By the time we had begun to climb the mountain that marked the separation between the phoenix and thundering ape territories, I had already successfully hunted thirteen creatures, with the majority of those being relatively small animals; as it turns out, hunting with a sword is not terribly efficient. I had tried to throw stones, both using my own enhanced speed and using my frog-derived powers, and while the former has met with limited success – limited mostly by my terrible aim – the second had been a surprising failure; I had rather hoped that the stone would leave my hand like a bullet, but it had acted as if I had thrown it normally. It seemed that I was not actually moving any faster while using that ability, I just had more time in which to do it. It was a strange limitation, and I wondered how much of it was due to my intent when I had formed my Path, and how much was intrinsic to my lotus-posed passenger. Either way, I was mostly left trying to melee them with pure speed – and pure time. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it did not, but it did seem to be pretty good practice, as I was making what I considered good progress in filling my Exemplar with Praxis, and I was sitting at a solid one-percent completion.

My monetary gains had been somewhat less impressive, however. I had obtained five orange cores, four yellow, two greens and two blues, which – if my mental maths was correct – worked out to be the equivalent of 5418 growth coins. Or somewhat less if split five ways. Luckily, as before, my companions were hesitant to take their shares, but at least this time I could somewhat understand it – the only ones they had actually helped with were the blues, as fighting the equivalent of Foundation level beasts without the benefit of being inside them was actually quite difficult. If you ever see what looks like an eight-foot-tall, golden gerbil with ram horns, just leave it alone; why a gerbil has the ability to negate gravity, I have no idea, but then I suppose I have no idea why a frog would need the power to manipulate time, either. I planned on forcing them to take their shares once we were back in civilization, which would leave me with the far smaller fortune of 1962 growth coins. I seemed to recall the sum I had first taken from the Risen Throne when I had escaped, had actually been a small fortune, and that had not been much more, but maybe I had been spoiled by the relatively large amounts I had come upon, or maybe I just had expensive taste in clothing, I hoped not. I hoped I had not spent – and wasted – literal fortunes on clothing...

One thing I had insisted on, which had bewildered my friends, was trying to dress the carcasses of the beats I killed and storing them to eat later, though I had been forced to abandon large parts of the blues, as I did not actually have enough space for all that meat. I had eaten a few times, since my arrival, and it has always been an amazing experience, and as became apparent, that was the norm on a world where nobody over the age of ten needed to eat. The idea of just roasting meat over an open flame, with no delicate spicing was wholly alien to them, but I was damned if I was going to waste more than I had to, and there was simply no way I was going to end a life just to make money. I did not want to judge too harshly; I was not a native of the world and I did not know everything, maybe keeping their numbers down was important. But it was one of the few practices that – at that point – I really hated.

Which is how I found myself half-way up a mountain, sat in front of a roaring fire and eating a massive chunk of snake. The reptile tasted awful, like a salty dirt and mothballs; it had looked like a vine at first, so maybe I was tasting some kind of plant properties, but either way, I hated it, but since I had already taken my moral stand, I was unfortunately committed to eating all twenty-two feet of the thing. Yay.

“With hesitant disgust, I do not know how either of you can eat that, it tastes disgusting.”

It was the first time I had heard Reff make a wholly negative comment, but given the look on his face when he had – reluctantly – tried it, I thought he was doing a great job of hiding his true feelings. With a grin that quickly became a grimace as the after-taste of my latest bite hit me, I looked over at Darina, who was the only other member of our group who had continued to eat after the first bite; the diminutive apprentice seemed to hate it every bit as much as I did, but she nevertheless continued to time her bites with my own, as she glared at me from across the fire. Things had been settling down between us, as Cad was refraining from getting us drunk and was pretty good company most of the time, but she seemed to take the snake as some kind of personal challenge, and it was doing nothing to cool her down.

“You know, Darina, you don’t have to eat it. I would manage... eventually.”

The only answer I received was for the apprentice to tear another chunk of meat free, a look of determination clear on her face.

With a shrug, I set about finishing my... cylinder... of meat while Cad and the siblings chatted, with the occasional joke thrown in, followed by confused stares.

*

***

*

“Oi, Sparky, why don’ we have a spar? I’ve been itchin’ to since we met ‘n’ ye’ve been puttin’ me off. Surely ye Core be filled by now?”

I had been putting the man off, though letting my Core refill after it had been sucked dry by the weird black mist wasn’t the only part of it; the more I sparred against him, the more opportunity he would have to realise that my luck was not anything to do with my cultivation. But putting him off too much would only inspire its own suspicion. With a sigh, I clapped a cleansing pill between my hands to clear off the day’s grime and the juices from the almost inedible snake, and nodded at Cad.

“Sure, let’s do it. Should we all fight?”

I held the hope that Cad would go for that idea, because it would make it harder to concentrate on me, but he quickly disabused me of that notion, shaking his head with a grin before speaking.

“I’d prefer to test ye on yer own, Sparky. What damn fate-bending power o’yours makes me eyes itch, and I’ll be glad once I can settle me curiosity.”

“Uh, sure. We can spar later, guys?”

The group looked up at me, though only Darina seemed eager; we had slacked off a little in our training since fight with V and McCreepy; for my part, it was just because I wanted to recover my Praxis - and the whole secrecy thing – but despite seeming to enjoy his company, the risi brother and sister seemed a little be leery of our group's latest edition. Perhaps it was lingering distrust, or an aversion to his specific methods of fight, but whatever it was, we probably needed to get back into the swing of things. I definitely knew that I did – with the jobs Xiournal kept handing to me, I knew I did not have a great deal of time to waste, even if it felt that way with the year-plus timer. My last quest had the difficulty upgraded, but this was still rated higher, which meant I was going to need to hit Foundation as soon as I could. At my current rate of progress, it would take me about four years to integrate my Exemplar and complete my Path, and while that was actually pretty fast from what I knew – no doubt helped a long my last life – it probably was not going to be fast enough to keep me alive if the difficulty kept scaling the way it had.

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The two of us stood and walked a short way away; the largest clearing we’d been able to find was the one we were camped in, so we would need to fight amongst the trees, which I thought favoured my opponent, but you do not always get to choose your battleground, so I took it as a part of the training.

“You, uh, may need to go easy on me, Cad.”

“How’bout we jus’ see how we get on, Sparky? Believin’ yer goin’ t’lose afore ye start is a terrible way to look at life!”

That was another surprisingly wise piece of advice from the man and decided I would trust that he would not simply punch through me. Forcing a grin onto my face and Focused hard, revelling in the power as lightning surged through and out of me, grinding the world to a crawl. Without waiting, I quick-stepped towards him but my foot caught on something rough in the undergrowth and I might have planted my face in the dirt right then if it was not for my galvanised reflexes; with a kick, I knocked myself out of the fall and with another I reverse my course, zigzagging back to the right and back again in a fraction of a second. Instinctive Precognition roared as I closed and I found myself kicking again, pinwheeling my arms as I rolled sideways in the air, narrowly avoiding Cad’s blurred violet hammer, the air displaced by its passage ruffling my beard. The next few seconds became a blur as I entirely gave myself over to my Precognition, stepping, jumping and spinning in seemingly bizarre ways, always staying a fraction of an inch ahead of that deadly weapon.

As my exercise in dodging continued, I realised that I was having no trouble with my balance or judgement; Cad was not using his own Focus in the fight, and while he may be making use of his Path, it seemed my ability to react to the future was impeding it at least a little, though it was tough to tell how much of my predicament was down to the vast difference in physical ability between the stages or something else. But I began to suspect he was not actually using his abilities at all as he began to accelerate, the head of the long-hammer creeping closer, and even leaving a couple of rough cuts and welts on my body as it passed within ever shrinking distances.

Deciding I needed to up my game, I grabbed hold of my Praxis and pulled it through my Focus in a torrent, coruscating power snapping against the walls of my channels before leaping out from my body in ropes as thick as my thigh, the smaller filaments absorbed into the greater mass of raging energy. The next time I was dodged out of the way of the long weapon, I could see my lightning snap to it and crawl down its length; any resistor can be overcome with enough power. I saw Cad stiffen as the current touched his hands and sought a route to the damn earth below. I took that moment of shock before my opponent could rally his defence and the hammer lagged, stepping in and driving the palm of my remaining hand into the side of his jaw. But he was ready for me; as my palm touched the flesh of his face, electricity conducting directly into him, he turned with the blow, stepping away to absorb the force and using it to drive an elbow back towards my own open face. Jerking backwards with all the speed my enhanced body could muster, I bent over like I was dodging bullets before pushing off with my legs and backflipping away.

“Not bad, Sparky! There’s definitely somethin’ weird about ye!”

The words sounded slow to my ears, and it was difficult to parse them out; by the time I did, the self-proclaimed life of the party was coming at me again. As we met again, I was once more on the back foot and I found myself moving in ever-more strange ways as Instinctive Precognition fought to keep me from harm, but I knew Cad had at least engaged his Path now, as I found myself bouncing between three trees to avoid an angry monkey with metal spikes protruding from its fur; it has fallen from the canopy looking very confused and apparently decided I was the cause as it attacked with a discordant screeching. Sweat was rolling off me in waves as I piloted between the two of them, narrowly avoiding fired metal spines and a dipping hammerhead trying to hook my feet.

I knew I stood no real chance, under the circumstances; maybe in an environment that favoured me my speed could have more of an impact, and there would be less things “randomly” befall me, but in that moment and place, I knew he was just testing me. Testing me with the apparent intent to do my serious injury, to be certain, but testing me nonetheless.

Knowing I needed to end things, but also unable to close any longer, I concentrated on my amphibian passenger, bent and aimed my elbow and willed myself to kick. For the briefest fraction of a second, I lost control of my leg, but then I found myself smashing into Cad, elbow first as the world blurred around me. I had kicked off the ground of course, using the move I had originally envisioned as some kind of emergency dodge to close the distance, catapulted forward by combined force of multiple kicked compressed down into an instant.

I had not flown at him at the equivalent speed of my time compression – which seemed to be instant – but it had still been at a speed multiple times faster than a Core stage cultivator should be able to, and I had finally managed to land a solid hit right in his grinning face. There came a snap as his nose broke and flattened and the shock of it overcame shook his defence and my lightning flowed into him unopposed. I dropped my Focus almost immediate upon contact, not wanting to do any serious harm, but as he staggered back, blood pouring down his face, he twitched spastically, and I could not help but smile at having scored a point against a cultivator an entire order higher than I was. I had also apparently caught the annoying damn monkey with my foot as I shot forward and I could hear it screeching as it ran off into the jungle.

“Damn and Void blasted shit, me nose! Damn, Sparky, ye’ve got some speed when ye put yer mind to it. I damned certain ye should’n be able to do that at yer stage. And ye did a mighty fine job’o avoiding me bad luck, but this is intrestin’ in itself.”

“Uh, sorry. But, to be fair, you weren’t holding back with that hammer, I have the cuts and bruises to prove it.”

“Bah, barely grazed ye. I was holdin’ back plenty, ye wouldn’t’ve had anythin’ a few healin’ pills could’n’ fix in a few days.”

“Oh joy, a few days you say?”

My voice was dry and my face deadpan; while my companions and I tended to go hard at our training, we tried not to injure each other too much. I hoped I could instil that idea into our latest addition, because otherwise I was going to end up getting injured a lot. And getting injured hurt, even if I had fast healing.

“Okay, so mayhap I was a bit... enthusiastic, but ye were really doin; a fine job o’escaping yer fate. Was that ye Path?”

“Uh, no. The lightning improves my reflexes and response times a lot. I guess I was just... reacting too quick? I couldn’t even tell if you were using it, at first. The monkey wasn’t subtle.”

“Well, I don’ really get t’choose the form the misfortune takes, ye see. It can get a touch... chaotic when I get t’tryin.”

“Well, I hoped that scratched your itch ‘cos I’m not sparring with you again anywhere the wildlife can help you.”

“Oi, tha’s not fair, Sparky! Sparky!”

Grinning, and glad to have an excuse to limit his curiosity, I walked away.