Rieren had her eyes closed to focus. She didn’t stick to it for long, though. There was no point. Her cultivation was nothing like what it used to be when she was still normal. Still human.
But she gathered herself and her concentration all the same before diving back into the System Shop to get what she needed.
The cultivation manual she found, after narrowing down the list to only monstrous-themed ones, was called Ritual of Darkness. That was certainly a choice by the author. Two hundred and fifty Credits for a manual with a name that could have been used to cut glass.
At least it was informative. So far. Rieren found out that she could indeed cultivate. Just… not easily. At all.
The lore she learned was rather intriguing, though, if the scroll could be believed. It purported that the soul of a monster, such that one might possess—they were nothing like the living, vibrant spirits of regular people—was frozen in the Mortal realm.
Hmm. Rieren had never heard of such a thing. Well, she had known instances of attaining immortality through methods that could be approximated to “freezing”. Cultivators at the Ascendant realm who used ice Aspects tended to convert the concept of chilling petrification at a metaphysical level to put their souls in stasis.
What the manual stated was different, however. This freezing was no technique for achieving immortality that some ancient practitioner of Essence had discovered and passed down.
No, this was a law of nature itself.
It appeared that all souls could only cultivate Essence to reach higher realms of strength only within their respective realm they were born in. Human cultivators could only climb the ranks of cultivation within the Mortal realm. Similarly, Abyssals were relegated to the Abyss while Aetherians had to be in the Aether to attain greater power.
At first, Rieren had thought the manual had said that one could only channel Essence in the Realm they belonged in. That couldn’t be right. Rieren had used her Essence in every Realm she knew of.
She wasn’t the only one, either. There had been that time Rieren and her friends had all been dragged into the Abyss, where they and others such as pre-monster Elder Olg and the Masked Avatar had all used Essence. All that went on to make her read more critically, which revealed that the manual had only been speaking of growth in power.
That made more sense. Rieren now understood why she couldn’t cultivate as she had done before, why her meridians felt like they were blocked with something she couldn’t even sense.
But that begged a different question. Rieren wasn’t an Abyssal or an Aetherian. She was something else altogether. An Arisen.
Her eyes widened in realization. “Does that mean I can cultivate everywhere except the Mortal Realm?”
Batcat meowed like the answer was obvious.
“Unbelievable.”
The winged kitten purred in agreement.
Rieren’s little epiphany didn’t last long. Well, its feeling didn’t. The information was going to stick.
That led her to the next point of worry. If she couldn’t cultivate in the Mortal Realm any longer, then what in the world was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could enter and exit the Abyss willy nilly.
She frowned. Was it a possibility? Batcat had opened Abyss Rents before. Elder Olg wasn’t too far away. Both of them ought to be able to provide her with means of entering the Abyss. The problem was exiting. Rieren didn’t want to take the chance of getting stuck in the Abyss when she didn’t have a concrete plan for getting out.
Not with the tournament hanging over her head.
“I need a different plan of approach,” she said.
Batcat rolled over and presented its belly.
The manual said that her cultivation was frozen while she was a monster in the Mortal Realm. But what if Rieren no longer had to be the monster? There was a way she could turn herself back to a regular human cultivator, at least for a short while.
“How about it, cat?” Rieren asked. She rubbed Batcat’s soft belly fur. “Would you mind terribly, if I asked you to use Call of the Past?”
She had been saving it for later. There would come a time she would need the kitten’s miraculous ability to revert time upon herself. Rieren wasn’t certain when, but she knew it would happen. She had no intention of getting caught off-guard till then.
Unfortunately, it looked like she was going to have to use it now. It wouldn’t be too bad of an idea. After all, she could purchase a Temporal Recollector from the System Shop with all her remaining Credits.
The only issue that posed was the fact that Rieren couldn’t control when exactly Batcat threw her back in the past. Normally, Rieren was reverted back to when she was in the Ascendant realm. That wouldn’t do. If she wanted to cultivate and grow stronger, she needed to go farther back, reach the time when she had pulled her cultivation through the Exalted realm.
“But how, cat?” she asked, peering down at her fake feline companion. “Can you let me control to what position in time I’m reverted back to?”
Batcat made biting motions with its little jaw. As always that indicated that the kitten wanted to share more memories.
But then, when Rieren tried to approach closer and channel her meagre Essence through the kitten, she had no luck. Batcat hissed a little and quickly shot away from her.
“Come, now,” she said. “I need your strength, kitten. Your expertise. Surely you know how best I can use Call of the Past to regain my former power.”
Batcat simply continued making those biting motions. This time, it actually looked hungry, as though it truly was seeking food. That was undercut by the way it kept tapping its head, though. Cats didn’t tap their own heads like that.
And then, Rieren experienced her second epiphany of the day.
“Ah, I see what you mean.” She considered sighing but the lack of breath stumped her. “You wish to consume my memories once again.”
Batcat agreed with a sad little meow. She wondered if the cat was actually reluctant about consuming her recollections.
Rieren dug within herself. It didn’t feel difficult in her current state to dredge up everything she had experienced and consider them for permanent excision. She ought to have been alarmed that none of her memories brought up any disinclination to surrender them for consumption.
Memories of her father? She could relinquish them without difficulty.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Of Amalyse, or Kalvia or any of her companions? Well, they weren’t exactly her companions any longer, now were they?
Her time at the Sect? She was long past Lionshard Sect now. Whatever sentimental importance it might have held for her were themselves faint memories that she could do without.
Did that mean she could give up all her memories in one fell swoop of empowering her bonded Spirit Beast? Of course not. Memories served other purposes besides sentiment. They were vital sources of information, points in time that could be used to ground herself and her intent, buildings blocks for everything she had to accomplish going forward.
But not all of them. Certainly not.
Rieren didn’t have to think long to decide which ones she could sacrifice to Batcat this time. After the memories of her former comrade—whose name she had trouble recalling—and her memories of flying aboard Dawn Cloud, she needed to provide something stronger.
Easy. Rieren decided to give up her time at Lionshard Sect. Not that of her current timeline, but the original one.
The one filled with pain, with longings that were so alien in her present state.
Her first step into the Sect’s grounds after the monstrous invasion that had destroyed her village. The death of her father and her subsequent enrolment into the Sect after she stole a Founding Seed. The classes she had gone through, the lessons she had absorbed, the eventual apocalyptic devastation that had visited the Sect, through both monsters and other enemies.
None of that mattered. All in the past of the past. A previous iteration that bore little meaning and held no tangible influence.
So, she surrendered them all.
Rieren focused on dragging her Essence through the cat and her temporally frozen meridians. What she didn’t focus on at all was everything she was willing to forget.
She blinked. It was always disorienting whenever she decided to give up her memories to Batcat. Rieren couldn’t even recall what exactly she was supposed to have surrendered to the winged kitten, which, she supposed, was the point of the exercise.
Batcat uttered a soft meow.
“Are you ready, cat?” she asked.
The little Spirit Beast padded over. Rieren braced herself. At least she still recalled what this entire exercise was supposed to achieve.
When Batcat started to glow before fading to nothing, she found that her plan had worked.
This time, as Call of the Past activated, the rush of power brought on by Batcat’s disappearance stopped just short of Rieren. Somehow, she could sense it there, just beyond her reach. Before, it had enveloped her in such a manner that she almost felt as though the past had come from within her.
Of course, it wasn’t so simple. Prepositions didn’t really exist when it came to the soul. But the main difference was that Rieren could interact with the very power she was supposed to channel.
Rieren could change it.
The longer the sensation went on, the more she felt as though she was submerged in a river with a powerful current. As every moment passed, the current shifted, changing on and on with time. Still too strong. Still failing to reflect Rieren in the state she should have been at this time in her previous life.
It was getting closer, however. The strength of the current was falling. One moment, then another, and—there!
Rieren’s spirit reached out. It opened wide and drank in everything the stream had to offer. The past reached in, deep within, and anchored itself within the root of her soul. Powered by Batcat’s very existence, Rieren had grasped the exact moment in the past she needed to reclaim.
She changed back to herself. Her original self. The one with the human skin and hair and eyes.
The one who still had feelings.
She gasped. This… this was… incredible. Her breaths came in faster and faster. Breaths. Abyss and Aether, she was breathing again. Drawing in great lungfuls of air like a person locked in a desert drowning themselves in the first lake they had come across of their volition.
Human again. She was human again.
It was difficult to believe. The flood of pure emotions was searing across her mind, the riot of feelings pulling her tightly controlled thoughts into disarray.
Rieren couldn’t help it. She pulled back the sleeve of her robes and found pale, normal skin. With a little cycling—oh yes, she could cycle Essence with buttery ease again—she summoned some water through her Domain and stared own at her reflection. Same old face. Same dark eyes. A mouth that gaped in wonder.
She was tempted to get up and cheer. It felt positively euphoric to be who she was always supposed to be. All this time she had been an Arisen, she had never realized just how caged her mind had become.
Just how much sheer space her emotions occupied normally.
She couldn’t celebrate forever, of course. It took a little time, longer than Rieren would have liked to admit, but she eventually brought herself back down to solid ground.
Rieren had a task to accomplish.
She focused on her Essence. On all the Essence she could cycle through her meridians with delightfully little work. There was no time to waste. The potency offered by Batcat’s technique might have risen, but Rieren had no guarantee the same truth held for how long she could remain within the skill’s effect.
Her strength felt normal. Familiar. She was definitely in the Exalted realm and no higher. But more importantly, she was on the cusp of climbing higher.
The sheer amount of Essence Rieren had gathered over the course of her battles thanks to the Deathpulse Confetti and her growing renown had combined to give her just the boost she needed. All these particulars had been taken care of before she had used Call of the Past to reach back into her previous life. Now, she could finally advance.
Sitting down on crossed legs, Rieren cultivated Essence through herself. Renown. That was ultimately what the Exalted realm was about. It raised one’s innate strength and prowess contingent on one’s fame or infamy in the world beyond.
This was another reason those who intended to grow as a cultivator had to leave their old Sects. There was only so much renown one could gather in one limited corner of the world. Travelling increased how many people one affected and interacted with, thus increasing the ability to climb through the ranks of the Exalted realm.
For Rieren, her deeds in the Shatterlands had been enough to get her through the first stage. Now, with her infamy having doubled through all the competitors—both human and monstrous—she had interacted with, she had all she needed to get through another stage.
It didn’t take long. After all, Rieren had all the Essence she was going to need.
Still. She wasn’t certain how long it lasted. Several hours at the very least. The experience of getting through to Late-Exalted arrived like an avalanche rocking her soul. The longer Rieren had cultivated, focusing all the Essence within herself to cycle it through her meridians and elixir field, the bigger she had built a damn against her growing strength.
At the moment Rieren finally broke through, the dam fell away. In its place, a flood of power swamped her spirit. It had worked.
When she opened her eyes again after having cultivated for who knew how long, lost within herself all the while, Rieren found that night had fallen. That Batcat had re-emerged into the living world.
That she was once again an Arisen. Not a human. Almost as though it had all been a terrible dream.
It ought to have been ironic that she could feel next to no dismay that her human form was simply… gone. Just like that.
Batcat was looking up at her with big, soulful eyes.
“Am I… to be sad now, Batcat?” she asked.
Logically, that felt appropriate. But Rieren couldn’t summon any emotion within her at all. The fact that she had been human mere moments ago was… just that—a fact. Maybe it was regrettable she was stuck in this monstrous form. Maybe it was a bad thing by some accounts. Okay, possibly a lot of accounts.
But all she could summon some sort of care about was whether the aim of her endeavour had been met or not. So, she pulled up her [Status] once more.
[Status]
Rieren Vallorne
Race: Human
Class: Arisen Bladebane
Profession: Enchanter
Realm: Exalted [Late]
Level: 41
Perks: Endless Beyond [A]
Titles: Abyssal Historian [+20 Spirit]
Stats
Body: 68 [+9]
Mind: 46 [+9]
Spirit: 46 [+9]
Skills [Shiftable]
Fray Passage [S]
Gale Blade [A]
Earthfell Blade [S]
Reaver Stance [S]
-
Techniques [Shiftable]
Tidal Summon [B]
Call of the Past [Spirit Bond] [B]
Water Dancer Blade [D]
-
Domain
Demonic Ocean [B]
There. The indicator she had been hoping for. A clear marker that she had indeed reached the Late-Exalted realm. Just a little more effort, and Rieren would be at Peak-Exalted, ready to finally push herself through to the next realm. Thanks to the Trials of Ascendance, it would be reachable without too great a difficulty.
All Rieren would need to gather was a great deal of Essence for her next advancement. Something she would have to find a different way of doing since she could no longer cycle Essence through her elixir field and thus store it there naturally.
“We succeeded, kitten.” She brought up a little smile. Just because she couldn’t feel it didn’t mean she couldn’t act like she did. “And I could never have done it without you. Thank you.”
It was true. Without the cat’s assistance, Rieren could never have reached her current position with the ease she had. But that was fine. One had to make use of every weapon in one’s arsenal, after all.