That night, Batcat murmured a little needily when they were both trying to get some sleep.

Rieren curled up close to it. “What is it, kitten?”

She recalled what she had seen of its memories what felt like so long ago now. There had been a larger Spirit Beast, the wounded parent that had sent out Batcat to… find Rieren? She wasn’t certain. All she could assume was that Batcat had to find something to help its injured guardian.

But it had likely been a good while since its journey had begun. Was it getting anxious that it might be late? Did it consider that it might have already wasted far too long?

No, that couldn’t be right. Batcat had never seemed the urgent type to Rieren. Whimsical, happy to go off to do its own thing, never in any real rush. A part of her wondered if it had forgotten, but no, that wasn’t correct either. It was too intelligent for that.

Batcat simply butted its head against hers, then curled inwards some more before promptly going to sleep.

Hmm, perhaps Rieren was worrying too much.

Rieren focused on opening some more meridians the next few days. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough Credits to purchase more of the Incision Fluid. So even though she had quite a few petals of the Flotilla Flower, she couldn’t open her meridians at the same pace. By the end of the week, she had only managed to open one-third of as many meridians as she had originally hoped to.

Nevertheless, Rieren could channel far more Essence at the same time than before. Testing her Domain with her greater Essence-channelling capabilities turned out to be quite interesting.

Her Domain had system-granted limits, of course. It could only spread out so far over the ground and channel only so many Aspects at once. However, increasing the amount of Essence within the waters of her Domain made its potency rise to a great degree.

When Rieren focused, the waves in her Domain crested a full head higher than she was tall, where before it had only reached her chest. More Essence also ensured that there were more waves per unit area of her Domain, and the responsiveness of it had been increased greatly too. Now, all it took was a flick of her finger to activate Tidal Summons and send waves everywhere.

Then there was the fact that she was practicing a new technique as well. Since she had an open technique slot to fill up, she had purchased a scroll from with some of her spare Credits.

Water Dancer Blade was a simple but very effective ability. It granted one the power to enwreathe a weapon with whatever Aspect one was channelling via a Domain. That meant for Rieren, she could wrap her Receptor sword with stormy water or scalding steam.

Simple though the technique seemed at first, its potential future implications were exciting. For instance, now that she was beginning to empower the different properties of her main Aspect, those same properties could be translated to her sword via Water Dancer Blade.

Take the property of water’s different forms of perception. Refraction of light was an integral property. Once Rieren advanced in her cultivation enough, she could directly control and apply that refraction. Turning her sword difficult to see by twisting the light around it with a coat of water, thus preventing her enemies from taking the measure of her weapon, would be easy.

There were other such properties she would one day be able to use to great effect. But she was starting to realize that a lot of her current powers rested on the idea of potential. On being even greater some time down the line.

She had to admit, if at least to herself, that despite the excitement lying in wait in her future, the present wasn’t as fun.

Batcat meowed at her to cut off such thoughts.

Rieren sighed. “Yes, cat, I am aware I am still close to the beginning of my journey. There is much to do and many paths to travel.”

The cat wasn’t wrong. She was still just in the Awakened realm. She had the Enlightened, Exalted, Ascendant, Fated, and the Primordial realms to go through. And she was just past level twenty to boot. Almost eighty more levels were left for her to grow to.

All in all, Rieren needed to be remind herself that her strength was rapidly growing.

But as the next week passed, she realized that she needed to properly focus on empowering Batcat, not just herself.

Rieren had found another location in which to cultivate her Aspect pillars. Another little waterfall on the side of one of the smaller mountains in the range. This time, the property she was focusing on was water’s ability to interact with the world in so many different ways. They way it could be perceived.

For instance, there was its ability to shift light passing through it. It’s potential to suffuse the air as humid moisture, or morning mist, or even as puffy clouds far above near the heavens.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

This ability to affect one’s perception embodied the ideal of manipulation and one’s ability to control what others saw of oneself. It was yet another property Rieren could personally aspire to. In fact, hadn’t she been doing so already when she had been so desperate to hide her the truth of her identity from all those at the Sect?

She didn’t get far in constructing the Aspect Pillar, though. Well, not after she realized that she had to take care of Batcat, first.

Which proved not that difficult when the winged kitten reported that there was an Anachron not far from their location.

Rieren observed the memories Batcat had brought a few days later. Near the peak of the small mountain they had temporarily settled upon, a monster in the shape of a large cloud resided. She had noted that despite the decreased height of the mountain, its peak was surrounded by large white puffs. Signs of the Anachron, it would appear.

“Do you want to come along?” Rieren asked Batcat.

In response, the winged kitten actually led the way. Shaking her head with a little laugh, Rieren followed.

As they trekked up the mountainside, she considered that they were about to commit something of a crime here. Attacking a creature that had done nothing to them, possibly nothing at all to earn the impending assault, was a rather reprehensible move, from an overarching perspective. Rieren was rightfully the villain here.

Such thoughts had little effect upon her. She had spent an entire lifetime tearing through the dregs of a whole civilization to get what she wanted. In the face of that, one Anachron was nothing.

Her last victims hadn’t called her a destroyer for nothing.

“Last chance to stay back,” Rieren told Batcat as the area started getting gloomier.

The winged cat ignored her and kept on finding the easiest path upslope. She supposed it was more than capable of handling itself, despite its propensity to get into the thick of trouble at times.

Rieren decided to forget about Batcat as the Essence swirling thick and heavy in the air started making its presence felt. This cloud that had overtaken the peak wasn’t natural. The Anachron had created it with its Essence, and the most efficient way to remove it would be to kill it. Or by injuring it to the point that it would have to focus too much Essence elsewhere to maintain the cloud.

The problem was how Rieren was about to find it in the thick fog. Moisture was already clinging to her skin and trying to clog up every pore. She was basically breathing as much water as air.

For someone who made it a point to channel water Aspect, it felt a little hypocritical to wish there wasn’t so much water in the area. She wouldn’t mind as much if she was actually in the midst of battle. After all, her Domain left her pretty wet on most occasions.

In the end, if Rieren was going to be evil about attacking innocent creatures to rip their hearts out, she might as well be a hypocrite about getting wet too.

Batcat came to a pause after a moment. Rieren stopped too. Through the misty gloom, she could make out what caused the kitten to finally come to a rest. The Beast Core they were hunting wasn’t inside some monster they were about to encounter. No, it was simply floating several paces high in the air.

Until the monster materialized around it, of course.

That was when all the moisture and fog receded. The Beast Core seemed to be pulling in the cloud that it had dispersed over the mountain’s peak. All of it coagulated around the core to form an enormous humanoid, golem-like creature standing easily three times Rieren’s own height.

Even worse, the compressed fog and mist now turned dark as a storm cloud. Little bolts of lightning flickered along its entire length.

Batcat gave a short mew, then jerked its head at the Anachron standing before them.

Rieren sighed. “Right, right, I will get on with the killing.”

She considered testing Call of the Past properly to see how long it lasted. Maybe this time she could keep count since there was no Banishedborn threatening imminent death. It would also be good to discover just how much the two Beast Cores she had fed Batcat had strengthened its powers.

But when she looked down at the kitten, it was staring right back at her knowingly. Then it shook its head.

Rieren got the gist. Whether it couldn’t or didn’t want to, she wasn’t getting Call of the Past right now. It wasn’t that she wanted to depend on the ability. Knowing the specifics of how it worked would help her better plan its usage, however.

This was the problem with techniques. Powerful and adaptable as they could be, unlike skills, there was never any clear indicator of their limits and scope.

“Yet another trespasser,” the monster rumbled out, quite literally sounding like what Rieren imagined storm clouds would if they could talk. “How many of you must I kill before you cease bothering me?”

The Anachron raised one cloudy fist, and Rieren hefted her sword closer, but then the monster paused. For some reason, there was an acute sense of surprise coming off it.

“You are no normal trespasser,” it said. “A mortal. And in the company of… that?”

Rieren supposed the Anachron was speaking of Batcat. She wondered if all the Anachrons had strange notions about who or what the little kitten was, or at least, where it truly came from. “Are your regular trespassers Abyssals, then?”

Thunder ground out from within the Anachron’s cloudy form, lightning flashing faintly deep within its body. “Those hated monsters shall not cross my premises any longer. I sense them about you, mortal. The stench of them is redolent.”

Batcat agreed with a little wrinkling of its nose.

Rieren stared around. All this fog and mist, all the power spread over the mountainside… Maybe the Anachron had done it to veil the area the Abyssals were trying to pass through. But from where were they coming, and more importantly, where had they been heading?

Something told Rieren the Anachron wasn’t about to calmly answer her questions. Nevertheless, it would be ideal if she could find out. She was in dire need of Credits, after all.

“Why were the Abyssals bothering you, Anachron?” she asked.

“Abyssals seek no reason for their evil deeds. Speak of your intentions, little mortal, before I end you as well.”

Rieren tutted. Just as she had thought, she wasn’t about to get any straight answers from this monster. Oh, well. She would simply have to carry out her own little investigation once this was done. Not a problem, since the Aspect the Anachron was channelling before her suggested she could spend some time here to cultivate and hopefully finish constructing her next Aspect pillar.

She pointed her blade at the Anachron. “I am here to claim this mountain as my own.”

The Anachron rumbled, this time with obvious threat as its body seemed to expand outwards, the clouds expanding to puff up its already overgrown body. “Then come and die.”

Brandishing her Receptor sword, Rieren charged the creature.