Fourteen:

Leo had been here before too many times to count, but never enough times to get used to. He was the ‘New Kid’, capital ‘N’, capital ‘K’ in the house, or in this case, on the ship (the ship!). There was automatically a target on his back for no reason other than who or what he was. Whether it was his mysterious illness – an illness that was hopefully cured now that he was a cultivator – or his darker skin, or the way his face looked and his hair curled. The fact that he was a burden. The fact that he was smart. Now, for the first time, the list included the fact that he had something these people wanted, even if it was something he’d never asked for to begin with. He’d caught the eye of the Stargazer, and they would punish him for it.

So, he was a new kid again with a target on his back. Shuffled off to a new place to live, with new rules, and new people who cared little for his presence. The moment Malia was out of sight, the grey-robed servant cultivator trailing behind her, Julius rose abruptly from his bow. Leo didn’t budge.

Leo maintained his bow even as Julius began to walk away. He’d played this game before, with much better players and, surprisingly, in worse situations. He hadn’t been told he could stand up. He didn’t know the etiquette here, had no idea about the customs or the laws. The world of cultivators had been so aggressively obscured from the average citizen, let alone a null with no power, no backing, and no status, that Leo was essentially starting from zero. He was left to take his queues from this man. This man, who had already proved to hold contempt for him through no fault of his own. Yeah, there was no way he was getting up without permission, assurances, or some sort of signal.

He didn’t know what difference there was between a ‘disciple’ and a ‘young master’, where he stood in the hierarchy, what he was entitled to, or what any of the veiled comments Malia Stargazer had made meant for him.

What he did know was how to play this game. The survival game. Stay just invisible enough, innocuous enough, that people leave you alone, or at least can find no legitimate reason to do something to you. He knew Julius’ type. He was the type of person to justify his actions regardless of the damage he did and heedless of the consequences that would likely never fall back on him anyway.

Considering his mother, Leo’s new ‘master’ had allowed Julius to manhandle the boy she had declared as her disciple… well, he doubted temperance was one of the qualities this man cultivated, and doubted it was even a consideration in his Dao.

Julius looked back to find Leo several metres behind him. He was still as a statue, eyes on the ground, bowing with his chest parallel to the floor, just as he’d been so aggressively instructed. Leo could almost hear Julius clenching his teeth as he growled out, “Rise and follow. Let’s make this quick.”

Of course. Leo wasn’t sure exactly how to address this man, so he said nothing, simple walking briskly to catch up with the man only to find himself being immediately suppressed by the aura of a higher ranked cultivator. A small part of his mind wanted to catalogue the differences in what aura suppression felt like to him as a mortal, verses now that his core was ignited, but he recognized that he had much more immediate things to think about.

“You should respond to any demand made by me with ‘yes, Young Master” Julius said. The pressure was suffocating as Julius’ aura bore down harder. “Say it.”

But Leo couldn’t breathe.

“I gave you an order,” the man snarled, for all the good it did Leo. The man could probably play this game forever, Leo knew. Next, Leo would be told something along the lines of how disrespectful he was, then be issued some form of punishment or humiliation for said disrespect. Well Leo didn’t want to follow the script this time. He was a cultivator now, damn it. So, he decided to try something.

For the first time, in a body newly brimming with power, he felt for that spot. For the place he’d pulled into when he finally ignited his core. This time, instead of pulling at the energy around him he tried to shift it in his body. The closest he could come to describing what the process felt like was that he was trying to hold onto that substance that was created when cornstarch was mixed with water. The power was somehow both a solid and a liquid… But it was also vaporous and wispy - intangible yet completely physical. His attempts were stymied by an irate voice.

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“You would dare to disrespect the young master of the Stargazer family?” Julius continued, by now people were stopping to watch, calling an uncomfortable amount of attention to him. It made the space between his shoulder blades tingle, and he reflexively flexed the muscles in his back. Also, this was not the impression he wanted to leave on his first moments abord. He didn’t know how long he’d be here, and drawing even more attention than he knew he was already going to was not in his plans.

Instead of pushing, pulling, or grabbing at the mana inside him, Leo tried willing. He willed that energy to reinforce his throat, his lungs, his voice. To his astonishment, to his utter surprise, the mana went willingly. Eagerly. Like the energy had just been waiting for an opportunity to do something, anything.

“Apologies, Young Master,” Leo wheezed out. He couldn’t even bask in the man’s shock as Julius released his aura and the pressure evaporated. Leo’s knees buckled briefly, but he refused to fall; sheer force of will holding him up as a sudden fatigue swept through him in the wake of his use of energy. He didn’t know what he’d done, but he’d done something. Untrained, uneducated, and under pressure, Leo had done something with mana. Leo felt pride. It was an unfamiliar feeling that he refused to dampen, even though he couldn’t afford to let an iota of it show on his face.

“Well then,” Julius said, regaining a semblance of his composure, though Leo could tell he was shaken. “At least you aren’t entirely useless. Base.” Then Julius turned and strode ahead.

“Keep up. Keep your mouth shut. We’ll be moving quickly. I don’t know what you did, how you managed to deceive my mother, or why she would bother with an obvious backwater, base-born bumpkin. However, I do not question the will of the Matriarch,” Julius said. Leo found this interesting considering how the man was currently questioning the will of said Matriarch. “But know this: you are not worthy in my eyes. Not of my time and attention, and certainly not of my mother’s.” Julius’ pace sped up.

That was a sentiment Leo had heard before a lot when being healed by cultivators from non-Earth based sects. Off-world cultivators especially had a low opinion of what they called base worlds. Base worlds were any inhabitable celestial bodies that had only recently been ignited and had only the ‘base’ amount of mana – or close to it – to qualify as an ignited world. This was because they’d not been collecting ambient mana or been in contact with the veil for very long. Such worlds didn’t have many resources, and couldn’t support many rifts, thus they were undesirable locations for most upper-tier cultivators. People from those worlds were often called ‘base’ or ‘base-born’ as an insult. People born mostly useless and not worth much investment. An undesirable person, as opposed to location.

What exactly qualified as a ‘base-world’ Leo wasn’t exactly sure. He remembered the lecture from, wow, was it only earlier that day? The instructor had spoken about world cultivation, and if he was going to be insulted, he wanted to make it a priority to at least understand exactly what those insults meant.

Being called base-born was awful enough without him also being ignorant to it. Of course, to have been stuck as a base null would have made his life, well, worse. Significantly worse, and not just Earth-side but intergalactically. Even the servant in the grey robe had been a cultivator.

One thing his lackluster formal education had drilled into them all was that the most valuable resource available on base worlds were the people. So, if people were the greatest resource you could provide, and you were a weak person from a weak planet, either you had connections, or you made them. Otherwise, in a society where personal power ruled, and absolute power ruled absolutely, surviving as a weak person from a weak planet was dangerous at best.

At least Leo had more than enough experience dealing with all kinds of prejudice. So much so, that the sentiment didn’t even faze him. Though his lack of a reaction did seem to irk his less-than-enthusiastic guide. The man was not particularly good at keeping his emotions from leaking into his aura. He was even worse at keeping them off his face. The perks, Leo supposed, of a life you didn’t have to live in hiding.

“Ship hub,” the man said, seeming to come to a decision. “Explain to him the areas and what he has free access to as we walk.”

“Understood, Young Master Julius,” the ship (the ship!) responded. The duo had just reached the end of the hall, Leo walking a step behind the obviously irate cultivator. The duo turned right, heading in the opposite direction to the Lady Stargazer.

“Only what’s necessary. I don’t have the patience for incessant yammering. Whatever he doesn’t understand he can address with you once he gets to his own quarters.” Julius stopped and turned, eyes boring into Leo’s impassive face. “I’m assuming you do have an interface and datapad?”

“Young Master Julius. I have equipped his room with-”

“Stop, I don’t care,” said Julius, holding up a hand as he resumed walking. “Ship, begin,” he said, and so the tour began.