Almarine’s private office was both a living marvel, and legitimately the most illegal area of operations within Maelstrom. This wasn’t because she hid it from both high and low society. Nor was it because it served as an extension to the internal core she was supposed to have completely devoted to the orphanage, that was the grounds she’d been sentenced and restricted to stay inside.

Yes, there were experiments older than the realm itself inside that could result in the end of life throughout the entire realm layer. Yes, there were secrets of the universe locked away in vaults with entire existences built around them to hide the information, or even the creation of powerful relics or even skills, abilities, and techniques. Yet all of those factors paled in comparison to Almarine’s biggest secret that was being hidden within her private office.

All of those factors only made her circumstances that much more volatile in fact. As any one of those details could start a war she wasn’t entirely ready to fight yet, but the learning of all of the contents of her private office was an absolute declaration.

“What am I missing…?

“Why are you so distracted?”

Almarine looked away from the hologram of the realm displaying the locations of all of her acolytes, scions, and followers, and toward the Living ManaCore that powered her growth externally; the entities expanding power achieved beyond the natural limits of her grand soul.

Her Living ManaCore was far older than Tempest. So much older in fact that the core was no longer simply a massive condensed orb of refined mana and life force, but instead had become shaped like that of a giant head. The feminine features formed to support the delicate voice that the core grew into over countless eons of existence.

Almarine had once felt the core to be her child, but as their time together grew, the Living ManaCore’s own longevity demanded its own respect. Especially after the core named itself.

Nulla. Her once carefree partner made from a fragment of the first ever Living ManaCore in existence, was now as determined a thinker as the woman who now responded to her.

“Because I seem to have lost a power source, and what's more annoying, is that they seemed to have been an integral piece of my connection grid…”

Almarine floated above the ground staring at Maelstrom as a whole. The planet made from shifting biomes and habitats spinning around one another was projected in the air made from a mixture of mana and lights. The sight so beautiful that Almarine understood why the Oligarchs of the realm chose this place to name the entire realm after.

May we one day build heaven, and let the Maiden rest as we tend to the needs of our goddess, though fallible creatures we all may be…

The entire realm spun before her, and Almarine couldn’t help but let her frown deepen. She’d never done something so mindless in the past, and couldn’t imagine doing anything so laissez-faire now.

“You don’t see it, your strongest elements are all connected to some sort of power void in the middle of bloody nowhere,” said Nulla. The Living ManaCore raised an eyebrow toward Almarine, completely confused, for the Living ManaCore had actually said, "You don’t see him?”, but the words had been distorted by the system.

Almarine, now guided by the words translated by the mind of the Universe itself, ignored her core’s confusion and focused on the manifestation of energy created by her soul to manage all beings of power connected to her.

Lines of power stretched across vast distances, connecting one soul to another, or many souls to many others. Yet after a while of searching, she didn’t find her target, but instead a blank void all leading to the realm’s dump.

“Yeah I noticed that too, doesn’t make much sense,” responded Almarine. The Orphan Mother looked over her shoulder as the overwhelming sensation of forgetfulness consumed her; the harder she tried to remember, the more elusive the thought became.

What am I forgetting…?

Even as Almarine thought, and waited for Nulla to remind her through their mental connection, no response came. Both Almarine and Nulla frowned, both knowing that there was a problem, but neither able to fix their connection with their power alone.

Almarine stared up at the face large enough to take up a portion of the sky within the dimension that was her private office, and yelled a secret of the universe itself. Only to see her Living ManaCore’s frown deepen. Nulla having the exact same idea, yelled another secret of the universe, only to see the Orphan Mother’s frown deepen when she too didn’t hear a single word spoken.

“Not again…” Both the woman and her core heard each other that time and knew that the realm was in shift, or in other words, transitioning between a former reality and a new one.

This only happened when an event occurred with such direct impact on the survival of the realms that the system itself stepped in to try and disrupt the end of all life. When the laws of creation could not be spoken, this was a direct sign of such an occurrence, and as both Almarine and Nulla had just tried and failed, they now knew.

“Person, place or thing,” asked Nulla.

“Umm, my bet is place, something to do with our realm’s Dump & Junkyard,” Almarine said.

“My bet is on him,” said Nulla. Only the word “him”, was changed to “there”. The systems distortion in full effect during their conversation.

“Yeah, but the Icarian city is under planets worth of trash, what kind of effect could it have on the realm at this point.”

Nulla looked from the swirl of power lines that stretched across the realm and toward the dump, and then back toward Almarine, knowing that the woman hadn’t heard her correctly. Nulla was trying to point out the impression of Arson’s soul print left behind after he stepped through the portal that led to CloudLake, but knew the sight was being shielded from her partner’s eyes.

“Follow the more significant mana lines and see what you find, maybe we can figure out what has changed by examining who is involved?”

Almarine nodded, and started her investigation at where all the lines converged, only to become more and more confused the more she witnessed.

Almarine clicked the first line that glowed brightly in her vision, and an aerial view of the realm shifted to zoom in on her first target. The satellite imagery sped through the clouds, darting toward an area of Maelstrom that Almarine knew to be known for both corrupt corporations, and a high-brow criminal element.

The first individual she watched was a young man only slightly familiar to her. The silver haired Cultivator was sneaking into an high security laboratory with the aid of a young woman capable of using nano bot technology.

Both the skillsets being used by the odd couple were rare. One using the shadows of the dark facility to easily penetrate each area, while the other used her near microscopic bots to distort camera footage, open locked doors, and create open paths through various laser alarm grids.

“What’s his name again, isn’t he in a gang of sorts?”

“Yes,” responded Nulla.

“That’s Khalif, you trained… I mean, you spent a lot of time with him before he joined that gang you're thinking of,” continued Nulla.

“What exactly is he doing now? That organization is far more dangerous than some teenaged Cultivator should be trying to infiltrate.”

“He’s trying to get a component for her, her name is Xani, they are fixing a Cracker I believe, don’t know what they could need such a ridiculously efficient coding processor for, but it cannot be good, these youngsters seem to be playing with fire.”

Almarine shifted focus, watching the young woman named Xani who also seemed familiar to her, fixing equipment that seemed well above what the young woman should be able to fix. Mana pistols, rechargeable flash bangs, an artillery surveillance drone, and more.

Though simple for an educated Tinkerer, this young woman was not in that category of Cultivator. In fact, Almarine quickly noticed the young woman was not only fixing the devices she worked on, she was upgrading them.

What she’d thought to have been rechargeable flash bangs, had indeed been regular mana filled flash bangs at first, but now showed signs of added mana absorption pads that used the ambient mana from a Cultivator’s pores to be used multiple times. Filled easily with a few vigorous shakes like that required of spray paint cans to be used.

Not only that she added retractable throw cords. The yoyo-like tethers allowing the user to throw the device in a target area, and to be able to pull the device back with a simple tug on the cord. Xani was even shown throwing the flash bang around a corner to test one, as well as through a cracked door that she closed, and through an open window.

“She’s impressive, why haven’t I pulled her into my fold yet… isn’t she one of my orphans?”

Nulla just sighed. She wasn’t adamant that her missing soul connection was Arson, Jade, or both, but felt bad for Almarine every time the system took action that led to her Cultivator’s brilliant mind being tampered with.

Almarine grew even more confused at the next two individuals the mana lines pulled her view to observe. One young woman merrily folded clothes alongside a pair of twins, while another young man performed menial tasks at an elaborate cooking school. When Almarine looked up toward Nulla for answers, the Living ManaCore simply sighed, rolled her eyes, and shook her head slowly, knowing that nothing she would say in that moment would explain just how important the younglings Almarine now looked over truly were.

This continued for days. Almarine watched the royal family break itself apart day by day, as if she’d been enamored by a powerfully written soap opera. A particularly fierce professional fighter and dungeon ball player plunge herself head first into a life of crime while battling an unending bout of anxiety induced panic attacks. On top of a king thrust a newly conquered realm into war with another unsuspecting target.

It was not until Almarine found a specific mana line that led her to Alister Kim that Almarine knew that she was truly in trouble. Alister could be seen walking alone into a compound in the silver sector of Maelstrom. A meeting was being held in one of the homes owned by the Augustines inner family heads.

Gang leaders, criminal under-lords, guild owners, Sekt masters, and many Keepers had gathered all in one place to discuss the continued peace across the streets of the bronze sector. Only Almarine could tell by Alister’s face that the Cultivator she trained to fight in his youth was not there for discussions nor for keeping the peace. Alister was there to follow her commands at any cost.

“Nulla, I’ll be right back…”

…

Alister whistled softly to himself as he walked up the path. The breeze blew his hair playfully as the man stretched his neck, letting the suns touch his shoulders, neck and face as he prepared himself.

In front of him was a home so decadent it felt magnanimous in its superiority. A majority of the home was made of mana glass and diamond framed sandstone, making Alister snicker to himself as he scanned the area for more security guards while wondering if the home's owner had an ego that they needed to compensate for.

Unlike the yet to be touched bliss that was in front of Alister, behind him, was absolute carnage. Alister glanced over his shoulder to see the front gate fall over. The twenty foot doors that offered entry or denied access to the outside world, now lay crumbling, slumped over like twin falling sandcastles abused by ocean tides.

A more than illegal hover car could be seen punched through the wall to the left of the destroyed gates. A guard dazedly trying to open the driver side door could be seen finally exiting the vehicle, plummeting the fifteen feet between where the car had been smashed through the thirty foot perimeter wall and the ground.

“You would think that this entire place would be fire proof,” Alister said to himself, shrugging at the sight of the wall burning down behind him. Alister just continued walking, unbothered by the unprovoked violence he’d just committed, returning his gaze to his target.

Runes rippled down his arm and Alister waved his hand palm up before himself. The gesture caused a wave of translucent force to explode out before himself, that flowed over the entirety of the house like a tidal wave.

A series of curses were yelled in the distance as a visible tremble shook the massive home from the foundation to the shingles that lined the roof. Silence returned for the briefest of moments, all before glass erupted through the property.

Alister laughed, still walking toward the home. Pandemonium broke out throughout the compound, Alister watching as grounds people, servants, and guards all reacted to what they assumed to be a natural disaster, that they would soon find out was named Alister Kim.

“Freeze!”

Alister looked to the side of the pathway he walked down. Beams from a multitude of mana pistols fell upon the bare skin of his neck line; the guards aiming above the suit he wore, knowing that many wealthy Cultivators wore bullet proof clothing.

“Don’t play with us, buddy, we said "freeze",” another guard screamed at Alister as he slowly turned to face the group. He had to force down a laugh at the mortals in front of him.

This has got to be a joke right…

Alister counted just above a half dozen guards on a side path, slowly lifting his hands palm upwards regarding the men and women seen there with seeming caution before he spoke.

Alister’s eyes slowly roved over the group. His centuries of life giving him the experience to not only sense their fear instinctually but also pick out the characteristics of dread easily.

Trembling trigger fingers. Darting eyes. Increased sweating. Rapid heart rates. All as apparent to Alister from a distance as hearing someone breathe from directly beside yourself. Yet instead of playing with his potential prey as he would have liked to in that moment, Alister chose to listen to his pursuing captors, giving them what they asked for.

“As you wish,” Alister said as his face shifted from feigned fear to a devilish smear. Identical runes rushed down the lengths of his arms, a pulse of power emanated outward toward the group in a flash, leaving nothing but frozen victims behind.

Alister dropped his arms to his sides and chuckled, continuing down the path once more.

“Why my son doesn’t think I’m funny I will never know, I’m bloody hilarious.”