Hall of Knowledge, Temple of Aster - Greendale

Her days were numbered and she knew it! Deep in thought, Estrid slouched on the ornate chair, her head propped up on the palm of her delicate hands. Most people thought the chair a throne, with how gaudy it looked, but she was quick to shut down such comparisons whenever the whispers reached her ears. Her response had always been that it was nothing but an ordinary chair, no different in her eyes from any other.

The teaching of the Luminous Sangha forbade its members from overly attaching themselves to worldly possessions. As a devout Diviner of the faith, Estrid obviously wouldn’t tarnish said teachings, now would she? Internally though, she absolutely loved her throne. It had been one of the few gifts she truly cherished over her tenure here at Greendale.

The chair’s frame was embedded with enough jewels to bankrupt any of the smaller clans in the village, but to her generous donor, it was but a token of his appreciation for her services. Despite her horrible mood, she smiled at the memory of thwarting the assassination plot against the Duskflame Family’s heir.

Her eyes flickered to the shimmering sapphires and diamonds embedded on the chair’s armrest, her mind reminiscing on the details of that particularly fruitful divination session.

“Not much of a divination, that one!” she snorted to herself in mirth.

If only all of her sessions could always be as easy as that case. Like any Diviner worth their salt, one of the first things Estrid did after transferring to Greendale, was to find a reliable contact in the criminal underworld of the village. And that very same contact, Silas, had been the one to inform her weeks prior, of the planned elimination of a major Family’s heir.

At the time, she had collected the information and filed it in her archives, marking it as mildly interesting. There was not much she could do with that information, especially with the volume of rumors that turned out to not have much bearing. It was therefore a pleasant wonder to her when she was performing a routine divination session for the Duskflame Patriarch, that her powers tingled about an imminent threat to the man’s close offspring.

The images she had viewed in her [Aetheric Eye] were vague but it clearly showed a young man being stabbed and quartered by dark shadows. That was when she made the connection between the reports she had gotten and the Duskflame Family. She was quickly able to give the Patriarch detailed information on the assailants, as well as the merchant who had sanctioned the contract.

As the saying went, “Divination points the way, but the path is muddled by the steps of people!”

Now here she was, lounging on one of the fruits of her hard work, still completely miserable. In addition to the luxurious gift, she was now a majority shareholder of an array of enterprises operated by the deceased merchant. She should have been ecstatic, and in some ways she truly was. But it was hard to find joy with a massive guillotine metaphorically hanging over your neck!

Her eyes rose from examining the chair, to the only significant source of light in the darkened room. The [Aetheric Eye] floated there, spinning lazily about its axis, completely uncarring to the horrible mental state of its owner. Out of habit, she scanned the possibilities it displayed and to her chagrin, her mood turned more sour.

From that fleeting look, she could see that her next appointment was moments away from interrupting her solitude. She was of the mind to cancel the meeting altogether, but something stopped her hand. She could not place exactly what it was, but instincts honed over the past few decades screamed of an opportunity close by. However, the blood red tinge surrounding said opportunity was a tad concerning.

“Interesting.”

She straightened her posture and swiped her dress free of wrinkles. It would not do to sully the untainted image she had worked so hard to cultivate. Sitting ramrod straight, she waited with impatience for her visitors, her fingers tapping away in nervous excitement. Twenty breaths later, the door to her sanctuary opened, letting in the blaring light of the hallway as well as two silhouetted figures.

In stepped an old Acolyte, bald as an egg with liver spots all over his head. Her assistants had informed her that he was one of the few vetted people they used frequently to disseminate her requests. One of those requests was to report strange occurrences around individuals who suddenly had a boost in luck or cultivation. She let it be known that she was willing to pay double if the suspicious individual could be brought to her for personal inspection.

Like most things, hundreds of people had shown up over the last year but the majority were charlatans planning to rip her off her coins. After the first few turned up dead in darkened alleys, the attempt dried up pretty quickly. Now, this … Algor —she had to look up his name from the report— had informed her staff that he had found someone matching her description.

The man in question walked in beside Algor, with a carefree swagger like he owned the place. His eyes immediately locked onto her [Aetheric Eye], but Estrid’s nose twitched uncontrollably as a dense scent of copper washed over her. The tell-tale metallic scent of blood overwhelmed her senses as the man gazed upon her artifact with predatory intensity. If she didn’t know any better, she would say he was viewing the possibilities that were usually reserved for her eyes only. Unable to help herself, she voiced the question that bubbled within her.

“What do you see?”

Her soft voice drifted across the room, startling the older Acolyte but barely eliciting a reaction from the tall broad shouldered man. Only his piercing eyes moved, turning slowly to her seated form.

“Amitabha, honored Diviner,” Algor said with a deep bow, displaying the disgusting weathered scalp to her. “This humble Acolyte has brought a guest before you for healing under Kringle’s Mercy,” he continued, still deep in his kowtow.

Ignoring him, she kept her eyes on the devilishly handsome man. At least, she supposed he would be to the majority of Greendale Villagers, with his sculpted body bursting at the seams of his well tailored robes. She let her eyes roam over his physique before stifling an internal sigh. Unfortunately, her tastes in men leaned towards the slimmer body type. Moreover, she had seen men much more handsome than this goldfish in a pond of carp.

“Yes, Acolyte, my assistants informed me. You may rise,” she waved slender fingers towards the bowing Algor. To the man who had turned his gaze back on the shimmering ball of liquid silver, she repeated her question. “What do you see?”

“I see thousands of disjointed images,” he tilted his head, a look of mild confusion playing across his furrowed brows. “I… can also hear the images, somehow. Though, I can’t make sense of it.”

Impossible! Estrid felt her heart quake at those words.

The man peeled his gaze off the headache-inducing sphere of flowing silver, turning his full attention to her. She was used to men being enchanted by her beauty, and sometimes even welcomed it. What she absolutely hated was when their eyes inadvertently moved towards her ears, just as this man’s eyes were doing.

It took a lot of her mental effort to stop her hands from ruffling her hair to cover the slight peaks she was certain were peeking through the waterfall of silver hair on her head. From the slight widening of his irises, she was certain he had an inkling on her race. Or more accurately, the race of her father. Her mother was as human and plain as the old man stealing furtive glances at her, whenever he thought her eyes focussed on his younger companion.

“Interesting …” she murmured, taking a step away from her throne to get a better look at the young man. She circled around the man for a few revolutions, and to his credit, he stood still like the perfect specimen he was quickly shaping up to be.

Stopping in front of him, she reached out to grab a hold of one of his wrists and she quirked a brow at how incredibly fast he stiffened, but for a moment. Her eyes noticed the subtle way he positioned his other hand to better pull out one of the numerous blades he had sheathed on his person. She paused, gracing him with a smile and waiting for him to relax before she continued and held his hands, palm up.

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Out of the three of them, the older Acolyte was the most tense in the room. Her sensitive ears easily picked out his increased heart rate, and the bellows of his lungs sucking in mouthfuls of air through hairy nostrils. At times like these she cursed her parentage, because this close to the old man, it was impossible for her inherited eyes not to focus on all the flaws and imperfections of the Acolyte's skin and pores.

In drastic comparison, the skin, pores, hairs and overall features of the younger man were unnaturally uniform. Not much different from what she would expect from someone of mixed heritage like her. But he couldn’t be one of her distant relatives for he had not a drop of her people’s blood flowing through his veins. Neither did he have human blood in his body. None at all!

Focussing on his upturned palm, she ran a soft finger over it, tracing the lines on the skin and trying to get glimpses of his past.

“A warrior with no calluses,” she muttered, then let his hand drop. She circled him once more before stopping in front of him and taking a deep breath. “What is your name?”

“Honored Diviner,” the old Acolyte interjected before the man could answer. “His name is Ren of the —”

She held up a finger, immediately silencing the brambling old geezer. His voice grated on her ears anyways, and she wanted to hear from the mysterious man himself. Of course she had already seen his name in the report her assistants had prepared for her, but she was still evaluating the enigma standing before her. She watched as the man studied her perfectly symmetrical face, his eyes roving over her supple skin just like she had done to him moments prior.

“My name is Ren of clan Turing.”

“You smell of blood, and earth and fire,” she nodded, reaching out with both of her palms to grab his head gently. “Let me see what damage has been done to you.”

Without giving him time to object, she sent her power into him, her eyes glazing over as she followed its path. She felt his attempts at resistance but he could sooner lift the whole of Greendale on his shoulders than push her out now that her Qi flowed through him. She made sure to lock him in place physically as well with her energy. In her early days of divining, she had learnt how messy that could get, and she needed Ren alive and well afterwards.

Although her sight was focused on the confusing mess that was his innards, she could hear the thoughts of murder and carnage oozing off him through her connection to the [Aetheric Eye]. The bloodlust rolling off of him broke against the solid foundation of her advanced Cultivation, like the impotent slaps of the ocean against the hull of a sturdy ship.

She dove deeper into his body, sending her energy far and wide and trying to get a better understanding of what was so off about him. It was the oddest thing. His internal organs and skeletal structure were exactly where she would expect them to be, but they felt…different. She tried to search for veins and meridians but she only found the former, despite the age of the man. Someone his age should have some cleared section of meridians by this stage in their life cycle.

Moreover, she also found millions of connections that decidedly marked him as more than human. They wound around his body like a mesh of fishing net, sending strange energy pulses everywhere they went. This thing was not human. Could her luck be that great?

For the first time in years, she was ecstatic!

Speeding up, she needed to see some more to confirm. It wasn’t much later that she found something stranger still. There was a mass located below the heart and close to the dantian that her senses could not make sense of. If she had to name it, she would call it a Cultivator’s core. But that should not be possible for someone without meridians.

Her Qi kept grasping, trying to latch onto something familiar but his body was as much an enigma as the man himself. With a strain, she sent a targeted pulse of her energy blasting into the core. At first it resisted her attempts at examining its interiors, but the will contained in her Qi could not be denied for long.

She refrained from increasing the pressure as she did not want to damage the core. Especially with the new plans she was cooking up, but the stubborn man was resisting furiously even now. A few more seconds and she would have to pull away in strategic defeat, but she noticed a small recess in the core opening up. With a flash, her energy flooded into the core, greedily mapping its content.

A portion of her consciousness had just slipped into the core when the opening snapped shut like the jaws of a carnivorous fly trap. She gasped in pain from having a portion of her will and Qi forcefully severed and trapped within his core.

The bastard. Had it all been a trap all along?

That would be very on brand for one of his kind! By reflex, she pulled the remainder of her Qi and consciousness away from his body, taking a few uneasy steps backwards.

“Diviner Estrid!” Algor rushed forward, his arms outstretched as if to catch her fall.

She slapped his hands away, still panting as she stood on unsteady feet. Reaching into her belt, she pulled out a potion of clarity and gulped it all down in one swig. Within a few breaths, her pale face had regained its color. She turned her gaze towards Ren, who stood with an unsheathed golden blade in his whitened grip.

“You … are … different,” She said between breaths, observing the far away look in his eyes as he tilted his head as if examining something. “I am sorry, but I can not fix you. If the heavens permit, you will get better over time. But I could not see the issue.”

She studied him some more as she caught her breath. His face betrayed no hints that he had awakened, but the look in his eyes was eerily familiar to her experienced eyes. She had seen that look before, usually in the eyes of the seedy brokers acting as intermediaries between the foot soldiers and the criminal underworld bosses. She nodded imperceptibly to herself. There was no longer any doubt that he was exactly who she had been searching for. She just had to seal the deal.

“Since I couldn’t help you even under the tenets of Kringle’s Mercy, I am compelled to find another way to balance the scales.” Estrid put her hands together in apology before continuing, “I am opening one of my Acolyte grade Cultivation Rooms to you. Also I’ll be giving you 20 gold coins to spend as you see fit.”

The silence of the room was interrupted by a deep gasp of surprise from the gray mustached Algor, but a glare from her shut him up quickly. Turning back to Ren, she continued trying to woo him in and tie him further to her.

“I hope you will accept this compensation from this humble Diviner. And May Kringle’s blessing reach us all.” She continued in a sincere tone.

“Thank you. May Kringle’s blessing reach us all” Ren replied with a look of confusion on his chiseled face. A sense of deep warmth grew within her stomach at his response and she managed to contain the glimmer of hope from appearing on her face, save from a quick flicker that she hoped no one noticed.

“Good,” she responded instead, then turned to the old man. “Tier 6 Acolyte Algor,” she began formally, addressing the old man.

“Honored Diviner.”

“My assistants will send your reward, as well as the gold and details of the cultivator room promised to your quarters by tomorrow. I trust you will deliver Ren’s gifts safely and discreetly once you receive them?”

“Of course, Honored Diviner!”

She nodded sagely at his response and then waved the pair off with a gentle smile, explaining that she needed to rest after the session. Ren and Algor left the office leaving the Diviner alone. After reactivating the ward on the door, the smile on her face slowly transformed into a snarl.

“I might finally get it! It’s been almost 50 years since the last [Kringle Blessing] and the boy is definitely not normal. The timing is right. I just have to make sure no one else finds out about Kringle’s latest Avatar.”

Her eyes glittered in malice as she broke into a roaring fit of phlegmy cough, wiping at the bloody mucus on her lips with a white cloth. She stared at the cloth apathetically, before shoving it back into her sleeves. These village bumpkins had no idea of the true price of Kringle’s so-called “Blessings”. But she knew better now. Oh did she know!

One of the recurring nightmares that plagued her dreams was re-living the moment she accepted Blessings from Kringle, roughly 80 years ago. She smiled bitterly as she recalled how young and naive she had been back then, fresh from being banished from the capital to this remote village. She had thought the Blessing was a shortcut to her triumphant return to her mother’s family.

So stupid. She was a demi-human for crying out loud, and her mother’s clan would not accept her anymore now than they had earlier! Her father’s people might be more lenient but he had run off early in her childhood. With her mother long dead, she had nothing left to return to in the capital. Looking back, she had no idea why she had chosen the fast route in the first place. Her race was naturally long lived and immune to so many of the ailments that plagued humans. She would have eventually reached greater heights in her cultivation with time. But here she was, with less than a decade to live.

‘The boy’s body is a marvel, and his core is beyond anything I have ever read of in the Ancient texts,’ Estrid thought excitedly.

She performed a quick healing spell on herself, as she mulled over the unexpected fortune of that bastard's unawakened avatar, falling into her lap. During the few breaths she had scanned his unusual core, she had witnessed a corrosive energy leaking out of one of the chambers. Thinking fast, she had left a substantial film of her Qi surrounding the core itself. Hopefully that would prevent the clone from fully awakening in the next few months.

That should give her enough time to enact her plan. The clock was ticking ever forward, but for the first time in a long while, she had some hope. She had to act fast to extract as much benefit as she could before the clone awakened and synced up with his main body. If that happened, she would have to watch her plans for revenge slip away.