Elder Cultivator

Anticipation. That was what Catarina felt as she let energy flow into the formation in front of her. If she was making use of the solar platform for precisely its standard functions, she would have no reason to feel much of anything except confidence. She knew it would work as designed, as it had done so before she reached Domination and had continued to do so afterwards.

But seeing Timothy break rules even normal cultivators had to deal with had inspired her to try more radical things herself. If all that happened with Domination was that her fighting abilities rose another level, Catarina would be extremely disappointed. Combat was never the goal. Even when trying to survive against invading armies, Catarina wouldn’t reach for her sword first.

It was much better to concoct a situation where there couldn’t even be combat. To win before a battle could begin. That hadn’t quite worked against Zaur Beridze, but they had at least achieved the possibility of victory beforehand, which wouldn’t have otherwise existed without formations.

But formations were good for more things than just winning. They had massive utility, and while Catarina thought they had tapped into most of what was possible, she certainly didn’t believe that everything had been achieved. And there might be a few things that simply required extra power.

The formation in front of her was almost fully powered, but Catarina’s energy wasn’t just flowing into it but through her. Unlike Chidi, she hadn’t created specific permanent formations inside of herself, but she could replicate certain applications temporarily with her understanding and sufficient power. Moreso at Domination, where power felt almost limitless.

Power surged and the world shifted in front of her eyes, resolving into… nothing. Or rather, a field of stars around her as was the case anywhere that could see the sky and wasn’t overwhelmed by other light. But nothing of note within a few lightyears. She was between systems, away from anything.

Exactly as intended. That was step one functioning. She did some basic calculations with known stars just to make certain she ended up in the right place- otherwise she wouldn’t want to attempt the next stage of her experiments. To the level of precision her calculations could be accurate, she was confident she had appeared in the correct location. That was important, because for the second step being a tenth of a percent off in the wrong direction would be extremely awkward.

She probably wouldn’t die if she ended up inside a star or buried at the core of a planet, but it was better to not have to test things like that.

Catarina then repeated the process in reverse, activating a temporary formation around and within herself formed of pure energy- but much more solid than she could have previously created. She had a few thoughts about that, but they would be considered in more detail later. First she called out to one of the platforms bound to her, activating it with her energy.

Once again the world shifted, and she was in an entirely different system than when she’d first begun her journey. That wasn’t weird, since they’d been able to perform interstellar teleportation for some time, but being able to go to a somewhat arbitrary location from a proper platform and then to arrive at a different one was new.

So that worked. Now she just had to determine if she could bring anyone else safely. She’d start with her extremely durable husband, just in case. After that, she needed to determine if it was possible to teleport to locations she hadn’t bound. And if it seemed feasible at the end of things, replicating the process entirely without a physical medium on either end, taking advantage of the spatial manipulations around the Scarlet Alliance’s territory.

That last thing was currently more likely than not to fail, but Catarina didn’t know how rules-breakingly powerful Domination might be. Zaur might have wielded his power more like a nearly limitless lake of energy, but that didn’t mean that was all it was good for.

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Anton would have thought that plant cultivators would love the rainy season- and some of them certainly did- but some of his watch targets clearly didn’t. So far he had less than a hemisphere to watch over, so the rainy season began at fairly similar times based on the particular climates involved.

The forest plants seemed to enjoy the rain just fine, though they seemed able to obtain however much water they needed already, so having more probably only benefitted them minorly.

The one Anton knew was working with water actually seemed annoyed at swirling snow in the mountains. The pitcher plant adjacent individual spent far more energy preventing water freezing than actually studying and practicing abilities. Though perhaps resisting the storms around it was also good training for temperature control. It certainly didn’t seem to think so, as it turned into what Anton interpreted as a sulky posture. Of course, Anton could have been wrong, but it was certainly less energetic during actual storms.

The desert tree that should have been most interested in the few days of rain… seemingly didn’t care. Then again, it didn’t really react to anything. Anton was still assuming it was one of the sapient plants because it was large and powerful in an unusual situation, instead of actually interacting with it like his algae friend.

Said algae friend did enjoy the rain. It walked around outside its pond, shifting between animal shapes and Anton’s upright humanoid walk depending on the terrain. By the end of the season the algae had assessed a number of other water sources to determine their quality, finally settling on a sizable lake where it remained at the end of things. It wasn’t the largest lake, but Anton anticipated that some of the others would shrink down more after the end of the rainy season, just based on their topology.

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It was just about time for help from the Scarlet Alliance to arrive. They would set up a base outside of the system both to avoid disturbing the locals and for their own safety. Language specialists weren’t known to be the best combatants, after all. Not that some couldn’t stand toe to toe with anyone else, but in general they were less combat inclined than those who engaged in more physical labor.

Hopefully, they would already have some insights based on the information Anton had sent them, but he expected it to be a long project to learn nonhumanoid communication. Void ants had pretty much invented their own sign language after interacting with humans, but that had been a project of decades- and it involved a common sense of sight that plants didn’t necessarily share.

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Just when Abder thought he’d found everyone who was in a bad place, there was another person or another group. He just hoped that the world was producing them more slowly than they could be found.

Suraya was doing great, now. She wasn’t exactly going to become wealthy with her work, but perhaps that was because she didn’t want to. She was an old woman with simple tastes. For a long time she would have been happy to have all the walls in her house be solid and now that she actually had that everything else seemed to be extra. She did still call upon Abder to help her out occasionally, but the fact that she actually asked meant something.

The old woman was quite generous with what she had. When she previously only had basic mushrooms, that was what she offered. Now, she made use of her functioning kitchen and stocked larders to prepare meals that tasted like home.

Abder very much appreciated those, because for much of his early life he hadn’t had one of those. Just because the majority of his life had been spent in prosperity didn’t mean he would forget such formative times.

The people of The Gathering didn’t practice just one style of cultivation or one profession. Instead, they did everything- at least as a whole. Because of that, they could always find a place for those coming in. Likewise, they always had people who had dealt with all forms of trauma or addiction or anything else that had them end up on the streets, even in the current prosperous times.

Moturn was lucky in that most drugs came from plants that hadn’t survived the emergency transplantation of civilization. However, there were some that made it, and there were other things with legitimate uses that could be abused. Often, people didn’t realize they were becoming addicted to something until too late, at which point rational thoughts didn’t really work to stop them.

Cultivation could surpass that- or make it worse, as someone could survive far more. Abder had been lucky to avoid getting into anything- mostly because he couldn’t steal anything and he certainly hadn’t been able to afford it. Some others had, and for many the treatment was still ongoing. But stories of success and advice from those who had made it through had changed many.

Abder brought in anyone and found someone to help their particular issues. Sometimes, money was a solution. Resources to provide shelter, food, and then training to be able to do something. Finding things people enjoyed was the best, because enjoying daily work led to an overall better life experience. Having the freedom of choice and access to learning was a luxury, but it was one that could be provided through the care of people who understood what it was like.

There were a few rare individuals- very few- who refused to work. They were content with meagre subsistence. Abder didn’t think that was the natural state of humans. Work on its own wasn’t some sort of glorious thing, but seeing something produced by your own hands was a joy that could be repeated. His belief that everyone could find something that fit them if given the chance was inherited from Anton, of course.

The few who didn’t put in the effort to grow even when given every opportunity were usually broken by the world. Everyone was, to some extent, but not everything could be fixed. Or rather, knowing what could be done with cultivation, Abder understood that sometimes it simply couldn’t be done yet. Nobody could cure every physical or mental ailment, but things could be learned one at a time. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always in time for certain individuals to be helped.

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Anchors were on the mind of most Augmentation cultivators. Velvet knew that, because the possibilities were always on her mind, and she consulted with the others quite often.

For a while, Velvet had wanted nothing as her anchor. Or the concept or nothing. Or the void between stars. However, while concepts were good for earlier cultivation, there was a certain level of physicality that Domination required. Or at least, based on what they knew.

Velvet considered a particular vessel containing a vacuum, but that still didn’t work. She didn’t really want emptiness, just stealth. Ratna did just fine hiding behind space and the like. The details of her anchor were unfortunately vague at best, though that was actually an encouragement to Velvet in some ways.

Domination cultivators needed devotion, but that meant their anchors didn’t always have to be known. Perhaps it made them stronger, perhaps not. That wasn’t something they had been able to discuss with anyone at length, and their pair of new Domination cultivators were both known to pretty much everyone so they couldn’t test anything.

Nothingness might be valid for someone else, somehow, but Velvet had moved on from that. After all, the basis of her cultivation was still the One Hundred Stars, and the concept of light. Light was physical, but usually transitory. Then again, wasn’t everything? If trying to find the oldest thing in the universe, particular motes of light would likely be the winners. Maybe elementary particles, but even those didn’t always retain their form forever.

But light from distant stars could be billions of years old. So worrying about the fact that it was temporary was a bit less relevant than whether she could actually use it as an anchor at all. And if she did, would her source of power be constantly shifting? If so, what would that mean?

Maybe she should pick a nice cave. They were kind of sneaky. But if that worked, it would be a mediocre anchor at best- and that might be worse than not advancing at all.