likely intended.
"Did I."
The man glanced at his empty hand. Then at the walls around him. Finally at the three bodies barely visible through the narrow gaps.
"... Who are you?" he asked quietly.
Alexei rose to his feet and looked directly into the cultivator's eyes.
For a split second, the cultivator thought he saw Alexei's eyes glow white. When he blinked, they looked perfectly normal again.
"Nobody important," Alexei said calmly. "I'm just a builder who wanted to dig in peace."
He sealed the box and moved on.
The cultivator who had been injured first by Alexei's Thorns enchantment was still breathing when he reached him. Each breath was a labored rasp.
"Hey." Alexei crouched beside him. "You still with me?"
The man's eyes focused on him. "Please..." The word came out as a bubbling whisper. "Mercy..."
"Yeah, that's not really on the table anymore." Alexei took the man's sword from where it had fallen. "You used up your mercy quota when you tried to kill me for my stuff."
Deconstruct.
[Iron-Core Pellet ×1]
[Iron Pellet ×1]
Alexei began building a stone brick box around him. The man tried to say something else, but only blood bubbled from his mouth. By the time Alexei sealed the last brick, the cultivator had passed out.
"Sleep tight," he muttered. "I'll deal with you later."
The bodies presented a problem.
He couldn't just leave them here. Well, he could, but that seemed like asking for trouble. It would be better to at least try to get something useful out of them.
Alexei straightened and looked around the clearing.
The one with the broken neck was still lying where he had fallen. The senior brother's blood was still smeared across the tree farther back.
Alexei frowned.
The blood was there, but the body wasn't.
He turned toward the trunk where he had shield-rushed the other cultivator. A dark streak ran down the bark where the man had slid.
But there was no body.
He stood still.
The senior brother was definitely dead. Alexei had watched the top of his skull leave his shoulders. There was no doubt about that.
But someone had moved him.
The one with the shield rush had been just as finished. His ribs had collapsed inward. Alexei had heard them break. No one walked away from injuries that severe. Damage like that left a man lying on the ground and making unpleasant noises.
Except the body was gone.
Maybe he had a special constitution. Maybe some cultivation technique accelerated healing. Or maybe he had simply stayed conscious long enough to drag himself, and his senior brother's corpse, into the trees while Alexei was busy building boxes.
He looked toward the forest line.
Nothing moved.
Either way, the man couldn't have gone far, not in that condition.
He filed the thought away and turned to the neck-bent cultivator before the body decided to disappear as well. The man was clearly dead. Alexei crouched and searched him quickly. He found a few spirit stones, some pills, and another iron-core sword. He deconstructed the sword on the spot.
Then, on impulse, he placed his hand on the body and pushed experience into it.
Thirteen levels vanished as the corpse began to glow. A moment later, with a soft pop, the body disappeared.
But nothing dropped.
"Are you serious?" Alexei stared at the empty ground where the corpse had been.
He checked his experience bar: Level 111.
"What a waste," he muttered bitterly.
At least the living ones would still be useful for testing. That was assuming they survived long enough for him to sort out the Nether portal.
He walked over to the second stone brick box and then glanced at the first one a few meters away. Keeping two separate prisons was inefficient.
He dismantled the second box block by block and crouched beside the man inside. The man's breathing came in harsh, grinding rasps, but he was still alive. That was good enough.
Alexei picked him up and carried him across the clearing.
The unconscious cultivator groaned as Alexei shifted his grip. His eyes fluttered open.
"Wh... where..." The words came out slurred. "Where are you... taking me..."
"Somewhere safe."
The man tried to move and managed only a weak twitch of his arm. "Put me... down..."
"Sure."
Alexei knocked out part of the first box's wall. Inside, the paralyzed cultivator tried to scramble backward. His broken spine allowed him only a few inches.
"What are you doing? Don't put him in here! I need space to..."
Alexei stepped through the opening.
The half-conscious cultivator blinked at the stone walls, the cramped space, and the other prisoner already inside.
"No... wait..." He tried to struggle, but his body refused to cooperate.
Alexei dropped him on the ground beside the other man.
The impact jolted him more awake. He sucked in a sharp breath as pain shot through his broken ribs.
"What..."
The two cultivators stared at each other. Then they both looked at Alexei as he stood and calmly sealed the gap behind him.
"Don't worry," he said as he set the final brick in place. "You won't be staying here long."