Elder Cultivator

Though Anton had appeared from nowhere, Abder almost hadn’t thought he would ever not be around even though he had warned about it. Now the old man was gone, like he said. Abder didn’t have any reason to believe he wouldn’t visit- he’d also said he would come back to visit- but the shock at him suddenly being gone was real. Ever since he’d appeared he’d never been more than a moment away.

Which was probably why he left. Abder understood he didn’t want people to be dependent on him, and he hadn’t really understood that. He’d gone from street kid to someone that mattered, and Anton had been there for what was now a significant majority of his life.

Of course, just because he was gone didn’t mean things would suddenly fall apart. Abder hadn’t needed Anton for anything lately, but just knowing he was there meant something. And not just to him, but to everyone in the system. Though not everyone felt the same way about things.

Unlike Abder, the members of the Twisting Spike Sect who had been in control of everything hadn’t spent a majority of their lives with Anton around. Indeed, most of them had been well over a century old when Anton first arrived, with some being older. The time Anton had to influence people hadn’t changed, but people with a century of habits were more difficult to change than a kid.

The fact that he was obsessing so much about it already was actually a good realization. But it didn’t stop him from hoping that Anton was still somewhere, hiding and watching. That was because there were other people doing the same.

They thought they were pretty good, but they forgot one thing. A complete lack of feedback was more suspicious than anything else. So when all energy disappeared from a spot, Abder got suspicious. When sound was gone and he didn’t see anything in a reflection? Even more so. He wasn’t going to look directly, though. No point in letting anyone know he had caught on.

He hadn’t really known what he was getting into as far as advanced body tempering went. It had been difficult, but it wasn’t a wrong choice exactly. Just different, which was an advantage. If he had been normal, they would have been prepared to counteract him.

It could just be paranoia, but he made sure to be careful with his interactions. It was about time to go see Draza anyway, as the man should be able to help him secure cultivation techniques for some of the new kids. Maybe they would be fine with what they already had access to, but Abder didn’t want to deny anyone the opportunity to try whatever their hearts desired. And since he couldn’t just ask Anton to hand him copies now, there were a few things missing.

Draza ran a large emporium, as his influence and power had grown significantly under the influence of the Lower Realms Alliance. Technically everyone had grown in prosperity, but not everyone understood that if they merely compared themselves to others. Abder knew, though. The bottom rung was not so low that people would just starve or die on the streets.

Plus, there were no drugs except what people had been able to concoct from more innocent ingredients in the last few years. It was amazing what someone who could literally see everything could do. Technically Anton hadn’t wiped out everything, but given that it had been decades without anything hard drugs were pretty much gone. Without a pre-addicted population, Abder didn’t think there was much market for the new stuff but some people were ambitious.

Once upon a time, getting to go inside anywhere would have been astounding for Abder. Now, he was escorted straight to Draza. The man was overlooking the shop floor of his main emporium, though he didn’t really need to be there personally. But he immediately made time for Abder like he was someone important. That felt good.

Draza’s office was actually fairly conservative, given his wealth. Everything was expensive. High quality. But not ostentatious. Fancier than Abder would have chosen, though. “This is a solid chair,” he commented.

“It better be,” Draza said. “I don’t want them collapsing under people. Do you have trouble walking on normal floors?”

“Are you calling me fat?”

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“Hah!” the other man shook his head. “As if. I imagine you only have any body fat because Nthanda mandated it.”

“It’s important to have some reserves,” Abder agreed. Technically, he had a higher percentage of body fat than before he’d started training. Starting out at the level of starving would do that. He absolutely agreed with mistress Nthanda that some reserves were good, and he really didn’t want to have to cannibalize his muscle or bone density right away if he ended up in a rough spot.

“So what are you here for?”

“I need some cultivation methods.”

Draza raised an eyebrow. “Did you lose your libraries?”

“Just trying for some diversity. I don’t need anything specific.”

“I see. What’s your budget?”

Abder frowned. “Well…”

“Come now. I’m still a businessman. I won’t be unreasonable, but I can’t just be giving things away. Not to people who truly don’t need handouts.”

Abder nodded. His budget wasn’t huge. Gathering wealth hadn’t really been a focus. The most valuable thing he had were cultivation methods, but as most of them had been freely copied Draza already had most of them so it wasn’t of any real value to the other man. But the group Abder ran did have some budget for such things. “I’m looking for a shadow technique and maybe a plant control method.”

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“Shadow I can do,” Draza said. “I don’t even know what people would do with plant control.”

“Enhanced farming, presumably,” Abder suggested. Despite decades of being given various sorts of seeds to build up some sort of ecosystem, Moturn was still quite limited by the lack of natural sunlight. In theory it was nowhere close to a normal planet. Not that Abder had seen one of those. He should have taken Anton up on travel opportunities… but he had things he still needed to take care of locally.

Eventually, they worked out a fair exchange- though Draza didn’t have any specific plant based technique he could at least find one more easily. That was part of the price. Hopefully, people would be in a sharing mood. R̃

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Unlike Abder, Anton was buried in plants. Maheg really liked growing plants. At first Anton had thought it was some sort of penance for the star’s accidental frying of the planet, and maybe that was part of it, but mere obligation did not produce such results. Maheg liked growing things.

That was a good point of connection. Normally, Anton just reached out for mass and heat and let it pour through him. That might do, but he wasn’t ready for a consciousness to end up in his dantian. He wanted to be certain that it wouldn’t hurt him or the star when they eventually did form a bond.

Most of their communication was large scale. Simple concepts, not because Maheg lacked intelligence but because it didn’t really think the same way as humans. It was sorry that it had killed everyone in the local system before it was even conscious, but Maheg had also killed invaders, something that had only been discovered secondhand. Not because it had been hidden, but because the star didn’t think it bore mentioning.

The more synced they could get on every concept the safer they would be. That was Anton’s opinion at least. They didn’t need to think the same, but rather in ways that would flow together.

Today- or maybe this week since the star didn’t get tired- they would be practicing external energy exchange. Anton could fairly easily absorb energy from a star granted to him, but sometimes Maheg kept a grip on it accidentally… and it was still extremely potent regardless. Anton was strong and empowered by stars, but he wasn’t actually as strong as a star. At least not in some fundamental ways.

It was quite possible that Anton could destroy a star if he needed to, but that would be by destabilizing it somehow and not overpowering it. And the situations that would cause Anton to do so were so theoretical that they were hardly worth considering.

Maheg was good at ‘handshakes’ at least. Not burning up energy that reached out towards it was an excellent start. It had a gentle enough application of energy to not burn up seeds it was planting, even. And that was only becoming more true with time. There was a great deal of difference that conscious practice made.

Being somewhat closer to the rest of known civilization, Anton was taking advantage of the opportunity to catch up with various groups- and individuals like Prospero who really shouldn’t stay for more than a few years.

Maheg was quite intrigued about Prospero and Hoyt. They were clearly strong, like Anton. They had a similar energy signature from the One Hundred Stars, but they also had ascension energy. It was the latter that had caused Anton to carefully introduce them, but Maheg was immediately friendly- presumably because they felt right. But because of the intruders it hadn’t been certain he wouldn’t see all of those infused with Ascension energy as dangerous.

The star didn’t like Ascension energy. Void ants did, but it would be difficult to have any less relation between two things. Maheg created energy, they ate it. Maheg didn’t need a potent source of energy when it was one. Most likely, the star was recognizing a potential destabilization effect, but it had been quite insistent on interacting with the two cultivators.

Just because Maheg didn’t want to absorb it didn’t mean it seemed put off by the energy in general. The star seemed to enjoy watching the two spar, flinging their energy around the star itself and taking advantage of orbital mechanics. Maheg even circulated its own ‘falling stars’, though it was a rather trivial application of energy for something of that size.

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In recent years, Velvet had found herself more involved in coordinating incoming intel than gathering it herself. While she liked being out in the field, it was really unnecessary for the most part. Unless they were trying to spy directly on a Domination cultivator, and even then she wasn’t a hundred percent confident in her success. As for her own potential advancement… she was still a few pieces short. She might have access to sufficient devotion, but a good anchor was going to be difficult to come by. Ratna wasn’t exactly open about what hers was.

Most information wasn’t so sensitive that Velvet absolutely had to be the one it passed through, but knowing the majority of what was going on helped her piece things together. Mostly, it helped her be assured that no Domination cultivators were moving against them. No sects in general, really. It might still be coming, but probably not this year or this decade. It was impossible to say what would happen in a century, though. Only the craziest diviners thought otherwise, but any predictions they would make were so inaccurate about far off events as to be worse than random guesses.

Velvet kept her ears open for hints about one particular individual, but there was nothing that fit. Obviously, the name Shelach never came up. If Everheart was afraid to write it down, it was reasonable for everyone else to be more than cautious. Assuming it wasn’t just some sort of horrible prank, of course. Everheart was terrible but his niece Vari was also part of the Scarlet Alliance so they were at a level of trust where they presumed Everheart wasn’t intending to destroy the alliance and would probably want to prevent anyone else from doing so. Any sort of lesser harm they were less sure about. Though obviously he would take resources if they were ‘unsecured’ near him, though what he might consider unsecure was more than anyone else.

As for other Domination cultivators… Velvet was trying to learn anything at all. There were often flood of public information, but that wasn’t exactly a reliable indicator for actual strength. Half of the things said about them could either be bragging or literally true. With Domination, it was difficult to tell if someone could teleport across a system unaided or just spawn an energy projection that was effectively full power while hiding their main body- if it was even present to begin with. Zaur had formed a sort of body near his anchor, but doing the same elsewhere shouldn’t be impossible.

All the planet destroying talk was fairly easily verifiable. Someone had destroyed those planets, so why shouldn’t it be Domination cultivators? It made as much sense as anything else. Velvet just needed to make sure that no future planets destroyed would be part of the Alliance.