Over the course of his life, Anton had visited hundreds of stars. That was more than most, certainly, but in the grand scheme of things it was… very small. In a single galaxy there were hundreds of billions of stars. Even in the tiny section of the galaxy that they called home, stretching far enough so that the great powers in the upper realms could not reach beyond, there were millions.

If Anton somehow managed to visit one per day- which would have been far beyond a sustainable pace- it would take him thousands of years to even get close to a single million. This was a project completely out of his grasp.

And he liked that. His individual contribution would be negligible. He couldn’t be in more than one place at a time, and even his bound stars didn’t have perfect perception around them. This was a task that would be taken up by many others… including some of the more recent successes in the field of Starbinding.

Despite Anton’s best efforts, not all of those who made the attempt were successful. They ended up like he had, a charred husk, but without the ultimate success that allowed them to recover. Other more conservative methods of Assimilation were more successful.

One of the starbinding cultivators was from Rutera- and more relevantly was not part of the Order. An ambitious fellow named Ujarak who had been part of the eastern war as a Life Transformation cultivator took inspiration in the best way. He had seen Ocreaf surrounded by its massive shell, and had thought that there could be something better.

Over the last decade, he’d constructed a few small platforms with the help of others. Then he had taken them to a small, unstable star to try his hand at a project. Anton had been present to watch as the technology provided a minor but still very real boost to the star’s stability. But that wasn’t good enough for Ujarak. He wanted to be part of the process, and tied himself to the platforms with an ingenious piece of technology.

From all accounts he was as close to perfectly successful as possible- though he would admit himself that if his calculations were off by as much as a single percent he would not have survived the process. He didn’t have a direct conduit to the star inside of him, but the device synchronized him and the star Striul.

As ambitious as the fellow was, he recognized his limitations. To bind another star, he would need to find one that could sync up with Striul properly. The man had set up a permanent residence there as one of the many staking out positions for themselves. Ujarak wasn’t in any hurry to bind his second star, instead happily letting his cultivation improve in the new tier a little bit at a time.

There were more stories of people than the stars they spread to, stories both big and small. Some took their positions as a temporary task. They intended to stay a decade or two, living alone or in small groups before seeking replacements. Significant resources were invested to those willing to commit their time.

Colonies were established as well, sometimes just a few handfuls of people and sometimes larger projects where there were particularly promising worlds. The more locations people established, the more connected they were even spanning over a distance of hundreds of lightyears. But it was a long project that Anton could see would still take centuries, especially for people to push to the farthest limits away from other support.

Even so, it was worthwhile. Clearly, they couldn’t leave anywhere for the upper realms to grow their roots. There could be more hiding, and further planets suffering under their influence. Systems that were already occupied would take special care to make certain they weren’t unduly influenced. The plan was to gain permission to temporarily occupy nearby systems, at least until they could secure their own neighborhoods.

It was likely anyone they came across would have experience with the upper realms, if they had managed to maintain their independence. Some might fear others in the lower realms as well, but there were experts for that sort of thing.

Meanwhile Anton was happily taking advantage of a time of peace, even if it only turned out to be a few decades. But he could hope it would stretch into many centuries.

-----

It had been a long time since Lev felt out of place. The trick to that was to mold the places around him to suit himself. Very little of his time was spent anywhere that he was not growing one of his grand willows. He had only a handful in and around the core systems of the Lower Realms Alliance, but there was no reason they had to be constrained to specific areas.

Which is why he was trying something new. But it was extremely odd. Everything felt wrong. But at least the world wasn’t rejecting him.

The first tests where people from the lower realms came by their special inter-realm transports had been successful. Without negative consequences except for discomfort for only having ascension energy instead of natural energy.

Having not undergone the correct process, Lev hadn’t purged his energy and replaced it. Thus, he was much like someone from the upper realms descending into the lower realms, his energy slowly leaking away while he was unable to replenish it. Except that wasn’t quite true. His connections to his willows, while not the same as the conduits to stars that Anton possessed, stabilized him at about half of the energy he would have expected.

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Knowing that others had been successful with the same, Lev had begun to very slowly draw upper energy into himself. Controlling it was difficult, as it was more naturally dense and resistant. It wasn’t like he was used to, even comparing it to more compressed versions of lower energy that he was familiar with. The differences came in ways he couldn’t quite describe, except that the knowledge that they were not meant to mix. And while some would have taken that as a challenge, he accepted it.

Lev’s goal was simple. He was going to plant and nurture a willow. Plants that functioned well in lower energy wouldn’t necessarily thrive in upper energy, just like cultivators. However, it was a step on a larger project. If the upper realms could invade the lower realms, why not attack them in turn? Despite some rough patches, the lower realms were more secure than ever. Their strength should continue to grow unchecked. In that case, it would be best if they could directly lend some of that strength to the upper realms beyond simply sending cultivators through ascension.

Lev had a hundred seeds in individual boxes, carefully sealed. Storage bags couldn’t properly transfer between realms, as they ran off the wrong kind of energy. Some would simply cease functioning, while others would be destroyed. Either way, it wasn’t useful.

The natural place for Lev to start was Xankeshan, but if his efforts were successful it would be too obvious. Even if it took a century to grow to any reasonable size, whatever he planted would still be notable. If nothing else, it would raise too many questions. So Lev was working in a plot of land on a nice planet in the center-south of the Scarlet Alliance’s territory.

Meirus was the planet’s name, and it was filled with wild and vicious beasts. None strong enough to threaten Lev, even weakened, but he had some helpers to keep him safe just in case.

“It’s good to see you again, Fuzz,” Lev commented. They had met unintentionally at more or less the true beginnings of their journeys. Both had nearly died to the same parasitic moss. One had grown to use fire, and the other focused on plants. Funny how that worked out. Though Fuzz’s choices were probably based on hanging out with the Order of One Hundred Stars. Not that they’d been called that at the time.

Fuzz growled in a manner that was both friendly and aggressive. “Nothing will harm your hide, tree friend! My mate and I will keep you safe!”

Spikes hadn’t been able to stop sniffing Lev. “He still smells strange.”

“Not ascending will do that, I suspect,” Lev shrugged.

-----

Choosing a location for a tree he expected to be multiple kilometers tall with a canopy wider than that wasn’t a simple task. Lev circled the planet a few times before stopping to check out another location that felt good. It wasn’t that he was being casual about things, but at a certain point feelings were more important for cultivators than what they could necessarily express with words.

In the end, Lev determined there was no reason to plant just one. He had extra seeds for a reason. He fully expected some to be dug up and consumed. They would be nutritious and intriguing, filled with lower energy as they were. Lower energy was useful for cultivators to properly develop, but did upper energy provide the same benefits for those who mainly cultivated lower energy? That was a question he had to answer. Anton couldn’t, because of his special circumstances. Otherwise the man would have bound at least a few stars in the upper realms centuries ago.

Lev’s results were… mixed. When the seeds weren’t eaten, they rotted. He either put too much energy or too little. Or the ambient upper energy was throwing off his efforts to jumpstart the growth of the seeds.

But Lev didn’t grow discouraged. He didn’t need a hundred successes. He just needed one… and he was sure that somewhere among these seeds he’d get another survivor like the one on Vecesta. He didn’t need one to grow big and strong immediately- it just had to live so that it could reach those great heights eventually. This was a long term plan, like everything he did as a cultivator these days. That happened, when you lived many centuries and didn’t even feel old.

Lev sighed when he saw another seed split by some sort of razor toothed squirrel. However, despite the damage the seed still appeared alive. He decided to put it back in the ground and spend some time with that one. Maybe it would come to nothing… but he had a good feeling.

-----

Creating a device for a specific purpose could be an endless pursuit, continually making tweaks until perfection was achieved. Sometimes it would reach closer to that perfection and sometimes it would drift away. However, the energy negation project kept records of their theoretical success rates.

The project might have continued for another few decades, if it could. But while they had time, it clearly wasn’t unlimited. The energy filtering between Catarina and Timothy was growing more unstable. The fact that they had survived for so long without very much obvious buildup of damage was already extraordinary. And Catarina’s methods were clearly not meant to be a permanent thing. They were an improvised solution for a situation she no doubt had only considered a few times.

“Well, this is it,” Koralo said. “It’s… really ugly.”

It looked kind of like a crown made of spikes, except it was three meters across. Even the formation markings weren’t really elegant. Large cords connected every which way, connecting necessary energy to the device while containing it so that it would not influence the flow between the couple.

“If Timothy complains we did not give it an aesthetic coating of paint,” Uzun said, “Then I will ask Catarina to tell him the risk factors.”

“I think it looks nice,” Chidi said. “Very, um, colorful. And… visual?” He shrugged. He had a vague awareness of the shape of certain pieces of the device, but he’d never interacted with it as a whole. And as it very specifically didn’t respond to energy, he couldn’t feel it at all. Once it activated, no matter how much shielding it had he would be able to sense its shape. And hopefully he could follow the flow of energy just in case something went wrong.

The long project had made Chidi ever more certain that he could free his parents, but also that the actual project was more likely to be successful. But with him as backup in case something started to go wrong, he didn’t think it could be any more survivable considering the circumstances. The chances of death for at least one of them were still over ten percent, with long term injuries being nearly guaranteed, but that was still relatively low. Not that most people would gamble family members on that if they had any other options.

“Time for the final checks,” Koralo said. “And then… there’s no further reason to delay. This is our one shot.”