After they left Carrelos, Velvet felt like they’d been there forever, even though it had probably been barely twenty-four hours. Too much wandering around in corridors nearly blind, looking for trouble and fighting guardians and other visitors. The mental strain was more than it should have been, and it was taking her time to realize the full extent of that.

Whatever had been going on with the Nighstar sect made no sense, even after talking with others. Perhaps someone back home would be able to make something of the information they had with a more objective perspective. It could be something as simple as a botched attack that ended up with the place not fully looted, while leaving no survivors. Sometimes the chaos of battles would throw people off.

Velvet was quite glad to have a connection to the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance through Durff. Maybe with a few years, she could leverage that for some useful information. He was able to arrange for her to visit Rezdu, a couple hops away into their territory. But first, they had to report back on their mission. Loot would be exchanged and sold, then they would be departing.

For the meantime, she would stay in contact with other members of her group, but there wasn’t any system she trusted to carry messages secretly. Since nobody really knew the true her, it would likely not last long. They traveled together briefly and fought together even more briefly. The twins had an interesting fighting style, but that was about it.

The trip to Rezdu was entirely uninteresting, without even a stop in an intermediate system. The ship also wasn’t particularly fast, though the Trigold Cluster definitely had faster ships they weren’t available for most people. That clearly included people with only tenuous connections to the most prominent sect in the area.

“We’re here,” Durff declared. “Now we have to wait.”

Velvet wasn’t particularly surprised. “How long?” Velvet was really hoping this wasn’t one of those things where someone was spending untold centuries in closed door cultivation. A decade… she could manage, but only if she was able to do something during that time.

“She said… a month?” Durff tilted his head. “Something close to that.”

That wasn’t that bad. “Alright,” Velvet said, looking around. The architecture was quite plain, though Velvet surmised that rather than a rejection of opulence for the sake of it, it was meant to fit in with the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance’s method instead of humility. While the result was the same, the underlying reason could be quite different. Perhaps she was being too judgmental though.

The two of them were garnering a lot of looks along the way. Sure, they weren’t disciples of the sect but others weren’t that rare. There were always at least a few others around, and Velvet didn’t see them getting stared at. Some of the others had to be passing through as well, right?

It wasn’t difficult to see the confrontation coming. A group of Integration cultivators walking together, pretending poorly not to be looking at the two of them but walking directly towards them regardless. What Velvet hadn’t anticipated was how quickly they got to things. They skipped right over all of the normal excuses and went straight to the vitriol.

“What a pathetic style, spewing signs of yourself everywhere.”

It took Velvet a moment to realize they were talking to her. She was about to retort with something, but Durff spoke up first.

“Do you know my mom?” That wasn’t some sort of intimidation tactic leveled at the disciples. He had turned directly to Velvet as he asked that.

“... I don’t,” Velvet replied, slightly off guard. “Why?”

“Oh. If you had met her she would have told you that nothing that idiots say matters,” Durff said. “But I guess you haven’t heard that from her.”

“I did just hear it from you though,” Velvet pointed out.

“Wait,” said one of the men present, so thin it looked like he didn’t know what eating was. Velvet didn’t think there was anything wrong with slim men, but that guy looked like he was trying to hide behind random motes of dust. “This is that one guy, isn’t it?” the man said to his friends. “The dumbass who was dropped on his head. Did you know he couldn’t learn even the first step of the Veiled Brilliance Technique even with special training?”

“Oh,” Durff nodded seriously. “She had another thing she said. People who haven’t even been dropped on their head and are still stupid don’t have any excuse.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Durff,” Velvet commented. Straightforward and simple? Absolutely. But that wasn’t so bad. And even if he’d been entirely unintelligent, what would it matter?

“I know I’m not smart,” Durff said, but held his head high. “But I also know that I’m not stupid either.” He spoke with confidence. That was nice. “Anyway, the point is to ignore idiots as if they don’t exist.”

If Velvet didn’t know any better, she would have thought Durff was trying to provoke the group. But based on just a short time of knowing him- one day of fighting as companions, and a few weeks of travel where they chatted occasionally- she knew he truly meant it. He was literally just talking to her, informing her of what he knew in case she didn’t. Had he still been interrupted by the group while alone, he most likely would have walked straight past them.

“Good plan. Let’s continue on.”

Durff nodded, then turned his head back forward. At the same time, he strode forward. Right into one of them, because to him they didn’t exist. The fellow was shoved out of the way, though without any malice behind Durff’s actions there was no way he would actually fall over or anything.

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“Hey! You think you can get away with that?” the man shouted after him.

Velvet wasn’t as capable of just ignoring them, but she strode forward confidently.

“We’re not done!” the leader reached out to grab her shoulder, but of course touched nothing. It would have been a pain for Velvet to actually walk between them, so she had just walked around to the side.

Their first taunts hadn’t really gotten to her, because she knew that her whole style was based on people making the same mistake as them. Believing that just because they sensed something that was the true source.

Several of them tried to stop ‘Velvet’, but the one who had been shoved aside charged forward, drawing a dagger and stabbing it straight into Durff’s back. Durff did exactly nothing to stop it, beyond maintaining his standard layer of defensive energy. Velvet wanted to react, but she let things play out.

The dagger pierced through his energy… but was stopped by his armor. Durff wore something that could stand up to the golem’s attacks- and the massive dent it had caused was already prepared. Some tiny fraction of the assaulter’s energy managed to slip through to Durff’s body, causing a slight cut beneath the armor, but that was trivial.

“Hey Durff,” Velvet asked, her image stepping next to him. “What’s the punishment for attacking guests of the sect?”

“No idea,” Durff said. “I never learned that stuff. But it doesn’t matter if you never do anything wrong.”

“Ten days.” The voice of a mature woman echoed filled the street around them. “That’s the minimum, if the incident is minor and no retribution is demanded.”

That was why Velvet hadn’t acted. Because she might have revealed too much of her power to the Augmentation cultivator hiding nearby. And also because she believed Durff would be fine.

“Well?” the woman asked. “Any additional charges you wish to levy against these disciples?”

“Hmm… have you seen any disciples, Durff?” Velvet asked.

“... Is this one of those times we count elders?” Durff asked. “There’s uh… three over there. And a bunch over there. And of course the elder here,” he inclined his head respectfully.”

“Well, that’s his report,” Velvet said. “I’ve heard that the disciples of the Veiled Brilliance are good at hiding, so there might be more we didn’t notice,” Velvet said.

The elder snickered. “Is that so. Well, I suppose that’s how it is. I’m Elder Gulmira. And you are?”

Velvet gave the name of her cover identity, Sybella. Her true name was common enough, but would be more easily traced back. As for whether that could be detected as a lie, Velvet’s training allowed her to integrate some details to make them more true than they would otherwise be. Anyone she posed as long term was her, even if it might not be quite what people were looking for.

“Great. Well, as delightful as it sounds my duties don’t allow me to ignore idiots. So I’m going to deal with that.” She turned towards the disciples. “Ten days in the null zone! And five more days for embarrassing the sect.”

Durff eventually led Velvet to their destination. A simple house, barely larger than what she had gotten during her time as a Body Tempering cultivator. Certainly not the sort of residence an Integration cultivator would normally stay at.

“It’s not very fancy,” he said. “You can probably find somewhere else, if you want.”

“Is it private?” Velvet asked. “I’d like to talk.”

“I think there are formations,” Durff said. “But I don’t know for sure.”

“Good enough,” Velvet said. “Do you know that elder?”

He frowned. “I don’t think I remember her, no.”

“I see,” Velvet said.

Looking around, while the furnishings were simple… they were also high quality. Lacking in ornamentation, perhaps, but most likely still quite valuable. Perhaps that was consistent with the Veiled Brilliance. She had also imagined they might have opulent insides. Maybe they would see that somewhere else- she hadn’t been willing to poke and prod inside buildings they passed.

“If you want to train,” Durff said. “I know where the training grounds are. There’s sturdy stuff for you to hit.”

“That’s not really necessary for my style,” Velvet admitted. “Do you think I could practice with the other disciples?”

“Maybe,” Durff said. “I only heard to come here.”

Well, based on her single interaction Velvet decided it was better to hold off. Obviously the elder had been fine, but it was better to not cause too much fuss. “Do you mind if I take over that meditation room?” Velvet gestured.

“Go ahead,” he nodded. “It’s not like I would use it.”

“You don’t meditate at all?” Velvet asked.

“Meditating is to achieve inner peace and balance and stuff, right?” Durff asked.

“Among other things, yes,” Velvet said.

“Well, it took me a long time but I got those. So I’m done.”

A bold statement. For many others, Velvet would say they were wrong. Surely they must have something to improve. And while Durff could definitely continue train his cultivation, his style definitely wasn’t the meditative sort. It was entirely possible that he’d managed to achieve a level of perfection in his mental state he found acceptable.

Velvet had the feeling he might have actually removed the existence of those disciples from his mind, once he had formed an opinion about them. She could theoretically do that, but it was too risky. Or perhaps that showed a lack of confidence in herself. Was she going to compare herself to an Integration cultivator and find herself lacking?

Actually, that wasn’t unreasonable. Assuming she was better in every way compared to someone of lower cultivation was just foolish. Underestimating people would be the very best way to get herself killed.

She doubted she’d ever get to the point she was confident actually ignoring people, though. It wasn’t her style. She needed to be aware of everything, or she wouldn’t be able to function properly. If she erased her presence from everyone but a few idiots, they could still point her out to some people. That wouldn’t be a very effective way to use her abilities.

One month. Even if she didn’t get any real training in during that time, it wasn’t too bad. It would have been devastating near the beginning of her cultivation, but now it was just one more month out of centuries full of them. Besides, she could likely learn much just from watching the sect around her… hopefully without looking too much like a spy.