Now that his technique was at a base functional, Devon was going to look quite foolish if it was immediately picked out by Vrelt or if he couldn’t sense anything past their barriers. Was it even alright to pry into the business of a planet that just wanted to be left alone…?
Going by the best example he had, Devon ultimately decided that the circumstances were different from what they encountered before. And while using an unfriendly attitude as a reason to spy on people might seem like a bit of a stretch, it was exactly the sort of thing they shouldn’t ignore if there might be plotting involved. In short, if he ultimately found out that they were just grumpy and isolationist, he would share nothing more from his invasion of privacy than what was necessary.
Devon wasn’t the only one with suspicions about the place, of course. The core of the alliance agreed that it was necessary, otherwise Devon wouldn’t have continued to go forward with his attempt unilaterally. Most importantly, Anton supported him. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t end up as a mistake- but his grandfather had helped him avoid many in the past. In several instances, he had been warned and didn’t heed his advice or failed to seek guidance when it would have helped.
A ship carried him just outside the system, beyond the range it was expected anyone would detect them. They couldn’t be certain, of course, but ultimately the whole point was about discovery. If Vrelt was both much more powerful than anticipated and so easily provoked into hostile action, then they would have to deal with them eventually regardless. It was unlikely a single planet could challenge their alliance, but it wasn’t impossible either.
Instead of delaying any further, Devon made his way towards the system, approaching nearly perpendicular to the rotational plane of the populated planet. He kept a slight angle, just to be cautious, but they hadn’t previously detected anything stretching beyond the confines of the world. It was mainly in case some bored cultivator stretched their senses to the stars, though they would likely have to be beyond Life Transformation for that to be the case. So far, they had only seen such power originate in two places, the Sylanis Cluster and the core of their alliance.
Once Devon found himself close enough, he negated his momentum relative to the rotation of the planet below. Then he slowly reached out, thin chains growing. He’d tested himself in many ways over the years, but he couldn’t help but be nervous. Chains grew across each other and stretched to the far side of the planet, requiring a significant expenditure of energy but not having much presence themselves as each link was minimal in power. The chains then crossed each other in perpendiculars, forming the full nine chains dividing the area among them. Each gap could be the size of a country, but the whole planet was encircled with his technique. And while he might have certain blind spots, there was nothing that said he couldn’t rotate his chains later, either when creating them anew or actively as they remained in place.
The entirety of the area inside of his technique became clear to him… but at first it was only the outside of the barrier. He still had to push through that… no, he needed to be more subtle than that. The barrier would certainly react to force. His main encouragement was that barriers on such a large scale usually had to have uniform strengths and weaknesses, so once he found a vulnerability he could exploit it.
Through his web of chains, a vague image of the planet below filled his head. It was indistinct. Blurred. The energy he was detecting was scattered by distance and the distortion of the planetary barrier. He still needed to find his way through… but before that, he slowly tried to adjust his own perceptions. Though he couldn’t clearly pick out everything, he felt larger sources of power. Large cities or sect grounds, as well as a few individual cultivators. He didn’t actively reach out, so he couldn’t learn much except that some were at the peak of Life Transformation… or possibly just beyond.
Rather than try to push through to detect more, Devon slowly unraveled his technique, withdrawing the chains into himself and capturing any loose energy he would have unleashed. It was only a few minutes, but he had expended about a tenth of his energy. While that meant he could have continued for half an hour to an hour, he didn’t want to exhaust himself and make mistakes. Furthermore, he wanted to make sure he kept his actions subtle. He slowly began to peel himself away from the gravitational pull of the planet, careful not to surge his energy in an easily detectable way. There was little he could do to hide if someone focused on his precise position, but he could at least not sloppily spew energy around himself.
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The second day, at an effectively random time, Devon prepared his next attempt. He was going to use what he had picked up about the formations to his advantage. They were meant to protect against attacks, but they couldn’t stop the simple flow of energy in and out. It would not only have been expensive, but also cut them off from one of the main sources of natural energy replenishment that planets tended to rely on- their sun. It wasn’t much power in any one space, but over half of the surface of a planet in a constant stream it quickly added up.
Devon’s energy wasn’t like the sun, but he knew that small amounts of energy could get through. The individual portions of his chains were fairly minimal, but he had no intention to bring the net close enough to directly interact with the formations. While they might not react to a pure wave of energy, something intentionally concentrated was more likely to provoke a response.
He did ever so slightly tighten up the area he was covering, shrinking about half the distance between his mesh and the outer layer of the formation. He thought about dangling a strand of energy down from a single point, but if he was going to bother with that he would just individually sense locations from his own position. Instead, he continued his earlier method of balancing the distortion to refocus the natural energy into solid shapes. He knew what people and places were supposed to feel like, if not any specific individuals, so he was able to slowly refine his process. He picked out the shapes of some larger buildings along with the general terrain of the planet, but didn’t get much more than that- and he could see that with his eyes.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He pushed himself a bit further on his second attempt before heading to rest. Practical usage of his World Encompassing Chains was draining, moreso when there were actual consequences to failure.
His third approach he focused on resolving the energy signatures of the more powerful cultivators. He wanted to at least pick up the general cultivation styles they had.
Day by day he had more success, feeling past their barrier. He approached from different angles every time, generally whenever he felt fully refreshed. So far, he detected no reaction to him- but he was ready to flee at top speed if they sent ships after him. It was unclear if they had starships, but they at least had flying ships- those had been the minimal contact they had, across the barrier.
From days to weeks, the picture became more and more clear. He could sense the strongest among them, and had a growing certainty there were some Worldbinding or Assimilation equivalents among them. He recognized the general kinds of cultivation techniques among them, but as for practical information he had gained very little besides a rudimentary count of powerful cultivators.
At some point, when his senses were clear enough, he fell into a moment of habit. Not a harmful one, but one that had proved useful many times in the past to himself and everyone in the alliance. He slipped a little bit of a specific sensory technique into his work subconsciously… and the feedback he got was clear.
Devon sighed. They really had their grubby hands everywhere, didn’t they? He probably should have tried sensing for the Twin Soul Sect earlier, and now that he considered it he did feel the vague auras of other cultivation methods influenced by the Trigold Cluster. It wasn’t everyone, but there were more than a few elites that seemed to fit the category. The Exalted Quadrant… either wasn’t part of the occupation of the world, or they were actually hiding their cultivations for once. He didn’t sense anyone practicing their methods.
So, a longer term occupation by the Trigold Cluster- and more than just their regular infiltration. It was far too early in the cycle for those involved to have built themselves up from a collective of infiltrators. It made some sense- on Ceretos, the Exalted Quadrants had their own claims. And the Trigold Cluster was expansive enough that their larger sects might try various different strategies to extract the most they could from the lower realms.
If only the World Encompassing Chains had advanced to the level it could be used as an attacking technique… but of course, Devon didn’t actually want to destroy the planet. He doubted that would ever be the most efficient option. Furthermore… he was fairly certain that not all of the planet was beholden to the whims of the Trigold Cluster. If that was the case, he would call upon the alliance to scour the planet of everyone. That wasn’t something they’d ever had to do- neither in the war with the Sylanis Cluster nor with Ekict- but they might come upon a situation it was necessary.
Devon slowly withdrew his energy, before his agitation revealed something. He needed to report what he had found, at least. It would explain the unfriendliness, as they wouldn’t want their secret revealed. Unfortunately, that also meant that the Trigold Cluster would have more information on how far their reach as a spacefaring civilization had gone. Even if their communication methods were worse, certainly by now they must have transmitted something. They might not have enough information to make the connection to Ceretos and Weos… but that was something that the alliance as a whole needed to manage.
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After Devon’s discovery, there were quite a few in favor of more aggressive observation tactics or even a direct assault, but cooler heads prevailed. At the very least, waiting another few months wouldn’t make much difference. Devon didn’t yet know exactly how many people might be beholden to the Trigold Cluster, but if there were people they could contact that weren’t part of them, it was better to work with the locals to help them secure their own release. Just stomping onto other planets and clearing them out might ultimately benefit them, but it would probably also breed resentment and fear.
Meanwhile, In’istra had been able to solve their problems with relatively little interference by Anton beyond some knowledge and the detection techniques. The Trigold Cluster tended to conceal the cultivations of more than just the Twin Soul Sect, but they were the ones who were the most deeply embedded and ironically the easiest to reveal with the techniques that had been created. The Trigold Cluster must know by now that their concealment was fallible, but hopefully they wouldn’t learn the exact method.
To properly learn more about the planet, Devon needed more than just energy. He needed interactions. Conversations, preferably. The natural energy would be a good medium to transfer that sound- the atmosphere wouldn’t reach all the way to him, after all- but it would take a significant adjustment to actually hear anything of use.
The first sounds he got were… cacophonic. Noise from the whole planet, or a significant part of it, all at once but also distorted. Perhaps it was better to focus on smaller areas, but Devon was confident he could filter through things to pick out significant conversations if he started at a broad range that was still significantly less than every noise on the planet. Preferably, he would pick out conversations around the strongest cultivators and biggest sects. That could still be hundreds of relevant conversations all at once, but any that caught his attention he could focus on.
If he wasn’t maintaining the World Encompassing Chains, he might actually be able to fully listen to dozens of conversations at once. Instead, he thought narrowing it down to a handful of actual focus would be required- but he should at least be able to get a better picture of how the planet was functioning. Like… where did they get new resources if they had a planetary formation but weren’t spreading beyond…? That was always a struggle for cultivators.