Chapter 367

When the Stars Alight the Sky (V)

Cain was enjoying a casual read that he’d picked up, lucratively titled ‘Adventures of Conqueror Blaze--How My Pyromancer Became Unmatched!’. Though it read like a dull fantasy of someone who really wanted to burn the world down, it was fun and brainless enough to be considered a time killer.

Just then, he heard the footsteps walking into his little cabin, causing him to look down from his fancy hammock, seeing Quinn and the twins walk in. Their eyes found him quickly and they all rolled them collectively, as though practiced, before ascending to the upper floor where he was, joining him--though on normal chairs.

The three appeared dulled and bored, and he couldn’t blame them; he was bored too. And he had a stake in training everyone, while they were mostly doing it as a favor for him.

“How was it?” he asked.

“As depressing as you said it would be,” Quinn replied. “Want my honesty?”

“No,” Cain shook his head as he jumped out of the hammock and joined them. “Honesty will do me little. I know I should just leave most, if not all of ‘em behind and walk onward. But that ain’t happening.”

“... why?” either Harmony or Nature asked.

“Because they’re more important to me than anything else in the world,” Cain replied. “Including the world. If they can’t be with me to share in the heavenly throne, then I’d rather never become crowned.”

“It’s not all hopeless,” either Nature or Harmony said. “There are some decent seeds. However, they’ll never bloom to much if we don’t push them even harder.”

“I did tell you to break them,” Cain said.

“Breaking them won’t be enough,” Quinn said. “They’re perfectly serviceable for the new-world Conquerors, especially this early in the Towers’ lifespan. Some even fairly talented. But there are literal hundreds of thousands like them--and they always flame out, one way or another. Those who actually end up climbing high can’t be taught or trained, Cain. We can give them some basic foundations and eliminate the flaws that they’ve started building up. But actually shaping them... would destroy their future entirely. Rather than just broken,” Quinn added. “They need to be decimated to their cores... and then left alone. If they have what it takes, they’ll come out of it stronger. If not, you’d be doing them a huge disservice by trying to pull them along.”

“... if that’s all, then the bar is too low,” Cain chuckled.

“Hm?”

“They’re quite zealous, you see,” he added. “I’ve unintentionally created a bit of a cult, I’ve come to realize. A zerg of fanatics spewing monolithic sophistry. Your presence most-likely just fanned the fires within them. Some, though, will likely just do it out of pride or spite or a basic want.”

“...”

“Decimate them,” he said, taking a sip of beer. “It will be fine. Not everyone, though. As you already said, most are here just for the glory and the wealth of it. Those... leave alone. If anything, fan the fires further by placating them versus the others.”

“... the risk is great,” either Harmony or Nature said. “It could backfire majorly.”

“Everything in life has a chance of backfiring,” Cain said. “Our current trajectory falls in that category, doesn’t it? Rather, isn’t the risk far, far, far greater? And yet, here the three of you are, when you could be elsewhere, building Empires and fuckin’ your way to the sun.”

“Indeed, why aren’t we?” Quinn joked, chuckling momentarily. “That aside, what’s our time frame?”

“Lengthy,” Cain replied. “It’s best we don’t push the climb too hard since we might alert powers-that-be. We’ll start picking up pace around 50th floor. By then, the ‘chosen’ should be approaching level 200.”

“You want to nuke their levels?” either Nature or Harmony exclaimed softly.

“What? No, of course not,” Cain shrugged. “It would set us back at least a decade, and the bonuses just aren’t worth the time. That shit’s mostly for those who tapped out whatever potential they had to go have another go. You just need to keep grinding them ‘till their egos are dust.”

While the four were merrily chatting, drinking, and relaxing, most everyone else was busy recovering--physically as well as mentally. Tough most of those were in scattered groups, complaining and moaning, quite a few had isolated themselves and pondered.

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Emma flicked her fingers together often, procuring a few droplets of blood and playing with them while deep in thought. She was angry, disappointed, bitter, jealous, and even faintly insecure. The rift between her and Quinn was not simply massive--the gulf was incomprehensible, at least on her part. The two lived in completely different worlds, dealing with entirely different things. While she was still middling at the base of what the frontline is supposed to do, Quinn towered, looming over from the top, jeering and mocking.

In truth, deep down, Emma knew that she was never mocked--it would have been more than pointless. Quinn simply pointed out how weak they are--not in terms of levels or in terms of skills or classes, but baseline, beneath all the splendor and candor, at the core who they were as the Conquerors. They were lesser, she realized.

While she, as well as others, basked in the rain and flood of self-importance for years, standing at the peak of all of Earth’s Conquerors, it was hollow strength, she realized. Without Cain, they would have likely be far more in line with others, even if their talents stood out somewhat.

Their measly little talents, she sighed, mattered nothing. She was bitter and angry and jealous. In fact, a good part of her wanted to stand and rush to Cain, demanding he make her talents better. However, even if it was possible... it was pointless. He, after all, said nothing--and did nothing. Implicitly, this was a test. While she knew he’d never leave permanently, she also didn’t want to tie him down. Didn’t want to be an anchor.

She left her little cabin and walked just outside the valley, onto a tiny clearing, taking out her warhammer and beginning her practice. She tried to suppress her Mana as much as physically possible, using only her physical prowess and trying to channel the very same thing Quinn did that had them pissing on the floors.

Jamal was looking at the tiny nick in a massive boulder, still and silent. There was a certain staunchness to him that was otherwise always missing. While he always brushed it off, in reality, he was training like mad to keep up with Senna, however barely. Days spent in smoldering sweat, his muscles aching because he swung the blade tens of thousands of times without a break.

And now... and now there was a much larger mountain to climb. One that didn’t rely on skills, one that didn’t care for Mana. They were like children in front of the twins. Similarly, he realized just how much Cain babied them.

“Goddammit,” he mumbled, gritting his teeth and gripping the handle of the sword tightly. He was weak. Mindbogglingly weak. But that weakness was a kindle, and it started a fire within him that could not be extinguished. He hated the feeling. Despised it. He never wanted to feel it again. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

Daniel was hanging upside down from a thick branch of a tree, shadows in the shape of tentacles sweeping below him in a dance like the roaring flames. He could do so much, yet so little. He relied entirely on Mana and skills for everything he did. But that wasn’t strange. Everyone did, after all. The Towers provided the gifts, and they were simply using them.

And yet, today, he and everyone else were soundly beaten like children. It was not the levels, not the items or skills or Mana. As much as he wanted that to be the case... he couldn’t lie to himself.

Dissolving the shadows, he continued hanging upside down, pulling himself up every so often as though to look at the moon and seek inspiration in suffering.

Yuki was tinkering with the tiny patches of water, blending them, bending them, suffusing them. Today... was a complete and utter failure. They were unable to keep up. No... he was unable to keep up. That never happened--not even when they fought U’nul. If he had infinite Mana, he was beyond confident he’d be able to solo heal that fight. He’d never reached an encounter that he couldn’t brute-force through by outhealing whatever was happening. Until today.

Cain didn’t pull any punches--he summoned some dark, shadowy target dummy and provided them with a simple test: keep it alive for 2 seconds. Just 2 seconds. To add insult to the injury, he promised he wouldn’t use Mana, or items, or skills. They thought he was joking. So did he. Yuki was certain Cain was just fooling around and warming them up to a true test. But... he was wrong.

He was called out first and he stepped forward, confident--certain that Cain was using him to show others an example on how to pour out massive heals in short periods of time. While confident still that he was being used as an example, he learned in just as short a period of time it wasn’t a positive one. There was a gap that had to be closed. And there was no shortcut this time around.

Senna sat besides a nearby lake, her feet dipped in its cool waters, head heaved upward, eyes wandering the sky full of stars. Why did her Mana betray her? She still didn’t know. She summoned it and, as every other time in her life, it obeyed her. It did everything she asked of it. But in the presence of the twins... it fell and faltered and hid, as though there was a dragon feasting upon it. It wouldn’t come... no matter how much she called.

“You are thinking too much~~” a playful voice caused her to look to the side where she saw a black-furred kitten lying leisurely, looking at her with gleaming eyes.

“Te’gha? What are you doing here?” Senna asked, reaching over and pulling the purring ball of wonder on her lap. “Does dad know?”

“Humph! How would that stupid human know if Te’gha sneaks out?!”

“Ah, so he knows.”

“Shut up, stupid human!”

“Alright, alright,” she chuckled lightly, petting him. “What am I overthinking?”

“Isn’t the answer to your question simple, stupid human?”

“It is?”

“Mana isn’t sentient,” Te’gha said. “You don’t ask it favors, stupid human. You tell it, and it does. The reason you couldn’t do anything was because your rule over it is pathetic.”

“... can it really be that simple?” Senna mused, having already wondered a similar thing. But... she questioned whether it was just too simple.

“Most things are, stupid human,” Te’gha said. “Don’t try to act cleverer than you truly are and just accept what you have already understood, stupid human.”

“Haah, fine, fine,” she sighed. “Can you stop calling me stupid, though? It hurts, you know?”

“It should. Because you are stupid.”

“... you’re one mean pussy. He he.”

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing. Pfft, ha ha ha...”

“S-stupid human! Are you laughing at great Te’gha?! Great Te’gha will scratch your eyes out!!”

“No, ha ha ha, no, I’m not--pfft, ha ha ha...”

“You are! Stupid human, stop running! Great Te’gha will claw you!”