Their journey over the next month or so was entirely focused around hunting down more Anachrons. Many were curious about Rieren’s haphazard, seemingly aimless travels with her little cat.

“Where are you going today, Rieren?” Amalyse asked at some point.

“Hunting down an Anachron,” Rieren said. She was just finishing packing up to leave Falstrom again. Amalyse had arrived a moment ago.

“Didn’t you do that yesterday?”

“And the last week, yes. What of it?”

“Aren’t… you obsessing a bit much?”

Rieren glanced at her. “Am I now?”

“Yes. It reminds of the Sect. Remember? When you were so paranoid about everything?”

Rieren almost laughed. “This is much more satisfying than paranoia, Amalyse. I will explain once I have accomplished my objective.”

“Which is?”

“I will explain once I have accomplished it.”

“Fine, fine.”

Amalyse wasn’t the only curious party. Rieren should have taken better precautions to avoid having to run into people and explaining herself. But the little chat with her best friend had revealed that the real answer was simple.

“I was just—” Kalvia was saying when she spotted Rieren in the Stannerig estate’s courtyard.

“Apologies,” Rieren said, hurrying away. “An Anachron awaits.”

She had rudely decided not to wait, even after her Empress demanded answers.

“Rieren!” Oromin said. He smiled brightly at her. “Good to see you. Have you heard? The talks about the tour—”

Rieren waved at him. She hoped it wasn’t too dismissive. “Anachron.”

Oromin looked around, alarmed. “Where?”

Rieren was already gone.

It was illuminating to realize how she could simply… go about her business with nary a care for anyone else if she really wished. She supposed it was going to make more than one of them miffed at her treatment. Thankfully, they would understand and come around, once she was free of hunting down beast Cores for her hungry little kitten.

The Anachrons she did end up finding weren’t anything overly dangerous. A good practice for Rieren’s skills, but nothing challenging.

Rieren killed a monster that had burrowed deep beneath a stretch of arable land near the northern areas of the Shatterlands. Another large, bearlike monster had been felling trees on a mountainside. She had soon put a stop to that. Yet another monster had turned into a weird, twisted tree. The fleshy bark and hairy leaves had been easy to deal with, all things told.

One strange specimen existed as a pack of hyenalike creatures. Rieren couldn’t recall if she’d ever encountered one creature who existed in a bunch. It wasn’t a hivemind situation. This made her think more of how the Dreadflood had its consciousness spread inside several bodies at once.

Eventually, though, after over a month’s worth of travelling hither and thither in the Shatterlands, Rieren eventually gathered enough Beast Core to sate Batcat.

“Are you truly stuffed?” she asked in wonder.

Batcat looked no different from before. Considering how much Rieren had been feeding it, the kitten should have been twice its original the size. But it was small and fluffy as ever.

The only way Rieren knew it finally no longer needed more Beast Cores, at least for now, was thanks to her foresight. After every feeding, she had always made sure to explicitly ask the kitten if that was enough. And like at the first cave, the kitten had always indicated no with a shake of its head. Thus, Rieren’s search had continued.

She could have—and had, to be honest—pondered if the cat was only making her work for getting a continuous supply of its clearly favourite food, but that couldn’t be helped. It had proven itself quite intelligent so far. She needed to have some faith.

But this time, finally, the cat did not shake its head. Instead, it flopped onto its back, sated and happy.

Rieren placed herself next to it too. “Now then, shall we begin?”

There was no reason to wait. This location where she had killed the last Anachron was as good a spot as any to set her plan into motion. In fact, this being one of the more isolated locales meant that she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else interrupting her.

However, Batcat continued looking up at her from its upside-down position.

“What do you expect me to do?” she asked. “Perhaps channel my Essence through you?”

This was something akin to a new technique. She hadn’t ever seen Batcat recreate physical memories before. That it might be able to do wasn’t surprising. Nevertheless, she needed to figure out how, just as she had done with Call of the Past.

But when Rieren tried to channel Essence through the kitten once again, it jumped up and scampered away from its position. So, that wasn’t it, apparently.

Thankfully, the kitten answered Rieren by itself instead of leaving her to fumble.

It came towards her and opened its mouth. Recognizing the stance, she offered up her arm, which the kitten then proceeded to bite down upon.

Before, when the cat had taken any memories, there hadn’t been any particular sensation. Other than the minor sting of its teeth needling into her skin a little, though almost never enough to break it. This time, there was that tiny pain as well, but alongside it, Rieren felt her Essence shift as well.

The sensation made her freeze. Channelling Essence meant that the natural energy of the world tended to follow a certain specific route through her meridians. This had become as familiar as breathing, something she didn’t even think about overtly. After all, one didn’t notice how exactly air entered and left one’s lungs.

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But now, the Essence was flowing in the opposite direction to what was ideal. It rushed backwards through her meridians and entered the point where the kitten was trying to eat her arm.

Batcat was draining her of Essence.

The amount wasn’t small. She’d spent the better part of a year raising her power, rising through the ranks of cultivation, and that had included vastly increasing how much Essence she could channel. Her elixir field had grown quite a lot. In fact, it wouldn’t be amiss to say she had at least seven times as much Essence as when she had first begun cultivating in this timeline.

Nowhere near close to what she had eventually been capable of, but it was a good beginning. She was growing, and quickly at that.

But Batcat absorbed away at least three-quarters of that so fast, Rieren was almost tempted to jerk away her arm. It was alarming. Only the trust the cat had earned, the bond they had built over their time together, let her keep her arm in place.

When the winged kitten finally pulled away, it actually looked bloated this time. So strange. Maybe it was part of being a Spirit Beast that wasn’t actually a cat. But after all the Beast Cores she had fed it, the only physical change it showed was now, after it had gorged on her Essence.

“What now, you big furball?” Rieren asked.

Batcat padded away. Its movement was slow and sluggish. Rieren admitted to herself that she would be somewhat disappointed if the cat decided to plop over and fall asleep.

Thankfully, it did nothing of the sort. Instead, it coughed out a hairball. A glowing one. The light coming from the wet ball was bright enough to have been visible from quite some distance. But Rieren’s focus was locked on it for the hairball had begun seeping out Essence concentrated enough to see.

Her heart quickened. Something told her that this was it. That now or never, she had to be ready to perform the same kind of technique she had on Elder Olg all those years ago to obtain his elixir field.

To form a pact with it.

It was a good thing Rieren had already purchased all the pre-requisites she was going to need from the System Shop. As the thick and brilliant Essence continued ejecting out of the hairball, she pulled out a Medium Conjurer, an Essence-imbued Rod, a pack of Lifesplitter Confetti, and then the acupuncture needles that could prick her meridians.

The Essence was thickening even more. Everything around them was changing rapidly. Rieren forced her mind to remain calm as she focused on tasks. Messing anything up would not be ideal.

First, she ripped open the pack of Lifesplitter Confetti and upended it on her sword’s full length. The little pieces of glinting, diamond-shaped red paper fell all over her blade.

Next, Rieren stabbed the Essence-imbued rod into the ground. The earth wasn’t as yielding as she would have liked it, so Rieren used a little of her Domain water to soften it up. But not too much. She had to ensure the rod would remain motionless once it was vertically set up.

The Medium Conjurer was the easiest part. It was a strange contraption—a large box filled with bubbling liquid with a tiny, capped hole at one end. Undoing the cap let out a green mist slowly seeping out through the area.

Finally, her acupuncture needles needed to be put in the right places. She took off her outer robe and pricked the needles quickly but surely over her back, along her neck and arms, and on her calves as well.

Meanwhile, Batcat’s new ability was manifesting rapidly. The solidifying essence was recreating the nearby area entirely. It was as if the memory Batcat had taken from Rieren was coming to life right before her very eyes, turning everything bleached with light ash.

The trees were the first to disappear, replaced by a familiar mountainside. Lionshard mountain. How could she ever forget? She couldn’t recall the exact position, though. Some—

And then she saw herself. Young Rieren in the past was trudging downslope. She looked devastated, utterly famished in both body and spirit. Her robes were ripped, she was bleeding from wounds so numerous, even her perk was having trouble getting to them all, and the sword she held loosely was one whack away from splintering to nothing. Now Rieren recalled where this was.

The beginning of her departure from the Sect for good.

This was right after that devastating battle where Elder Olg had died in the last timeline. Not long after when she had claimed his elixir field for herself to form a pact with.

This was when she could say with complete confidence that her true path to power had begun.

Rieren looked down at Batcat. “Forgive me. I keep thinking of you as a witless animal at times, but you are truly intelligent.”

For the cat hadn’t intended for Rieren to take any old previous version of herself to absorb her own elixir field. No, the cat was targeting the ideal moment.

The argument arose that Rieren might have aimed for the moment she was strongest. After all, if Rieren could claim the elixir field right before she had been killed by Akohr in the Celestial Realm, the power she might have attained then would be inconceivable. Her elixir field back then could have rivalled Lionshard mountain itself, if it could exist physically.

Unfortunately, there were no such easy shortcuts for cultivation. Even this strange ability from the cat and taking another’s elixir field to form a pact was an aberration, of sorts.

The old scroll Rieren had found and learned it from had been filled with dire warnings of how the technique’s discoverer had been banished from his clan. Not for terrible reasons. After all, there were methods to take the elixir field of others without the need for their willing consent. In other words, it instigated violence and discrimination that even cultivators balked at.

For Rieren’s very specific case, the real warning was that one’s current cultivation level determined the maximum power of an elixir field one could form a pact with.

This aligned with Spirit Beast pacts as well. One couldn’t summon an S-Grade Spirit Beast without even touching the Ascendant realm. It encouraged both the beast and the cultivator to grow together, further developing their bond.

Essentially, Rieren couldn’t hope to take the elixir field when she had been a goddess. Not unless she wished to be quashed like bug at the bottom of the ocean.

Batcat meowed. There was a warning in it, one Rieren didn’t fully understand.

“What do you mean, cat?” she asked.

When she looked down, she found the kitten’s eyes focused on the path ahead, where past Rieren was coming down towards them. Or had been, before stopping.

She had noticed them.

Rieren’s heartbeat sped up. Ah, so the memory was real in every sense of the word except for most actual sensations. She was present here, just as past Rieren was. She could be seen. Interacted with. The idea tried to tug her mind into ponderous paths about possibilities, but no. Rieren had to focus.

“Who in the world are you?” Past Rieren had raised her blade. Her Essence was a violent storm barely leashed. She was taking no chances.

A quick, short breath, then present Rieren was moving forward. Her sword was at her waist. Her hands were still. A confrontation wasn’t necessary.

“What does it look like?” she asked. “I am you.”

“I can see that. But why? What do you hope to gain by tricking me? Can’t someone capable of something this advanced simply kill me and get this over with?”

“Actually, I am on par with your strength, at the moment.” Present Rieren looked down at Batcat, who had padded alongside her towards past Rieren. “This little Spirit Beast was the one that brought about this meeting.”

Past Rieren’s eyes went wide. “A Spirit Beast that can take you to the past?”

Present Rieren shook her head. “Merely recreating my memory. You are not real, unfortunately.”

Whatever past Rieren might have hoped to face, her own self was apparently not it.

“Impossible,” she said, taking a step back. Her grip on her sword loosened, the sword wavering as it nearly fell. Her face twisted with a mixture of fear and anger. “Of course, I’m real. You can’t lie to me. This is my world.”

“I need your help,” present Rieren said. “The world needs me—needs us—to step up. We cannot—”

“Get away from me!” Past Rieren was on the verge of falling back and retreating. Of running away. “You’re a coward. If you had any iota of honour, you’d fight me for real. You’d claim actual victory, instead of depending on blatant trickery. You’re nothing more than a dishonourable wench.”

Present Rieren sighed and pulled out the Receptor sword. “Fine then, we shall do battle. Will that satisfy you?”

Her memory quavered. Present Rieren was the one with the cards here. She was controlling the flow of this meeting.

A part of her almost felt bad. This past version of her, this moment Batcat had recreated, had to be one where she was lost the most. She had never sunk this low again. It wasn’t that she had never been defeated afterwards. But in every following moment of loss, she had always had a spark that had dragged her back up.

Now… this Rieren one misplaced breath away from tumbling down her own mountain.

Nevertheless, she was Rieren. If there was one thing that could settle her mind, that could hold her spirit in place and root her concentration to one spot, it was the prospect of a battle.

“Prepare yourself then, imposter,” past Rieren said. “You’ll pay for your cowardice. You’ll pay for all of this.”

Baring her nearly-broken sword with a rictus of a grin, past Rieren charged.