Sixteen:

Julius Stargazer was incandescent with rage.

First, his mother had disappeared from the ship without even informing him of her absence, leaving him with additional responsibilities he hadn’t been prepared to address. Then she’d shown up with some backwater nobody and declared him her disciple – her direct disciple. Not only that, but she had forced him to debase himself by guiding the boy around like a helpful dog.

He, Julius Stargazer, direct descendant of Malia Stargazer, and youngest scion of the Stargazer clan had been forced to play tour guide to some upstart nothing his mother had scraped from whatever bottom-dweller-hovel the boy had ignited in.

Now, when he’d shown up at her quarters to discuss the matter, he’d been told to wait. To wait! That she was attending to delicate matters, and that she needed a few moments to finish some ‘important task’. He was her son. Her son! What could be more important than him? Obviously her tasks couldn’t be all that pressing if she could simply teleport out on a whim to go and personally recruit some nobody. Why then couldn’t she make time for her son?

No. Julius wouldn’t stand for it. He would have his answers, and he would have them now.

The moment the attendant opened the door Julius began speaking.

“Mother, why in all the heavens have you brought some baseworld, backwater nobody aboard our ship?” Julius demanded.

Malia Stargazer was fixated upon the screen on the right of her desk. Her gaze remained unbroken from what was presumably paperwork as she spoke, completely ignoring the question.

“Did you see the boy settled in?” She asked.

Julius’ eye twitched as he balled his fists. “I can’t believe you had me leading him around like some village sheep herder. Then to call him your disciple! Mother, what is going on?”

The Lady Stargazer’s lips pressed tightly together, her eyes narrowing imperceptibly. It was probably the most emotion she’d shown in public in a long while.

“I was unaware, Julius, that in my few hours of absence, you had become a Clan Advisor.”

Julius flinched back. “No, Mother, it’s just, I just–”

“You just what? Decided it was your place to question me?”

“No.” Julius finally walked deeper into the room and took a seat on the chair directly in front of her desk. “That’s not– I didn’t– ”

“You didn’t what?” Malia snapped, finally fixing her gaze on Julius. “You didn’t mean to question me? You didn’t deliberately come here at what godforsaken hour of the night, interrupt pressing matters, and question your matriarch?”

The room fell silent. The single attendant pointedly didn’t look at anything as they stood by the door, awaiting any orders, their presence compounding Julius humiliation.

“My most sincere apologies, my Lady Stargazer,” Julius finally bit out.

The two sat in silence for a while longer as the Lady Stargazer stared her son down. Finally, she spoke.

“Better,” she said Leaning back in her chair. Then she let out a gust of air that could have been misconstrued as a sigh if one listened in just the right manner.

“I understand your confusion, and, yes, he is a baseworld nobody. But he possesses a…” Malia Stargazer paused, more for dramatic effect than any real cognitive delay. “He possesses a special physique,” she concluded.

Julius’ pinched face transformed into a scowl. “Truly?” he asked.

The Lady Stargazer just smiled.

“And you said he was clanless?” Julius continued. “Nobody claimed him? Was this child not born in a hospital? Did he never see a healer? Did he never interact with a single moderately competent cultivator?”

Malia Stargazer affected a look of mild pity.

“They are a backwater,” she said, though she had her own suspicions as to why the boy had never been discovered or claimed. “What more can you truly expect from a baseworld? Even the sects that would be prevalent there simply would not have any truly knowledgeable people. We cannot hold them to the same standards as our Imperial home planet.”

“No,” Julius sneered. “I suppose we cannot. How could the blind spot a diamond? Even in the light.”

“Yes. Good. I’m glad you see it my way. He will be useful for the clan. He will make himself useful.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“If he does not, well–” Malia shrugged.

For a moment, Julius’ smile matched his mother’s.

“But, mother, your direct disciple? Does he possess some compatible physique? I’ve never heard of a spatial physique. What would that even look like?”

“I’m glad you’re taking an interest, Julius,” the Lady Stargazer said, looking at her son. “I understand your confusion with me taking him as a direct disciple, however any answer I give you simply wouldn’t be satisfactory.” She leaned forwards and placed her elbows on the desk. Then, she laves her fingers together and placed her chin on her folded hands. “I’m sure you’d be able to pacify any of your fears if you were to, say, take him under your wing.”

Julius’s previously pensive expression froze on his face. What? His mother wanted him to mentor that weak, orphan, nobody? Direct disciple or not Julius was a scion! He was Julius Stargazer, nobody in the clan could demand his time or his mentorship. None of them deserved it. Especially not some baseborn orphan, special physique or no.

It was unconscionable. How dare he? How dare that weak nothing take up not only his mother’s time and status, but also the time and mentorship of a scion of the Stargazer clan? Even Julius hadn’t been mentored by any members of his own family. The only reason he was on this ship with his mother at all was because he’d been a child when the Lady Stargazer had been handed the assignment, and his father’s sect had refused to take him in.

No, this would not do. He would not stand for it.

“Mother,” he exclaimed.

“You will do this,” Malia said, her voice firm, already seeing the denial in her son’s eyes and the words forming on his lips. “You will do this,” she said again, her voice firm.

“But Mother–”

“I have spoken.”

Julius clamped his teeth together, defiance in his eyes.

“Well?” she asked.

“I understand, Mother.”

“You are speaking to your matriarch. This is clan business now.”

Julius tensed and untensed his fingers. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

“I understand, Lady Stargazer.”

“Dismissed,” said the Lady.

Julius turned and abruptly left, storming out into a waiting room crowded with attendants, servants, and his mother’s actual Clan Advisor, whom he sneered at as he marched past.

He made it to his wing of the ship and was momentarily irate that he couldn’t slam the doors. Instead, he wandered into his training stadium. It was an extravagant, spatially expanded affair the length and width of a football field.

His control slipped and his aura mingled with his affinities. Fire and light clashed, causing an erratic display in the heavily reinforced room.

“Ship hub. Find me some beasts.”

He needed to blow off steam and figure out just what the hells he was going to do.

Discipling some nothing. Ugh. Who did that boy think he was? Julius seethed. He bet the little upstart had planned it this way. He probably wanted to humiliate House Stargazer. Nobody that age with any sort of physique would have remained unclaimed, or unspoken for, unless the person was either monumentally stupid or entirely useless.

The first beast – a melanated shadowcat – rose from the ground as a techno-magical holograph that created real light illusions, complete with realistic force, biology, and sensation. The illusions could do everything except kill someone. Unless, of course, they were too weak to handle the mental overload created by some of the stronger foes.

The battle, if it could truly have been called that, was over quickly. Julius, for all of his faults, was a combat prodigy. He could have blasted the little Tier 2, shadow-hopping kitty cat away with a thought and a flex of his affinity. He would have burned out any shadows in the room while the spirit beast was halfway between transitions. But he wanted to get physical. He needed to move.

So, as the cat leapt, popping up from Julius’s own shadow, he swung his arm backwards, hyperextending the joint with little effort, and struck. He beheaded the creature with a single upward swipe of his blade. Blood Spurted from the still beating heart of the now dead beast, but Julius paid it no mind.

“Ship, give me something tougher,” he demanded. He was at the 4th Circle, and unlike his weak ‘peers’ he was able to battle against beasts that were a tier up from his circle, instead of barely handling himself at the equivalent tier.

“Two levels above, and increase the number,” Julius said.

“Understood,” responded the ship AI. It was quite used to Julius demanding tougher opponents by this point.

Soon there were two 4th Tier, stone-skinned bicorns in the training space. They were large beasts that looked like a cross between a rhino and a bear. Their skin was made of what seemed like literal rocks instead of fur or leathery hide.

Refusing to move from his spot, Julius met the charge head-on.

He began, not by attacking the beast itself, but by coating his sword in a mixture of fire and light, then oscillating the frequency to make a super-heated laser blade. As he swerved out of the way of the oncoming bicorn charge, he sliced off the forehead and nose horn of the beast, divesting it of the only weapon it had outside of sheer mass and force.

He wasn’t caught by surprised when the second beast came to attack him from behind, though he was, forced to move his feet.

He slid one leg back, bringing the sword around completely in a 180° turn from where it was when he’d removed the horns of the first beast. His body was sideways between the two charging foes. His back and front both facing a separate opponent as he sliced the horns off the second beast and completed his turn. Now he faced the opposite direction he’d begun in.

The ensuing slaughter couldn’t be called a battle as Julius’ superheated blade tore through the Tier 4 opponents in moments. Julius wasn’t even breathing hard by the time the bicorn’s bodies had been reabsorbed by the training space.

“Give me something in the fifth,” he said.

“Young Master, it is not recommended–”

“Give me something in the fifth!” It was an order. His aura flared, scorching the ground and leaving marks that disappeared quickly as the room’s self healing enchantments kicked in.

“Understood, Young Master. I will remind you: all requests made in the training rooms are recorded and filed to the database.”

“Yeah, sure, you’re not responsible, blah, blah. Do it. Now.”

So the young master of the Stargazer family, scion of the hand of the 7th Seat fought. As he did so, he planned, and as he planned, he smiled.

Yes… yes, this could work. He would show that boy his place. Truly, who did he think he was to impose on Julius’ time.

Julius would show him what somebody worthy looked like, what it meant to be a true cultivator; to be the one with power. It was a lesson all people had to learn eventually, and Julius had no qualms about teaching this little upstart just what it meant to join the world of cultivators.

Suddenly, Julius couldn’t wait for the next day to begin.