The steady flow of cultivators into the Everheart system kept him well supplied, while a small few visitors came out with ‘great wealth’, encouraging others to risk their lives for the same. The trick was balancing things just right, so that people felt the risks were worth the rewards. They weren’t, of course, but humans were remarkably terrible at making such judgments.
Unfortunately, the full potential of his work was being wasted. Nobody important was coming to visit. Even his provocations in the Trigold Cluster weren’t sufficient. Perhaps they were too busy with other things. Or perhaps they realized it was a trap. Not that such a thing had ever stopped anyone else.
So he was stuck with a conundrum. Reaching Domination was nearly impossible as things were, and he couldn’t just go out and hunt down Augmentation cultivators. He was confident in his ability to handle one or two, but they were like rats in some of those systems. Or void ants. He should have brought some void ants with him. Ah well, the people in the lower realms were doing just fine with those. Probably better to handle things their way than risk an uncontained spread of them that would take over the galaxy. Not that such small risks bothered Everheart.
-----
The Great Queen was quite pleased with her progress regarding the leaf and stick insects. Even without the ability to cultivate energy herself, the Great Queen understood enough to drive them towards Spirit Building. Upon reaching such a level, much of the disadvantages of their small size would be overcome. There would always be some risk associated with a lack of physical strength, but ultimately it was density that mattered. Humans had to move and protect vastly more body than these insects, and humans also didn’t have exoskeletons. Though that was one of the sticking points in their advancement. Someone was going to have to guide them on ‘bone’ tempering. They could compare to her own chitin, but void ants’ growth was a natural process based on consumption rather than retention of natural energy.
The territory of the insect coalition was growing. With the Lower Plains Coalition expanding their borders as well, soon enough the two would meet. That wasn’t much of a concern, as they were aware of each other, and the connection to their recent growth. More troublesome in the short term were the other sapients within the forest. Nearly anything would like to eat them with their natural energy, and most of them tried. Birds, snakes, frogs… there was no end to the trouble. Though they could only eat them if they found them, which was more and more difficult as the camouflaged insects advanced.
There were few other sapient insects to rely upon as allies, but there was one option that might prove favorable. Specifically, a small group on the opposite end of the size spectrum. Giant anacondas could eat stick or leaf insects, but they weren’t incentivized to. There was some risk when one considered natural energy rather than physical nutrition, but they had been watching a particular group that seemed like they might negotiate. If they could communicate, of course.
That wasn’t the Great Queen’s job. Instead, she would leave such things to the locals. It was ultimately their choice… and they were the ones with natural energy they could manipulate to make sounds. Every once in a while she wished she had vocal chords, though ultimately there was a lot lost in verbal communication as well.
Her mind also turned to her other plans. This place would be a good staging ground for eventual expansion into the upper realms, as long as they could manage transport. And while a much younger her would have happily thrown generations of void ants across the border assuming some of them would survive, she had more sympathy for her low sapience and pre-sapience brethren nowadays. Not that she thought them the same… but the potential lost was something worth considering.
Aside from royal spawn, not all void ants would necessarily end up growing beyond their instincts. The Great Queen didn’t quite know all of the factors involved, but simple quantity of natural energy consumed wasn’t enough. And ultimately, she might never know. Humans had been studying themselves for forever, and they constantly came to understand new things- and learn some of their knowledge was wrong. Perhaps something could be learned from her own body after she died, but obviously she wouldn’t be around to learn from that.
-----
Chikere looked down at her right arm, flexing her fingers one by one, then relaxing her control and watching them naturally curl. It was a behavior she had barely considered when her arm was made of flesh, and that same functionality had not been present in her previous arm. But something about her recent efforts had been sufficient to convince Engineer Uzun and the great number of others working with and under him to make her a new arm.
There had been some excited blabbering about her old arm and some sort of ‘development’ with it, but Chikere honestly didn’t care. Well, she did care about the arm, but only while it was hers. If that made sense. Now that it wasn’t a part of her, it was just an object. It was different from the feelings she’d had when she lopped off the remains of her own right arm after the first battle with Rakiya. At that time, she’d considered gaining a valuable sword above even her own irreplaceable arm. Or at least, she hadn’t known it could be replaced at the time.
It was difficult to tell if her artificial arm was better than her other one. The first model had certainly been extremely useful during her imprisonment- and Chikere had pushed to make certain she would still have remote access to her arm- but comparing her right and left arms they were simply… different.
They both had blood now, however. Chikere didn’t quite understand, but there were complex mechanisms to allow her own blood to flow into the artificial one. Those requirements made it quite different from her other one, especially concerning space requirements. On the other hand, they seemed to have figured out how to make certain processes more automatic. Which was to say, much like in her fleshy arm, healing happened automatically.
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She’d only cut open her arm once, to test it, and it wasn’t a large cut. It actually sealed itself quite quickly, with just a modicum of willpower. The healing process required some time, as it took materials from her blood, but she could accelerate the process through consuming special pills prepared for her.
Overall, Chikere was quite pleased. But she still didn’t want to wield a sword. As for making components of her second arm into a blade, she had ultimately decided against that, and it was a good thing. Because while at some point she had wanted that with her first arm, in her second it would have led to her shattering it.
She was working through why that was, but the understanding was slow. It was something about… imperfection. Chikere herself wasn’t perfect either, of course, but she could strive towards perfection. Presumably, that was why her instincts let things stand. She was certainly still missing some pieces of her own puzzle, but she felt like she might be able to put it together eventually.
-----
When she failed to overhear anything useful from the disciples of the Limitless Edge Sect, Velvet resorted to the trickiest method she knew for extracting information from others. Asking them questions.
Simply marching up to someone and asking ‘how does your style work?’ might be a bit much, but there were ways to guide the conversation. So she found a small group and tried to chat with them, while giving off the impression she was interested in joining.
“How long have all of you been disciples?” she asked.
“One hundred years.”
“Fifty.”
“Two centuries.”
“Three years.”
Velvet was quite surprised by one of those. Specifically, she had observed all of these individuals from afar… and the last one seemed if not the strongest at least the most effective. “Three years? That’s rather recent.”
“It was after the swordmaster conflict. Many disciples were recruited,” the young woman replied. “I was assigned my style shortly thereafter.”
“Assigned your style?” Velvet asked. “Do you not pick your own?”
“Of course not,” one of the others said. “The grandmaster assigns them. How would a novice know what is best?”
“I suppose so. But does that mean she assigns every single disciple their style? Certainly other elders must be involved.”
Yet another shook his head. “No, she assigns them personally.”
“That sounds like an impossible task. I wonder how she finds the time.”
“You could ask her,” the woman said. “Since you are interested in joining, she would meet with you.”
“Just like that?” Velvet asked.
“Of course.”
“It’s a bit late for me,” Velvet admitted. “My cultivation is already fairly… set.”
“It’s never too late to change to the Limitless Edge. If you’d like, we can direct you to the next ship heading to the core sect.”
“I’m not quite ready to go yet,” Velvet said. “But when I am, others would be able to help me as well, wouldn’t they?”
They nodded. “Absolutely.”
-----
That was almost too easy. Unfortunately, Velvet doubted her ability to keep her identity properly concealed in front of the sectmaster. Any falsity would be carefully observed. If nothing else, her stance might tell the sectmaster more about her than she intended- and faking a different style of movement would be suspicious in its own right.
Velvet intended to try different tactics with other disciples of the limitless edge. She went half a planet away so as to not risk running into the same group. This was not the core of their territory, but there were plenty of Limitless Edge disciples around.
As a spy, Velvet was trained to feel when she was observed. Dozens or hundreds of glances passing her over in a crowded area was commonplace and ignorable. She knew how to avoid acting in a suspicious manner, which meant not looking around to see who was observing her. But when she felt a gaze of recognition, she couldn’t help but glance over. It was a casual look as she swept her own eyes through the crowd, using the excuse of rounding a corner.
Who was here that might recognize her? Velvet caught sight of someone she absolutely didn’t recognize. Nor did she sense any sort of disguise. That worried her, because regardless of the factors involved it was not a good sign. Either her own senses were fooling her, or she missed something. But all she saw was a member of the Limitless Edge sect. The woman had her hand casually resting on the sword at her side, the style of blade clearly marking her position. But even as Velvet’s eyes swept past her, the disciple turned and the feeling faded.
To her credit, Velvet didn’t run. But she felt like she should. Only her training spared her from making that mistake. Not understanding what was happening concerned her, but she slowly made her way to a starport. Then she took the next ship leading further away from the core of the Limitless Edge’s territory.
She’d heard of the strangeness of the sect from Chikere, and a few others along the way… but most of the latter was full of unverified rumors. Fearless sword cultivators that practiced strange styles was one thing. But strange insights, undetectable disguise techniques, or something else she didn’t understand? That wasn’t supposed to be on the list. Perhaps she was psyching herself out, but she didn’t want to risk any sort of incident, especially in enemy territory. Even less so in the territory of the Limitless Edge whose sectmaster could actually defeat Chikere in a head on duel of swords.
Perhaps she should investigate the Citadel of Exalted Light. Sure, they might have planted the leader of the Harmonious Citadel, but Velvet was more prepared to deal with things like that. Trickery and maneuvering she understood just fine.