As they headed off, Elder Alm called out to Kervantes. The Automaton, being a mechanical being, didn’t have the ability to cultivate Essence. There was no point in him joining their efforts.
Cultivation was an art that was intrinsically tied to the soul, but also made use of the body’s physical form as well. It was a matter of philosophical arguments whether beings such as Kervantes possessed what was normally defined as a soul. Besides which, they certainly didn’t have the same kind of physical bodies that typical cultivators possessed.
Rieren found it interesting that intelligence didn’t necessarily mean one had a soul, for the purposes of cultivation. This was in line with all else she knew. After all, the intelligent Abyssals could no more cultivate Essence than an automaton.
“I am afraid I have a great many duties to look to in the rest of the dungeon,” Kervantes was saying as he approached the Elder. “Can this little conversation be hastened?”
Elder Alm didn’t look pleased at that. The little rebellious streak in Rieren soared. Where she had bowed her head in humility and obeisance, the automaton was almost taking pleasure in his ability to disregard the same rules that bound Rieren and the other humans here.
“I do not have much to discuss,” Elder Alm said as he began walking away. “Please, if you will join me.”
Rieren was certain the automaton had wished he could sigh then. But he followed Elder Alm as he was led away. She decided to catch up with Amalyse to find where Folend had gone to heal up. The group had some healers, one of whom had been busy tending to the wound Folend had suffered against the Aetherian.
“Already?” the healer asked, clearly deciphering Rieren and Amalyse’s intention.
Amalyse shrugged. “Elder’s order.”
The woman in the dirty white robe sighed. She patted Folend on his shoulder, ignoring the conflicted look he returned. “Off you go then. Just try not to overdo it. You aren’t fully healed yet.”
Whatever internal struggles plagued Folend, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Thank you,” he ground out.
Then he got up and led the way to join up with the rest of their fellow disciples. Rieren exchanged a glance with Amalyse, who shrugged. Neither of them could tell what exactly was going on with Folend’s psyche.
Though, Rieren did suspect the fight against the Higher Aetherian had a been a humbling experience. People tended to change in unpredictable ways after such events.
The disciples didn’t take note of the newcomers’ arrival. All of them were too busy concentrating on the Essence they were channelling. She wondered if some of them were even raising themselves by a stage. This was one of the few opportunities they would get to do so.
There weren’t many Rieren recognized among them. Not by name, at least. Most of the faces were unfamiliar. However, there was Rollo among the crowd, sitting with his ruined legs pulled forward before him. He might not be able to fight on his feet any longer, but that apparently wasn’t going to stop him from cultivating.
The older disciple who had accompanied their foray outside of the Sect, Felorith, was among the crowd as well. She was glad to see him. Rieren knew first-hand what it was like to lose one’s closest friend.
And she also knew what it was like to be in the presence of the friend’s killer.
Felorith didn’t know Rieren had ended Eneyra’s life, as far as she was aware. Not that she felt guilty about the act. Aside from Auri, Eneyra had sought to assassinate her in the Sect, though Rieren hadn’t been able to determine her connection to the Avatar. Things had moved too fast for her to investigate the possible relationship between all those who wanted her dead.
“How do we take these in?” Amalyse asked quietly, turning over the glowing Purifying Egg. “I don’t think we can just swallow these down.”
“Speak for yourself,” Folend said as he took a seat at the edge of the disciples’ circle, groaning as he settled himself down. “I can swallow it.”
“…you realize how wrong that sounds, yes?”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, even if that’s where you be—” He brought his runaway mouth to a halt. “Anyway, you are to keep it in your mouth and slowly let it dissolve there. No swallowing, biting, chewing, or anything of the sort involved. Simple enough, yes?”
“Sounds simple.”
Folend decided to ignore them and get started on his cultivation.
Rieren sat down not far from the other disciples and join in as well. For all the things she had learned and made use of in her last life, Purifying Eggs hadn’t been one of them. She knew of certain pills and liquids that could perform a similar function, but those had to be ingested. These strange Eggs were new to her.
As she settled down, her eyes were drawn to the enormous Abyss Rent before her. At this distance, she found that it was at least fifteen paces tall, its peak almost lost in the gloom of the chamber’s higher areas.
A coldness worked into her spine. They ought to consider themselves lucky that their reduction of the Abyss Rent hadn’t been interrupted by any more Abyssals popping out of the jagged hole. Though, perhaps they couldn’t do it when it was under attack by the cultivators. Perhaps Essence was what it functioned with, so having it constantly drawn away stopped it.
Rieren closed her eyes and placed the egg in her mouth. It filled much of the space within, feeling smooth and slightly chilly. But it began to evaporate as soon as it was inside. The sizzling sensation was strange on her tongue.
She began to experimentally cultivate. It was a little worrying to take in external Essence when it had been corrupted, but the Purifying Eggs worked. As Rieren channelled, drawing the Essence into her elixir field, she didn’t suffer from any drawbacks as she had expected. It was pure, normal Essence devoid of any Aspects or influences.
Satisfied that she wasn’t in any danger from the Essence itself, Rieren focused properly on her cultivation.
Now that she was in the Awakened realm, her objectives had changed. No longer did she need to worry about the changes to her physical body as much. All the different parts of her had been suffused with Essence. It was time to focus entirely on her soul.
To progress in the Awakened realm, one had to awaken one’s soul to the proper Essence, as suggested by the realm’s name. The correct Essence meant using the Essence that held the main Aspect of the Domain opened as soon as the Awakened realm was reached. For Rieren, that would have been water-Aspected Essence.
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Unfortunately, that was difficult to come by in her current circumstances. There were ways to convert regular Essence to the Aspected kind she needed. The easiest way would be to summon and hold her Domain. That would slowly convert all her channelled Essence into the Aspects in the Domain, fulfilling the requirement of progressing through the Awakened realm.
She doubted the others would appreciate being drenched and having their robes waterlogged, however. Rieren couldn’t go too far away to do it either. She had to be close enough so that the Essence she drew in came from the Abyss Rent.
But that didn’t mean her efforts would be futile with regard to her progress.
In a deeper sense, Awakened realm required the cultivator to use the “correct” Essence to transform the elixir field into a fortified Core. This involved constructing what was known as Aspect pillars, which were metaphorical representations of establishing comprehension of different properties of the main Aspect.
In Rieren’s case, that would mean proving that she understood the various properties of water. Its fluidity, its consistency, its ability to transmute into other forms, and all the other characteristics that defined it. None of it would be difficult.
Without access to water-Aspected Essence, however, it would be much, much slower. For now, she could form those same pillars with the regular Essence she had gathered thus far and continued to pull in. Later on, she would have to convert it all to water-Aspected Essence, while close to each of the properties she needed to establish.
Creating Aspect pillars was a slow process in and of itself. Normal cultivators, without taking in anything to enhance the progress, would easily need almost a week of straight cultivation and nothing else to create even one pillar. The total number of pillars needed depended on the Aspect being used and the main properties it had.
With Aspectless Essence, it was going to be even slower. Rieren would have to draw it in and somehow coerce it into the pillars despite having no specific properties to take advantage of. Later on, she would need to convert that pillar of Aspectless Essence into water-Aspected Essence, all while still in proximity to the property she was establishing.
Really, the whole thing was a pain in the unmentionables. The one thought that made it bearable was the prospect of true power that she could attain through it.
Besides, there were ways of enhancing the speed of process.
Of course, with most of the Sect’s resources destroyed, hastening the progress through the Awakened realm wouldn’t be as easy. All those lost pills, liquids, and other ingredients made Rieren wince a little in regret.
On the other hand, they were in a prime location to get the various ingredients needed from the System Shop directly. All they would have to do was keep killing their enemies. There were many of them, which meant they would soon possess a great deal of loot, something they had already begun doing. That meant more Credits to purchase more things.
In fact, it was a little ingenious to use the Beast Cores of the monsters guarding the Abyss Rent to buy the Purifying Eggs, which in turn helped them remove the rent itself.
Rieren focused on forming the first pillar. The foremost one was always the simplest. It required an understanding of an Aspect’s natural state of being. Rieren imagined her elixir field expanding as she filled it with Essence, crafting a column that rose higher and higher, embodying nothing but the Aspect’s ability to exist. To be.
The little trick only worked because water was tangible. There were certain Aspects that couldn’t claim the same. More abstract things such as time, space, concepts such as gravity, death, and so on, none of those existed in the same physical way Aspects such as water, earth, or fire did. They might have manifestations, but they couldn’t be found in as tangible a manner.
As she cultivated, Rieren was finally able to gain some measure of inner peace. The calm she always tried to hold on to had become a little ragged over the previous day, but now, she could finally reconstruct it to its usual state.
Rieren didn’t know how much time passed but at some point, there was a slight disturbance in proceedings. It started off with a slight noise. Cultivators were generally silent when they channelled Essence, but someone was making a strange noise.
Peeking open one eye, Rieren noticed it was one of the disciples she didn’t know. The girl was making a low, growling noise in her throat. Rieren couldn’t tell what was happening at first. Then she used some Essence in her eyes and gasped. Essence was swirling thick and fast within her, threatening to overflow out of the confines of the meridians she had opened so far.
The girl was trying to raise herself by a stage in her realm.
Rieren lost her focus. The pillar she was constructing within her elixir field now lay completed by just over a tenth of the way as the implications of the incident became fully clear.
When one advanced to the next stage, one’s consciousness was teleported to a metaphysical realm. The real world no longer existed around the cultivator during the moments of ascension.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, unless the cultivator was channelling dangerous Essence they didn’t know how to control. In their current circumstance, however, any sort of straying from their secure positions in the real world was perilous. They were drawing away the Abyss Rent’s corrupted Essence in the Mortal Realm only.
“We need to stop her,” Rieren said, getting up to rush over to the girl.
“Why are you creating a disturbance?” another disciple asked with a scowl. An older girl, likely a disciple in the Late-Awakened realm or so.
“Look at her.” Rieren reached the disciple making the growling noise. She was trembling where she sat, the growling noise slowly growing louder. “She is unwell. I believe she is attempting to advance, and has encountered some danger.”
“Danger? Daria will be alright. She has been trying to cultivate Essence with a more difficult Aspect than most other people, so might be struggling a bit, but it isn’t anything she cannot handle.”
“That is not what I meant. The Abyss Rent. It might be safe in the physical, Mortal Realm, but we cannot be certain of any other realms.”
That pronouncement made all the disciples break out of their little cultivating bubbles. Even Folend, who had been doggedly ignoring the noise and the conversation so far, now opened his eyes with what looked like concern.
“Then we just need to break her out of it,” Amalyse said.
Rieren shook the girl. “Daria, can you hear me? Get out of the cultivating space, please. It isn’t safe.” It didn’t work, as she had suspected. The girl continued to growl, her shaking growing worse. Sweat had broken out all over her. “We will need more drastic measures.”
“Drastic measures?” the older disciple asked with no small amount of nervousness.
Rieren was about to demonstrate, but she was interrupted by Rollo.
He summoned a spear constructed of light-Aspected Essence with his skill. Though, at this point, Rieren wondered if he had cultivated enough to break through to the Awakened Realm too. At that point, it could be a technique as well, since he would then be capable of emitting Essence tangibly.
Before Rieren could argue against whatever Rollo might be intending, he threw his light spear at Daria. They all shouted out, Rieren attempting to block the blow with her arm. It didn’t work. Both she and Daria went flying in different directions.
Grumbling, Rieren quickly rose to her feet, her sword in her hand, anger spiking under her skin. She took quick, deep breaths. Everything was fine. The bastard had angled his skill to hit the ground before them instead of anyone directly. She didn’t need to get worked up over one idiot’s thoughtless actions.
“What in the world were you thinking?” Amalyse shouted at Rollo.
He seemed unabashed by his skill’s effect on them. “It was simply the most prudent course of action.”
“It could have seriously injured someone.”
“Then perhaps they ought not to be cultivating.”
Amalyse’s angry yells grew a notch louder at that. Rieren let her chew out Rollo, while she turned to the girl. Daria was finally regaining regular consciousness. She looked quite frightened.
“Are you alright?” Rieren asked, trying to be gentle despite her instincts calling out for blood. All those attempts on her life made it incredibly difficult to push aside thoughts of responding in kind to brazen acts of violence directed at her.
Darian needed a moment to find her voice. “I was attacked. I… was assaulted in… in there.”
Her eyes didn’t lose their fright, which likely wasn’t helped by the little commotion under the Abyss Rent.
“Come on,” Rieren said, helping Daria to her feet. “Whatever happened, we need to tell the others you are alright. And we need to make sure that we do not attempt to advance through cultivations stages while under the… auspices of an Abyss Rent.”
They returned to their original position, where the Elder had reestablished some order and expressly told them not to advance any stages. Daria was comforted by the older girl, and the Elder was even kind enough to ask if she needed some time to rest. She declined, and they all began cultivating again.
The Abyss Rent had grown fractionally stronger in the meantime. Rieren frowned up at it. It was time to destroy it.