Things had finally settled down enough on the western border that Velvet felt safe beginning her own infiltration efforts. At least, as safe as such a thing could be. Going into a region where everyone was enemies, even if they weren’t actively at war, was always a risk. Velvet made certain she had some alternatives to capture, just in case.
A long term infiltration mission meant she couldn’t simply slip around unnoticed. It was impossible to stay concealed for months or years. But there were better options. She just had to look like she belonged. The success rate of such a thing depended on the particular training of those in the Exalted Quadrant, and of course her own abilities.
Her intended disguise was as a member of the Citadel of Exalted Light. A close fiction would be more effective than a vast difference in her aura. The One Hundred Stars had the potential to make use of light, and her own training had resulted in some proficiency in that area. Of course, she would be missing specific techniques to fit in, but that would only be relevant if she displayed her fighting ability. At that point, it would likely be too late. Even if the Exalted Quadrant didn’t work as a coordinated whole at all times, they could at least be incentivized to hunt her down if they thought she was worth it. Like what happened with Chikere… though the swordmaster had gotten quite a bit further into their territory without issues than expected. Then again, that could have been a trap.
Ultimately, Velvet found the risks acceptable. She wasn’t intending to delve deep into the hearts of sects. It was far too early for such a thing. No, she just wanted to determine the overall movements of the Exalted Quadrant. Especially with relation to the Scarlet Midfields, because while they were certainly enemies… how soon they would act on such a thing was a mystery. Were plans already in motion? Would it be decades? Centuries? Or was the damage caused so minor that they barely even registered their existence? The last one seemed unlikely, given they’d killed an Augmentation cultivator and messed up a long term infiltration of the Harmonious Citadel… but it was hard to say how many millennia long plots such a juggernaut would have.
She would take her time, traveling via their normal routes on their ships to arouse the least suspicion about someone appearing from nowhere. All she had to do was pass a few border worlds that might be more suspicious. She’d done the same in the Trigold Cluster, and while they certainly didn’t operate in the same manner overall humans kept to the same tendencies, and there were various ways to exploit their lapses in attention.
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The passage of several springs resulted in the significant expansion of the Lower Plains Coalition’s territory. Their numbers more than doubled, not merely because of births but also more individuals joining from surrounding groups. They maintained the same core, with meerkats, warthogs, eagles, and a small number of hippopotamus.
Along with growth in numbers, the strongest individuals among them also reached greater heights that most of them hadn’t witnessed. From Anton’s perspective they were still barely beginning their cultivation journey… but they slowly began to step into the Spirit Building stage. Even the best among them seemed a bit slow to advance- but there were various factors at play that might result in that.
First was that the translation of human cultivation techniques to work for them was imperfect. Likewise, the natural energy in the area wasn’t lacking, but it was far behind the developed levels of Ceretos and their allies. Finally, they were also basically the first generation of cultivators. While there had been some amount of energy ingested by previous generations of meerkats and the like, active participation in cultivation was basically brand new. Especially for the meerkats, who weren’t able to out-compete stronger animals to obtain that growth.
It wasn’t much of a surprise to Anton that Three Squeaks had been the first to reach Spirit Building. He was rather partial to his disciple after all. He both consciously and unconsciously spent more time training Three Squeaks, so surpassing Deep Purr wasn’t that odd, even with the other meerkat now learning from Ty.
If he’d been betting on the second place, it would have probably been Contented Grunt. The hippo was simply capable of obtaining more resources on her own, and she had the initiative. Echoing Cry would have been high on the list as well. And again, Deep Purr wasn’t a poor choice with a proper instructor focused on him. Forceful Snort was a tough warthog as well, so he could have been the next choice. Even the meerkat Sustained Chittering worked hard.
So it was a bit of a surprise when Meep showed up with his cultivation at the eleventh star. The old Meerkat didn’t even make mention of it, simply coming up out of the burrow to tell Anton about how well some roots were growing. Anton was glad he’d been giving lectures on Spirit Building, because the writing system was still being developed.
They’d taken to the idea of writing rather quickly, as they understood the value of passing knowledge between people when one wasn’t around. Anton was willing to teach the human methods of writing, but that was tied to their own languages so it was a slower process for most. Only Three Squeaks and Echoing Cry really devoted themselves to that.
On the matter of Echoing Cry… he was still at the peak of Body Tempering, but not from lack of effort. Instead, he’d been making sure to perfect his body as much as possible, knowing that he would have little opportunity to enhance it for the first half of Spirit Building. It was more energy intensive to go off of the predetermined course to correct flaws in the body, and the modified Soaring Air Sect’s cultivation method paralleled the One Hundred Stars in that regard.
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The last years had not been exactly peaceful, but there were no major threats to the coalition. Anton couldn’t be certain about the next ones, however, given their expanding territory. Beasts lacking sapience couldn’t stand against the coordination and focused cultivation of the coalition, but they were soon approaching possible conflict points with the Upper Plains Pride and even the Kapok Coalition. Just because the second group of lions had been friendly when they were far away didn’t mean they would accept others intruding into their territory. That was why the coalition was focused on expansions in other directions, more south and east using a river to their west as a natural boundary- for the most part. The hippos did tend to count the west side of the river as their territory, but not far from it.
If they continued expanding at the same rate to the east and around the kapok coalition, they could transition from the plains closer to jungle territory. That would be another points of difficulty, even if they avoided conflicts with other sapients up to that point.
Meanwhile, Anton knew that the Great Queen’s efforts with the insects of that same are were going well. Anton might be called upon to help with other sapients soon- the Great Queen couldn’t vocalize, and they might not be patient enough to realize her signs were intentional. Beyond that, Anton also knew that the Great Queen was in the midst of properly establishing the first colony of void ants. She couldn’t be everywhere at once, of course, so having subordinates who could assist her would be useful. Though most of them would likely linger below the higher level of sapience at the current natural energy levels of the planet, it was simple enough for her to raise a few officers to act in a manner she wished.
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Just because Anton was located on Aipra most of the time didn’t mean he wasn’t keeping track of other places. He got regular reports from Varghese and the people of Poriza. Their systems were close enough to support each other, though except for a small number of ships from the outside travel was slow even over a small number of lightyears. Then again, despite it being smaller on the galactic scale, simply being able to cover multiple lightyears in a matter of weeks or months was a significant accomplishment.
Less regular, but all the more precious for it, were reports from Aipra. The planet locked in subspace had been quite successful with their restructuring. Which is to say, several seemingly small advancements in efficiency had freed up enough of their workforce to help them develop larger improvements. Digging through the ground that was mostly permafrost was tough business, but it allowed them more space where they could trap precious heat. Likewise, the growth of a small number of plants introduced that could thrive in the harsh conditions were helping develop the natural energy of the planet so that all could be somewhat stronger.
It was unlikely that Aipra would ever be a pleasant place to live. The semi-regular distortion beast attacks were one of the larger reasons that would be impossible… but they had various defenders to deal with those crises. They had survived as they were for centuries, so they should continue to last longer.
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Watching the awkward Agom train with the blade, Chikere often wanted to call out to her. To tell her that was not how she was supposed to do something. But that was not her job. She was not a swordmaster, so what qualifications did she have? Besides, Chidi was taking on that job just fine. The young man- she was still multiple times his age so he was young despite living more than a century- provided different instruction than she might have to the wolf.
When she made a clumsy swing, he would ask, “Did that feel right?”
Chikere hadn’t always been direct in her criticisms. She understood the value of a student realizing mistakes. But Chidi’s questions were genuine. Agom was unable to replicate human swordsmanship… so her feedback on whether something was good or not was important. And getting things wrong was just one step in the process of being right.
Even so, Chikere’s long training and instincts told her certain moves were incorrect. It was, in a way, like watching the Limitless Edge Sect. Thinking about that was highly uncomfortable. Experienced combatants that acted like amateurs, even to the point of death. And yet… that woman had fought in a similar manner. It made her nearly impossible to predict and some of the moves might even have been… better. Though they certainly didn’t feel like they should have been.
It wasn’t simply a matter of style. Chikere studied the styles of every enemy she came across, taking the best of what they had to integrate into her own abilities. That was normal and natural. But what the Limitless Edge did was different. They didn’t just have alternate styles, but instead eschewed the very fundamentals of swordsmanship. Perhaps that was what made Chikere feel so wrong about it.
But that also brought to her mind a question. Were the agreed upon fundamentals truly perfect? Certainly, they were widespread throughout the upper and lower realms… but ultimately, she had done very little questioning of those same fundamentals. She had seen they worked, and so that had been it.
Still, no matter how much her style should have worked… it didn’t. She completely failed to defeat the Limitless Edge. She didn’t know what there was to learn from their actions that so completely went against her instincts. Maybe that was why she was broken. Or rather, it might have been one of the things that caused her to be broken.
One of the other things had been a lack of cute things holding swords, but that damage was rapidly being repaired. The meerkat. Agom, right in front of her. Even that little warthog had four swords, even thought they might look to uneducated people like they were tusks. Yes, all of those were good things.
As for everything else… Chikere didn’t know if she could ever wield a sword again, but if she did it would be different somehow. It was just that she failed to comprehend how every time she thought about it.