“When did that happen?” a thoroughly surprised Wald asked into the silence.
Blue energy receded, and Vath replied, “At the beginning of the fight. It was the first thing that happened when I faced Mucklan. I’m surprised none of you saw it.”
“We were all a little busy by that point and Wald was basically face down.” Kaser said with a wry smile.
Lita gestured at him and asked him to open his cataloger. He did, and was surprised to see what was added.
Name:
Vath
Cultivation Stage:
Second Tempering- 100%
Organizations:
Sect of the Shining Void
Essence Balance:
Integration/Core Formation: Perfect
1st-10th Layer Ratio: 8-5-7
Core:
Void (100%) - 10/10 Layers
Strength:
131 (~110)
Potency:
103 (~93 [80+13])
Speed:
98 (~80)
Flow:
80 (~70)
Durability:
120 (~100)
Resilience:
80 (~70)
Affinities:
Void - Perfected
Bloodline:
Empty Wolf (Close) - Early Awakening - 0%
Techniques:
Cultivation:
Empire’s General Method (Mastered)
Sect of the Shining Void General Method (Mastered)
Balanced Shining Void Method (Mastered)
Offensive:
Void Beam (Mastered)
Hybrid:
Void Form (Mastered) (Devour)
Hollow Moments (Mastered)
The first thing he noticed was the new modifier after Void Form, which was clearly the name of the manifestation, but he was surprised to see he’d maxed out his affinity, and shocked to see his bloodline had finally awakened. All three boys had been using pills refined from the Beast cores they’d been gathering when the affinities matched, but there’d been no progress till now. They’d known that each pill had only a small chance, but it had still been disheartening to see no growth at all, and now, suddenly, he had accomplished something even without noticing or trying.
He relayed the results, and the five people around him looked even more gobsmacked. “Devour, does that do what I think it does?” Dornah asked with a grin.
Vath nodded, “Like the gator.” Dornah’s grin grew even bigger.
“What did it feel like?” Emara suddenly asked, an inscrutable look on her face.
Vath frowned and thought, trying to come up with the words. “It felt… right. Like I was connected to the Heavens themselves, and like I was more me in that moment than I had ever been. Like I didn’t know everything, but I knew everything I needed to. Like I had always known how to manifest that ability, and I just had chosen not to until that moment.”
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His three companions narrowed their eyes in confusion and gave each other significant glances. Wald was the first to voice his question, “What is it?”
“We all felt that.” Emara responded, causing a storm of questions from the other three.
Kaser broke in to explain, “None of us manifested anything. We all have checked our catalogers since the fight, and none of us saw anything like that or the bloodline for Dornah and I, though we all did raise our affinity a bit. But that feeling he described, we all felt it. Well, most of it. We didn’t feel that sense of knowing how to do a new thing he had, but all the rest? That connection? That sense of personal completeness? We talked about this after we came home from the healing house, and we all experienced that. And more than ourselves, we all sensed a more complete version of that outside ourselves, but by that point we were restrained on the ground, and didn’t know where it was coming from. Now, I think we were sensing Vath.” He gave his brother a look, and then continued, “Nothing showed up on the cataloger besides a few points of affinity, so we didn’t think it was urgent. We were going to ask about it when we trained next.”
Wald rubbed his forehead before clarifying, “You’re telling me that three of you, before even reaching Spirit Reinforcement, reached the absolute cusp of a manifestation, and, at the same time, felt the fourth actually accomplish that from across an entire clearing?”
Dornah nodded, before starting and questioning, “Wait, how did you not feel it?”
A long-suffering sigh escaped, but Wald answered, “Well, for one, I’ve never manifested, so I wouldn’t have necessarily recognized the sensation, but more importantly, it takes incredible sensitivity or being in a very receptive state to catch things like that. To say I was not in such a state would be an understatement, and as for sensitivity, I’m not high enough stage for that to be easy, even if I wasn’t poisoned at the time. That particular concoction locks your essence, including your core, and makes concentration difficult without even including the pain. It is entirely non-lethal on its own, but doing anything is nearly impossible. I could barely speak, let alone sense path emanations.”
Lita was uncharacteristically silent up to this point, and she looked troubled, but she finally spoke. “Ancestors, what kind of storm of fate is involved to cause such a thing? The progress you had was impressive to the point it would be shocking if you weren’t from such a powerful lineage.” she said with a gesture at the brothers, and then continued as she indicated their two friends, “Then you pulled in two others who were above average, but not moving nearly as fast… and suddenly they were. They were ahead of you with years more experience, and then you passed them. That should indicate you were more talented, more blessed by fate, more something. But then they just kept pace with you anyway, although never passing you. As if you were pulling them behind you at your own pace. That would be special enough; would prove that not only are you incredibly rare talents to be fostered, but that the connection between you four is something to be protected and nurtured. But now? All four touching upon not just your paths, but nearly or actually manifesting while still in the third stage…” She trailed off, looking even more troubled.
“What’s wrong?” Vath said with concern.
“I’m worried.” she said, “Worried about what the Heavens, or fate, or whatever is watching over us, might be preparing you for.”
Kaser looked confused, “What could we be being prepared for?”
A serious look crossed Lita’s face as she answered, “Something that requires power like the four of you will have in order to handle it.”
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Not long after that Lita had led them each individually through a guided meditation to see if they could return to that feeling of connection to what she called their path. Vath’s attempt was effortless in comparison to the other three, but all of them managed it, which only made her shake her head and look more concerned.
She told them that made them more than qualified to advance, but she still insisted they take several days to practice and consolidate. Their routine returned almost to normal, with only the addition of memorization of the new symbols for their ratios, and that meditation at the start and end of every day. She even started having them practice performing other tasks while holding that state in preparation for doing it while advancing. Talking to others, writing and reading, performing light exercise, and practicing their essence control; all were used to hone their ability to multitask. Four days of rehearsal later, they were bored and antsy. Five, and they were begging to be allowed to advance, and on the sixth she relented and let them.
It was… easy. Too easy. The normal process required cultivators to inscribe the first layer while simultaneously keeping in mind exactly what they wanted their domain to be, not losing control of the mental image once throughout the process despite having to also focus on the core carving. Forming what you wanted out of your domain and how it resonated with you usually took people a while, and not losing control of that image while inscribing was hard. If you did, you’d either not form one at all, and have to form it some time later, missing out on some domain growth in the meantime, or, worse, you’d form one that wasn’t what you envisioned. Which might be a good thing, but almost always resulted in a subpar or outright useless domain.
For Vath and the others, their state of epiphany from the forest made that unnecessary. Lita had explained it to them. Why would you need to form an idea of your domain and hold it when you were already connecting with your path? One’s path was the truest expression of who they were and their connection to essence and the world as a whole. It was almost holy. All they had to do was focus on forming a domain while keeping themselves in contact with their burgeoning paths, and as long as they didn’t lose that state, their formed domain should match them perfectly, no image required.
And she was right. After days of drilling that frame of mind, and with all of their experience with inscribing their cores, it took all four only minutes to finish their advancement, and four tiny domains were born.
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Three weeks later, Vath stood near the back of a small crowd of cultivators. They were just off the road a couple hours outside a town, a few days away from the sect. He had initially been afraid he wouldn’t manage to advance in time to join this undertaking, but then they had finished that so quickly they’d had to throw themselves into training in order to distract themselves from their impatience.
It had paid dividends, with all of them finishing their first two layers with the new ratios, boosting their attributes. The biggest change was getting used to their domains. They weren’t too big or strong yet, but they were damn useful. Unfortunately, they still had a long way to go with domain manipulation. They could restrict them completely and let them back out, but that’s all they were able to do.
The full story about where they were had been gotten from Lita after they had advanced. She’d been far too focused on getting them through that process before that, but after, she had explained. No one who had attacked them had anything too incriminating on their person, but several, including Mucklan and Kyran, had papers that pointed to the location they were heading to soon. The records indicated this was a base of operations for whatever they were mixed up in, and where those brigands had come from. They were here to capture any people and archives they could. Both to learn more and to tie Mucklan’s father, and anyone else in that sect who was involved, to the attacks. It was almost impossible the man wasn’t at least aware of what was going on, even if he wasn’t directly involved, but they needed proof. Even Mucklan’s presence could be dismissed as a foolish boy not taking a humiliation well, and getting mixed up with unsavory groups looking for revenge. Which wasn’t strictly inaccurate, to be fair.
“Listen up!” Lita called from the front, catching everyone’s attention instantly, “You’ve already been split up into your groups and you know the general objective. Now we’ll talk details. The man next to me just brought the latest scouting intelligence we have on the building in question. We haven’t been able to map the whole thing, but here’s what we have. There is a lobby that contains an eating area; this is the primary place people seem to congregate. There are four wings that split off from that lobby. One is for the average person who stays there. We’re not sure if they’re employees of some enterprise or something else, but the low to mid level members seem to live in that wing. The wing next to them is noticeably larger, better built, and better furnished. We believe this to be where their elites or management live. The third wing seems to be their archive. Lots of shelves with lots of papers and books. The fourth is some kind of research or crafting area, though what is being done there is unknown. We will assault the lobby with Group One in the lead, subduing and securing everyone there. From there, Group One will head to the elite wing, since that is where we expect their heavy hitters to be. Group Two has the archive, Group Three has the crafting wing, and Group Four has the worker wing. Group Six will hold the lobby against outside resistance or one of the wings pushing in, with Elder Folin using his air techniques to stay in contact with the other Group Leaders. Group Five will hold the lobby with them unless Elder Folin dispatches them to reinforce another group. Take everyone alive and all records intact if you can, we are here for information, but do NOT risk your life for this goal if you’re not sure you can take an enemy down non-lethally. Prisoners are great. No casualties is better. Listen to your Group Leaders, and if your Group is being overwhelmed, notify Elder Folin and retreat back to the lobby. Any questions?”
A chorus of no’s followed. Vath and the others were part of Group Four, so he tried to mentally prepare himself for what they were about to head into. Less than a minute later, Lita slashed the air, and they were suddenly all following her through a portal to just a few meters outside the target building. Wood was erased in a wide swath, and pandemonium ensued.