Elder Cultivator

As Velvet left the bounds of the Scarlet Alliance’s territory, she was briefly able to look upon it as an outsider. If she had the choice, she absolutely wouldn’t intrude upon the region, as it was terrifying. A mighty presence, standing vigilant ready to defend the area.

The worst part was that Velvet didn’t know if Timothy could actually guard their whole territory at once or not. It seemed a bit extreme, but with the spatial distortions it wasn’t unreasonable. Unwanted intruders would be brought to their most well defended system, that of Xankeshan, and then they would have to face him.

And Catarina, but for all that she was probably far more dangerous if she had time to prepare, she wasn’t particularly intimidating. At least, as far as Domination cultivators went. Velvet had gotten the opportunity to properly observe five of them throughout her life. Everheart didn’t count, since he hadn’t been around since his advancement, but beyond Timothy and Catarina there were Ratna, Koronis, and of course Zaur Beridze.

The latter had seemed more bluster than strength. For all that he had appeared to handily defeat any individual who matched up against him, they had for the most part survived. Mainly due to luck, numbers, or planning, but if so many factors could limit Zaur then he wasn’t quite as powerful as he appeared.

As Velvet continued to drift away from the Scarlet Alliance, she brought to mind her mission. She was to investigate to determine the weakest and least stable of the colonies beginning to worm their way into the Scarlet Midfields. Studying their various rivals among the opposite factions would be most useful if she could manage to get them to call each other out for breaking the pact without getting the rest of the midfields into a war. Not the easiest task, but that made it all the more necessary.

The Scarlet Alliance was slowly expanding to fill the midfields, but unless something suddenly changed it would be another thousand or two thousand years before they truly encompassed the majority of the area. They could place nominal outposts wherever they wanted, but the only areas they could be said to truly control were those that they had encompassed by the spatial distortion.

Some of the planets that were occupied were close enough to the southern border that Velvet could count on Anton’s ability to reach them now that he was a Unity cultivator. However, it wasn’t feasible to assume he could handle more complex operations than simply annihilating people. If they got to that point, the upper realms part of the Alliance would handle things themselves since he would be best reserved for what might happen afterwards.

It was too bad he couldn’t come to the upper realms. He would probably be able to cover all of the Alliance’s territory without the spatial distortion. He hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about his limits, potentially because he didn’t know but Velvet suspected it was more likely so that people didn’t count on him. At least, not in that way.

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Aside from training in cultivation, and specifically with Chidi, Anton had recently become a catalyst for another wave of sweeping social changes- small ones, but significant in their reach. Mainly, they were things people couldn’t give voice to, and that they hadn’t really even understood to be a problem. Major inequalities were always being worked on by the Alliance, and if people could give voice to a problem it would be looked into.

However, there were smaller issues that were no less serious but that still required addressing. For example, issues of mobility. It was entirely possible for people to go from one system in the Alliance to another for a relatively cheap price considering the distances involved. Given the proliferation of a common language, it wouldn’t be impossible to get along, but there were still cultural differences between planets that lingered.

That wasn’t the main issue, however. Certain systems had more people that wanted to leave to seek opportunities elsewhere, but the flights weren’t there. Some of them were simply unable to give voice to those ideas, others held the thoughts in their subconscious- if given the opportunity, they would travel. It was a need people couldn’t fulfil not because they didn’t have the ships or pilots, but because they didn’t know.

Obviously such a thing didn’t mean much to Anton personally, as he could travel wherever he wished far faster than anyone else- but it was safe to say most people couldn’t independently surpass light speed.

Long distance communication was fast but not instantaneous. Communities were still separated by distance, and though the problem was constantly being worked on for various practical reasons, once people were aware of the issue efforts were redoubled. Maybe they would have teleportation available in the next century, or at least instantaneous cross-system communication.

Then there were intangible things which Anton couldn’t do anything to facilitate except to connect people together in ways he didn’t even fully understand. One example Anton learned about after the fact was an individual looking for peace, trying to find a particular place of relaxation. A cove with particular conditions he assumed simply didn’t exist… but someone else did. The manifestation of the connection was simply drawing two people together for a moment. The second individual merely mentioned the place in passing conversation, not knowing the full extent of healing it could bring to the first.

If Anton had to consciously control it, he imagined he would go mad. A single connection between two people was one thing, but with the total population in the trillions, the myriad possibilities were impossible to discern. Anton simply allowed energy to be used according to the principles of Unity he had laid out for himself. It was much like devotion in that way.

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Because this particular form of Unity was tied to Anton, that meant it was certainly incomplete in coverage. Plenty could go undiscovered, things away from his bound stars being the most prominent. But he could hope that eventually other Unity cultivators would arise- or perhaps society would develop to a point that they weren’t useful. That was a hard situation to imagine, however, as it wasn’t as if the rest of the galaxy stopped existing just because the Lower Realms Alliance happened to be doing well. �

The Alliance really didn’t need Anton’s Unity, just like it didn’t need most of the other components individually. But if individual pieces were lost, eventually the whole thing would unravel. It was just one thing that should hopefully result in things becoming better.

Anton didn’t fully understand the connections, but according to what he heard it was like a prompting that people followed. However, there were no serious consequences for ignoring it. It wasn’t a divinatory ability that somehow predicted or mandated the future. Instead, the more people something could affect, the more connections were made that could solve said problems. The connections between two people were most rare, and Anton remembered hearing about it precisely because of that.

If opportunities were missed, it didn’t somehow lead to disaster. Instead, there would always be promptings… until the need was no longer significant enough. Since it was new, not everyone was willing to follow mysterious promptings. Even for cultivators who learned to follow a certain sort of instinct, it was odd to connect with something that was clearly external to some extent. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Anton himself felt no promptings himself. Perhaps that meant nobody needed him and he needed nothing in return, but more likely it was that he couldn’t interface with the effects himself. Or it could be because he’d simply not considered himself when he was making his attempt. Anton didn’t need to help himself, because he already had everything he could ask for and more… multiple lifetimes worth. Asking for more would be greedy.

As for how he could help others, if Unity wasn’t personal enough, Anton still tried to leave his personal touch wherever he went. A few words of guidance could help a cultivator suck at a bottleneck, especially when Anton had seen the same difficulties hundreds or thousands of times in disciples.

Sometimes people just needed a kind word during a rough day. That wouldn’t change just because Anton was stronger now. People might find it weird that someone with planet destroying capabilities just talked like a normal person, but Anton would find it weird if he didn’t. Cultivators who thought themselves above everyone and everything were kind of missing out on part of existence. Though there were a few who could actually be content with a solitary lifestyle, focused on self perfection.

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In some ways, Chidi found escaping from Devon’s restraint to be easier than the simplest of physical shackles. Those made with cultivators in mind, of course. Others weren’t even worth considering, as he wouldn’t even need any sort of abilities.

Having his energy suppressed was certainly inconvenient. Chidi couldn’t manipulate his own energy or the energy around him with Devon’s chains wrapping him. But with the right shifting of his body, simple and minute adjustments, the flow of energy could change. Once Negation took hold, he could propagate it outward- and once he erased any part of the binding effects, it was worthless. The chains were gone as if they had never existed.

“Fascinating,” Devon said. “I’m not sure if I could reasonably learn enough about energy flow to stop you.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t describe my own weaknesses,” Chidi said. “But I’m going to be out of here soon enough, uncle Devon.” He was a great-uncle or something similar, but it was the most proper thing to call him. And Devon liked it. “If you happen to run into someone like me somehow, there’s one trick. Just make sure I can’t move at all.”

“I considered that,” Devon said. “The problem is… you’d be dead. I couldn’t truly be certain that you were incapable of doing that unless everything about you would be perfectly still. Your heart. Your lungs. Every portion of your cells…”

Chidi made a face. “That sounds a bit excessive. On the surface, at least.” Chidi wondered if he could carve formations on individual cells. That would be difficult for many reasons, including that they weren’t usually entirely stationary and that whole pesky thing where they were living and dying. Anyone actually trying to restrain him would likely just take the opportunity to crush him if they successfully caught him, so training such a niche ability was probably excessive.

That said, he would absolutely scale the formations inside of himself in ways that he could still shift them without appearing to move. Flexing or unflexing muscles, perhaps, though he’d have to make certain not to disrupt the flow of energy when he didn’t mean to.

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There was one more family member Chidi had to meet in the lower realms. Actually, that was completely untrue. There were probably thousands or tens of thousands, as there had been many generations of family that didn’t really live as cultivators after Anton rescued them. Plus he was pretty sure he had aunts and uncles from his mother’s side in the centuries after she was gone.

But there was only one active in high tier cultivation and to which he had a personal connection- even if they’d never met. The connection itself wasn’t even important. They’d merely been born close together in time with vast distances separating them.

That person was Anishka. Her mother Annelie had been close to Alva for most of their early life, and even until the latter Ascended. Then Annelie had nearly given up on cultivation after her husband’s death, and was now living out something like her final days.

“You’re more impressive in person,” Anishka admitted. “Energy recordings don’t do Negation justice.”

“I’ll say the same for you,” Chidi replied. “Fire and ice together is a difficult combination.”

She shrugged. “So you say. But I was raised with it and it always made sense. Except during brief periods of crisis.” She stared at Chidi, hard.

“What are you thinking about… cousin?”

“Just whether I can beat you in a fight. And I don’t think I could.”

“Or you’d completely destroy me,” Chidi said.

“It’s not like I could ambush you. I know you’ve got better awareness than that. And I don’t have amazing range.”

“Well, I’m not telling you how,” Chidi said. “Because I think others could replicate it easily enough, and I really can’t let that happen.”

Anishka frowned for a moment. “I think I figured it out.”

“I don’t intend to let you test it,” Chidi shook his head. “So don’t ask.”