Elder Cultivator

Timothy never wanted to be the face of the Scarlet Alliance, but he ended up in that role by virtue of being the most personable Domination cultivator they had. Which was to say, one of two which was already a surprising result.

While they had some hope for others to soon reach Domination, it couldn’t be guaranteed even if they considered the level of cooperation they had. The two had more or less accidentally bypassed a long period of understanding necessary by being forced to handle Domination energy. So even for the other members of the One Hundred Stars, they couldn’t necessarily guide them along a safe path.

The actual responsibilities Timothy had didn’t shift. He was responsible for defensive coordination, and otherwise went along with the will of the council. Fortunately, Domination cultivators weren’t known for frequent interaction with others, so he only really had to deal with outside contact every few years.

Reaching Domination actually made the council wonder about the Harmonious Citadel, with their emphasis on unity. They had been infiltrated by the Citadel of Exalted Light, and it was the opinion of the council as a whole that it was probably being used as a sort of experiment. The exact details were unknown- they hadn’t been written down anywhere- but most likely Zaur was hoping that several might eventually reach Domination together. A test at the stability of multiple Domination cultivators in a sect, essentially.

Because while Zaur Beridze certainly wasn’t the sort to share power, having stronger subordinates would have been useful. As for why he couldn’t just guide someone to Domination, the answer was actually relatively simple- the total amount of devotion required might be insufficient.

That wasn’t an issue for Timothy and Catarina, both because of their relation but also the total population of the Scarlet Alliance. They had a greater emphasis on the population in general, instead of just a select group of cultivators, which meant they had more people with a relatively high average of cultivation compared to individual sects. They were still far dwarfed in numbers by the great powers as a whole, but they likely had more population than the largest sects.

Of course, Domination cultivators weren’t made with just Devotion. They needed an anchor, which usually meant materials of great value. Then again, given what Timothy had experienced that might be a partial red herring- the transformative aspects of Domination had created far more value than the teleportation platform had originally had. It might not have survived the process if it wasn’t sufficiently worthy to begin with, but it wasn’t like they could easily experiment with that. Especially since failure would mean damaged cultivation or death.

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Catarina looked at a teleportation platform, but not the one that was hers. Her understanding of higher level cultivation was obviously influenced by her grandfather, so she might just be fooling herself… but she felt fairly certain that she could create another anchor out of the platform.

The question is why people wouldn’t… and she had several theories. First was that anchors provided a form of vulnerability. Of course, that wouldn’t be particularly more true if Catarina bound to another solar platform in the same system- if they had more than one- but that might also not be… different.

Her intuition might be incorrect, but she had the feeling that doing that would be more like expanding her original anchor. Then again, wouldn’t that be what she was doing here? It would just be expanded into two points that were further apart.

Obviously, the actual size of an anchor wasn’t all that relevant to begin with. Koronis bound a nebula, which was a rather extreme thing to do. It spanned multiple star systems, but didn’t seem to make her more powerful. Or at least, not in a way that was directly proportional to the volume it encompassed, because otherwise her presence would have been far more intimidating. All Catarina had felt upon her visit was what she would expect from a somewhat more experienced cultivator, and Koronis barely had decades more experience with Domination than she did.

Those decades weren’t an insignificant amount of time, but they would eventually reach that point. What mattered was how their relative development within Domination shaped up. Because Domination wasn’t the end point. Whether there was another stage to reach was debatable, but Zaur had been stronger than Catarina was now- but she highly doubted he had instantly been that way upon advancement.

Catarina stared at the solar platform. She was confident that she could attune to it and gain some sort of benefit- either power or a widening of certain effects. She didn’t have to be close to her anchor to draw on its full power, so that wasn’t relevant. Perhaps that would be why Zaur had stuck to just the Citadel, as it would be easier to focus attention on himself and a single location. Catarina could connect to this other platform, as it was of similar design… but she wasn’t sure she could do it yet.

Unlike Anton, she didn’t have an intuitive feeling of ‘room’. Maybe that meant she was full, or merely that she operated on a different system than Assimilation. There were plenty of other differences after all. Even so, she didn’t want to rush into things. If she messed up, the best she could hope for was ruining a teleportation platform that wasn’t cheap to replace. And of course, she could kill herself if she tried to force something she wasn’t ready for. It would be a shame to cut off potentially thousands of years of her lifespan because she couldn’t wait a few more decades to understand things properly.

She wondered what it would like to be in the lower realms. From her understanding, Sudin had been weakened by the process but she couldn’t imagine why. Could he not draw on his anchor? Perhaps the divide between realms was more than just a transitional boundary. If she could find an opportunity to go she would, but too many eyes were on her at the moment. Once people- both local and far- grew used to her existing as a Domination cultivator she might be able to travel between realms without revealing what they could do to the wrong people.

Stolen novel; please report.

Until then, she could pepper Anton with questions about what it was like when he was full on stars.

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“Advanced body tempering is not just exercise.”

That was what Nthanda said every time before sending Abder to exercise. It seemed like a contradictory statement to him, but he still felt himself growing stronger in ways he couldn’t always quantify, so clearly something was working. It was more than just shoving natural energy into his body.

Anton was a bit better at explaining some things. He mentioned that the intent of what he did with his body would change things far more than just the motions. That was probably important. He wanted to be stronger and it was happening so… it must be working.

Observing his teachers when he got the chance, Abder determined that the way they interacted with things was… different. For example, how they opened doors. He wasn’t even sure they knew they did it dramatically, but it was a regular occurrence. Anton did it more when he was going to some sort of social gathering, while Nthanda did it when she was rushing somewhere.

Anton used his energy to push away the air behind the door before he swung it open, unimpeding its progress. Nthanda just used more power… but that wasn’t all. Because Abder had tried it once and ended up with a broken door. It had come off the hinges even before it had gotten to the point it would have slammed into the wall. Abder had a lot of time to think about that as he was putting in a new door.

Finally, he determined she put something into the door. Not natural energy, but aspects of herself? Something of strength and durability. Maybe what they called insight? Abder tried it again. At least he knew where to get replacement doors, though he’d need to rebuild the doorframe too as it was starting to fall apart.

So he didn’t have that insight yet. That might be important, if he wanted to be quick but gentle. He was perfectly capable of controlling his own strength. He wouldn’t accidentally break something unless he mistakenly thought it was stronger- or he was trying something like forcing a door open quickly. It was a silly thing to work on, a trivial task… but he had honed in on it because it demonstrated something he didn’t have.

When he asked them about it, they were able to give explanations… but Abder realized they hadn’t thought about it. Which was actually the important part. It was instinct. These people had been working with such power for so long, it was instinct. And here he was barely an adult even by the standards of non-cultivators. Though apparently there might not be any of those in the future, because Anton insisted everyone cultivate.

Abder first thought it was silly, but after a few years he had gotten it. Everything was better with cultivation involved. Obviously him seeing finer clothing was a mix of actually having some resources and the improvements people made with natural energy, but everything else saw incremental improvements. He might have missed it in everything else if he didn’t pay attention.

After all, what was a little bit of durability in a shirt when people had gone from near starvation to being buried in mushrooms? There was a whole group who insisted on only eating mushrooms despite them now having access to a wider variety of crops, but they’d gotten a bit obsessed. At least they wouldn’t go hungry anywhere that had basically any amount of life.

Unlike some of the others, Abder didn’t remember their old planet. He’d been born in the depths of Moturn, so seeing pictures of other planets and stars was… astounding. Yet despite his instincts, he didn’t ask Anton to bring him away to see those things in person. Instead, he wanted to earn that himself… as if his current ability to grow hadn’t also been given to him.

But Abder wasn’t going to let that little quibble stop him. He was going to learn and grow, and he was going to help others. He had a whole lot of others who relied on him now, not quite trusting the rest of the system. Abder lived as the dividing line between the two, slowly guiding people towards the blinding brightness that Anton carried with him.

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The more he compressed the corruption in the star, the more Anton grew in his understanding of it being at least in part a physical substance. He had managed to contain it to a quarter slice of the star, down from about a third. Depending on how one looked at it, that was only a small improvement or a significant step. However, Anton could tell his progress was slowing.

He needed to come to a greater understanding of what was going on to continue to clean it out. So he personally visited the edge of his exclusion zone. He wasn’t certain it would be wise to try to eject whatever it was from the star- he might bring other material with it, and at the scale he might have to work at that could be a whole planet’s worth. Minimal for the star, but still significant.

Anton preferred the idea of destroying the corruption, but even though he felt like he’d been doing that he was now more certain that he’d simply been moving it around. So what was it, then? Anton couldn’t quite say, except that it was something that held its form even in the heat and pressure of a star. Where the upper realms might have gotten it he couldn’t say. Nor could he easily separate it from the natural material of the star.

He thought about trying to touch it… but even using his own energy instead of the star’s seemed risky, and obviously he wouldn’t touch it unaided. He might ask Nthanda at some point, but he wasn’t at the point where he needed to risk his friends.

Perhaps he needed to look into which sect or sects attacked this system… and then ask the upper realms to research them. The main thing he knew was that it was the Tigold Cluster again- and it was a different method of damaging a star than what he’d seen. That didn’t mean it involved different sects, but whoever they were, Anton didn’t like how much hate they had for the fundamental pillars of existence.

Maybe he could show them what it felt like to lose their own stars. Alright, Anton had to admit that was a bit of an extreme reaction. He could just destroy their planets or kill all of them. If he could reach them. Most likely, they were too far from the border for him to actually do that… yet. But he wasn’t willing to say he’d never be able to. He couldn’t let his granddaughter get too far ahead, even if she was on a different sort of advancement track.

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