Aalam
Unlike Isaiah’s Laws, most of Aalam’s weren’t particularly useful for combat, and this was for two main reasons. First, when Aalam had formed his Law Eggs, he hadn’t really thought about how they would be applied, only caring about being able to raise them, and, second, Aalam’s 36 Laws were designed to form a system, where by the time he reached A rank he’d be able to use them to describe the entire multiverse.
Neither him nor Isaiah had been trained in their choice of Laws and Law advancement paths like Mila and most of the other Trial Tower participants, but they’d each independently stumbled onto one of the two main methods most major forces in the universe seemed to recommend, judging from Nana Xara’s words through Mila and the Laws of other trial takers.
Isaiah was moving down the traditional route for cultivators focusing on combat, extreme Laws overly focused on one aspect, preferably well matched for use with one or more skills. Meanwhile, Aalam was moving down the traditional path for cultivators focusing on crafting, Laws with a broad focus useful for multiple applications, but not ideal for any.
And for both of them, their Laws reflected how they viewed the world, so their advancements so far had been relatively easy.
Isaiah was one with his spear. He didn’t live for combat, but he enjoyed martial training and the simple things in life, so his Laws were simple but practical—speed, defense, offense, and regeneration.
Aalam on the other hand was someone who wanted to understand the universe. His style was to make a complete theoretical model and only then find practical effects when testing his model or when his model was finished. As a result, he had numerous Laws all designed more for future cohesiveness than for immediate practicality, with far more paired Laws of opposing elements than was common. And, for him, space and time Laws, the Laws he viewed as the backbone of the way the universe worked, were the easiest to advance.
As Aalam ran around and killed a dozen more cultivators, he was thinking about Laws, and he quickly realized Mila’s Laws were likely even more abnormal than his. Her two main Laws, Shadow and Illusion, were about hiding and lying, the types of skills she’d apparently been taught since she’d been old enough to walk, while the rest of her Laws were all effectively different disguises she could put on. How then did she see the world?
Aalam felt the complexities of space and time were far simpler to understand.
Finishing off a couple more cultivators, Aalam couldn’t find any more, and Mila already had 73 points, more than half the royale points possible for the trial, so he instead started focusing his senses on the silver-haired woman.
So far, he’d been able to sense three Laws from her. The first was a Law Pupa which he didn’t recognize, but it seemed to be something like Void Slice. With it empowering one of her spatial spells, Aalam wasn’t sure he’d be able to defend himself from even one attack, especially as her Magic stat seemed to be about the same as his Spirit. Second was another spatial Law, a peak grade Law Larva, something like maybe Wormhole. Whatever the case, she was using it to empower a skill that created portals, which she was mostly using to move around the subspace and sometimes to send other cultivators’ attacks back at them. Then, finally, there was a Life element Law Larva, seemingly the same as one of his, the Law Larva of Cells. Even though it was only early grade, she was using it to stop his plague from being able to affect her, and it likely allowed her to sense the bacteria which entered her body. Then a passive skill or maybe a racial ability of hers was somehow teleporting the bacteria away.
He wasn’t sure what her Laws said about her, as her spatial Laws seemed to be more combat focused while her life Law was more useful for crafting, but she was definitely dangerous.
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Unlike him, he was pretty sure she had a Heroic grade race and, like him, her stats were maxed. As a result, with the external boosting she was getting from whatever force she belonged to, all her stats, other than Spirit, were quite a bit higher than his, and her Laws made her an utter beast, the difference between a Law Larva and a Law Pupa absolutely massive.
She had noticed him a while ago, his killing people with telekinetically controlled weapons not exactly subtle, but she’d avoided him and just killed others, likely also wanting to finish off everyone else first.
When she was done searching, however, she created a portal and stepped out onto a hill roughly 10 kilometers away from where he’d landed to stand on an open meadow, within her range of attack but not his.
“Who are you?” Given there were no other sources of noise in the subspace, Aalam could hear her clearly even though she wasn’t yelling. Her voice was deep for a woman, pretty, and, though Aalam wasn’t certain, she seemed genuinely curious rather than trying some angle to get him to lower his guard.
Mila then of course wanted to take advantage of that. “If she wants to talk, let her. Just don’t reveal any personally identifiable information.”
Mila had been hiding in the areas he’d cleared, at the edge of where his aura reached, allowing him to easily see through her stealth with his multiple Legendary grade detection skills, but his aura blocked the senses of the silver-haired woman, so she’d never spotted Mila, as Mila was on the other side of him. As the woman spoke, Mila started running to the other side of the subspace and, if he kept the woman talking in one place long enough, it would be more likely Mila would survive if the woman killed him.
“I’d rather not reveal my identity, thus the mask.” Aalam, his right index finger pointing to the plain black full face mask on his face, gave the silver-haired woman the full attention of one of his minds as his other minds tried to figure out how to kill her.
* * *
Krysta
“Well, I’m Krysta.”
Krysta found the man in front of her fascinating. His stats were mostly quite a bit weaker than her own, the boost provided by his force not as high, but the power of his Spirit was in the upper D rank, which meant he was powerful. More important, his Telekinesis skill seemed fully able to utilize the power of his spirit, which meant it had to be Heroic grade.
He also seemed to be actively using three different domain skills which she was pretty sure were the Legendary grade versions of Qi Domain, Mana Domain, and Psychic Domain, but his psyforce was so much more plentiful than his qi or mana, so his skill allocation didn’t make much sense. She’d yet to notice the other two skills which would be required to merge the Heroic grade version of Triforce Domain, and that was the only reason she could think of to acquire the other two domain skills.
Most interesting of all, however, was his aura. It didn’t feel like the aura of any cultivator she’d met before, more like the ambient energy of a dying subspace she’d once visited with her mother, where the Laws of the universe had degraded and become a lot weaker. It took her a second, but then she realized it was because the man in front of her had Law Larvae for all twelve elements, and more than one for each, most of which seemed to be middle grade.
“Wow.” She just kept looking at the man, dressed in a gaudy green and yellow hooded robe, with the hood up and a black mask over his face. He looked and sounded human, and his exposed feet and hands led her to think he actually was, but his eyes were almost orange and his hair was bluish black, a combination which could easily be the result of thousands of different bloodlines. “Are you on the path of the Heavenly Spark?”
The man cocked his head slightly, as if confused. “Yes?”
Krysta herself was definitely confused. “How do you not know?”
“The term Heavenly Spark could be used for a lot of things. I've personally seen it in at least three different contexts. But I assume you mean my Law path?”
“Yes.”
“Then you would be correct.” The man’s voice was deep and smooth, reminding Krysta of her father the few times she’d spoken to him. Then he asked a different question. “But what force do you hail from Ms. Essence Void Mage?”
He was able to guess her class, which was interesting, yet he’d not heard of her, so maybe he was the secret disciple of some major power. No one sane would raise such a genius on the path of the Heavenly Spark, however, and it was pretty obvious he hadn’t managed to practice the Twelve Element Primal Code yet, likely after it as a reward from the Trial Tower.
“I come from the Forest Cauldron.” Krysta moved a bit closer down the hill, within the range of the 36 swords hovering around the man. “My mother is the leader of that force and my father is Kilvorax, the Heavenly Scarab of Space.”
“Ah.” The man nodded, showing no signs of trying to attack, but no signs of lowering his guard either. “One of the dragon poop beetles.”