Eight towers stood tall in a ring. It was ironic, because the Harmonious Citadel traditionally had seven styles. Bow, sword, spear, axe, dagger, morningstar, and shield covered a wide range of cultivation… but just weapons. When one among their ranks gained great power of light, they couldn’t help but support him. Apparently they’d finished the man’s fancy, extra big tower. It made the whole place seem lopsided.

Everheart wondered if it would look better after he took down the Spear Saint’s tower. It wasn’t directly across, so probably not… but that was the Harmonious Citadel’s issue to deal with.

A lot of expense had gone into building the structures, both for defenses and energy gathering formations for training. And of course there were the luxuries. Everheart understood why people would want such things… he just didn’t get how they could focus on them so much as to miss out on other important features.

But he wouldn’t mind having heated baths filled by fountains. He wondered if he could steal it. The tower, of course.

“Admiring the work?” a nearby spear disciple asked. “The invincible Spear Saint is one of the strongest pillars of the Harmonious Citadel.”

“Invincible? Yeah right. Even now he’s at best half as strong as the previous one.”

“Previous…?”

“Oh yeah, there have been loads of saints. You think they never die, with how many enemies are made here?” Everheart grinned. “The last one was an amazing woman, and her sister nearly as strong. It took five of the other saints to take ‘em out, and only because I- I heard they were missing a critical ally at that moment. That guy later came to seek revenge and destroyed the usurper’s spear.”

The disciples shook his head, “Now I know you’re making things up. The holy spear has been in the hands of the Spear Saint for millennia, its design unchanged and unbreaking. I have felt it myself, and it is far too powerful to be easily replaced.”

“Yeah, the spear that was destroyed was also not so easily replaced,” Everheart nodded.

He decided that it would be too much work to steal the whole tower. He had better things to do than set up a complicated exercise like that, which would also require getting everyone out of the tower. So he’d just plan how he wanted it to fall. Towards one of the adjacent towers, or to the still-covered statues, breaking through their vandalism shield? Choices, choices. Now that he thought about it, there was someone he should probably get in on this.

-----

The planet Ukast was a frozen wasteland with nothing to offer. Everything frozen there could be more easily peeled from a gas giant without having to freeze anyone’s butts off. But Vari was there anyway, following a stupid mysterious message.

“If you would like to learn more about your mother, come to Ukast. Alone.”

It was a stupid message because planets weren’t good meeting locations. It didn’t say anything even as useful as the north pole or even vague like the equator. Just Ukast. And she was stupid for listening to the message at all, and even more for coming alone.

She didn’t even know where the message had come from… or what time frame she was supposed to be here. She’d shown up as soon as possible, and it was only after a day on planet that she really thought about anything.

Her more reasonable mind’s thought that it was a trap- if a clumsy one- was justified when an arrow flew towards her through the swirling snow, cutting a trail with its shockwave. She raised her arm, solidifying a barrier like a shield and deflecting the arrow. Powerful. But she couldn’t trace the attack to its source. There was no immediate follow-up, either.

The dagger came at the back of her neck, and she knew she’d been found out. Why did she even make friends if she didn’t bring them? Her hand just barely managed to slap the wrist away as she spun, automatically performing one of the counters in Citadel’s Downfall.

The snows made it possible to track her opponents, and somehow her energy senses couldn’t find anything but snow and ice.

A spear attempted to pierce her guts, and Vari kicked upwards, spawning a trail of fire as she did so. They were mainly suited to resist fire, but she’d learned to activate some of the element as they were suited and she had a few sources to learn from.

Even as she began to melt away the snow around her, a sword tried to chop her in half at the waist. Her gauntleted hands slapped down on either side of the blade in a counter inspired by but not actually part of Citadel’s Downfall. Surprisingly, instead of attempting to wrest their weapon free that opponent simply let go.

That was around the time Vari realized there was but one enemy, well versed in every style of the Harmonious Citadel.

The world around her began to unravel beneath the power of an axe, but it was a simple vertical chop. She could dance around it and throw out a counter, punching towards an unseen midsection. Her fist met the metal of a shield and she was thrown backwards.

The spiked morningstar came for her as she was still on her back, and she kicked it upward and away. She managed to spin to her feet and tried to predict which weapon would come next, drawing upon all her knowledge of Citadel’s Downfall. Her hand thrust out, seeking something to grab onto. She clasped around something… while at the same time a hand closed around her own wrist.

Cross-body punches connected between them, and Vari felt her bones shatter. Her opponent wasn’t just a little bit stronger than her. They was so much more. Probably toying with her the whole time. And then pulling out a grapple and punch? The Harmonious Citadel spurned those simply because they did not fit the image they had cultivated.

“Dammit, who are you?” Vari cursed towards the unseen figure who had not let go of her arm. She was melting falling flakes as they approached her, but it wasn’t enough.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Who am I?” A masculine voice came in return. “You already know that, don’t you?”

“... I really don’t,” Vari said.

“... Wait did I forget to put my name on the note?”

“You didn’t put anything on the note!” Vari said. “Just this whole stupid planet!” She was trying to maneuver the man to where she could see him, but she couldn’t pull him closer nor could she step towards him with how he was holding her arm.

“Can’t you guess at least? You should have heard of me.”

“I don’t know. The mysterious saint of light?”

“Wow. Rude. You think I’m one of them?”

“You’ve only been using the Harmonious Citadel’s weapon techniques!”

“That was to make sure you’d been practicing Citadel’s Downfall,” the man countered. “Obviously if I were serious I would have used something better.”

“How is that obvious? I don’t even know you!”

“Oh yeah?” The figure finally came into view, a bearded man with salt and pepper throughout his beard and hair. “What about now?”

“... No?”

“Huh. I could have sworn I used this depiction commonly,” he muttered. “Well, whatever. I’m Everheart.”

“Hah.” Vari deflated, “Nice try, but I know he’s bald.”

“Which bastard told you that, huh?” the man narrowed his eyes. “I’ll kill him.”

“This is news from the lower realms. The world he was born on, in fact,” Vari said. “But I suppose an imposter wouldn’t know which one that is.”

“It was Anton, wasn’t it? That traitor.” Vari did her best to not react to that, but she wasn’t a very good liar. Fortunately, the man didn’t seem to care. “Well, fine.” The man suddenly changed, from the way his hand gripped her wrist- still strongly, but now with thinner fingers. And his hair faded away. “Anyway, I really am Everheart. Your uncle. Kinda.”

“What.”

-----

Feeling the soft yet durable fur ahead of him, Chidi made his way over the rough stone and past the scratchy grass to his best wolf friend. “Someday we’ll get you a name, buddy.” The wolf barked once in response. “I’m finally allowed to cultivate. It’s… really hard, actually,” Chidi sighed. “Everything aches. I’ve been working most of the day and I keep having to switch to new tasks any time I’m getting used to something. You don’t have to train hard, do you? You just grow big and strong naturally.”

An offended bark was followed by a tackle. Chidi felt the distance between them close but couldn’t react when he was shoved onto his back. Sharpness tore towards his neck. Then stopped.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sure you work hard in different ways.” The jaws withdrew and the sharpness faded away as the wolf’s mouth closed. A wet nose poked Chidi’s hand. Then again, harder. “I uh… what do you want?”

Sharp teeth pressed gently against his skin, clasping his hand as the wolf’s head shook back and forth.

“Oh, you want to wrestle? I’m kind of tired, but alright. I guess I can ruin a whole other set of muscles.”

Chidi’s first move was to kick his knee into his friend’s belly. He wasn’t gentle about it either- at least not by human standards. By the lupine’s standards, anything that didn’t draw blood was fair game.

The wolf flipped over backwards, and Chidi navigated how he charged by feeling the sharp claws digging into the loose dirt, as well as the intent of energy flowing through the body.

Ten minutes later, Chidi was lying on his back once more, groaning. “Alright, arlight, you win. I’m already tired anyway.” Not that it would have made any difference. “So… you train by sparring with your siblings?” An affirming growl, but Chidi detected there was something more. “I heard that real combat is the best for growth. Do you… actually fight things?” Chidi knew the former location of the Gardens still had many beasts, and it wasn’t that far- though there was a wall keeping beasts away from civilized areas.

Another growl. Affirmative again.

“I think I’m beginning to understand you,” Chidi said. “Is it weird for me to use words? Should I growl back instead?” Chidi attempted to replicate some of the sounds.

He hadn’t known that the wolves could laugh, but the sound that followed was definitely that, and came with a lot of fur rubbing against dirt as his pal rolled around. So… maybe he didn’t sound quite right. But that was fine.

-----

“So,” Catarina said, “What material would be best for this ascender catching net?”

“I’m not sure,” Engineer Uzun admitted. “We’d have to try dozens of combinations to narrow down the desired properties…”

“Yeah, that’s no good. You get three material attempts, tops. This is already an expensive project, and we can’t afford to dismantle and replace it.” Catarina shook her head. “What about power sources?”

“Well, it would be optimal to have this orbit around the sun. You’d never have to worry about power. The only problem is it would be kinda… exposed. And I suppose the gravity might interfere with the transfer.”

“Let’s set that aside for the scenario where we’ve expanded enough to build a second one,” Catarina said. “We’ve got an area with high volcanic activity, but since… we took over… it hasn’t been consistent.”

“That might do it,” Uzun nodded, “Or we could attempt a nuclear generator.”

“Don’t those explode?”

“Only if you do it wrong. You’ve never had any of your energy generation or storage blow up?”

“Alright,” Catarina nodded. “Fair.”

“And the radiation is easily shielded from by lead, which is… basically free.”

“Yeah, we could bring an entire lead asteroid over if we ran out.”

“To increase efficiency, I would suggest using high conductivity elements like silver. The whole formation is losing at least ten percent of its energy to waste. It might not sound like much, but you could extend the effective duration another month without needing to add energy storage. It’s easy to mine from asteroids as well. We’ve got scanners if you don’t want to send people to manually take a look.”

Catarina nodded, “That sounds good, but the increased flow would actually throw off other components. We’d have to account for that. But I appreciate your knowledge of… mundane materials.”

“Once we get computers operating,” Uzun added, “We can monitor and regulate the flow. It wouldn’t require a cultivator to handle it, and it might even be more efficient than manual operation.”

“I’m not sure about that,” Catarina said.

“Well… okay, you might be an exception. But I can guarantee it would be better than the vast majority of trained individuals if properly programmed.”

“And that will take…?”

“Decades, probably,” Uzun sighed. “If we’re lucky.”

“So not long at all then. I’m glad we brought you in,” Catarina grinned.