“Wait, so you and Mion fought?” Noki was going over the notes that Baira had prepared.

“Not a fight, a duel, ” Baira corrected as she snapped another stick, sending a new spirit bulb into the air, “ but that’s not the important part. Did you get a chance to read the notes I took this morning?”

“Yeah, about Ascendants, Shades and scourbeasts, but I want to hear about the fight, I mean duel. How was it? “

“I just told you it wasn’t important, this is. Scourbeasts and Shades are actually quite similar in nature; the only real difference is that Shades come from mortals and scourbeasts from animals. I think that if we can…” Baira noticed a less than enthused expression on Noki’s face. “ The duel was fine, he threw a few punches, I threw a better punch and it ended.”

“There has to be more to it than that. Did he use any Arts? What did his Tera look like? How would you rate his physical strength to someone with an Earthen Soul?”

Baira opened her mouth and paused. Normally just going over the big moments of a duel would be enough for a Divine Artist; they could understand the flow of a fight, but how to explain it to Noki? “ I-I don’t know if I can explain it to you, Noki, at least not in a way that would make any sense. It’s pretty difficult to describe the sensations of a fight between Divine Artists, unless you’re one yourself.”

“Oh..yeah I shouldn’t have-”

“But,” Baira said, sensing his mood turn dour, “ I think we can make you one.” When Noki gave her a curious stare, she continued. “ I’ve made what? At least ten elixirs for you right? How did it feel when you drank them?”

“Including the one today, I could feel like a zap of something, but then it disappears just as quickly.”

“Yes! I think that’s because elixirs work by forcefully opening up the and strengthening the Tera pathways in the body.”

“Umm, ok…”

“Stay with me.” Baira reaches into her waistband and pulls out a scroll and a pen. She set it on the black stone floor and began to draw. “ So basically, our bodies aren’t so great at naturally using Tera, we have complex nervous systems and organs that each require a certain amount of Tera to function. When we introduce more Tera into our bodies, the excess forms here and solidifies.” She circled an orb a few inches beneath the navel.

“That’s the…kulma?”

“Kulda,” she corrected, “people also called it the Tera core. Anyways, the kulda condenses and keeps condensing until it explodes throughout the body and reforges it.”

“Wait, if it reforges the body, then isn’t it that ascending?”

“Precisely! Now you get it.”

“No, I don’t. I've been taking elixirs and eating herbs and everything I can think of.”

“But the picture…nevermind.” Baira balls the drawing up and throws it into the water behind Noki. “ I think the reason why you haven’t ascended is because you haven’t been exposed to enough Tera for your kulda to form.”

Noki wasn’t exactly an academic, but he was far from dumb. “So in order for me to ascend, I need more Tera….wait…scourbeasts?

“See, I knew you’d get it.” Scourbeasts were essentially masses of raw Tera that were once animals. They retain a heightened level of power from their animal form, and a stronger connection to Heavenly Aspects.

“But, I can’t see them, or hurt them, so how would I do it?”

“Tomorrow, the Kolo will arrive in the village. Everyone, including the Head Chief, will be too busy with them and prepping for the Divination Ceremony. We’ll go down to the Red Forest, find a scourbeast and take its kulda.”

This all sounded too good to be true. Could his problem all these years have been that he wasn’t exposed to enough Tera to make his own core? He used the basic cultivation technique that Baira taught him everyday, in here, at his house, during his errands, and nothing worked. But now? Now he had a real shot to become a Divine Artist. “Why wait until tomorrow, let’s go now.”

“Easy there, Noki. Access to the Red Forest is closed due to the Kolo’s arrival. A few of the instructors are making their presence known in the Forest, the scourbeasts won’t be out.”

Noki’s spirit deflated a little, but the prospect of waiting one more day to start down his path greatly outweighed his disappointment. “ So this time tomorrow, I’ll be a Divine Artist. Do you think the Fight House would let me join then?”

“Fight House?”

“Yeah, the school.”

“That’s what you call it? Do you think all we do is fight all day? Learn nothing but the art of war?” Baira started a chuckle that then became a full blown guffaw. “ Damn, Noki, that’s probably the worst name anyone’s come up with. What do you call your house? Sleep hole?”

“We live in a village named after the fact that water is falling from a cliff,” Noki shot back.

“Ah, you have a point. Ok, this is the second worst name anyone’s ever come up with?”

“What about Mion?” This made Noki laugh, which considering it was his own joke, might be a little gouache.

The two let the laughter die down and Baira sat next to Noki. The light from the spirit bulb highlighted some of Baira’s wounds. She had taken off her robe when she arrived, so her arms were exposed. Unsurprisingly, they were well muscled and felt like stone against Noki’s body, but he didn’t mind. “How is it that your body can be wounded? I thought you were too tough for that.”

“Divine Artists aren’t immortal, at least not ones at my level. We might look like monsters compared to regular people, but in the realm of Divine Artists, we’re babies.”

Noki had a hard time picturing a baby being able to punch a boulder in half, but then the thought of the nine year old crept up. He shook the image away as Baira continued.

“Think of it like this; if you take a knife and slash fruit, the knife goes through right? But what if that knife was trying to cut a stone? Is the knife now weak because it couldn’t cut through, or is the stone simply too strong for the knife?”

“So then…are you the knife?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m the fruit, other times, the rock. It all depends on how nice the flow of fate is.”

Noki took a moment to really think about his words. “I wouldn’t want to be a knife then.”

“Oh?” Baira moved off of Noki and leaned forward.

“If it’s sometimes weak and sometimes strong, I’d rather be the stone; it’s always strong.”

“What about when the stone meets a mountain?”

“Then I’d be the mountain.”

Baira smiled, “So you’re saying you’d always be the strongest one?”

“No,” he corrected, “I’m saying I’d want to be the stone that becomes the mountain. Like…so right now I’m a fruit, but then I’ll be a knife soon right? So after a knife, I’ll be a stone and then a mountain.” He looked at Baira, pleading with his eyes for understanding.

“You were starting off so well but fumbled a bit at the end there, but I get what you’re saying.” Baira leapt to her feet and walked to her robe that was laying on a large, round stone. “Well then, Mr. Knife-Mountain, we better get going.” She covered her sleeveless, black top with her dried robe. “ We’re gonna have to be up earlier than everyone else if our plan is gonna work.”

“Right,” Noki said as he got up, “ wait, if we are going back then why are you putting your robe on? It’s just gonna get wet again.”

“Oh, it only got wet because I didn’t have enough Tera, it’ll be fine now?” Noki gave her a confused look. “ After tomorrow, you’ll understand what that means.” With a smile, Baira dove into the water, leaving Noki behind. Her last words comforted him and he dove in after her.

The morning light had barely crept inside Noki’s home, if one could call it that. All of the houses of Watercliff were made of wood and supported by stone; this was not. For some reason, his father had carved his house into the side of the cliff mere feet away from the raging waterfall. It took Noki years to be able to sleep with that sound, though he didn’t sleep much last night. “It’ll be fine, after today I probably won’t even need to sleep ever again,” he said to himself though was unsure if it was true or not. The secondhand accounts he heard about Divine Artists weren’t exactly reliable. Baira told him that some Artists could go weeks without sleep, but he had heard when he was younger that Divine Artists can sleep and still function as if they were awake.

Noki finally got out of his bed, a slab of stone with piles of fabric to give it cushioning, and went to his bathroom. There were no doors in his house, only two red curtains–one covering the entrance and the other his bathroom–that were in dire need of repair. He opened the curtain and entered into a room that had two visible sources of flowing water. To his left was an oval carved into the ground that was full of water diverted from the waterfall. To his right, a raised stone square with a hole in its center and a large wooden pipe that transported waste…well somewhere away from here.

Noki used the stone square first and afterwards, disrobed and entered the pool of water. The water from the Ceaseless Waterfall had restorative properties and was the only thing in the village that didn’t have restricted use. Its effects were profound on Divine Artists with some of them even ascending by simply taking a bath, but it had its share of benefits for Nulls too. Noki took a breath and dove down the ten-foot tube. All of the filth and grime from his skin and hair washed away, and he inhaled some water to clean the inside of his mouth. After three minutes, he surfaced, grabbed a towel and dried himself off. When he opened his curtain, he was surprised to see Baira standing in his doorway.

“We have a problem,” Baira said as the red curtain dropped behind her.

“Yeah, what are you doing in my house? I thought we were meeting in the cove?”

“That’s why we have a problem. The Kolo is here, so I can’t go.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense, you told me they were coming and that it was the best time to do this because of that.” Noki reached for a shirt that he washed last night and put it on. “What changed?”

“It’s Kolo Amani.”

Noki shook his head, “So?”

“Kolo Amani Monsari.”

“Amani…Mons-your sister?” Noki nearly fell on the floor while putting his gray pants on. “Your sister is here?”

“Yes, and now you know why I can’t leave.”

Noki indeed knew why she couldn’t leave. The Kolos of Queen’s Embrace are all Divine Artists of Diamond Soul Soul and are able to sense the Tera of anyone within a half mile of them, possibly more.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Is your sister expecting to see you?”

“Yes. It’s a custom for the relatives of a vassal family to be there to greet them. If I go missing, she’ll go looking for me and it’ll scare the scourbeasts away.”

Noki, now fully dressed, started to pace across the room. “ Ok, so then why don’t we just go right now and come back quickly?”

“Even with me carrying you, it’d take at least an hour to get to the Red Forest and Amani would be on us in seconds. Look, let’s wait until after the Divination Ceremony. The scourbeasts will be there and we won’t have anyone to interfere.”

Noki thought about the passage about scourbeast from Baira’s notes. The beasts are drawn to Tera and consume it. If the Tera belongs to a person that is beyond their capability, the beasts will hide until the presence is gone; but, if the presence was strong enough, they could feed off the lingering Tera…and a Kolo just passed through not too long ago. “What if I go by myself?”

“What? No, that’s way too dangerous.”

“Is it? Scourbeast feed off Tera, I don’t even have enough to make my own core. What threat could I pose to them and what would they even want from me?” Noki could see Baira trying to come up with a hundred different ways to reject him, but the reluctance of her face told him that he was winning her over. “ I’ll just go after a weak one, take its core and be gone before anything happens.”

“You can’t even see them,” Baira said, “but…then again, maybe you don’t need to.”

“I…don’t?”

“ You still have those spirit sticks I gave you right?”

“Yeah, most of them are in the cove but I have a couple here just in case.”

“Ok, lemme see them.”

Noki moved to the left side of his bed and removed a loose piece of stone. Inside was a makeshift locker, full of old notes from Baira and a few keepsakes from his father. He pulled out two spirit sticks and tossed them to her. “How are these going to help?”

“Just watch.” Baira channeled a portion of her Tera and aspect into the sticks and handed it to Noki. “Before you grab them , I want you to understand that it might hurt a bit at first, but don’t let go.”

“Why would it-” white hot pain shot through Noki’s body and buried itself in the back of his head. A pressure formed behind his eyes and everything started to flicker in and out of sight. He closed his eyes in an attempt to squeeze the pain away, and when he opened them…

“What? What is this? Wait? Is this Tera? Am I looking at Tera?” His entire room was full of a mixture of gray and white ribbons of light. He looked at Baira and saw a more refined stream of white with a hint of blue flowing from her body, and when he looked at himself? Nothing but the faintest glow of white, like a smudge on the edge of glass.

“I infused more of my Tera and sent it to your mind. You don’t have any Tera so your mind is wide open to Tera manipulation.”

“Wait, so then if Mion wanted to, he could control me?” Noki let the horrifying thought fade as Baira continued.

“You’ll be able to see scourbeast with this, and you’ll also be able to use this.” She took out a knife from the back of her waistband, “it's a knife made from the remains of tigerbull. With my Tera active, it’ll be able to harm scourbeasts.”

From outside the window, Noki and Baira heard someone make an announcement. “Kolo Amani Monsari arrived earlier than expected and requested an audience with Head Chief Bain Okari and Baira Monsari.”

“Damn,” Baira turns back to Noki and points at him, “ I gotta go. Remember, only go after the one with the weakest Tera, that should be more than enough to jumpstart your own core. Oh wait, you’ll need this too.” She tossed him a small blue bag, made of a combination of chimera. “It’s for the core. Put it in there and it’ll keep it from dissipating long enough to use in an elixir.”

“I got it, go deal with your sister.”

Baira gave him a half smile and bolted from his room, blowing the curtains off. In all the time he’d known her, Noki had never seen Baira look so…bothered. If it were any other day, he would have tried to calm her down, but he had a mission to complete and time was not on his side if his assumptions about the spirit sticks were correct; he’d have only four hours to find a scourbeast, kill it and take its core. Without wasting another moment, he left his room and headed for the Red Forest.

Bain Okari sat at the opposite end of the dark brown wooden table. He had on his usual attire; a black pelt from the lionape draped over his shoulders, the pelt of a red tigerbull around his waist, and a necklace made of the bones of the creatures he hunted from the Red Forest.

“It is an honor to receive you, Kolo Amani. Did your trip find you well?”

“It did,” Amani said, “ as do these arrangements. You’ve done an excellent job preparing for the Divination Ceremony.” Amani sat next to Baira and it was obvious they were sisters; she looked like an older version of Baira but with short black hair with a green ombre and wore the formal Kolo Attire: A black short sleeve bodysuit, covered by a reflective golden half cape that was embroidered with the Queen’s symbol.

“You honor me too greatly, Kolo Amani. It was the villagers that did the work, I merely pointed a few in the right direction.”

“Liars,” Baira thought to herself. Amani and Bain could speak pleasantries all day, but she knew the real conversation was about to begin; it was evident on Amani’s face.

The Kolo sat back in her seat–a specially constructed one made of red wood and black stone that resembled a miniature throne–and clasped her jeweled hands together. “Tell me, Head Chief, have you ventured into the Red Forest lately?”

This caught Baira’s attention.

“Ah, if you’re worried about the scourbeasts, I already had a few of the instructors clear them out. ”

“And they’ve reported nothing out of the ordinary?” Amani’s voice was normally so measured, but the topic she was broaching added a hint of worry to her tone.

Bain placed a massive elbow on the table, causing the wood to creak, and placed his fingers on his temple. “Kolo Amani, if there is something that I should know…”

There was a look of sincerity on the weary man’s face. Say what you will about his son, but Bain Okari was a man that put the safety of his village above all else and a man of his word; Baira knew that to be extremely true. The only reason why Noki was accepted into the village was because Bain swore to Noki’s father that he would. Whatever Amani needed to tell him, Baira was certain he would act in an appropriate manner.

A silence filled the large room, broken only by the sounds of villagers clamoring in the square below. Amani stood from her seat and walked to one of the windows that faced the village entrance. “We’ve received reports of unusual activity amongst the scourbeast. Some say they’ve witnessed something from the Wilds act as a de facto leader of the beasts.”

“A Wilding?” Bain’s expression darkened. Wildings were creatures that possessed a nearly limitless depth of power and were said to have been born from the corpse of the First Ascendant. “If one has gotten through the barrier, then it can't be a Gold or Diamond Soul.Why the cause for concern?”

“Because,” Amani turned to face him, “ it’s been changing the scourbeasts into scourgebeast.”

Baira slammed her hands on the table. “Scourgebeast?” A side eye from Amani caused Baira to slink back into her seat, but her outburst wasn’t unwarranted. Scourgebeast are the result of hundreds of scourbeasts fusing together by either cannibalism or Harmonious Merger; either way it's very rare for it to happen. What makes them so terrifying is that they gain a sense of awareness, a crucial element in how a Divine Artist ascends.

“The last time a scourgebeast appeared, it killed ten Diamonds before being taken out,” Bain solemnly said.

“Yes, but that one had enough Tera and awareness to ascend to Iron immediately. We would have sensed such a huge jump in power.” Amani turned back to the window, “still, I did sense rather powerful lingering Tera on my way here. I can’t say for certain if it's the Wildling, but for the moment I’ll ask you to erect a barrier around Watercliff.”

“So that is why they sent you, your Aspect amplifies my own. Very well then, once the Div-”

“The Ceremony will be today. That’s also why I came a day earlier.” Amani kept her focus in the direction of the Red Forest, as if she were tracking something. “ My attendants are already setting up as we speak and will be done in the next hour.”

“Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll need to confer with the instructors and get everything in order.” Bain stood up, bowed to Amani back, and left the room.

“Well,” Baira said, “ since that’s done, I’ll just-”

“Do you take me for a fool, Baira?”

Baira titled her head curiously at her sister, “I would never, you’re not the dumb one.”

“Then tell me, why am I sensing your Tera here and approaching the Forest?” She turned her crimson red eyes, the eyes of their father, towards Baira. “I doubt Bain noticed, sensing Tera has never been that side of the family’s strong suit, but to do thai while I’m here? What have you been getting up to?”

Baira had two choices in theory; tell her the truth about her plan for Noki, or lie and tell her it must be a side effect of Wilding's presence. There were stories that said Wilding Tera had disorienting properties and she might buy that. Amani repeated her question and Baira decided to split the difference. “ I was going to gather some herbs for a new elixir I wanted to try, but I found out that you were coming and figured I’d just let a friend do it for me.”

“A friend?”

“Yes, I made an actual friend. It’s actually very easy to do when you don’t throw your weight around every opportunity.” Amani gave her a warning glance. “ I had my friend borrow a knife that I had infused with some of my Tera is all.”

“Giving away a treasure from a vassal family? They must be a Divine Artist of immense talent.” Amani’s hard expression softened, “ Tell me this, what family are they from?”

“My friend?”

“Yes. If they have caught the eye of a Monsari, I think they are worthy of me knowing their name.”

“His name is Noki. He’s not a Divine Artist, at least not yet, but he’s a good person.” Baira took one look at her sister's face and immediately regretted her actions. “ Stop, stop making that face.”

“His name,” Amani said as she slightly tilted her head side to side, “ and you gave him a treasure.”

“I didn’t give him anything. I let him borrow it temporarily.” This was the Amani that Baira remembered; all business until the business is done, and then it’s nothing but trivial dalliances and the occasional wine bender. “ I’m surprised you kept your serious face on for so long.”

“Ugh, you have no idea how exhausting it all is.” Amani strode back to her seat and plopped down, putting a leg on the arm rest. “ Straight back this, Kolo Amani that, help with some other thing. Honestly, you’re lucky you didn’t ascend so quickly.” She had reached Iron Body Soul at age fourteen and became a Kolo at twenty. “ All this, and for what? Obscene power and influence that rivals the other vassal families? Not worth it.”

“Yeah, you're really living the hard life.”

“See, you get it. I’m not even the oldest, Shamir should be the one doing all this but no, her and her friends get to go into the Wilds.”

Baira got out of her seat and headed for the door. “Well you can sit here and complain to the stone, I’m going to see my friend now.”

“Oh come now Bairy, you didn’t really think I came here just to warn the Chief, right?”

The thought had crossed Baira’s mind. If they just needed to inform the Chief of potential rumors, an Astral Missive would have sufficed. “ Why are you here then?”

After an hour and a half of climbing down–and occasionally falling down–the plateau, Noki was finally at the border of the Red Forest. It was a massive forest of trees twice the size of the Ceaseless Waterfall and looked as if they stretched to the heavens themselves. Noki looked behind him and was barely able to see the edge of the plateau that housed his village. “If I was a Divine Artist, I probably could have jumped from there and been fine.” When he obtained the kulda of a scourbeast, he’d come back here again to test his theory.

The moment he set foot into the Forest, the world erupted in Tera of all colors. The trees gave off a thick aura of red while the red and brown dirt was a mixture of white, red and green aura. Noki marveled at the wonders of the forest before refocusing himself on his goal; there would be time later to take in the sights. He trekked deeper into the forest, climbing over rocks and leaping across small creeks, until he laid eyes upon a scourbeast.

The scourbeast looked like an orange outline of an animal. It had glowing orange eyes, two whip-like tails and three rows of sharp, black teeth. The creature took a step with its front paw and lowered its head to do something. Noki shifted his position to get a better look, and saw the beast eating the remains of another scourbeast.

“The core!” Noki readied his knife and slunk towards the beast. If he was quick enough, he could kill the beast and come away with two cores. Failing that; he could at least wound the beast enough to drive him away from the core on the ground. “Almost there, please don’t notice me…” Noki’s breathing grew unsteady as he got closer, he’d never seen a scourbeast nor killed an animal before; but he quieted those thoughts with the prospect of starting down the path of Divine Artist.

Pain shot through Noki’s head as Tera exploded from deeper inside the forest. The scourbeast placed the core in its mouth and spirited away with Noki’s golden opportunity. “What was that?” was all he managed to say before another blast of Tera dropped him to his knees. He craned his neck upwards to face the direction of the Tera. “There’s…there’s something there.” Noki looked at his spirit sticks and saw that Baira Tera was running low. “ Oh come on, I thought I had at least two more hours! This looks like less than ten minutes!” Noki had a decision to make; either head to where the powerful Tera was coming from, or go back to Watercliff and hope that Baira could join him after the ceremony and he could try again.

Noki found an outcropping of rock after running for a few minutes. The quantity of Tera had been rapidly increasing the deeper he got, and when he laid on the rock and peered over its edge, he understood why. Below him was a graveyard of bodies of scourbeasts and animals. Blackened blood stained the majority of ground and the scourbeasts that were still alive were currently battling each other. A blue scourbeast with white fur and green eyes, slammed one of its four arms into the stomach of another. A few feet to the right a giant yellow scorpion with wings struck a tigerbull in its back, instantly killing it and devouring its flesh. As it did so, it took on a more corporeal form.

“This looks like some kind of…killing arena?” Noki thought about leaving and looking for a less crowded area, but with his time growing short he decided on a different course of action. Once the winner was crowned, he’d slip down and take one of the cores from the fallen scourbeasts. His Sight was starting to diminish, but he could still see the Tera emanating from the corpses; if their cores were gone, they’d be producing nothing…just like him.