The next week or so was filled with practice as we waited to see if my hunch played out; Reff who had already been the most skilled fighter amongst us definitely retained that status after his progression to the Foundation stage, but we had all grown.
By the end of the eighth day of our wait, Riffa was finally able to fight with all of her puppets at once, though they had not yet reached the stage at which they could fight independently. While she was still left somewhat helpless while fighting, she now had the option to have a bodyguard; there was also the fact that with her constructs all acting at once, it left far fewer openings to exploit.
Darina had of course been experimenting with her new-found ability to manipulate her own flesh; while she still made use of the creepy, The Thing-like flesh shaping, she had started to move towards less transient applications; it turns out being able to grow plate mail makes you harder to damage. Adding these new additions to her already almost un-killable body proved to be quite a leap in combat utility. Because she totally needed that, the cheat.
As for Reff, his change progress was actually the least dramatic, on the surface; the Foundation stage was much like the Core stage, in that it was focused on accumulating and consolidating power – Veritas in this case. His capabilities would grow in power and scope, but the completion of his Path proved that he had fully understood and integrated his Exemplar. Whilst his actual abilities, in terms of his Focus and Path stayed the same, the increase in power did cause some changes; whereas before his molten armour had been a relatively thin layer of burning rock, he was now capable of piling on mass and forming what was essentially a giant lava mech. A thirty-foot lava monster is terrifying, trust me.
Which brings us to me; I had progressed the least, which is no surprise given how early I was on my Path, but I at least gained some proficiency in the way I was using my new abilities. My compressed dodge worked great, and I had fine tuned it a little so that I did not simply exit the fight, and I hoped that at some point I would be able to chain them together, but at that time the pause between uses really precluded that. Which is not to say the time between uses was actually a long time; testing showed the delay to be about one second, but as it turns out, when you’re moving fifty times faster than normal, a second is actually quite a long time. I had not really thought about it until then, but the realities of super-speed fighting were made abundantly clear when Darina offered to see how many times she could punch me in a second. It was a lot; she even grew an extra set of arms to drive the point home. Cheater.
Still, despite all of that my blows were now really quite devastating; once my Praxis was full again, I had tried pumping as much Praxis as my extensive energy system could handle into my arm, in terms of my lightning and my time compression. At maximum power, it seemed like I punched around ten times my expected strength, all packed with enough electricity to knock out... a very large, tough thing. Even Reff’s Megaform had had its leg blown off by the power behind such a blow, and the combined lightning had overcome the resistance sufficiently to shock my giant friend for the first time. I was more than happy with the results of my rash decision... unfortunately, it proved impossible to reliably raise my defences within the punch’s weird space-time pocket, and I had burned my hand to a crisp. And set the jungle on fire again; it turns out lava is hot when you blast it out of its controller’s... control.
The break I had been forced into after that, while waiting for my single remaining hand to heal, had however allowed me to begin pumping my excess Praxis into my Path; while my understanding of my burgeoning powers was relatively small at the time, it seemed like the vague knowledge of space-time I had picked up when back on Earth was helping out, and I had about ten percent of the lotus-posed frog inside of me available for filling. After two days of solid cultivation and work, I had managed to fill a full ten percent... of a percent. My frog, it appeared, was a hungry little bastard; I would not be making any huge leaps again unless I was able to either find a pill or another Thousand Year Pineapple. Thinking about the delicious fruit – not to mention Rainmaker’s fruit tax – had lead me to contemplating going looking for the tree, but I had managed to restrain myself; while another leap forward in my cultivation sounded appealing, past experience told me that the second I left, the thieves would attack. It was of course all based on memories from my previous life, but despite knowing that I was far Luckier than I had been, the nagging doubt remained.
And so we finished that week, practised, improved and – hopefully – ready.
*
***
*
I sat in the dying light of the jungle twilight staring at a rock about half the size of my closed fist. I was concentrating on compressing time around my arm but I was choking back the power to the barest minimum I could, which was a surprising strain; while a normal cultivator might have one or two thick, beefy channels feeding into their arm, I had a thousand smaller ones. These channels allowed me to pump out more power at once than would otherwise be possible, as well as giving me a small physical edge, but another consequence was that it was really hard to hold back. I had to concentrate on restricting every one of my many pathways, but if I was not doing anything else, I could manage it. As a result, the barest hints or arcing sparks sprang up from my flesh and sank back in almost immediately, barely making a whisper or flavouring the air.
“Grab...!” Stage whispering to myself in the encroaching dark would have seemed pretty ridiculous in other circumstances, but I was too focused on my goal to register the possibility; I was trying to grab the rock, of course. My previous attempts at compressing time around my limbs had only been successful when exerting direct force, mostly because of the repeating nature of the actions; whatever directive I sent my limb at the start of the extended pocket moment, it did again and again until the moment ended. This was great for, say, punching or kicking, but less so for more delicate work, like... everything else. I was doing this – and had been doing it for three hours – in order to try to grab the rock once.
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I felt a frisson in my arm as time compressed and uncompressed around it; it was not the strange feeling of drifting, or losing control, just a slight shiver along its length. Still staring at where the rock had been, I blinked and grinned as I felt something cool, rough and hard in my hand. Looking to check, I let out a quiet, “Yes...!” at the sight of the simple stone clasped in my hand.
I did not know how practical it would be in a fight, but I could see uses for it, and if I could master using the ability at my maximum level of power, I knew I would be able to make much more controlled dodges.
I was about to stand to go and tell my friends about my success when I heard a dull thud followed quickly by distant a distant clang, like something metal tapping against stone. Caught half-way to my feet and frozen, I felt my heart pick up speed. Turning slowly, I glanced out between the trees towards the stone outcropping. I could see two figures atop the jutting rock; one crouched low against the shadowed surface, head swivelling back and forth while the other stood silhouetted against the dying light, motionless and apparently unconcerned.
From the corner of my eye, I saw my companions rise from their own sitting positions a short distance away and I hurriedly finished climbing to my feet and joined them.
“Looks like it’s-” I was started to whisper as quietly as I could, but before I could get far a hand was held up close to my face, stopping me short; following the hand and arm to its source, I found Darina predictably glaring at me.
Rolling my eyes, I nodded at her; we were too far away to be heard over the din of the wildlife if we were careful, but I knew she was nervous, so I let it go. Cocky – and deservedly so – she may be, but the two were unlikely to be weaklings, and if two of them are at the Foundation stage, we may have been in trouble.
With shared glances, but without another word the four of us moved towards the rock; we had long since formulated a plan for if our guess proved correct and the thieves actually did show up at that location. It was a simple plan, though I thought it had the best shot at success; we were going to ambush the crap out of them. They might be stronger and faster than us, but a mortal is, well, mortal.
The shadowy figures seemed to be discussing something, giving us plenty of time to find positions; I crouched low behind a tree, as did Darina, Reff and Riffa used their abilities to shape rock and sand to disguise themselves as boulders and I was left a little open-mouthed at the casual utility their Foci provided. Next rebirth, I was definitely going for something with more range.
With a filament of power, I pulled my sword from storage; I had not tested it against my friends, not wanting to injure them more than I had to, but if I could combine the blade with my new powers, it would make for a decisive advantage, and maybe one that could not be easily countered if it came from ambush. From my own fight with the instant frog, I knew it was possible to predict actions somewhat, though some of that was certainly due to it being a frog and not a fighter, but logically it followed that a sufficiently fast enemy would be able to read my intentions and dodge where I was going to attack, at least after the first couple of times. For that reason, ambushing the potentially more powerful cultivators with an attack that could – in theory – kill them before they could react, was where I was placing my hopes.
The two figures began their descent from the stone, one with an unnaturally quick pace and the other still in a crouch; as they moved below the relatively bright line of the sky, I began to pick out details of their appearance, and I found myself cursing inwardly at what I made out. The unconcerned figure that moved with unnatural quickness was the armoured companion of The Shadow Faced Guy, with his freakishly long arms and black, articulated lorica-esque armour. The other was even more familiar than the first, and somebody I had thought I no longer had to worry about; it was my former torturer, V.
As they moved closer, I determined to take my shot at V; it was not purely personal, but also a matter of practicality. LongarmsMcCreepy was covered head to foot in armour, and not knowing how it would hold up against my sword, it seemed foolish to potentially waste the opportunity.
I could feel sweat dripping down my back and neck; the jungle was naturally hot and humid and I was too far from Reff to be able to benefit from his active cooling, even if he had running. It has nothing to do with nerves, nope, not a thing. Okay, maybe it had something to do with the situation, but can you blame me? The last time I had fought either of them I’d suffered significant injury, and even almost died.
Across from me, I saw Darina tense behind her own tree as she clearly made out our opponents; Cat Guy might have hurt me – a lot – but he had pretty much killed the fragile looking apprentice, and if it was not for her ability to heal herself, I did not think she would still be among us. Catching me looking, Darina twitched her head in the pair’s direction, a feral grin spreading across her face. I almost tutted at her expression; of course the little maniac relished the prospects of a rematch.
Turning away, I watched as they came closer, through the gaps in leaves and vines. I wondered how these two could hope to steal the egg; powerful they might be, but my friends had fought at least evenly with McCreepy, and while we had lost easily to V the last time, he was nowhere near the level of an Elder. There was something we were not understanding there, or some approach we had not considered. Perhaps McCreepy held some power or ability we had not seen; my friends had spoken of a seeming immunity to pain and sudden movement, but our discussions on the subject had not led to answers. We would have to test out our luck, I knew, but at least if it came to that, I knew I had an advantage.
The figures passed the siblings’ hiding places and I tensed to act, swallowing reflexively and despite how much water there was in the air, my throat was dry. Finally, after several long seconds that at least felt like they lasted an age, they drew level with us; thankfully, V was on my side, which meant Darina would be striking Longarms first.
With a yell that startled several resting birds into flight, my apprentice sprang from behind her tree, bone blades clicking faintly against each over as they formed and covered her clothing.
You might be thinking, ‘That’s dumb, why yell and spoil the ambush?’, and under other circumstances I might be right there with you, but in this case, it was all part of the plan. Darina was yelling to draw their attention so that Riffa, Reff and I could attack while they were reacting to her.
LongarmsMcCreepy and Green Cat Guy both turned towards the yell simultaneously, the sickly, mould green light that gave part of his name springing up and forming the leonine form that gave the rest as V readied himself.
It was then, as he turned his back to me that I sprang, voiceless and silent until the last moment when lightning sprang to life around me, lighting the rainforest twilight even as I felt the heat of Reff’s molten armour and the rumble of Riffa’s charging puppets.
I knew my eyes were stretched wide, white showing all around them as a death’s head grin split my face as I forced Praxis into my arm and electricity sprang up around it like a writhing, coruscating gauntlet that flowed down my blade. It took only a moment, but a person who stood upon their Foundation was fast and by the time I drew my arm back V was already facing me, a delighted smile showing on his face, but it was too late. I felt my arm fuzz out of my control, drifting on the winds of time and striking too fast to be perceived, too fast to be countered. As I regained control, there was a sharp ting and I heard something fly into the dense jungle. It wasn’t V’s head, as I had hoped; instead, I stood staring at my sword’s blade, now sheared smooth a few inches above the guard.