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Even without exposure to the Pattern of the System, people would leave behind essence crystals when they died.
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Matt saw his own anger reflected in expressions around the table, and sat up straight, ready to defend Mia, when he noticed her making a calming gesture. He turned to see her back in her chair, eyes tightening almost imperceptibly as she looked straight at Terrence. The large stranger stood up and leaned forward on brawny arms, glaring daggers at Mia. He was about to speak again when his eyes darted around the room to take in the shift in the room’s atmosphere.
“No,” Mia said at last, in a voice so soft that even Matt, who was sitting right next to her, struggled to hear. The softness of her voice was tempered by a hard look of determination. “No, this is not a joke. I am the Mayor, and this is my Council. This is our City. You are… Terrence, I believe? You arrived a few hours ago?” Her smile did not reach her eyes, and she continued before he had a chance to respond. “Of course, I understand that you have had a long and strange day, full of new impressions and new experiences. Sanctuary can be overwhelming, and you have travelled far. Anyone can speak and act rashly when they are tired. I’m sure you need some rest.”
Her gaze shifted to the other stranger. “And you must be Shawn. I suggest we pick this back up later. Head downstairs now and find Kari—she should be waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She’ll help you find a place to sleep tonight, and then we can see about finding you something more permanent later… Something suitable. Once we have determined your place here. Come back tomorrow for that, and… And we will pick up where we left today. I’m sure you will have plenty of questions, and I want to make sure you have a good understanding of Sanctuary. Who we are, what we want to achieve…” She paused again, and her voice was flat and clear as she finished. “And we will explain our laws, which you will be expected to follow if you choose to stay. Does that sound good?”
“What laws?” Terrence began, getting back to his feet. “And I don’t need to rest, I–”
“I think that sounds like a very good idea, Mayor,” Shawn said in a loud voice as he grabbed Terrence by the arm. “I apologise for… For our outburst. As you said, we are tired. I’m sure we will feel better after some rest.”
With a nod to the table, Shawn dragged his protesting brother out of the meeting room and Matt heard Mia breathe softly out. Her eyebrows drew together for a moment before she squared her shoulders and looked around the room. Besides Matt, Pete, Vic, and Thor; another three councillors were seated around the table. Birga and Bork had arrived together at the head of a large group from a village tucked into the mountainside to the North. Vic had come across a trader from the village and invited them to join Sanctuary, and their group had soon become a backbone of the growing community, quickly taking charge of supplying the city with food and other necessities.
Harl and Duncan had both been offered seats on the Council, but had turned them down, instead sending Astrid to speak for the school and orphanage. Astrid had arrived with her husband and young daughter where they had lived on a small farmstead, and there was something about the steel in the willowy woman that reminded Matt of Mia. In addition to helping with the children, Astrid had become Mia’s closest assistant.
Mia tapped the stack of papers in front of her. “So. Let’s quickly run through the main topics. Birga, what’s the food situation?”
“Incredible,” she almost whispered. “I don’t know what’s up with that farming cave, but in only two weeks, the seedlings have become strong plants. I think we’ll have our first crop in only a few more weeks.”
“Yeah, that cave is something else.” Matt smiled, idly scraping black soil out from under his fingernails. “It looked like good quality buckwheat too. We are going for a split crop with half wheat, and then half vegetables. Potatoes, carrots, beans, and even some cabbage.”
“Thanks for your help this morning, Matt,” Birga smiled. “And yes, all the plants look healthy and strong.” She turned to her husband. “And we’re well stocked for a while still?”
Birk nodded. “At least four more months if there are no major changes to the population. And we have three teams out to buy more. If nothing changes drastically, I’m confident we are set for winter.”
“Very good,” Mia said with a genuine smile, before turning to Pete. “And what’s happening with that monster outbreak?”
Leaning forward in his chair, Pete took a moment before answering. “We’re holding them off, but not making any progress to push them back towards the dungeon. That dungeon is so strange, practically throwing the monsters out at us. And… The constructs can’t touch this type of monster. Some kind of wraiths… Normal weapons can’t touch them. We need magic users, and even if training has picked up over the last week, nobody has picked up very strong offensive magic, so…” he turned to nod at Thor.
“I’ll come over after the meeting,” Thor rumbled. “Hopefully, it should be quick. One of the new settlers yesterday got a strange affinity… For colours. Can you believe that? I want to run some experiments. They haven’t done the Initiate’s Dungeon yet, and I want to see what skill–”
“Thor, we’ll look at your System research after the main council meeting,” Mia said with a smile. “For now… Astrid, how are the kids doing? One of the girls who arrived yesterday seemed–”
The meeting went on for another hour, before Mia finally gave the table the double tap with her knuckles that signified that the meeting was over. Outside, night had fallen, and the streets were illuminated only by crystal lamps.
As everyone else left the room; Mia, Matt, Pete, Thor, and Vic remained for their customary glass of mead. Vic poured each of them a small glass, and for a moment they sat in silence, letting their shoulders drop in relaxation. It seemed like every day they just got busier, building and planning and coordinating.
Mia looked up at Vic with a serious expression. “All ready for your expedition tomorrow?”
Vic looked lost in thought for a moment before turning to look at her. “Yes. Everything should be ready. I have the map and your letters right here.” He touched a pouch on his belt. “I can’t make any promises. It’s been a while. But I will do my best to get to them all.”
“If anyone can do it, you can,” Pete said with a soft smile. “I can’t wait to see her again.”
Matt touched Vic’s shoulder. “I have tried not to think about it. About them. But now that you are going out to get them, it’s… I get nervous. What if they are… I never thought I’d see my sister again when I joined the army, but… Please, find them.”
“I will,” Vic said and raised his glass. “To our families.”
Five glasses clinked together.
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The next morning, Matt accompanied Vic out of the cave, wishing him a safe journey, before returning to the training hall that they had found that first day. His steps echoed through the empty rooms. Since those first days, they had found a number of similar rooms spread through the city, including a huge arena with a range of different training halls and equipment.
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Still, Matt preferred this room. Not just for the peace and quiet, but for the link it provided to those early days and to his old life. It was easy to forget with everything that was going on and everything that had happened, how close he had been to death. How different everything had been back then. What life had been like.
He stood at the far left of the row of Forms, letting his body flow through the movements of First Form. He no longer needed the drawing on the wall to guide his movements; by now, his muscles moved on their own from stance to stance, motion to motion. But the routine was important to him. So many other things in his life had become unpredictable, throwing surprises at him from left and right. This room had become an anchor, and he started every day here, meditating first and then running through three forms: the unarmed First Form, then Third Form with a spear, before he finally moved to the Twelfth Form with his guandao.
As his body moved faster and faster, he revelled in his mastery over his body. As the others got levels and skills, he was proud of his own efforts, and even if he could no longer match them in a straight sparring match, he had not given up hope that there might be something more waiting for him. His core pulsed strongly as he exercised, and every time he practised the Forms he felt more strongly that they were part of finding his own powers. Just like the books had said, a cultivator’s path was built on discipline and adherence to the Three Pillars.
His hand struck forward in a strong punch, and his mind went back to when he first discovered the library: one of the buildings lining the central gardens, the building was large and imposing, constructed from heavy stone with little of the intricate decorations and details found on the neighbouring buildings. He had climbed the stairs carefully, not knowing what to expect. The rooms on the ground floor had all been simple offices. The shelves behind the desks had held stacks of records that he was still trying to figure out.
The stairs up from the ground floor had reached a narrow landing that led into a corridor which extended in both directions. Matt had inhaled sharply when he opened the wooden door at one end of the corridor and stepped inside. Rows and rows of bookshelves covered the room from floor to ceiling, filled to the brim with books of all sizes and colours. Even now, he could clearly see the books he had pulled out of the shelves to read their titles. The History of the Sects of the Cataclysmic Ash. The Lands of Lyre; Geography and Fauna.
He had wandered down the rows of books in a daze, letting his fingers lightly touch the back of the books as he walked, eventually finding a section of books clearly separated from the others. His heart had beat faster when he read the placard on the first shelf: Methods of Cultivation: Introductory Texts. The next placard read Methods of Cultivation: Core Evolution.
He had spent that entire night reading by the light of a candle, and continued into the next day until he nearly collapsed with exhaustion. Most of the books from the Cultivation section of the library had since been moved to his room, where he was building his own little library.
Cultivation.
Essence Cores.
Sects.
Loci.
A cornucopia of words that had been foreign to him were now a fundamental part of his understanding of himself. As he had read through the books, his old world view had been taken apart page by page.
The threads had a name; essence. According to the author of one book, everything in the world was made from essence and essence was made by the things of the world. A single grass plant produced a multitude of essences; growth and life and nature, and any other concept that might be associated with that single blade of grass. Just like any other thing in existence. Two people shouting at each other produced essences of anger and maybe despair and insecurity. The sun itself bathed the world in sunlight essence mixed with starlight and heat and yellow. A range of essences was boundless, the limiting factor being the amount easily accessible.
The book went on to describe how cultivators could harness that essence. Each cultivator had a specific affinity which dictated the type of essence that they could harness, which they could gather from their surroundings and transform into magical abilities and skills. The book had described cultivators having two affinities as highly unusual, achieved only by very few people, and only after they had cultivated their primary essence for decades.
The assignment of affinities was thought to be influenced by factors such as your parentage, or the area that you lived in. A cultivator living on a mountain was more likely to have an affinity for stone or density. A cultivator living in the forest was more likely to find themselves with an affinity for something associated with the trees or nature.
None of the books that Matt had read had mentioned anything about being able to see the essence. As young cultivators started on their journey, they would sometimes spend years just identifying what their essence really was, commonly mixing up essences that were close in nature.
All of this knowledge of essence and cultivation was wrapped in a strange social undercurrent, where sects were tribes or groups of people that shared goals or other commonalities. Many of them would have the same abilities and share skills, or techniques, as they called them. These techniques were considered precious, and the sects would guard any knowledge of them from outsiders. Working together, the sects would cultivate, seeking to grow stronger.
And this is where things got interesting.
Matt put down his spear and picked up the guandao, sending a greeting to the weapon’s core as he crouched down in the first stance. The changes he had noticed in his own core, the increased density and spin, the feeling of power radiating from the sphere, were all mirrored in the guandao’s core. It was like they were changing together, and he wondered again if he was witnessing a core evolution.
That is what the books all agreed was the main goal for the cultivators. To strengthen their core through careful exercises until it evolved. Those exercises were called the Three Pillars: Meditation, Cultivation and the Twelve Forms. Cultivation to gather the essence, Meditation to give it form, and the Forms to provide a purpose.
A new cultivator would start out with an Undirected Core. The author described the Undirected Core with both reverence for its limitless potential, and a good amount of scorn for its weakness. “The Undirected Core,” the book had said, “Is a necessary first step on the Journey. On its own, it provides the Cultivator no apparent benefit, only the ability to sense the Essence within Yourself. At this stage, the Essence has no Direction, as the Cultivator has yet to take the first step on the Path that is Their Way.”
Matt breathed heavily as he came to the end of the Form, lowering his body as he arrived at the last stance; guandao swept to one side and crouching with his weight evenly distributed.
He felt vibrations run through his whole body. No longer confined to a small place in his mind, his core felt like it was filling up his entire body with power, ready to burst.